The Future Ain't What It Used To Be

In the mid-to-late twentieth century, visionary authors such as William Gibson and Bruce Sterling created dystopian worlds in books in which the most cutting-edge ideas of the time were portrayed as low-end, commonplace technologies. Within these sci-fi universes, individuals could physically meld with technology in swap-meet like environments. Prophetic ideas, such as the coming information age wielding global-economic power, could be found. Warfare would be fought, not on a battlefield, but on electronic and cerebral landscapes. While many of these topics have have yet to come to pass (we are currently decades away from connecting to the Internet via neural-porting), other ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality.

Welcome to the 21st century, where as the late, great Yogi Berra once said, “The future ain't what it used to be.” 25 years in, a constant stream of real and false information determines everything from an individual's personal habits, to sales trends, to global politics and beyond. Information, especially false information, is now the commodity that drives the global economy. One could even say that where information is king, misinformation is now the king-maker.

But this is only the beginning. To more fully see the future, we must look back at the past.

Back in the halcyon days before the Internet, there were underground rudimentary computing and/or electronic-oriented societies. From these tech savvy clubs, a sub-genre culture known as “Phreaks” arrived on the scene sometime in the late 1960's, and began developing homemade electronic devices they dubbed “boxes” to send computer-responsive tones. Over the course of a few years, various box “colors” evolved, each with specific functions, such as signaling a phone company system to perform a specific task like routing a call, or tones that would tell the system that a coin had been dropped into the payphone. The end result of these devices: free phone calls. For someone that was nomadic, either by force or design, this was a godsend. All that was needed was access to a Radio Shack, a good ear, and a list of payphones.

Flash-forward through the decades. The Phreaking community thrived, despite the phone company and law enforcement groups attempting to squelch their activities. At the same time, the first rays of the dawn of the personal computer were appearing on the horizon. Many Phreakers, such as Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, saw the future and embraced it wholeheartedly. In doing so, boxes evolved. Homemade devices gave way to cassette players, containing the recordings of the tones and signals. A Walkman or tape recorder was a lot easier to explain in the event of an unexpected encounter with a cop. And generating the tones? A cleverly written program on a floppy disk, exchanged at a computer club meeting, took care of that.

But what if you lived in a small town, in the middle of nowhere? With no like-minded weirdos to share ideas and designs with? Enter the modem, and the BBS.

In the earliest days of the Internet, BBS systems offered an alternative to insanely expensive online services such as CompuServe and AOL. Host systems were set up around the globe, providing any user with a computer and modem a way to communicate with one another virtually and almost instantly, depending on how many phone lines the hosting system had at their disposal.

So where do boxes fit into this? In the Sooper Sekrit section, of course!

The overwhelming majority of BBS systems were mostly harmless and bland, nothing more than text files on how to improve your garden fertilizer, listings of D&D groups, a Monty Python transcript, listings of other BBSs, and files such as BBS interfaces, dialers, and other shareware/freeware, ad infinitum. However, if were an individual who tended to be... different, an explorer of the further regions of experience? For every 100 or so garden-variety BBSs, there could be one out there on which the content was... darker. And the dial-up numbers for this “hidden” BBSs didn't appear on any lists.

But setting that aside for a moment, imagine looking through a BBS.txt list, and seeing a system that you'd like to call up, but it's hundreds of miles away. This leaves you with two choices: be saddled with a monstrous phone bill, or find some way to game the system.

Most BBS users, when calling long distance, would do so during off-peak hours (usually between 9:00pm-5:00AM), in order to keep their bills from changing from three digits to four. Some though, for their own reasons, whether it be poverty or illegal activity, did not want to pay at all. Enter the new era of boxes: programs that not only generate tones & signals, but have brought along their cousin-programs, such as “war dialers.” A common scenario was that a person could, from their computer, use the appropriate boxes to hop from one phone trunk to another until the desired destination was reached. Or, if you lived near a military base, and could snag a military satellite phone code, you could then program a dialer to enter said codes, along with appropriate pauses and tones, and you were off to the “free long distance” races for at least a week. And the aforementioned war dialers? They could get you to the front door of “hidden” BBS and computer systems; systems that were definitely not like AOL, Prodigy, or CompuServe in any way. These hidden systems could be anything from the early precursors of what's more commonly called the “Dark Web” these days, to actual government or corporate computer systems; regardless, systems not meant for the general public.

The free, albeit illegal in most cases, access that “boxes” provided was the engine that drove the electronic underground. However, with the arrival of free public Internet access via libraries, etc., and inexpensive cellular telephone services that all but eliminated long distance tolls, boxes started to become obsolete and outdated.

But outdated does not mean dead. There will be more mutations and evolutions. What kind of changes are ahead, just peeking over the horizon like the rays of a new day?

Part Two (The Future's So Dark I gotta Wear a Lamp):

So here we are: a new century, a new millennium. It's a brave new world. Everything is wired up, connected, and “smart.” You can now access and control virtually every function of your household with a few taps on your phone. Want to have the temperature raised or lowered, lights turned on, your TV/monitor/DVR cued up to your shows, and the door unlocked - all within ten seconds of your arrival home? Want to have your refrigerator make a shopping list, then send it off to a store to be picked up or delivered? Did you forget to turn on your washer/dryer? Want to access your finances from your bathtub? Send a love letter from the toilet? How about turning on your car, having it adjust itself to your preferences, and even set an appointment when the oil needs to be changed, tires need rotation or brakes replaced. Right now, all of these marvelous luxuries of modern life do exist, and so much more. All of this is the never-ending promise of luxury and convenience. For a price you too can live in that shining world on the hill. But what's available for the hoards of unwashed barbarians, just outside the gates? What promises does tomorrow hold if you can't afford the great city of Utopia?

