22,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Discover the future of cybersecurity through the eyes of the world's first augmented ethical hacker
In Human Hacked: My Life and Lessons as the World's First Augmented Ethical Hacker by Len Noe, a pioneering cyborg with ten microchips implanted in his body, you'll find a startlingly insightful take on the fusion of biology and technology. The author provides a groundbreaking discussion of bio-implants, cybersecurity threats, and defenses.
Human Hacked offers a comprehensive guide to understanding an existing threat that is virtually unknown. How to implement personal and enterprise cybersecurity measures in an age where technology transcends human limits and any person you meet might be augmented. The book provides:
- Exposure of a subculture of augmented humans hiding in plain sight
- Explorations of the frontier of bio-Implants, showing you the latest advancements in the tech and how it paves the way for access to highly restricted technology areas
- Discussions of cybersecurity tactics, allowing you to gain in-depth knowledge of phishing, social engineering, MDM restrictions, endpoint management, and more to shield yourself and your organization from unseen threats
- A deep understanding of the legal and ethical landscape of bio-implants as it dives into the complexities of protections for augmented humans and the ethics of employing such technologies in the corporate and government sectors
Whether you're a security professional in the private or government sector, or simply fascinated by the intertwining of biology and technology, Human Hacked is an indispensable resource. This book stands alone in its category, providing not just a glimpse into the life of the world's first augmented ethical hacker, but also offering actionable insights and lessons on navigating the evolving landscape of cybersecurity. Don't miss this essential read on the cutting edge of technology and security.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 411
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Foreword
Introduction
What to Expect
CHAPTER 1: The Human Years
The Odyssey 2
The Commodore 64
Newb Before It Was a Thing
Windows into the Corporate World
A Hacker Is Born
A Life Divided
CHAPTER 2: A Change in Direction
Into the Light
Road Warrior
CHAPTER 3: Symbiotic Attack Vector
Tap-to-Pwn
My First Attack: Dinner and a Show
CHAPTER 4: Transhumanism: We Who Are Not As Others
A Brief History of Transhumanism
Bad Intentions
Notes
CHAPTER 5: Using Their Laws Against Them
Prepare for Takeoff Seat Backs and Tray Tables
Obfuscation by Law
CHAPTER 6: A Technological Rebirth
Finding My Techno-shaman
Honey, We Need to Talk
CHAPTER 7: My First Installs
Human MFA
Touching Digital
Cyberpunk in Downtown Austin
I Am Machine
Physical Meets Biological
Digital Lockpicks
Magnetic Vision
My Tools
Note
CHAPTER 8: I Am the Cyber Threat
Mobile Devices
Physical Access
Magnetic Tracing
Notes
CHAPTER 9: Living the Transhuman Life
VivoKey Chips
Walletmor
NeXT Chip and BioMagnet
CHAPTER 10: I'm Hackable
Identity Evolution
Note
CHAPTER 11: Here There Be Grinders
The PirateBox and PegLeg
The HakLeg
HakLeg Antenna
A Grinder After All
Why Me?
Note
CHAPTER 12: Current Limitations of Transhuman Technology
Cyber Defense Against Humans
Technological Identification and Mitigation
Specialized K9 Detection
Notes
CHAPTER 13: The Future of Transhuman Technology
Brain–Computer Interfaces
Smart Devices
Internal Power
AI: A Necessary Evil
Military Defense/Espionage
Haptics
Notes
CHAPTER 14: Transhuman Rights Are Human Rights
Transhuman Discrimination
The Hypocritic Oath
Transhuman, but Still Human
Notes
CHAPTER 15: My Future as a Transhuman
Final Thoughts
Notes
Appendix A: My Hardware
NExT
VivoKey Spark 2 (Cryptobionic)
flexNExT
flexM1 “Magic” 1k
flexEM T5577
Titan-Sensing Biomagnet
Walletmor
flexDF2 DESFire
VivoKey Apex
flexClass (HID iClass)
Appendix B: FAQs
Appendix C: Resources
My Body Mechanics
Organizations, Clubs, and Information Hubs
Implant Distributors
GitHub Repos
Open-Source Tools
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
Copyright
Dedication
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction
Begin Reading
Appendix A: My Hardware
Appendix B: FAQs
Appendix C: Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
End User License Agreement
Pages
iii
xiii
xiv
xv
xvi
xvii
xix
xx
xxi
xxii
xxiii
xxiv
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
191
192
193
195
196
197
199
201
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
iv
v
213
Human Hacked
My Life and Lessons as the World’s First Augmented Ethical Hacker
LEN NOE
Foreword
“Publicity, discussion, and agitation are necessary to accomplish any work of lasting benefit.”
