Global Invasion

I saw a news story recently (on my local news channel) that struck a bell with me. It is about an international hacking group that calls themselves 764.

What this story evokes in me is a broader vision of a two pronged attack. The first prong is to physically harass their target to make them more anxious in appearance and volatile in behavior. The second prong is to hack the target’s devices and use them to do nasty and illegal things. The goal is to make the two prongs line up so that it appears as though the target is responsible for the online actions.

Another aspect of this broader vision is from the book “Daemon” by Daniel Suarez. In that book an AI engine from a video game takes over the world. I don’t think 764 is AI based, but the structure of how it might operate would be similar to how things were laid out in that book.

There are levels of achievement just like a video game. Each level educates the initiates and challenges their loyalty. So, the first level would be setting up a teenager as being an online radical, while later levels would have those people exploit the elderly, use one person to steal from others, or even set someone up as a murderer.

Way back in 1987, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech to the 42nd session of the United Nations General Assembly. In that speech he speculated about how all the people on earth would quickly look past their differences and come together as one if we were suddenly attacked by space aliens.

Perhaps this will do instead. And maybe, that is the intention of the organization behind it.