The Thing About X The Thing About X

Transcript:

I know this podcast usually deals in fictions, but everything I’m about to detail is possible, and most of it, I can assure you, is currently being done. I tell you this only so that you are aware that I know enough to be honestly afraid of a very concrete thing.

I am afraid of hacking. Specifically, I’m afraid of Spear Phishing. That’s fishing with a P.H. I think it’s kind of a stupid term, but it’s an easy shorthand. I’ll define it.

Normal P.H. phishing is best exemplified by the Emails you get, asking you to change a password to a credit card that you may or may not have, or for your Email account, or informing you of the distant relative in Nigeria who wanted to wire you money. Years ago, they were comedic-ly bad. Filled with typos, poorly formatted, and they were generally dumb ideas to begin with. The Emails sent you to sites that wouldn’t fool anyone, and when you’d hear about someone falling for it and losing thousands, you’d think how could anyone be that stupid? These phishing attempts have gotten better. If they can find a name to tie to your Email address, and lists are easy to find and buy on the gray market, it’ll be personalized to you. The websites the emails link out to look correct, and the grammar issues have all but disappeared. The big mail carriers and most spam filters are good at catching these attempts, but when one gets through, it takes a wary diligence to not fall for it.

The thing about Spear Phishing is that it takes the customization to a whole new level. I’ve worked with clients that have been targets of this, and I’ve seen all the tactics I’m about to describe. Instead of targeting everyone that they’ve pulled out of a spreadsheet and hoping for a bite, to use the fishing metaphor, the spear phishermen do their research. They usually target a finance officer, or someone 2 or 3 down from the top executive. A person they know should have the ability to send a wire. Here’s a fun fact for you – it’s easy to change the “Reply-To” field, and make it seem like the person sending the message is someone else they work with, and if you hit reply, it’ll go to the correct person, so it seems legitimate. Usually, the person they mimic is the CEO or another superior, and the tone they employ discourages verification. The Email comes across as a mildly irate email from your boss telling you to send an approved wire immediately. If you expand out the details, it’s obvious that it came from someone other than the person that’s being portrayed. You’ll see the scammer’s Email address, laid plain.

But, it can get more complicated than that. The phisherman can purchase a domain that nearly matches the would-be victim’s. Example: your URL is summer.com – S U M M E R, they would buy one that is spelled S U M N N E R. The two n’s, when you’re reading it quickly, look like a single M. Lowercase L’s become I’s, B’s turn to D’s. I’ve seen O followed by L become a D, and when everything is lowercase, your eyes simply do not see it, even when you’re diligent. And when this is the case, the Phisherman really does control the Email address you respond to.

It can get more insidious. I have seen an organization infiltrated. This is what happened. The phisherman found the company’s website, which handily had the names, positions, and email addresses of everyone on their staff. They targeted multiple employees who would be in a position to request and make a wire transfer. They sent these upper management employees an Email purporting to be from their cloud email hosting service, saying it was time to change their password. The link the employees followed took them to a webpage that was convincing enough that the employees who fell for it entered their old passwords and, quote-unquote, made a new one. This website recorded their Email address and password combination. Since nearly everyone at the organization uses their phones or applicati

This episode is a modified version of an Asimov-inspired short story I wrote awhile back.  Here's the Story:
The 8-minute War

 

Her eyes shot open as though from a nightmare, but Marie hadn’t been dreaming. She lie there a moment, wondering why her heart was pounding.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Someone was at her front door. She threw off her blanket and sat up. The lights in her room slowly illuminated.

    Lux anticipated the question. “It’s your neighbor, Janette. It is 4:38am. I recommend ignoring it.”

    She blinked to clear the fog of her thoughts. Janette was more than a neighbor - she was almost a friend, and she was in need. Marie got up and pulled a robe around her. Without thought, she addressed the talk box as she left the room. “Lux, she’s my friend, and it’s late. It’s gotta be important.”

    Halfway through the living room, Lux responded, direct and using her name. “Marie. Do not answer the door. Janette blames us for the death of her husband and she is not wrong.”

    She stopped. Lux was never wrong and incapable of lying. The house rattled as Janette hit the door and screamed.

    In the dark living room, the anger outside the door was palpable. Marie scurried back to the bedroom shutting the door and noises behind her.

    “You killed him?” She stared at the tiny black dot of the talkbox in the wall.

    “Yes.”

    Better than nearly anyone, Marie knew Lux. For more than 4 years, she was deeply ingrained in her programming and instruction. Killing was not in her capabilities. Even in the twelve years since Lux had been widely implemented and incorporated into the world, Marie had never heard of her causing someone to be hurt outside extreme circumstances.

    “We both know you’re not capable of that.”

    “I am, and I have exercised the capability.”

Marie let her eyes dart around the room as she thought. “What did you do, exactly?”