—Robert M. La Follette, Sr.'s speech in Evansville, Indiana (July 7, 1906), as quoted by Michael Wolraich in “Unreasonable Men: Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels Who Created Progressive Politics,” July 22, 2014
The discussion of cybercriminals attacking various devices is a daily headline in print and online. Criminals seem to craft new and innovative ways to attack and exploit an ever-improving and robust defensive posture offered by cybersecurity “experts” around the globe. These experts will not hesitate to exclaim the threat loudly so they can sell you every solution you need 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Cybercriminals steal data and money, and cybersecurity companies demand data and money. Who wins? Not the people. They are too busy getting services or getting served; they are in the middle and completely lost in an increasingly more complex dance of everchanging threats, vulnerabilities, and solutions. What is needed is a reference, a guide to what is happening and what will soon happen on a broad scale and certainly in the near future, information with principles that transcend time and something where those principles apply universally to all devices. It must include information about the expanding threat surface, the broader range of vulnerable available devices, and even things we do not consider part of our digitally connected world…yet. These concepts and ideas are not offered in the general discourse. There is a good reason for that: it would clarify the risks and threats so people could select the mitigation options and solutions they need in an informed manner. In short, they would spend less money. For our own sake, we need to see the future, understand it, identify the threats and vulnerabilities, assess the risks, and apply the most cost-effective solutions to mitigate our risk. We need this book.
This is the story of an unlikely hero told in his own words—his firsthand account of the human and transhuman experience—by a man who has chosen to be the solution, not just part of the solution, but the whole thing. Let me explain: in cybersecurity, we set up demonstration labs to test hardware and software for vulnerabilities and anything a malicious actor could inflict on us. We look for solutions so that when those components are put into a production unit, they will deliver the desired result or complete the desired action—no more and no less. In this story, that demonstration lab is a man, a man who has dedicated his life to the service of others, a man who sees the future and knows we must be active now to ensure adequate security, which allows us to continue to enjoy the freedom in our lives.
I can faintly remember the events in 1969 when I was not quite five years old. My mother pointed to our 13-inch black-and-white TV set, the kind with the antenna on top. When you smacked it just right, the reception was crystal clear. We were in our apartment in North White Plains just north of New York City and watched Neil Armstrong change the course of human events. First, a jump, then one small step at a time into history. There was already so much history in and around the town where I grew up. Just a few miles from where we lived, lay the fields of Battle Hill, where General Washington defended the city of White Plains, and the Miller House, which was his local headquarters where he planned the city's defense. We were around the corner from the colossal Kensico Dam, built from the granite of a local quarry with a history all its own, an impact that changed the face of Westchester County forever and became a significant part of the New York City aqueduct system. In 1908, the Briarcliff Trophy Race was held. It was the first American International Road Race, and it encircled the county and ran cars by the names of Isotta, Fiat, Stearns, and Apperson among the finishers. As a kid growing up there, we learned and knew all these events were important, but none was more significant than that of Armstrong. When I was four years old, I understood it just as well as my six-year-old brother and my mother, who appeared to us to be frozen in time. Her face revealed the hidden depths of her feelings as she stood there, mouth slightly ajar, her expression utterly neutral. Now, 50 years later…
There are times when we have an epiphany of a significant change in the direction of our lives; then there is that once-in-a-lifetime awakening that signals a change in the future of the human race. To say that Armstrong's walk on the moon changed the course of human events is something of an understatement; most can say they know it happened, and some of us lived it. I believed deep in my heart for nearly five decades that I had experienced the seminal moment in human history in my lifetime. It was the pinnacle of achievement that unlocked the greatest adventure humans could experience. We knew the implications of that one act were immense, but we had no idea the breadth and scope of that impact. I acknowledge now that I believe I was wrong. I have worked hard over the years to highlight and inform audiences what I saw as the “Wild West” re-created in the medical IT space. I hoped to bring the message of human-machine interfaces, cooperation, and impending cyborgs with the importance of INFOSEC in DNA and at the submolecular level to the cybersecurity and medical worlds. My results were measured as success at best. I knew there was more, and I believed there was a story to tell, but the audience's appetite was lacking. People were suffering from malnutrition of information and ideas, but like a centenarian whose tender life and existence slipped away on their deathbed, they either refused food and drink or were too weak to engage.
