Zines/phrack/67/15.txt

                              ==Phrack Inc.==

                Volume 0x0e, Issue 0x43, Phile #0x0f of 0x10

|=-------------------------------------------------------------------------------=|
|=-----------------=[ Hacking the mind for fun and profit ]=---------------------=|
|=-------------------------------------------------------------------------------=|
|=------------------------=[ by lvxferis@gmail.com ]=----------------------------=|
|=-------------------------------------------------------------------------------=|


--[ Contents

  1 - Introduction

  2 - How does the human conscious function
   2.1 - Decisional pattern programming
   2.2 - Role Model programming (behavioral mimetism from trusted sources)

  3 - Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)

  4 - Why does NLP function?

  5 - What is reality - "What is above is what is beneath"

  6 - Human thoughts affecting reality

  7 - How to create a hostile reality?

  8 - The chains remain

  9 - Greetz


--[ 1 - Introduction
	
	Oh no, not another "hacking your brain" article, please! I don't
	even want to know what is really going on with my mind, I love to
	be fed with the bullshit I get every day because I'm an ignorant 
	bastard -- if you think this, then stop reading NOW because I don't
	even intent to have you people as an audience. Instead, I am
	addressing to those who have noticed the "glitches", the anomalies
	in the "matrix"; those who became hackers not because "computers 
	are cool now" but because of their ancestral eager of knowledge and
	keen on spotting things that are not natural to their environment. 


--[ 2 - How does the human conscious function
	
	Human mind is a self-programming bio-computer -- i'm not the first
	one to say this. Human mind is programming itself consciously by
	by applying a decisional pattern, by following a model or a combination
	of both.  
	

-----[ 2.1 - Decisional pattern programming

	Remember when you were a little baby and felt attracted to that
	flame and actually touched it. It burnt you so bad and the pain was
	so intense that you never played with fire again! ;) Pain is the
	method our spiritual mind uses to teach itself about the environment
	it deals with. Decisional pattern programming is based on rational
	analysis of facts correlated to past experiences, as similar as
	possible to the new experience encountered, and all this
	corroborated with the intensity of pain. Pain is nothing more but
	electrical signals sent by your neural system to your brain, which
	your spiritual mind interprets as a high disconfort, telling that
	the environment is reacting against your body. But some people
	apparently tolerate pain more than others; no, that's not true. We
	all feel the pain the same, it's just we can educate our spiritual
	mind to ignore the pain.


-----[ 2.2 - Role Model programming (behavioral mimetism from trusted sources)

	Ever since we are little children, we have role models to follow in
	society. They can be historical figures, philosophers, favourite
	hiphop star, people everybody knows and that, one way or the other,
	made it into this society, or simply, your mother or father, bigger
	brother, one of your friends, your menthor, etc. They all share one
	common feature: they posses a quality you would like to grow in you
	or they are an important part of your life. Think about it, how many 
	times didn't you think about disappointing someone you care about if
	you do something you really want. How many of you still did that
	thing? By confronting our spiritual (rational) mind with the
	impressions and oppinions of our role models, minute by minute we
	become more like our role models, becoming what we decided we should
	be like. 

	To understand how your mind works, start seeing your ordinary life as 
	a serie of events. The events fall into one of the following
	categories:

		- new events
		- new events similar to old events
		- old events

	When dealing with an event, your mind starts an analysis of the
	event, and searches the "archive" for an identical event. If none is
	found, your mind searches the "archive" for a similar event and 
	tries to determine if past decisions and conditions would be fit in the
	current conditions. The new and similar events are the ones
	generating experience, by forcing your spiritual mind to make
	decisions to adapt as good as possible to the given environment. But
	everyone's decision depends a lot on previous experience. The added
	experience improves your rational thinking and gives you a higher
	perspective over events, under a new superior logic. Each category
	of events has assigned a process that deals with it. For instance,
	if your car breaks down, you would see the problem more accurately
	if you are a car mechanic than if you are a doctor. The car mechanic
	posses more technical informations about cars (therefore, superior
	logic of things) than a doctor or a florist, for instance. By the
	other hand, if your body breaks down, being a doctor will help you
	determine what went wrong and what needs to be done to eliminate
	this situation rather than being a car mechanic.

