Ninja Hacking

[Nadia Summerhill]

Youcan call me the immigration ninja. Hi, I'm Jim Hacking. Immigration lawyer, practicing law throughout the United States at our offices in Washington, D.C., San Diego, California, and our headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. You can call me the immigration ninja and I'm being sort of silly. And what do I mean by that? Well, having gone to a lot of interviews the last few weeks, I've realized that my job as an immigration lawyer changes from case to case. And I have to be like a ninja and I have to be able to... I really like that, a ninja. I have to be flexible. And I was thinking I could be a ninja or I could be a Swiss army knife. A Swiss army knife has like 30 things that you can do with that Swiss army knife. And what I mean by that is that when I go to an interview or when I prepare my clients for an interview, everybody comes with different needs.

Some people need handholding. Some people need to be yelled at. Some people need to be propped up. Some people need to be knocked down. And so, I guess the ninja part of it comes more so in the preparation, but it also occurs in the interview. And what do I mean by that? Well, everyone comes to their interviews in a different mindset, in a different approach, different life skills, different ability to understand English, ability to sit across from an officer and answer questions. Some get very nervous, some are very tough and get mean. So you never know what your client's going to be like. So where the ninja part comes out is the fact that I need to help bridge that gap. Wherever the client's deficiencies are, I need to bring those out and I need to step into that role.

So if I have a client who can't articulate their position, or if there's a complex legal point, I might need to make that point. Or like yesterday, my client was super nervous and she could barely breathe. And my job at that point, it was just to tell her to breathe and to listen to my voice and try to calm her down. And so, it's funny, most of the stuff that I'm talking about being the immigration ninja is that you don't... these aren't things that you teach you in law school. This is just something that I've learned having sat in hundreds of interviews, having met with people from all over the world who bring their own baggage and their own prejudices and their own fears to the immigration office. And my job is to help bring the best of them out, show them in the best light and to put them in the best position possible.

So hopefully that all makes sense. It's a little bit of a strange video, but I think it's true. I think that any good immigration lawyer has to be able to adjust on the fly, has to be able to wear lots of hats and solve lots of problems. So if you have questions and you need our help, be sure to give a call to the immigration ninja at (314) 961-8200. I think I'm enjoying that stuff too much. You can find us in our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. We'd love to have you in. Maybe we should change it to the immigration ninjas. And then, we have our YouTube channel. You should subscribe to it. That way you'll get an update whenever we shoot a new video, which is every single day. And on most Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon central, you'll find me live in our Facebook group and on our YouTube channel answering as many of your immigration law related questions as possible. Thanks a lot and have a great day.

Ninja Hacking offers insight on how to conduct unorthodox attacks on computing networks, using disguise, espionage, stealth, and concealment. This book blends the ancient practices of Japanese ninjas, in particular the historical Ninjutsu techniques, with the present hacking methodologies. It looks at the methods used by malicious attackers in real-world situations and details unorthodox penetration testing techniques by getting inside the mind of a ninja. It also expands upon current penetration testing methodologies including new tactics for hardware and physical attacks.

This book is organized into 17 chapters. The first two chapters incorporate the historical ninja into the modern hackers. The white-hat hackers are differentiated from the black-hat hackers. The function gaps between them are identified. The next chapters explore strategies and tactics using knowledge acquired from Sun Tzu's The Art of War applied to a ninja hacking project. The use of disguise, impersonation, and infiltration in hacking is then discussed. Other chapters cover stealth, entering methods, espionage using concealment devices, covert listening devices, intelligence gathering and interrogation, surveillance, and sabotage. The book concludes by presenting ways to hide the attack locations and activities.

Paul has advised a tech conference in Singapore, presented in the Netherlands, and wowed a crowd full of executives in Texas. "It is important that we need to reinvent cybersecurity, because obviously what we have invented so far is clearly not working," he told the audience.

He says that the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections that we use almost every day are extremely vulnerable to hacking. "I'll never connect to a public Wi-Fi that I don't know," he said. "Somebody can just hack into that Wi-Fi network and poison it."

