The Wolverine Awakens?

Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it. 

Wolverine has been slumbering? At points, definitely, but...not really! This is more a change of tactics, and a step back to look at the definition, and redefine what it is we are trying to do here. What are we looking for, and how can we change out methods to expose it? What are our goals?

The simple answer is unchanged, however the methods are...

We protect the users, and most importantly - our children! But now we are focused more on the education of parents and children!

Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering. 

We realised we were fighting a losing battle. In fact we were in fact helping the bad guys (and we don't just mean spies and hackers) by advertising the methods we were using to protect people and children. By revealing these methods they promptly worked around them. Obfuscation is rampant...and getting more clever. Quite simply, it will be impossible to trace/detect/validate ANYTHING in the future...once combined with the "cloud", the VM, and CDN.

When you go after honey with a balloon, the great thing is to not let the bees know you’re coming. 

We have been silently gathering and monitoring, ingesting logs, traces, code, and, in particular old code. We look at the changes that were made before, and dig deeper into what else those coders have been doing. We have been working around the workarounds and obfuscation they throw in our path, and digging up the past. We have been monitoring what has been getting past Wolverine/Adamantiums defences - but (mostly) not reacting, highlighting or stopping it.

Wolverines web, the Honeypots, Data, Code Scans, Logs, WireShark, GPU (again and again), opening up VMs to see what happens, installing mods/shaders/packs, and pretending to be stupid (quiet but noisy). 

We have been looking at the code changes they don't want to be seen, the ones they tried to hide through forks, branches, and misleading comments...they failed! We've been also looking at why some of the key developers were also previously writing, or involved with, things like keyloggers, logging, chat monitoring mechanisms, and audio monitors.

We have been trying to work out how some people knew to mitigate (or hide the use of) critical vulnerabilities, such as log4j - several months BEFORE they were announced. We've been monitoring how some didn't mitigate at all, but instead use hard to track, compiled real time dependencies with the same flaws to mask the fact they were vulnerable, BEFORE it was even public! 

We have been looking at the prolific (and deliberate) use of mods, servers, and code using old vulnerable Minecraft versions, and being openly distributed and promoted...where there ARE up to date versions of the same without the vulnerabilities.

We'd like to think when Wolverine awakened briefly, and its extremely noisy outrage to that particular facet caused a difference. Most definitely something caused a noted improvement. However we suspect it has just been hidden better, or something else maybe scared the life out of them. 

The may also have realised their exposed privacy statements and get out of jail cards were not adequate. Don't worry we have copies of the old ones...and they will not be forgotten!

The use of "building at runtime", and overriding classpaths and dependencies is seriously worrying, and some of it is so difficult to trace.

Likely all this is coincidence of course!

__________________

This article is a work of fiction, and the fact it is based on real and absolutely valid data, with real examples, and proof...is entirely coincidental.

13 (aka The 13th Mind) Honorary Member Of The Bakers Dozen Minus 1 Gang (aka The Aegis Enclave)

Better known is some universes as: Project Wolverine

History

Wolverine, Adamantium, First Recon & Firewall X already work and have been proven - for many years! WolvMini is being adjusted as a standalone, no database solution requiring no elevation (though obviously with less impact/success without) but will be an initial one stop checker to monitor your device.

Firewall X can work without a database, but it's going to be very painful, and a hit in performance. But we are pursuing a more subtle, if less effective approach, which does not require god mode...

We whitehat hacked the Sandbox Alpha and highlighted some of their serious security flaws, and showed them how we could have used it to cause serious damage/bring them down. We showed them how we could deconstruct any map/logic/model. They thanks us for highlighting this.

We also ran some case studies and brought down some hackers websites, but this solves nothing...they can spin up another. 

Already some of our previous detection solutions are being bypassed (not by hackers, but by corporates). Their methods are being tied together and included in critical functionality (nothing really new there, but now when we stop something, it breaks something else in the OS).

We can't beat the corporates. We can only hope to educate our children, and make the world a little safer - from the corporates/spies/hackers/bad guys (we'd put them all in the same boat heading towards the sun).

We will be (we have been) looking at Minecraft mods/packs, but we will be touching on what other "games" are doing, and their manipulation of cryptocurrencies, and how they farm their community and its talent, or just blatantly steal others work. We look at what the corporates are up to as well. Looking into the links with web3 and what it really means (be afraid), crypto, tracking and spyware (all legal from someone's standpoint, or if they have enough cash).

But to start, we will re-enforce how to install an application/game - a bit more securely! Then we will be educating and showing how to install mods and tools, a little more securely. 

We will explain what mods actually do, what Mixins are, and what code injection actually means, and the relationship with your GPU. But not until we are ready. 

WYGINWYS, WYSINWYG. There is some absolute genius out there. Unfortunately using their knowledge the wrong way, not even realising the Wolverine is not the only one watching them, and that they are not quite as clever as they thought, or as safe!

Then we will do a deep dive (if only they knew) on what's really going on, taking some mods and frameworks apart, literally, and going through all those layers of obfuscation, the dependencies, and the code, and actually trace it right back to machine code and the GPU and the Sound Card. The use of overlays and hiding the truth.

We will then look at that definition above! Who are the "hackers", who are the "spies"? Who are the "bad guys"? Who decides which is which? What is right and what is wrong? And what idiots actually opened up all these methods which make it all so easy in some cases...

But who are we to make the decision to fire them all into the sun? Should YOU not have a say?

Wouldn't it be just incredible, if YOU were given the data, broken down, on what's actually going on with YOUR machine, and YOUR data? What's being hidden, what's being changed, and what's being farmed?

Information on where, and who it's being sent to, and all those ID's and hashes that identify you...forget cookies, they went out of fashion in the 80's.

If you were given the option to block them as well? Wolverine, Adamantium and DNS Server blocked around 75% of all traffic identified as spyware...and nothing broke until we started messing with the corporates spyware and tracking.

What a stupid idea, to educate and give the user some control? Yet, that is what Wolverine, FirewallX and Adamantium do, and have been doing for many years! But it's a battle lost already.

Unfortunately the CDN is designed exactly to stop this sort of analysis. The GPU added in means you can't even trust what you see on the screen. Web pages and scripts mean you can't trust what you're looking at is what was intended. Overlays and masking means you don't even know what you're clicking on. You no longer know where your data is going...and defeats the entire purpose of the internet and free speech.

The most worrying threats along with the CDN is the Graphics Card? Such nonsense, how can a graphics card be a threat, spy on you, profile you, report on you, manipulate what you see? Utter nonsense. Fact is you don't even need a computer, they are pretty much super computers in their own right. 

If ever we needed a genius like George Orwell, the time is now! Or maybe it's time for V!

We hate hackers, but...we hate spies more! And we hate those who do either, or both, "within the law" even more!

We immediately highlight any issues which are serious, regardless how much we dislike the company, as we did with [removed], allowing them to close their vulnerabilities before we displayed them. But we still  never explained the methods to anyone but that company.

All of the above is of course nonsense conspiracy theory, and part of one of our fictional works. Any relationships to actual fact, living or dead, and the fact our evidence, logs, and output proves it all, I am sure is purely coincidental paranoid delusion...

Be safe, and educate yourself, so you can educate our children. Please...