	The process of learning is a never ending process in your mind; it
	takes at least as long as you're exposed to new events. But it takes
	in three stages: the conscious and willing part, the reinforcement
	part and the "background" part. 

	The conscious and willing process is the one interacting the most with the 
	decisional process. It's when you see some behavior or moral virtue
	or something to that extent that you like and you'd actually want to
	grow that in you -- for instance you want to be a greater whitehat
	than spender, because you see the whitehats as being the good guys
	and you've been taught that good guys are good. To do that, you see 
	what got spender where he is and start to "walk" a similar path. 

	This is where the reinforcement stage gets into place -- you already
	decided that you want it, and you force yourself to take the steps
	needed. You get aquinted to the Linux Kernel, find bugs, expose them
	on full-disclosure, look for fights with kernel dev, etc. The
	conscious interaction will help you get status of yourself: "am i
	spender enough to do this?" or "what would spender do"; in the same 
	time it will correct behavioral flaws that might prevent you from 
        succeeding. After a while, the conscious interaction tends to diminish, 
        becoming less and less necessary. This is where stage three comes into 
        place.

	The "background" stage is where the actual process needs no longer
	interaction with the conscious mind, being perfectly adapted to
	serve similar events. To continue our metaphore, at this point you
	get fat dollars from sponsorships, you're being a dick to your friends,
	and publish vulnerabilities you found in Linux Kernel. And all this
	is normal, and you don't understand why people throwing fingers at
	you. You're doing the "right" thing.. 

	When dealing with a new event, your mind will try to categorize that
	event and try to place it under one of the known events categories.
	Each category of events has assigned a process; a neural process is
	very similar to an AI neural network path. The processes for known
	events give you the daily routine, when you don't even think about
	doing something, you just do it, automatically. Therefore, PROCESSES 
	IN "BACKGROUND STAGE" (SERVING KNOWN PATTERNS) DO NOT REQUIRE RATIONAL 
	(CONSCIOUS) MIND SCRUTINY!!! This makes them as a primary target for
	those trying to manipulate you.


--[ 3 - Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
	
	According to Wikipedia, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a
	controversial approach to psychotherapy and organizational change based on
	"a model of interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the
	relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective 
	experiences (esp. patterns of thought) underlying them" and "a system of 
	alternative therapy based on this which seeks to educate people in 
        self-awareness and effective communication, and to change their patterns 
        of mental and emotional behaviour". NLP denotes belief in a connection 
        between neurological processes ('neuro'), language ('linguistic') and 
        behavioral patterns that have been learned through experience 
        ('programming'). The "subjective experiences" are what we called neural 
        processes dealing with events.


--[ 4 - Why does NLP function?

	In other words, NLP says that we programmed ourselves to react in a
	certain way when exposed to certain events. To a hacker, this looks
	as good as a remote kernel vulnerability with great chances of
	exploitation. This means that we can trigger a certain reaction or
	response from someone if we know the conditions (event) that would 
        normally lead that person to that reaction. Hey, wait.. Is this really 
        about controlling your peers??? Yes, someone can use NLP to take 
        advantage of "free mind", by simply tricking the mind into seeing false
	conditions that would lead it to take a decision according to those
	false conditions. 

	A common feature of all contemporary societies is the "guilt
	syndrome". This arose from the "original sin" trick: you're a mere
	mortal, who deserves to be hurt because a very long time ago, some
	retard ate an apple. This "guilt syndrome" is a very dangerous trap
	because it makes human beings prone to NLP, as they want to "pay the
	dues" for their "sins". But .. wait .. what if there is no sin? You
	mean.. I could make someone feel guilty of something he never did
	just to make that person please me whenever I want? Yep.. that's
	exactly WHY neuro-linguistic programming works in every case: human
	beings don't want to look bad in the eyes of their peers, and most
	important to those who are our models and/or mean something important 
	to us.