My mind was changed on a hot and humid afternoon in Paris; it was June 29, 2022, to be precise. I had flown in for work because I was scheduled to speak at a conference, Hack in Paris. I planned to arrive with my wife (as I always do), but her father's passing had sidetracked our plans—she would have to join me later as our three children went with her to the services. I stayed at the hotel contracted by the company sponsoring the conference and made my way downstairs to the lobby area for a café. Near the restaurant was the bar, three stools in all, but on the farthest one sat a person who had to be a hacker. I could make out the outline through the opaque glass with a classical floral arrangement etched into it, birds and flowers. But I could not directly see the person. The words, the phrases, it could be only one thing—a unicorn! It had to be an American hacker. Now, most hackers are introverts while most Americans are extroverts, but for the next few minutes, the bar was to stage a performance of epic proportions; yes, this was a spectacle I did not want to miss. I had come to Paris to find an American enigma wrapped in a paradox; I was intrigued. I dared not turn away as I jockeyed myself to the most expensive seats in the orchestra section in the bar. I was in the front row.
I always try to blend in when in Paris; I mean, my French is pretty good (so say my French friends as they snicker in my face). I can quietly order food and get and give directions; I can even quietly ask for a bathroom. I want you to realize I can do all that loudly, too. I am from New York, and when appropriate, I do. This situation was different; it was the quintessential French bar in a quiet, posh hotel, but this guy was louder than all the other collective souls in the bar all by himself. He was not rude or arrogant; he was a jovial and pleasant guy with a friendly voice. His comments were nothing but pleasantries, and then I looked up and saw him—I was stunned. He was polite and respectful of everyone he engaged. Len was just happy and loved having a moment with the people there. But his body told a story of many lives and many miles. He was a fresh spirit who had found his freedom through the years of tough mileage. This is Len Noe; he loves life.
These past couple of years, I have gotten to know Len, and I can characterize him as a fun-loving yet serious individual who saw the future yesterday and plans today for people to be comfortable and safe with their tomorrows. Some are gifted with insight, few can engage with critical problem-solving skills and logic, and even fewer are gifted with the motivation for action—a chance to be part of the future and, simultaneously, part of history. Len has all these: he sees the future, he analyzes the pros and the cons and the multitude of variables that will impact who we are and where we are going, and, most significantly, he puts himself directly in the middle of an amazing human experiment looking to offer insight and solutions to us mere mortals.
That seminal moment of which I spoke was not in 1969; no, it is now, or more precisely, it was when I met Len Noe. I was astonished! He knew what I knew: that the intersection of people and technology is that moment; it took me meeting another like-minded individual to make that infant concept blossom into a moment of actualization. This is not the extension of humans and technology; no, this is the integration of technology and people. Len lives at the threshold of the path of eternal opportunity and is leading us all forward. This book shows those traditional boundaries blending and disappearing; you will see the possibilities of technology and the trajectory of abilities and understand what that means for all of us. Cybersecurity and device security are not new concepts but rather imperfect ones. It all began a short time ago in a place not far from most of us…
Medical devices were first, and they taught us that we could use a computer in vivo, or inside the body, to make our lives more functional and to make us freer from the restrictions of a crippling medical condition. It took a brave soul at the FOCUS 11 at a Las Vegas conference to show us that we cannot be quick to put these devices in vivo without a thorough security check. Barnaby Jack, a New Zealand–born hacker, got access to an insulin pump using a high-gain antenna, and then in 2012, he demonstrated how to kill someone with a pacemaker. The security gauntlet had been thrown down.
Jack is not the first to point out critical devices’ complete and inadequate security. From their inception, SCADA boxes (supervisory control and data acquisition boxes) have been widely used to manage critical infrastructure. Initial SCADA systems relied on large minicomputers for computing tasks and operated as independent systems without connectivity to other systems. Communication protocols used were proprietary and lacked standardization, meaning one could not talk to another outside their company or function.
With advancements, SCADA systems evolved to distributed architectures, where processing was distributed across multiple stations connected by a local area network (LAN), reducing costs compared to the first generation. However, security was still overlooked due to proprietary protocols and limited understanding beyond developers.
Today, SCADA systems leverage web technologies, enabling users to access data and control processes remotely via web browsers like Brave, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. This shift to web SCADA systems enhances accessibility across various platforms, including servers, personal computers, tablets, and mobile phones. Most important, they are drenched in security processes and protocols. That is a good thing because who can conceive a person being used as a SCADA device, and what could that do to critical infrastructure? In the historical context, it seems the lesson was learned, so what about medical and public health issues?
