Black Hat or White Hat Agent Provocateurs?

An agent provocateur is a person assigned to provoke the awakening of a new order within a group. This assignment can be either covert or overt and predominately represents the interests of others, outside the group.

Agent provocateurs can be found in the secret intelligence services, business directorate, politics and the worlds media.
Agent provocateurs can be classified in two camps.

1. Black hat
Black hat agent provocateurs seek to undermine and crush the free will of the target. Black hat agent provocateurs will step outside ethical boundaries to get the job done. Black hat agent provocateurs will take personal risks to get the job done.

2. White hat
White hat agent provocateurs seek to uplift and redirect the free will of the target. White hat agent provocateurs will only ever work within ethical boundaries to get the job done. White hat agent provocateurs will take personal risks to get the job done.

Agent provocateurs are experts in the art of subversion.
Agent provocateurs are sponsored by government or business, usually on temporary assignment - such is the nature of the job. Their work is rarely accountable to anyone else but them.

'Agent Provocateurs' discuss the term 'Agent Provocateur' on the WIKI!

Brand Killer Robots reveal::

In a post entitled "Intelligence Players clash on the Wiki over the definition of the term 'Agent Provocateur'" on the 22nd September 2007, we reported that there is currently no concensus reached over the definition. Since that time there have been further edits of the Wiki content which have served (in our view), to narrow the definition still further in favour of criminalising those who practice such techniques. For that reason we have written further to Wiki authors to discuss this term, with a view to re-focussing and broadening the definition. We will keep you informed as to how we get on. This is the letter we wrote to Wiki authors.

Agent Provocateur
We believe that the current definition of Agent Provocateur on the Wiki offers too narrow a definition and prefers to present 'Agent Provocateur' as a subversive type, intent only on disruption and destruction. We again offer our own definition of Agent Provocateur below. Please consider accepting this as the base definition.

An agent provocateur is a person assigned to provoke the awakening of a new order within a group. This assignment can be either covert or overt and represents predominately the interests of others, outside the group. Agent provocateurs can be found in the intelligence services, business management, politics and the media. Agent provocteurs can be classified in two camps.

1. Black hat Black hat agent provocateurs seek to undermine the free will of the target. Black hat agent provocateurs will step outside ethical boundaries to get the job done. Black hat agent provocateurs will take personal risks to get the job done.

2. White hat White hat agent provacateurs seek to uplift the free will of the target. White hat agent provocateurs will only ever work within ethical boundaries to get the job done. White hat agent provocateurs will take personal risks to get the job done.

Agent provocateurs are experts in the art of subversion. Agent provocateurs are sponsored by government or business, usually on temporary assignment - such is the nature of the job. Their work is rarely accountable to anyone else but them.

There is currently no concensus reached over the definition.

White Hat Hackers - New World Saviours?

Brand Killer Robots reveals::

White Hat hacking is the art of designing computer tools, techniques, strategies, concepts, exploits and counter-methods to attack and defend against a bad target on the Internet. It is the art of mounting covert operations, spying and corrupting the evil black hat movement. The art of using the creative mind to see beyond the obvious, to envision possibilities way beyond that of the average computer user.

Anyone can become a White Hat. Anyone! Not anyone can be the best athlete or a brain surgeon, but anyone can become a White Hat. It means in reality that anyone can become an artist, because that is what white hat hackers are. They are skilled craftsmen that through their hands and minds create powerful online expressions that help save peoples lives. In fact I would go to say that they will become the Galileo's, the Einstein’s, the Da Vinci's of their day, only they will go one step further than the fore mentioned.

They are the artists who have the most remarkable of all missions. To rid the world of evil and bring freedom to all through their work. What artist of yesterday, today or tomorrow will truly be able to say they had such power to move hearts and minds of whole nations away from evil and tyranny towards fair and reasonable behaviour? The "white hat" hacker is truly going to have an impact on what we know today as art. White Hats are going to give new meaning to art that will not be accepted by the establishment, yet will not be able to be denied by it either.

The value of such art will be there for all to see and those who produce it will know that their lives were spent in worthy and noble causes. They will know that their lives really meant something and that the evidence of their endeavours is there for all to see.

Their inventions will remain long after they have left this planet.

The Competitor Intelligence Counter Threat

Brand Killer Robots reveal::

Hiring hackers to take out a threat from other hackers is nothing new, but what is new is the motivation of the particular hackers in question. From a recent investigation we understand that there are a new breed of computer scientist on the block who deplore the acts of the many criminals, conmen and voyeurs that characterise themselves as international computer hackers. In fact, they despise them so much that they are actively forming companies to defend global corporations from attacks against their infrastructure and their brand.

We recall one particular story where a global consumer brand suffered a multiple attack by hackers hell bent on disrupting the launch of a new pharmaceutical product, on behalf of a foreign competitor (who shall remain nameless).Using a highly targeted series of sophisticated attacks, hackers seized harddisks, laptop computers and encoded transmissions.

Ordinarily, those who have ownership of the systems containing the data are usually the ones empowered by that information.

Thankfully, none of the forementioned was of any use to the competitor company, given the devices had been designed by white hats to be completely useless in the hands of anyone but their true owners. Worse still for the foreign competitor was that they were left with the realisation that the target could defend itself, even when certain confidential assets fell into the hands of others.

This for them, was a new and unwelcome phenomenon and one that they would have to contend with in the future.

Needless to say, it saved the pharmaceutical company from losing many millions of dollars and their R&D data being traded on the black market.

The Competitor Intelligence Counter Threat

Dotcom experience turns Creative Innovators into Security Experts

Brand Killer Robots reveal::
Just how many security experts used to be dotcomers, programmers, designers, producers or editors of creative material? Well the answer appears to be that a relatively high proportion came from these backgrounds. On closer inspection the results suggest that many of those with backgrounds in the creative industries became at one time or another disallusioned by their work and many found themselves becoming profoundly more interested in applying their creative and technical talents within the field of information security. Many of today's information security entrepeneurs were in fact executives of dotcom or computer companies in the 1990's.

One could draw the conclusion that these are just the types of people who are prone to chasing the next market trend or wave of hysteria, but analysis suggests that there is more to their motivation, than simply entrepreneurial spirit.

One hypothesis suggests that when you take the beautiful, creative, human spirit and you abuse it in ways that it does not understand, you firstly corrupt it beyond all recognition and secondly turn its will toward concentrating its energies in the ways of trying to defend against attacks from the dark side. Those who are intrinsically good will eventually become what is known as "white hat" security experts or ethical hackers and will turn their energies to fighting fear and injustice within the security arena. Those who were always motivated by some kind of financial gain or some other personal ambition will become "black hats" and become involved in some kind of criminal activity.

It could be said that the cognitive processes that lead to the invention of ideas are the very same processes that can be utilised to manage risk. The only difference being - how the creative mind is conditioned at any point in time.