	"Mommy is feeling very sick today, but I'm sure that if you will
	bring good grades from school I will be feeling better, son" -- this
	is one classical example of how NLP functions. The "Mom" in our case
	study is faking an illness to make her son study harder at school
	and bring a good grade. In the "son's" mind, he will start feeling
	guilty for his mother's illness, therefore he will force himself to
	get a good grade, one way or another. In this example, NLP is not
	doing bad to "son" as improving his grades is a good thing. But in
	the same time, he didn't do what he wanted, instead he did what
	someone else tricked him into doing.

	Another example, one begger walks to your car window. She's an old
	woman, with kind, warm eyes. She comes shyly and whispering, asks
	you to give her money for medicines and food. You will give her
	money because she looks a lot like your grandmother who you loved a
	lot. And you want to help a less fortunate human-being. But, that
	begger, after "work hours" is maybe richer than you because it took
	advantage of the "grandmother figure" look. Most of the people have
	a grandmother who raised them, took care of them when their parents
	weren't around, and quite possibly have passed away. To honor her
	memory, you relate to the "less fortunate grand mother" begging at
	your car window, and you want to be of any help. Your good
	intentions land you right in the "granny's" trap, just like a
	carnivorous plant eats an insect.

	These were only three examples how NLP works in day-to-day life, but
	to someone aquinted to these techniques, the examples are endless.
	Someone aware of NLP and how things work is controlling everybody
	around them to obtain a certain result. Is it wrong to take
	advantage of someone else's ignorance? Is it wrong to exploit a
	vulnerability to a system if no one is able to catch you? Perhaps,
	but I don't give a fuck. 
	

--[ 5 - What is reality - "What is above is what is beneath"

	Words of Hermes seem cryptic to most of you looking at the sky and
	seeing no similarity to earth. What Hermes actually meant was that
	our Universe is a fractal; if you zoom on a fractal, you will notice
	that the image you get is very similar to the initial image. This
	means that the same Laws that built the fractal on the detail scale,
	also built the fractal on the large scale. 

	Let's take a trip to the atom world. The diversity of chemical
	elements present in our Universe is merely given by the number of
	electrons orbitting each element's atom (and ofcourse, protons and
	neutrons and other sub-atomic particles but that's beyond the scope
	of this article). So.. what makes an element have more electrons
	than another? The answer is simple, it's the electromagnetical
	forces. Quantum mechanics identified 4 types of electromagnetical
	forces: 2 strong and 2 weaker, resulting from a combination of first
	two. But all these forces together create a quadripolar magnet. This
	quadripolar magnet is the "blueprint" our world is made on. Each
	element in the Mendeleev table has a unique combination of these 4
	forces, this giving it's unicity. 

	So, you mean that our Universe is nothing but electromagnetical
	forces combined at different layers, in different combinations and	
	amounts? Yes, exactly. Without electro-magnetism  our Universe would 
	be an uniform mass of initial matter particles. This is what Einstein
	theorized when he said about the 4th form of aggregation of matter,
	at absolute zero (e.g. the absolute absence of electro-magnetism,
	because heat is nothing but the result of the interaction between
	electricity and magnetism).

	This also means that, if you can determine the exact amount and
	combination of electro-magnetical forces present in a certain
	element's atomic structure, and replicate that exact combination and
	amount to another element's atomic structure you would be able to
	transform the second element into the first one, down to the
	grittiest detail. 

	Remember the alchemists trying to make gold from dust? ;)


--[ 6 - Human thoughts affecting reality
	
	"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the
	 soul with evil."
						-- Socrates


	There is a huge number of cases when Initiates affected the world
	around them and people were too amazed to understand the miracle.
	Look at the fakhir's in India, or the buddhist monks of Tibet. There
	are documented cases when yoga masters managed to purify water by
	the power of meditation. So, how is this happening? Continue
	reading..

	Quantum mechanics brought to light a very interresting fact. The quantum
	mechanics experiments are not consistent in time and over
	researchers. It would appear that the observer's mind highly affects
	the result of the experiment. It got to a point where, if the
	scientist thinks his experiment will end up one way, then most
	definetely, the experiment will. But as soon as another scientist
	comes into place, with a different mind set and with less faith in
	the success of the experiment, the experiment will give another
	result. Therefore, scientists concluded that quantum mechanics
	experiments are rarely conclusive. 