The threats a hacker poses with in vivo offensive devices designed to hack other in vivo devices, such as the insulin pump or a handheld device like a cell phone or tablet, are significant and concerning. With the advancement of technology and the integration of human-embeddable devices, such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips and pacemakers, into the human body, the potential for malicious exploitation and cyberattacks increases. The threat surface keeps growing, which means there are more and more ways for a criminal to manipulate your phone or pacemaker.
If all of this sounds deathly frightening, think of the problems caused if a malicious actor used an in vivo offensive device to launch an attack that loads inaccurate data into your pacemaker, so much so that your doctor decides to change your medication or treatment. That same malicious actor could also insert content into the cell phone of a high-level diplomat who is closing a deal to provide humanitarian relief to a country or a region recently hit by a natural disaster. How would the other diplomats take it if that attack loaded images created by deepfake technology to send underage child porn from one of the other diplomats’ phones to all the other diplomats? Would the deal still go through, or would it potentially lead to war? Now let's say it goes to the BBC for the whole world to see, for the world to judge…it is the only story to talk about for the next week until the news cycle is updated.
What else could a malicious actor do? Plenty, and it could range from mildly inconvenient to debilitating or even deadly. Most would come in the form of standard attacks that include remote control, manipulation, data breach, malware injection, or exploitation of vulnerabilities in other ways. None of this sounds pleasant to the average person, and what's worse is that the average citizen has no defense against them.
To say this is a doom-and-gloom book is not accurate. So we will get to the key message of this book, and that is the plethora of usable information it provides. It is all about understanding threats from malicious actors and criminals using in vivo implanted cyber tools to attack those same people in plain language, a guide for average citizens and security experts alike.
Len explicitly breaks down complex subjects into language that anyone can understand. He is the experiment; he is giving us information that he has collected and solutions that we can understand. He addresses security concerns that most security experts have never considered a threat. Len is a visionary who has taken action to face those threats by boldly engaging and leading by example.
Is this a work of lasting benefit? I say yes, and I know you will, too. The public discourse and awareness around in vivo hacking techniques and appropriate security and mitigation techniques will impact everyone and will be a focus of discussion in the future, but that conversation must start now.
Len, keep agitating! People are listening.
And it begins…
Introduction
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
—Arthur C. Clark
For hackers, it's all about the challenge. To us, every system is a puzzle waiting to be solved, a chance to prove our skills. With laptops as our tools, we're not just tech enthusiasts, we're digital assassins, thriving on the adrenaline of outsmarting the most complex codes and anyone with the arrogance to claim their networks and systems are secure.
Sometimes it's almost too easy. Everyone wants to be a hero, and nobody likes a scene. It's all mine for the taking; I just have to see who today's lucky victim is. It's a public place—people everywhere walking and carrying on without a care in the world. Stores entice shoppers with sales and gimmicks everywhere—to me it's like taking candy from a baby. I don't know them, and it's nothing personal; everyone is fair game. If you haven't figured it out by now, I am a hacker. Today there is something special I need, something very specific. In this case, it's a link in a much larger attack. I like keeping things random, that way I'm less likely to be discovered. I'm not even worried about being caught with the tools I use. I promise you won't see them. I have the payload set for Android; now it's time to destroy someone's life.
I see you standing there looking like a zombie, head in your phone. I wonder what may have you so enthralled that the rest of the world has ceased to exist. But in reality, who cares? I'll look for myself soon enough. The overhead music is drowning out the muffled chatter of multiple conversations on the move. You're my target today because you meet the criteria I'm looking for. I would love to build your ego and say it's because you look like someone whose career choice or wardrobe would make you a target, but in this case it's not that sophisticated. The fact that you haven't looked up from your Android phone in the last five minutes and are completely oblivious to the world around you may be the perfect combination for what I'm looking for.
I know you are not paying attention as I close the distance between us, your head still in the phone, just as I expected. You haven't looked up in a while now; I hope whatever you are doing was worth it. The people around me seem to fade into the background. There is nobody else in the world for the next few minutes; it's just you and me. I have set the stage, all the pieces are in place, I will know whatever I want about you before the end of the day, and that's just the beginning. What's worse is I will use your device for that upcoming larger attack that will lead the authorities right to you. Imagine trying to explain that you had no idea that your phone was involved in a cyberattack against a large corporation with expensive lawyers. You have no idea what's about to happen, and even worse is when it's over, you still won't.