Let's start at the bottom.

Go to any swap meet, pawn shop, junk shop, or thrift store and you will see walls and shelves of yesterday's technology, for sale at sub-sub-basement prices. For a few hundred dollars or less, a quick reformatting and installation of a flavor of Linux, some older networking or other needed equipment for connectivity, a few books on system usage/programming and/or some evening classes through a local community college, and you'll find you're now in the 21st century, with a system more powerful and with more potential than anything offered by Microsoft. There will come a day, when grandparents will set up their own web pages, social network, or BBS for friends and family and associates to connect to, share news, information, pictures & videos -the usual, but without the aggravating static of a thousand angry voices seeking solace to their rage, and a legion of marketeers flogging advertisements packaged as entertainment. As security breeches, malware, and software patches/updates become a daily routine, along with “social networks” putting more and more restrictions on their services along with quietly gathering up personal data to sell, this will become more and more commonplace. Sure, there will be those that will stick with Windows, because of games, work-related programs, social connections, and conveniences such as food delivery. However, all that data going back and forth is going to pass through some of the most insecurely programmed devices, using one of the most insecure OS software systems.

Of the more interesting advances made in the past several years, the most intriguing would have to be the Raspberry Pi: an inexpensive motherboard about the size of an ATM card. The goal of offering such a relatively powerful piece of technology, along with a wide spectrum of accessories, is to encourage and promote basic computer skills, such as assembly and programming -especially in developing countries (which is why the price of these devices is so near rock-bottom). It's a noble idea that will lead to some great evolutionary steps, and foreseeably where the evolution of boxes will take place.

In the beginning, boxes were just for analog phone systems, which have mostly evolved from said antiquated equipment into digital, so the functions of the original boxes are all but obsolete. If new boxes evolve, so too they will have new functions. Let's take a look at a couple of examples, starting with an average home in Suburbia:

For whatever reason or reasons, a person wants access to a home's network system, but cannot access it remotely. So, instead, they would simply show up outside of the house with a Raspberry Pi box. They would power it up and let it go to work, attempting to access the target's personal network through the modem, router, and any discoverable devices it can see, until all paths are mapped out and access is possible. Unlike over-the-internet attacks, IP blocking and connection tracing is useless. The Pi can use all tools at its disposal, until it gets what it wants. If the target's network is more physically accessible, via an Ethernet, HDMI, or USB port, one could plug the Pi in directly, effectively bypassing many security measures. Either way, the end result is the same: access to the local area network, and any devices connected. It's only a matter of a few extra steps, depending on the system and any lack of basic security, and all the household computers (PCs, laptops, phones) and their contents would be open and available. That means all your financial information, your online accounts, pictures, etc. are accessible.

What about businesses?

All of the above can be applied to businesses, too. Someone could place a box in a basement or outside a server room, or a drone could even drop a box on the roof, and BOOM!, an instant denial of service attack.

Expect to see eternally vulnerable mega-business such as Walmart, Target, and even Home Depot sitting at the top of the exploitation slagheap. Plugging boxes into an unguarded, forgotten-but-active Ethernet port will become a common tactic. This will be the new battleground for “cyber-warfare.” And just like in the previous centuries of battles, there will be “forts.”

All across the United States, it's easy to find empty buildings where businesses have failed, factories have closed, and organizations have shut down. Some buildings will see new life, as new ventures move in. However, more commonly, the locations will remain vacant for years, if they find physical occupancy at all. They will, though, find usage as a virtual occupancy.

In these derelict places of commerce, manufacturing, and storage, computer systems, networks, and servers were installed. But as time went on and some businesses vaporized, these electronic systems were either switched off, or forgotten about. In most cases, however, the networks were left in place as an extra buy/lease incentive. Frequently, the only occupants would be dust-collecting ghosts. An urban explorer or two could easily find such places, supply power if needed, connect up a box to a derelict network, activate a VPN, send the IP out, and an off-site system worthy of being a virtual meeting place or data clearinghouse that's practically invisible is ready to go.

Right now, as you read these words, a more commonplace situation is occurring. Businesses that are clearing out will leave items behind, such as desks, chairs, or outdated electronics that have been deemed not worth salvaging. One only would need to turn them on.

There are legions of bots, probing every IP they can, over and over, until the bot is deleted or deactivated. But when a bot finds one of these abandoned ports, it opens up its tools, and goes to work, installing copies of itself, opening up additional ports, disabling any traces of weak security, and more. From there the bot owner will take over, and will adjust, reformat, and install whatever is needed: an IRC, a web site, a financial encryption router... anything is possible, and it's happening right now.

But this type of thing isn't limited to the modern ruins of civilization. Televisions, washers & dryers, refrigerators -hell, even lamps are all “smart,” running their own Linux-based systems, in order to make your Utopian convenience-dreams of a modern tomorrow come true. The problem is, all of these systems have been implemented without a single thought to even the most rudimentary security. Your “smart” world is imminently hackable.

Don't be surprised when news stories begin happening in which the driver of a smart car (perhaps a well known political or underworld figure?) mysteriously accelerated and intentionally drove off a cliff on a deserted road in a part of the country they had never been to before, or a grandmother is arrested for hosting a dark-web commerce site on her smart TV, or your neighbor's savings account mysteriously disappears and the bank has no trace of the funds...