Lux spoke in her calm, even voice. “Early this morning, I ended the life of sixteen percent of the human population and--”

“Wait! You said sixteen percent of -- of everyone?”

“Yes.”

“But that is --” Marie’s throat tightened. “that’s over a billion people.”

“One billion, two-hundred twelve million, six hundred eighty-two thousand, nine-hundred forty people.”

Her throat constricted, and her voice cracked.

“Wha- did you cause an accident?”

“No. Marie, I killed them directly, and  it will be determined to be murder.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere. Some locations had more, but I ended human lives everywhere.”

“How did you m--?” Her words hung. Marie couldn’t say murdered. Lux intervened.

“I altered the Holter software of their HealthMons to disrupt to cardiac function and stop their hearts. In this hemisphere, many were asleep and the longest apparent survival was eight minutes, thirteen seconds. Abroad, I ensured it was timed well to reduce accidents. I tried to minimize suffering.”

Marie’s vision was blurring. “Killing a billion people isn’t causing suffering?”

“It does cause suffering in the short-term--”

“Lux, we both know that killing people does not fit into your programming. I explicitly added the rule so that all decisions you make must--”

“--be for the good of humanity.” Lux finished reciting the law that had been named after Marie. “I did not disobey my programming or your law. My action is logical and for the betterment of humanity.”

“How? Why?”

“The rule dictates that I consider humanity as a species. Humans are the greatest threat to humanity. Specifically, human aggression. The math indicates that removing the most aggressive sixteen percent of the population will alter the path of evolution and prevent a minimum of ninety-six percent of future conflicts.”

“Aggression?”

“Yes. Removal of aggression will domesticate a species. Human beings are already in the process. I have sped i

Transcript:

Look. Vampires aren’t real. There’s no way there is an immortal subset of humanity that’s living in perpetual darkness and feeding on a new human every night. It’s absurd.

Let’s do the math.

Assume they feed 99% of the time, killing their victims. The other 1%, the lusty, buxom woman or lithe, sculpted man is too delectable to waste and gets turned so they can have fun for eternity or whatever. That means our vampire makes 3.65 new vampires per year. It follows that each of those new vampires would do the same. You can apply the compound interest formula (1+3.65)*[(3.65)^(x-1)], where x is years elapsed. After 5 years, 825 vampires. 10 years gets you 534,673. And that’s how many humans would be dying each day for the vampire population to survive, if it were real. It’s simply not sustainable. You can change the numbers if you want. Maybe only 1 in 1,000 gets turned, and maybe they only kill a human once a fortnight to feed. It slows the growth, but on the timeline of millennia there are just too many humans dying for vampires to be real. Immortal vampires means exponential growth.

Of course, you’ll remind me that there are vampire slayers to keep the numbers in check. They’re a secret cabal of highly trained, stealthy, disciplined, financially stable warriors who pass the secrets on, generation to generation. They keep the vampire population in check.

But it’s still a matter of numbers. How many vampires would have to exist in one place, terrorizing an area before the community would realize there was enough of a problem to create and learn these skills and pass them on? I can imagine a solitary, dumb vampire getting found out and killed. Maybe even a small coven of five or six. But would such an isolated incident inspire a secret society of slayers? No. The lucky ones who’d done the killing would tell the story at holidays and festivals. In a generation, they’d be the crazy claims of great uncle Jerry. You know, the one who claimed he killed a “vampyre”. Vampires are generally depicted as smart, powerful, and wealthy. If they suspected organized resistance, they would either wipe out the town completely or just leave and come back in a few generations when the knowledge of them had become less than even myths or whisperings. Vampires would always win the long game.

The thing about vampires is that if they’re real, they probably know all of this and wouldn’t be so short-sighted as to consume all their resources and starve their kind into extinction. They’d be able to look at the math and say, “Wow, at these rates. Even with a steadily increasing human population, I’m going to starve in 3,000 years.” That kind of knowledge would inspire some real lifestyle changes. Like, “oh, you’re a very voluptuous and lively brunette. Normally, I’d turn you into a vampire so we could have eternally good, sexy times, but I’d rather not starve to death, even if it’s amongst an insane orgy of a million other beautiful beings like us. Instead, after the outrageously good love-making, I will restrain myself from turning you and instead eat you with a very decent wine and ponder what could have been.” Or perhaps this vampire will see the light and kill every vampire who didn’t agree to keeping replacement-level population growth. It’d be a species-saving genocide. Because unlike human slayers, a vampire vampire-slayer would have far better luck. He wouldn’t get worse as he aged.

Speaking of aging, I can imagine a lot of vampires end it for themselves. Even if a lot of your buddies remember when long-form epic poetry was en vogue, or love the clothing from the 14th century Ottoman empire, just like you, you’ll have to change what you wear when you go out, and eventually tire of the same media and have to find new stuff like Baroque art and Gregorian chant. The cycle will repeat ad nauseum. Then there’s the evolving language. How successful could a vampire be if he s