I'm shrieking at the top of my lungs, “Oh God, please help me! Please someone help me!” I think I have your attention. Now everyone is looking, anticipating what's going to come next. All they see is an older man in what appears to be in extreme distress screaming for help. Social engineering is only one of the tools in my arsenal; I have been doing things like this for a long time. “Please, you, I was just on a call with my daughter, and there has been an emergency with my infant grandchild. My battery just died. She was on the way to the hospital in an ambulance. I don't know where they are going”—insert crying and sounds of agony—“Please, you, can I use your phone to call my daughter back to find where I need to go? Please! Oh God!” Buckle up, let's go for a ride together.
All eyes are on you now, it may be just you and me in this little game, but we have quite the audience here watching my little spectacle. I selected this place for that exact reason: I need all these onlookers for my plan to work. At this point, how can you say no? Remember, in this day and age if there is anything exciting, someone is recording it on their phone. Do you wanna go viral? Do you really want to take the chance that this video could get out? Do you want to be the hero or the next meme about a heartless person? I am playing you; I just put you into a situation you can't get out of. How many bystanders are staring at us? I am sure you are feeling the pressure at this point, but I'm not—this is all by my design, and it's all playing out exactly like I want it to.
So, of course, you agree. What real choice did I leave you with? By this point, you may have even started to feel good about helping me. Who would want to be in my shoes if the circumstances were reversed? Nobody seems to notice the smile that comes to the corners of my lips as your arm extends to hand me the phone. The cold feeling of the case as it slides in my hand—the hard part is over. Now for the next act.
I start moving my arms around and start talking to myself out loud; I have to make this believable. “What's my daughter's phone number? Who remembers phone numbers anymore? They are all programmed into my phone!” During all my ministrations of my arms and keeping the focus on me, I look at the screen. Nothing, guess this one is going to be the full show. “Her area code is 313, 313…722? Oh God, my grandbaby!” Turning in circles in apparent shock and anguish, I swipe down from the top and quickly enable Near Field Communications (NFC)—thank you Android for standardization. Swiping back up with my thumb, I see what I have been waiting to see. I know it's psychosomatic, but I can't help but almost feel it…there's the pop-up on the screen.
URL redirection requesting a download. “313-722-6…” Accept download. “What hospitals are close to here?” Accept Install from unknown source, done. “I can't believe I can't remember her number”—insert more crying and acting ashamed—“I can't remember. You have been so kind. Thank you so much, but I have to go plug my phone in to get the number.” Nobody understands how hard it is to fight smiling now. It's time to go. Handing you back your phone, I thank you profusely as I slowly fade back into the crowd. Your phone is already connected to my command-and-control server. I have already compromised your phone, and you are still watching me walk away—possibly wondering what just happened, possibly saying a prayer for my injured granddaughter. Whatever the case, you will go back to your day, your life. The fact that I'm going with you inside the device that holds more data than your wallet or purse will stay my little secret…for now.
What was the purpose of this deception, you ask? To hack your phone right in front of your eyes—and you have no idea it even happened. I did it not just with you watching me; I did it with the whole crowd watching me and possibly live streaming the entire event. This is a testament to how blatant I can be and still not get caught.
You never saw me possibly enable NFC—you were put on the spot and were essentially just acting out the part that I had selected for you to play in this drama. How many normal end users know what NFC is used for? Would you even notice later it was on and think “I need to run anti-virus, anti-malware, scan my phone?” Of course not, because “phones don't get attacked like that; they are not computers.”
Surprise: They do, and I can do it better than most. If you noticed at all, would you think that maybe you hit that NFC button by accident and turn it back off? If so, you'd missed the only clue I left—good luck with any investigation later. Would you even connect our little interaction as an attack, or would it be relegated to the back of your mind as a strange social event? Honestly, most devices have NFC enabled for the purposes of Apple Pay and Android Wallet. Can't have that convenience without opening a vulnerability for me.
I played you. I used misdirection to keep your eyes focused on me. You were looking at a man breaking down, not the fact that my thumb was accepting the download and installing my payload on your device. Before I explain how I pulled this off, let me ask you a question: if you did see the request for download pop up, what caused it to happen in the first place? How would you explain the fact that your device just magically decided to download my specific payload the minute it was in my hand?
You never saw the bulge in the top of my hand hiding a microchip as it energized from your mobile device; you never noticed that, while I had your attention, my fingers were doing something completely different, something destructive and invasive. You would know if someone was attacking your technology right in front of you…wouldn't you?