	Early twentieth-century experiments on the physics of very small-scale 
	phenomena led to the discovery of phenomena that could not be predicted 
	on the basis of classical physics, and to new models (theories) that 
	described and predicted very accurately those micro-scale phenomena so 
	recently discovered. These models of the real world being observed at
   	this micro scale, could not easily be reconciled with the way objects are
	observed to behave on the macro scale of everyday life. The predictions 
	they offered often appeared counter-intuitive to observers. Indeed, they 
	touched off much consternation--even in the minds of their discoverers. The
	Copenhagen interpretation consists of attempts to explain the experiments 
	and their mathematical formulations.

	We like to think of our brain as a massive data storage for all the
	experiences we had since our childhood, but is it?! There is no
	actual evidence that data is stored in our brain, the only hard
	evidence existing now is that our brains emit "waves".Our brain is 
	nothing but a big antenna, receiving/emitting electro-magnetical energy, 
	as waves. There are more types of brain waves, some are easy to measure
	with instruments, most of them aren't. Our brains are nothing but
	wide open wireless access points, emitting signal everywhere around
	us and receiving signals from our environment. Err.. wait..
	electro-magnetical brain waves??? WTF man.. But you said our
	Universe is based on electro-magnetism.. If humans can emit
	electro-magnetical energy this means that.. they can actually affect
	reality? Yes, they do. But not all antennas have same signal
	strength: some have stronger signal, some lesser. But all of them
	modify reality according to what they think of reality; some modify
	reality in a substantial way, that is actually noticeable and some
	others, in a less perceptible way. But EVERY SPIRITUAL MIND (let it
	be human, animal, floral or mineral) AFFECTS REALITY ACCORDING TO
	WHAT THEY KNOW ABOUT REALITY AND WHAT THEY THINK REALITY SHOULD BE
	LIKE. If you create an image in your mind, and believe in it
	strongly and with passion, you will actually make it happen. No,
	it's not esoteric stuff, it's very day-to-day stuff -- you don't say
	any magic spell, you just figure out a way to make that image come
	true. If you REALLY want something and WORK hard so that you DESERVE
	that certain something, there are GREAT chances that the Universe
	will grant you that something. 

	Well, things aren't that easy, really, but simplified, that's how it
	is. Perhaps, at some other time, maybe next Hacking Your Brain, I
	will explain you how to make your wishes come true, and how those
	wishes should look like so that they have greater chances of
	happening.

	YOU ARE THE CENTER OF YOUR OWN UNIVERSE. YOU ARE THE MASTERS OF YOUR
	OWN UNIVERSE. BE TO YOUR OWN UNIVERSE WHAT GOD IS TO THE WHOLE
	UNIVERSE AND TRY TO BE AS MUCH AS GOD AS YOU CAN. Oh, and one more
	thing, if you think God is an old man with beard, then you're a
	moron. I don't care how you call it, the God I speak of is beyond
	any religion, being the MIND THAT CREATED THE PERFECTIONIST SYSTEM
	WE CALL LIFE.	


7.	How to create a hostile reality?
	
	Well, who would create something that would hurt himself, you might
	say. But, crazily enough, people actually do it without even being
	aware of it. I will give you an extreme example, bare with it, but
	it should give you an insight on how humans can be tricked into
	doing bad to themselves.

	Let's take a hypothetical case. Let's a consider a very esteemed
	group of scientists whose research concluded that a small spoon of
	crushed glass poured in your food will keep illness away. Ofcourse,
	now you will say "hey everybody knows crushed glass will hurt you"
	but let's assume you don't know that and, there will be a LOT of
	people TRUSTING the scientist group enough to actually pour crushed
	glass pieces into food. This will give you a VERY BAD STOMACHAL
	problem but you would not dare to think that the scientists you
	trust so much could be wrong. So you will think your stomachal pains
	are of a different nature, or worse, you will think that the pain
	comes from the crushed glass fighting the illness. So you will take
	MORE crushed glass to make sure the illness is defeated for good. 