He showed CBS News correspondent David Begnaud firsthand how a hacker's poison can spread through a Wi-Fi signal. In just seconds he obtained the reporter's Twitter username and password using a fake page he had cloned, after Begnaud connected to his public Wi-Fi network.

"Without any notification or any knowledge of the user, I could turn it on from my computer, which only has to be in a 30-foot radius of the bear," Paul said. "So, I could stand outside somebody's house."

"If a 12-year-old can do it, what makes it that somebody who is a skilled, actual cyber terrorist, what makes it that they can't do it?" said Paul. "This Bluetooth is going into new autonomous cars, autonomous drones. It's going into medical devices."

"With Reuben speaking at these conferences and being paid thousands of dollars to travel there and sometimes a speaker's fee, do you worry that it gets a little out of control for a 12-year-old?" Begnaud asked.

"First and foremost, the kids do it because they have a passion for it," Mano replied. "It should never become a job for them. So, if tomorrow they come back and they say, 'Not interested in doing this,' it's perfectly fine with my wife and I."

Ninja were all aboutusing social engineering, technology, and physical skill to collect and controlinformation. Given that information and data are now more powerful than everbefore, I actually think this is a highly relevant time for thoseskills. They have never been more important; it is only the technology that hasreally changed. The urban ninja would simply need to adapt these technicalskills.

An urban ninja in the21st century would probably have more in common with the charactersfrom Watch Dogs, rather than Ryu Hyabusa. But as in Feudal Japan, they woulduse covert operations to collect information and subtly sway the course ofevents in their favour, to further a cause, or to advance their personal power.

A hack might involve speakingwith someone on the phone pretending to be IT support and telling them that youneed their passwords. You might then use theiremail address in order to message the head boss and ask them to change thepassword on the web cams. You could then sneak into the vicinity to get theWiFi password, and use your computer to connect to their webcams. You mightthen survey the office until you are able to spy bank details, or where theystore their contact information.

Again, I am NOTadvocating this. But understanding it has huge benefit for protecting yourselfagainst precisely those kinds of attacks. And there is clearly an edge to begained by learning urban ninja skills.

In other areas of ourlives, being able to manipulate our surroundings and those around us, whileincreasing mobility and protecting information can certainly all help us tothrive in the 21st century. Being able to blend into a crowd andavoid standing out can help you to avoid trouble, and certainly whiletravelling. Parkour and buildering can be perfect for getting away quickly.Likewise, hacking and cyber security knowledge can help you to keep better careof your own data, to avoid scams and data theft.

Alternatively, throwloose change at the eyes and use the opportunity to escape. Rather than engagingin combat directly, you can alter the playing field and rob them of informationto give yourself a strategic upper hand.

Moreover, it mightmean learning about the way that your clothes will affect the way othersperceive you and how you can use this to gain trust and influence. Real ninjasdressed as beggars when they wanted others to underestimate them, and theydressed like farmers when they wanted to blend in. The urban ninja must then adapttheir attire to help serve their goals.

Ultimately, if youhave an advantage in terms of information (you have more information on youropponent and situation than they have on you or the situation) and you havegreater mobility and versatility (often a product of the terrain or context),then you will be in a position to emerge victorious. This is what ninjas andurban ninjas are all about.

This is of coursewhere developing skills such as negotiation (see this post), or communicationcan come into play. Even skills like meditation, lifted straight from the Ninjahandbook, can be employed to great effect here.

The problem is, at the bottom of each email he says he "expects a bounty to be paid". Is this black mail? Is this his way of saying you'd better pay me or I'm going to wreak havoc? Or is this a typical and legitimate method for people to make a living without any nefarious intentions?

EDIT: For more clarification: He gave me two examples of vulnerabilities with screenshots and clear instructions on how to fix those vulnerabilities. One was to change the "?all" part of my SPF record to "-all" to block all other domains from sending emails for my domain. In the other email he explained how my site was able to be shown inside an iframe (enabling a technique called "clickjacking") and he also included an example of the code and instructions on how to prevent it.

3a8082e126