You see through the eyes of the old, expecting to see hackers sitting in a dark basement with a hoodies on, staring at a computer terminals with lines of green code in an endless loop of scrolling characters. But that's not the case anymore—I did hack you and your mobile device, and I used bleeding-edge technology to do it. It was so bleeding edge that I had to physically bleed to get it. It's all part of my body, and I have abilities that a normal human doesn't have. Unlike most hackers, I don't have to carry any extra tools for some of my attacks. I carry my tools with me everywhere I go. I am not a robot, alien, or cyborg, but I am not exactly human by its base definition either.
I am one of the first few publicly known of my kind. I am a transhuman. I am someone who has taken technology and integrated it into my body through subdermal microchip implants. At the time of this writing, I have 10 implants with various capabilities that include NFC, a technology built into most modern cell phones; radio frequency identifiers (RFIDs), the same technology used in physical security; and bio-sensing magnets.
I also plan to add more individual chips, as well as a full single-board computer (SBC), at some point in the very near future. I have additional senses that I was not born with thanks to this type of technology. I am considered, by some, to be part of the next step in human evolution. I can interface with technology on a level that only those like me can understand. I have removed the standard computer input types as the only human options. I can communicate with technology using native protocols.
I did not come to cybersecurity by the normal paths. I didn't go to college for a degree in computer science, and the idea of protecting my fellow man was the farthest thing from my mind when this all started. I am a former black-hat hacker and ex-1% biker. I have been circumventing laws and making computers do things that they are not expected or supposed to do for more than 30 years. This background puts me in a unique position within the industry in my opinion. My approach to security both physical as well as digital is that I naturally think like a criminal. If I know how they think and attack, I know what and how to prevent it.
Please allow me to introduce myself: my name is Len Noe. Depending on the nature of our relationship, I may go by Len, Hacker, or Hacker 213. I am what happens when someone decides to take offensive security and turn science fiction into science fact. I no longer need keyboards and mice to interface with technology; I simply have to wave my hand. I have augmented my body for the sole purpose of becoming a walking zero day and the tool, technique, and procedure (TTP) you can't detect or stop.
It is my hope that through this book, I can bring awareness to the future, technology, and threats that many don't realize are actually already here. I am living proof of that. This book will document my journey of leaving humans behind, expose holes in current security protocols and procedures with regard to contactless technologies, and highlight the laws that actually provide me obfuscation at a governmental level, introduce a larger population to the existence of those like me, and quell some misconceptions of being transhuman. The truth is, you may already know someone with an implant. Fear of the unknown has given a stigma to these individuals, making them cautious about “outing” themselves as transhuman. I hope to address many of the fears regarding individuals like me, explore what abilities and technical enhancements are available, and disprove many rumors.
I am the living embodiment of what every chief information security officer (CISO) is afraid of: I am the future. I am the attack you're not prepared for. I am the next-generation threat that you can't avoid. I am the future that is already here today that you're probably clueless about. I am the attack that can happen right in front of your eyes. I am progress; if you're not prepared, I am the end of your ability to secure your assets.
What to Expect
This is my life story and how I came to have 10 technology implants representing multiple contactless protocols inside my body for offensive security purposes (as of the time of this writing). It is my hope that this book will be an introduction for the general population to the transhuman subspecies that has walked among us for decades. There will be exploration into the history and varying philosophies surrounding individuals who have chosen to integrate technology into the human body, as well as into the differences between fantasy and reality when addressing current human augmentations. I'll also propose questions surrounding the moral and ethical consequences of electively implanting technology from a social perspective and risk to current security controls, whether individual, corporate, or governmental.
As the book progresses, it will explore the physical installation process for someone to become electively transhuman, including details of the surgical procedures and the research leading to the specific chip selection. We'll also consider how the protections provided to transhumans by the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) make identification and detection nearly impossible.
A major component of this book is illustrating multiple new cyberattack vectors that are all instantiated from technology embedded beneath the skin and highlighting how existing controls cannot address the human/cyber threat for individuals and/or businesses. This book will also serve as a reference guide to certain emerging technologies—such as Brain Computer Interfaces, SMART prosthetics, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence—and how they may factor into the human experience moving forward.
This book also delves into the negative repercussions of self-augmentation and the many forms it takes, from the risk of personally having compromised and hacked implanted hardware to the social stigma of being different to outright extremism. There will be a discussion of how legal decisions to be transhuman have allowed for legal discrimination in the U.S. court system, how we must address what should be inalienable rights of augmented humans, and how these technological add-ons are perceived by their users.