	Have you guys seen "Idiocracy"? It's a great movie -- and I took
	this example from the movie. Our hero, Joe, is a semi-retarded
	military who, by chance, makes a trip 500 years into the future
	when he discovers that the crops are watered with a Gatorade-like 
	sports drink named "Brawndo", he finds himself knowledgeable enough 
	to correct the problem. The narrator comments that "Brawndo has 
        replaced water virtually every where" and that Brawndo purchased the 
        FDA and FCC. In response to the plan to correct the problem, 
        White House cabinet members continuously repeated the Brawndo tag line, 
        "Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes." Yet, no one 
        had a clue what electrolytes are. They just knew what they've been told. 
        This is a very good illustrated example of how people are most of the 
        times too trusting and ignorant for their own good. Ofcourse Brawndo 
        was bad for the crops, because the plants need water, not artificial 
        flavor -- but that artificial flavor beverage was keeping half the 
        country employed.
	
	By following what trusted sources tell us is good without questioning
	and thinking for ourselves, we become slaves of our own ignorance. 
	Ever since we are little, we rely on others to tell us what's good
	or bad for us. First, there were the parents & family; later, our
	trusted sources circle gets larger, including our friends and
	colleagues. When we grow up, we also consider mass-media, internet
	and press as trusted sources, because we are told they are reliable
	sources that will never deceive us. BUT ALL THIS MENTALITY IS BASED
	ON THE GOOD WILL AND INTENTIONS OF THE TRUSTED SOURCE; WHAT IF THE
	TRUSTED SOURCE SLIGHTLY MODIFIES THE INFORMATION SENT TO US (just
	like in NLP case studies), JUST TO TRIGGER A CERTAIN BEHAVIORAL
	PATTERN FROM US? 

	The best example that comes to my mind is that of a imaginary hacker
	character, let's call it The_C0nd0r, who breaks into one of the
	largest telco in the country, without exploiting a single
	vulnerability in the computer systems. You guessed it, it's the case 
	of the Master of Social Engineering. To be honest, I learnt about NLP 
	when i was studying social engineering. The trick with social 
        engineering is to make your peer STRONGLY BELIEVE into a fake reality 
        you are feeding him. You just need to make that "reality" as accurate 
        as possible so he doesn't realise it's a trick. And this is exactly 
        when NLP steps into place. First of all, you need to adopt a similar 
        posture to your target (not physical necessarily). For instance, if 
        you're targetting an employee, act as an employee who is in big trouble, 
        make him to be a part of your "drama". When people are confronted to 
        dramatic situations happening to others they usually think "oh, fuck this
	could happen to me aswell" and they will give you that password.

	I will give you an example again. Let's say, your best friend got
	into a fight with another friend of yours. You trust your best
	friend when he tells you that the other friend said bad words about
	you, and he stood up to take your side. But, what if the things were
	opposite? What if your best friend was the one saying bad things
	about you and the other friend said he should stop talking of you
	when you are not around? Your "natural" urge is to ally with your
	best friend and "wage war" against the other friend, because you
	trust a message from a trusted source that someone is doing wrong to
	you. 

	Another example, on a larger scale now. There is a HUGE press
	campaign against alimentary product X, saying that it highly affects
	health, etc. People trust mass-media and, as a result of the
	campaign, they stop using X. The company producing X is experiencing
	big difficulties because their market share diminished a lot. You'll
	say "Good! They were selling stuff affecting people's health, they
	outta be put of business!" and I couldn't agree more. But.. there is
	always a "but". What if there was a competitor for product X called
	product Y. And the PR department of product Y contacted big
	publications and tv networks owners and paid them a shit load of
	money for this campaign. What if product X wouldn't actually be that
	harmful, in fact, being less harmful than product Y? The market
	share of the company producing X will diminish in the advantage of
	the company producing Y. Even if company X publish a study stating
	that their products are not as harmful as claimed, and even less
	harmful than product Y, no one will trust the statement. If trust is
	broken once, it will never reappear or if it does, it does with
	great sacrifice.
	
