The Twelve Keys of the Hacker’s Craft

I often post useful quotes to the timeline of my social media profiles. A visitor to my profile would find these quotes appearing often, in some cases repeatedly. Given that the internet has a memory like an elephant, I leave these posts on auto-rotation in hopes to reach a wider audience. One of these post, which is very dear to my heart is “The Five Remembrances of Hacking”. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to research this one and discover for yourself why this one is so special.

Early in life it was instilled in me to strive to be a contributor as opposed to just someone who takes. This applies to life overall but especially in relation to my vocation/profession/career etc. A great part of the motivation to become an information security pro was rooted in the desire to teach what I learn to the Lost Tribe still left wandering in the wilderness of America. By-products of “the hoods and the barrios“, but more specifically, the survivors of the Drug War. (AKA– The Crack Epidemic).

But in my larger strategy, one penetration tester is the same as a ten thousand member Red Team. So this strategy is the complete hacker’s craft. Within this craft is found 12 keys that can be used to sharpen the hacker’s mindset to a fine edge, before then applying it’s skills and all the while remembering to always think like an attacker. These keys have been adapted from the final lesson of Miyamoto Musashi’s, “A Book Of Five Rings“.

Photo by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash

The Twelve Keys Of The Hacker’s Craft

Thus spake the Master Swordsman Musashi: “I believe this ‘crossing at a ford’…

occurs often in a man’s life

Opportunities to hack happen every day. However, it is the nature of a hacker that we all too often only see things we go looking for. More so, we often only look for those things in environments that are familiar to us. We never, “hack outside the box” so to speak. Opportunity knocks all the time, we’re usually just too busy complaining and entertaining the monkey in our mind that’s jumping around crying about how messed up our situation, our workplace, or the Info Sec field is, how it isn’t recognizing our certifications and degrees, and how nobody will help us get our foot in the door.

Chance favors the hacker’s mind who is prepared. Instead of standing in one spot complaining how “another Info Sec role has passed us by” or how “dudes like us from the hood never catch a break“, we need to prepare and study to show ourselves approved for the next time an opportunity knocks on our door. And furthermore, should we get tired of being the sitting around type waiting for opportunity to make it’s way to our crib, we need to get up, get out, get something and go stalk it.

It means setting sail even though your friends stay in harbor

We’re always going to have homies and even family members who just don’t get it. They’d rather us just come hang out and kick it. And it gets worse when we compound the number of lazy minded and cynical naysayers we have to carry. We’re surrounded by toxic relationships that we either chose, or others like our immediate family and culture that chose us at birth. Even those who care about us the most are guilty of telling us how we need to “Put the books down and step away from the computer” because it’s wasting our time and “not gone lead us nowhere but to the Poor House“. When in reality, if this is what we’re dealing with on the day to day basis then we’re already in a “Poor House“!

knowing the route

In hacking just as in any undertaking, (1) we must first gather intelligence and after we do our reconnaissance (2) we formulate a plan…and then (3) we rinse and repeat to formulate a “plan B.” We must plan our entrance and escape routes leaving enough leeway to cover our tracks when need be.

knowing the soundness of your ship

A craftsman is only as good as his tool, a hacker only as good as his weapons. Before undertaking any project or engagement we need to keep it real with ourselves. Take account of the necessities for the journey and balance them against what we’re already working with. Metaphorically, we have to know how sound our ship is. And it goes without saying that “checking the soundness of our ships” includes checking the “soundness” of our crew. Our partners, network, and team we roll with. History is filled with stories of ships that have been sank by crews both shabby and disloyal.

and the favor of the day

This brings the hacker to the “Three Knows“- know ourselves, know our enemies, and know our environment. Having determined to take this Info Sec journey we’ve already taken stock of our stash spot, side-stepped the suckers and haters, and took a second look at our ship and our homies. But we also need to see which way the wind is blowing to make sure it’s blowing in our favor.

Whatever idea or scheme we have in mind we need to do the math on our surroundings to see if it’s all good in the hood. (As they say). Are we gonna rub some powerful people the wrong way? Is the market ready for what we’re bringing to the table? Is there even a market? Since haters come in all shapes, forms, and fashions will our new way of looking at the game ruffle the wrong feathers?

When all the conditions are met,

Now we need to step back and take one final assessment of what we’ve gathered thus far on this journey. We need to give ourselves a “reality check“. What some soldiers on the frontline refer to as a final “weapons check“.

Photo by Roméo A. on Unsplash

and there is perhaps a favorable wind, or a tailwind

As Bishop said in the movie Juice, “you gotta get the ground beneathe your feet, partna’. You gotta get the wind behind your back and be ready to go out in a blaze if you have to“. Otherwise it’s like the man said- we might as well be dead our damn selves!

then set sail.

Of course change is uncomfortable and the unknown is scary. And there’s always going to be a crapload of haters standing around waiting for us to slip and bust our our ass so they can laugh at us when we fall flat on our face. And that, my friend, is precisely why…we “will not” fall flat our our face. But we can’t win a marathon if we don’t run. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory of lesser men– Miyamoto Musashi.

If the wind changes

We hear quite often that if we fail to plan, we plan to fail. But as a great general has been quoted as saying, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy“. Or as I like to put it, “Mike Tyson had a plan until he got hit in the mouth” (of course that’s the edited version). The point to be taken here is that when things don’t go exactly how we planned it we must know how to adjust, adapt, and adopt new ways of doing things if need be.

within a few miles of your destination

And plan we must…all the way to the end. Even the best laid plans have failed for no other reason than they had no end game. We have to close. We have to plan every detail to the end, taking stock of anything that could come creeping up out of the shadows to stop us from crossing the finish line.

you must row across the remaining distance

Put simply…don’t give up. We’ve already committed all of our time, effort, and resources to the mission. No retreat, no surrender.

without sail.

If after all is said and done, we’ve lost all support from our family and our homies have turned their backs on us, refusing to take part in our “dumb journey”….we must do it one deep. We must stand alone!

Hack on, Ladz and Gentz.

(Mad props and shouts out to Dr. HaHa Lung, author of Mind Penetration, from which I was able to manifest this translation).