Making Security a Common Sense

Recently I was talking to a friend, Rohit, who is into hacking and all, a geek in short. Rohit told me that my toaster can be hacked. I was amused to hear this but still asked him how can one hack my toaster? I mean I have heard people saying that their computer is hacked, their network is hacked, their email is hacked and the latest of all the Apple iPhone is hacked. But toaster, I never really heard that, it’s an electric equipment isn’t it? I am a naive in this field of hacking and made complete fool of myself when I asked him, does this mean that my tubelight, my bulb and water purifier can also be hacked?? He answered my question very patiently, he told me that there is a microprocessor in your toaster and that can be hacked, so if you like your toasts to really crispy you can change the setting. Though he didn’t comment on bulb and tubelight but he surely wanted to have a go at my water purifier, but I doubt that I will trust him with that and I seriously doubt that his hack will make my water more pure.

Hacking is not just a negative thing though it’s more notoriously known for the act of hacking into somebody’s bank account, hacking into some secured network or as being made famous by Matrix’s Neo or Die Hard 4.0 Apple Mac guy trying to hack into all the systems of the US government. Hacking as I understand is just trying to do things your way and finding ways to do that. So if I am not happy with toast level I will hack it and make my toast crispier. If I am not happy with my Apple iPhone not working with my network I will hack it to make it work with my network. While working with softwares we write hacks all the time, if something is not working the way you want you write a hack to make it work. Hacking is also a good way to find out the vulnerabilities in anything, be it a product or a network. Rohit said that people have a very wrong notion about the term Hacking and when he told people that he is going to organize ClubHack, an international convention for hackers, the first question he was asked that whether this is legal. People even tell him to be careful and not run into trouble with the legal authorities.

While writing this post I got another annoying call from the Reliance about setting my ringtone to some Marathi song. The freaky part is that I had just stored a note in my phone about some Marathi song that my friend asked me to search on internet. I would have let it go witohut thinking twice about it bust since I am writing about hacking and Clubhack I and getting suspicious. Is it possible that Reliance can access data on my phone. Reliance is one company that gives out it’s own mobile phone instrument with the mobile services as well. I have a doubt that they could have made some setting in the phone that will enable them to have access to all the data stored on my Reliance phone. I think, Rohit and other Hacker friends of his should be able to answer this question.

I have a very interesting challenge for the hackers coming to attend the clubhack. Let me explain the challenge: I was told by Rohit that it’s very easy to hack into any phone/Computer/system if the bluetooth is on, hmmm. The challenge is about Bluetooth hacking only. Yesterday I was at a mall and saw a man walking around wtih a bluetooth enabled ear plug for his phone. Since he is having a bluetooth device that is giving you access to his ear and once you are inside the system, you should be able to hack any part. Am I right? I think, I am. So Rohit and all the hackers out there can you hack this man??

After reading this post all of you must be thinking what a naive like me doing organizing Clubhack. Let me clarify this Rohit is the main guy behind the ClubHack idea I am just helping him in organising the event. Both of us are part of the Pune Barcamp organizer gang, me being the latest entry after the Blogcamp Pune.

[Cross posted on iThink... ]

Tarun Chandel