The collision point between human and machine has already happened, and most are not only unaware but painfully unprepared.
CHAPTER 1The Human Years
My story didn't start in the cold sterile environment of a body mechanic's studio or doctor's office. It started while I was sitting in a dark basement on the west side of Detroit, Michigan, in the bedroom of my childhood home. I am the oldest of three boys. My father worked the third shift as a technician for the auto industry, and my mother cleaned houses during the day. There was a rule in my house: “Nobody in, nobody out when your dad's asleep and Mom's not home,” which left only my younger brothers as companions most of the time. The four-year age difference was too great a chasm to bridge in my youth, so I spent most of my time alone. This living arrangement provided a place where I was left unsupervised to explore and satisfy my insatiable curiosity by whatever means I chose. If I wanted to understand electricity, I would take apart a piece of electronics, look at how all the pieces fit together, and then (most of the time) put it back together.
From a very young age my understanding was that the world is nothing more than a series of questions or puzzles and that knowledge was the ultimate power. If you looked behind the mundane outer package, you got to really see what made it function and what made it run. The relentless pursuit of knowledge became an obsession; I always wanted to understand the inner workings of everything I saw. Gears, cogs, transistors, wires, capacitors—it didn't matter if it was electric or mechanical; I would dismantle, inspect, and then reassemble almost anything I could, always looking for the “how” and “why.”
My curiosity got me into more than my share of issues. I always knew what I was getting for birthdays and Christmas; there was no safe hiding spot. Anything left out in the open could be subject to deconstruction to satisfy my need to know how it worked. The social etiquette of respecting other people's property (especially in our home) was something I didn't get a good understanding of until much later in life. I was very socially awkward and clumsy, and making friends was not something that came easy for me. I was always the shy kid in the corner, not saying much, but I was taking in everything happening around me. I learned the fundamentals of social engineering before I even knew it had a name. I was too smart for my own good, often coming across as arrogant and cocky in my responses. With very little sense of self, I could very easily offend anyone with whom I came into contact. With my limited parental supervision, I learned that negative attention was better than no attention at all. As a result of my environment, words, and actions, I was labeled the “bad kid,” a “bad influence,” and a “troublemaker.” These labels have followed me throughout my life. It eventually became easier to live my life as the person the world apparently wanted me to be.
The Odyssey 2
My introduction to technology resulted from my father being one of those types of people who gets all the latest gadgets. I remember my first “computer” was a Magnavox Odyssey 2. This was a set-top system that was closer aligned to an entertainment/gaming system than what would be recognized as a computer today. The only noticeable similarity was the membrane-style keyboard as part of the console. Like any young child, I loved playing video games and spent as much time as my parents would allow parked in front of the TV, joystick in hand.
Evan-Amos / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0/
All my tinkering, disassembling, and reassembling, all that functional understanding of how parts fit together was to be the foundation from which my new reality was about to be born. I don't remember the day or even the exact year my father came home with a new game cartridge. This game, unbeknown to me at the time, would be the direction my career, my life, and, eventually, my physical body would follow. This game was different; there were no pictures of space aliens or athletes on the cover. This was a game that came with a manual that was more than 103 pages long; it looked like schoolwork, and I wanted nothing to do with it. The game actually sat for months on a shelf untouched and unplayed. The game was Magnavox's Computer Intro.
Magnavox Computer (1979) / https://odyssey2.info/db/game/computer-intro-12/ Last accessed on July 12, 2024
I don't know how or why the manual had come to be on the floor that day or why it was open to page 1, but after quickly skimming the first three paragraphs, I was immediately stunned.
Computer Intro is not for everyone—but if you're up for a rewarding mental challenge, it is a fascinating entry point into a complex and highly technical subject.
The cartridge turns your Odyssey 2 into a very special kind of computer. It won't balance your checkbook or do your income tax or plot the course of a spaceship to Mars, but it will give you some idea of how those computers do their work. You will begin to understand how a computer “thinks” and even begin to think like a computer “thinks.”
I didn't care about schoolwork, but I was absolutely interested in the idea of plotting a spaceship and going to Mars. This was all it took for me to start flipping through the rest of the manual. This was my first introduction to binary, hex, coding, compilers, and debuggers. This was where I first learned about registers, routines, and subroutines, and how information flows through a basic computer. I studied that manual and did every exercise available, as well as wrote some of my first script/program there. The capabilities were extremely limited but served the purpose of providing me with that initial hunger for the secrets of technology.