	And another fictionary example now. Let's assume hackers would exist
	and they can hack (unlike kingcope;). Let's continue to assume
	stuff. We also assume that this hacker (fictionary character,
	remember?) is not a good guy working for the Man. Instead he's a
	rebelious youngster (mid 20's) with the unique ability to break into
	any computer system he puts his mind to. This hacker is aproached by
	the owner of company A who is crushed under the competition of
	company B, whose product is far superior and the distribution
	network is by far, the largest. Let's assume the owner of A asks the
	hacker if it would be possible to do something to company B. The
	hacker would go unnoticed and mess with the client database, mix the
	deliveries, steal secret info about the product, etc. In short,
	anything that would give company A a competitive advantage.
	Ofcourse, to the masses this would appear as company B is either 
	A) in big trouble, B) doing something nasty behind closed doors or
	C) can't secure their shit right, and by extension can't secure
	customer's trust either. Gosh, we're so lucky hackers only secure
	our networks and iPod's instead of doing things so scary.

	A real life example, this time, comes from the Middle East. During
	the recent war between Israel and Lebanon, the Hamass posted on the
	Internet images of crippled or killed children, dismembered, etc.
	This ofcourse, had a huge impact on the international community and
	a lot of countries and important people took position and asked
	Israel to stop the war. But after all, it was just a good press
	campaign organised by the Hamass, manipulating the media and the
	society. 
	
	The point is that by EXPLOITING HUMAN BEING IGNORANCE AND CONFORT IN
	TRUSTING WHAT THEY CONSIDER AS BEING "TRUSTED SOURCES", OR BY FAKING
	A SOURCE MAKING IT LOOK TRUSTWORTHY, YOU CAN TRICK PEOPLE INTO
	ACTING AGAINST THEMSELVES, AND SURPRISINGLY, BE HAPPY ABOUT IT.
	

-- [ 8 - The chains remain
	
	Slavery is long gone, most people think. Just because the chains
	don't ring anymore as we walk, it doesn't mean they disappeared.
	It's just that today chains have been more subtle and harder to
	perceive. The society, through its members, or mass-media, or tv
	networks, books, religion, banking system and it's loans, and so on,
	EVERYTHING is keeping us bonded to these chains we hate so much. By
	telling us how we should behave in certain conditions because that's
	"normal", by feeding us distorted information aimed to harden the
	concept of "normal" and "what we should do", by creating fake needs,
	desires and dreams we become addicted to the society and less aware
	of our real selves. 

	The society is feeding you models, driving expensive cars, living in
	big houses, living the good life, you know. Automatically, in your
	mind you start to want the same (because society taught us that
	second place is for the losers), so you get deeper into it. You
	contract a loan from the bank just to get a bigger house, or a
	faster car. You start to work extra-hours just to impress your boss
	enough to promote you: a promotion would allow you to buy more
	things. You start stealing stuff because you don't see another mean
	of getting the money you WANT. Unknowingly, you become bonded to the
	system, without the possibility of escaping from it. You become a
	slave of your work/bank just to satisfy your NEEDS. But these are
	not real needs, instead it's what your TRUSTED SOURCES told you you
	need. 

	If you want to break loose of the chains holding you down, you need
	to ACCEPT. You need to accept what is happening to you, either it
	being "good" or "bad". The Universe and Its Laws don't think in
	terms of duality, but Unicity. You need to understand that
	EVERYTHING HAPPENING TO YOU IS THE RESULT OF YOUR PREVIOUS ACTIONS
	AND THAT YOU ONLY GOT HERE WHERE YOU ARE AS A RESULT OF YOUR
	CHOICES. You need to understand that TO OBTAIN SOMETHING FIRST YOU
	MUST DESERVE that thing and that there are no shortcuts in life.
	
	"Any competition is the entertainment of the rulers at the expense
	of the slaves"

--[ 9 -	Greetz

	t3kn10n of Ac1dB1tch3z, zf0 ppl, spender for being the greatest
	and whitest whitehat of all times, kevin mitnick for being owned so
	many times using the social engineering skills himself pioneered,
	king cope for not being able to find a bug on himself but instead
	using "hack your mind" tricks to use other people's bugs/codes in
	his exploit codes, Jesus Christ, Hermes, Socrate and finally, my
	mentor, Pythagoras