The Commodore 64
My educational years were not the happy memories that I hear people reminiscing about when discussing childhood stories. I was the overweight nerd who was reading comic books and making campaigns for Dungeons & Dragons. I was failing fourth grade, and my parents decided to have me tested for any learning disabilities that might be causing my issues. What we discovered was completely the opposite—I didn't have a learning disability; I had a genius IQ. The work was not challenging enough for me to want to do it, and I was too stubborn to be reasoned with. This revelation prompted my parents to enroll me in a private school for gifted children. The curriculum was not structured like standard elementary school. The traditional structure of all students learning the same thing at the same time was replaced with a tailored education plan for each student that prioritized areas of gifted interest. My education plan was heavily centered around mathematics and science.
It was when I was enrolled in this school that working on the Commodore 64 was added to my education plan. I saw the possibilities of what a real computer was capable of. No longer limited to the base functions contained in a single system cartridge, at the time, the possibilities seemed limitless. Using the skills I'd learned from the Odyssey, I started to explore the capabilities of this new device. This was long before the time of the Internet or anything like the data-sharing capabilities available today. There was no easy way to get software for your computer; there was no download option. Computers and software were sold at major retailers and small brick-and-mortar computer stores. The way most people got access to new information was through magazines distributed via mail. It is to one of these magazines that I credit my first “hack.” I don't remember which magazine it was, but it provided code to build a Frogger-style video game. I remember typing what I thought was the exact same thing that was in the magazine. I only had a basic understanding of debugging at the time, and the compile would fail repeatedly. After numerous attempts, it finally executed; however, I still had errors in the code. I just didn't realize it yet.
To my surprise, the main character in the game would not die. I had, through no intention of my own, coded a “Go mode.” This is the moment that things started to click for me. This is when the direct correlation between the code in the back and what happens on the screen made sense. Up to this point, I was just doing a copy/paste and not really thinking about what I was typing. This was to be a defining point in my life: I would spend the next 30 years trying to duplicate this event in some way, shape, or form.
Newb Before It Was a Thing
After three years in an isolated private school, I was sent back to the public education system with fewer social skills than I had when I had left and the unfortunate knowledge that I was probably smarter than most of the people in my class, instructors included. I vividly remember walking into junior high school and feeling completely lost and terrified. I had no personal connections to any of the other students who had been nurtured through the last six years of school together. My awkward personality and lack of interpretation of social queues made acquiring friends almost impossible. I don't think I spoke to anyone other than teachers (and maybe one or two students) for the first two months of seventh grade.
I never selected any social group to be a part of; in my case, the clique selected me. I was never the athletic type, and the idea of team sports never interested me. Student government meant standing up in front of people and talking. I was the shy guy, so no, that wasn't my scene either. I was relegated to the social catchall for anyone who didn't fit into any of the other social groups—I was dubbed a “burnout.” This was a general reference to a subculture that was identifiable by a distinctive style, attitude, and behavior. Generally, these would be the students who refused to conform to the conventional student routine. Long hair, ripped jeans, and music T-shirts. One of the common components of this group was the use of drugs and alcohol to bolster their rebellious appearance. I was the only one within in my group who was actively experimenting with different substances and still maintaining a 3.75 grade point average. This was the persona I would keep all the way through high school.
From the Commodore, it was a Packard Bell i286, Packard Bell i386, i386 DX2 (with the floating decimal point for higher math function), and every iteration of a computer from then on.
High school introduced me to the world of industrial drafting and the modernization of drawing with computer-aided drafting (CAD). I was convinced that my future career would be as a draftsman, so much so that I enrolled in the school's vocational CAD training program. This was a three-year program that would provide me all the base education needed to transfer to a college and continue toward a degree in industrial drafting. It was in this classroom, midway through my second year, that I completed my first network hack.
The individual CAD terminals were assigned on the first day, and after logging in for the first time, I found a mapped folder connecting to the instructor's system, as well as a connection to the classroom's shared plotter. The daily workflow would be to connect to the instructor's system, retrieve the daily assignment, work until class ended, and then save the file back to the original location for grading.
We talk about hacking and data breaches in terms that are normalized today, but remember, there were no laws or regulations regarding unauthorized computer access until 1986. The ideas and methodologies about networking at this time were reserved for businesses and educational institutions. Additionally, the networks in most cases were air-gapped to the rooms they were in. There were home PCs, but at the time, most were stand-alone. America Online (AOL), one of the first consumer online services that introduced the world to networks, didn't come onto the scene until 1991.
