# NCA: Children hacking with Kali Linux, Tor, and Discord?



## sam_86314 (Feb 17, 2020)

My Linux System Administration instructor shared this with us, and I found it amusing.






						Call us immediately if your child uses Kali Linux, squawks West Mids Police
					

Maybe stick to walking the beat instead of infosec advice, eh?




					www.theregister.co.uk
				






> The UK's National Crime Agency has publicly distanced itself from a poster urging parents to call police if their child has installed Kali Linux, Tor or – brace yourself – Discord.
> 
> Issued by the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit (WMROCU) via local area councils, the poster in question lists a slack handful of common infosec tools – as well as some that clearly have nothing to do with computer security.
> 
> ...









Oh no! I have VirtualBox, Discord and Tor on my computer! I guess I better fly to the UK and turn myself in to the police so they can tell me what a filthy hacker I am!

Also I have no idea what "WiFi Pineapple" even is. My guess is that it's a packet sniffer like Wireshark.


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## Octopuss (Feb 18, 2020)

What the fuck is West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit ?
This is SO dumb it's not even funny.


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## Solaris17 (Feb 18, 2020)

I should show them of a screen shot of my installed software, they will probably fly someone out.


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## mbeeston (Feb 18, 2020)

looked up wifi pinapple.. and i don't know if i should post it here XD
fun things the police let you know about...


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 19, 2020)

Solaris17 said:


> I should show them of a screen shot of my installed software, they will probably fly someone out.


That makes two of us, and we can not be alone! ROFLMBO!


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## robot zombie (Feb 19, 2020)

Hahaha, I saw this too.

Honestly, the whole 'is your kid a hacker?' thing never made a lot of sense to me. Just be glad they're learning a really useful skill, and they're interested in technical things that have a learning curve. That bodes well for them. There will be jobs in the things they'll move onto if they're actually getting into things like Kali Linux and Metasploit as kids. Good, legitimate, high-demand jobs. Having an interest in internet security isn't a bad thing. Let them learn! That's how you do it... test the waters and figure out how everything works. By the time they're old enough for formal education they'll be naturals with some heart in it. How is that bad? Because you're too scared to learn about how computers work and rather than take an interest in what they're doing, want to push your fears onto them and force them down the path of hiding everything they do away from you because they don't trust you to understand?

It's sad. It's 2020 and somehow we still have technophobes stirring up crap for kids. Geez, man. I thought that was on its way out when I was growing up. When I was a kid, if you could do anything out of the ordinary on a computer, you were a genius. I remember when my parents saw me messing around in Photoshop and thought I was the next Steve Jobs lol. Forget when I picked up 3dsmax 

I think I'd be more concerned about my kid being on youtube or tiktok at this point. Kinda joking, kinda not.


Also... discord is for hackers... that one still puzzles me. How did they work that one out?


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## joemama (Feb 19, 2020)

Looks like I'm somewhat of a hacker myself lmao


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## AsRock (Feb 19, 2020)

Octopuss said:


> What the fuck is West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit ?
> This is SO dumb it's not even funny.



A small part of the UK,





They are just trying to make parent(s) aware.


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## DrCR (Feb 19, 2020)

Their communication is explicitly asking more of parents than awareness.

"If you see any of these on their computer... let us know...."



AsRock said:


> They are just trying to make parent aware.


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## AsRock (Feb 19, 2020)

DrCR said:


> Their communication is explicitly asking more of parents than awareness.
> 
> "If you see any of these on their computer... let us know...."



True, but not as if they could not find out anyways.


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## robot zombie (Feb 19, 2020)

DrCR said:


> Their communication is explicitly asking more of parents than awareness.
> 
> "If you see any of these on their computer... let us know...."


The real question is, would parents narc on their kids to the government? If the implication is that these things are related to criminal activities, then it would seem they are asking parents to basically turn their own kids in. Like, no "Talk to your kids about internet hacking." Nope... it's more like "Talk to us about your kid's internet hacking." Ooof.

Of course they also say its so they can guide you through dealing with it, but how are you supposed to know who is giving who info? Who's to say they don't put ya'll on a watchlist somewhere? I don't know if I could make that phone call as a parent who would think this was a big deal lol.

Like, hypothetically - and this is extreme. But... if you found some drugs on your little johnny, would you turn him into the police so he can catch his first charge? No heart to heart or anything, no asking what's going on... just call in the Jakes the moment you found it. They would want to know. "Johnny, your father just found your stash in your backpack. We want you to know we're very disappointed in you. The police are on their way to ask you some questions. And you'd better sit here until they show up so you can tell them what you've done. And don't you dare make us do it!" 

If you caught them pirating Disney, would you call Disney asking what to do about it? Sounds stupid, but... it is. 

Good on you pointing that out. Even if they were on the mark with the signs, it would still look pretty bad. I can imagine as a parent reading this and knowing nothing, panicking and thinking my child is on their way to a life in jail for cyber-terrorism. Could you imagine? What would you do? I probably wouldn't tell anyone and I would be on that kid so fast... become their shadow and make sure they don't pull off any traffic shutdowns with their hacker friends. 

For real though. That's a mess. I feel bad for any kids who's parents bought this and went all witness protection on em. To have an ear in on some of those phonecalls. You just know they've gotta be golden. Probably the unspoken reason for disassociating, other than being publicly laughed at and called out by major tech journals.


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## phanbuey (Feb 19, 2020)

the fact that u can get a kali distro off the windows store for free... and its a sanctioned wsl bash makes this funnier.





E for Everyone 







robot zombie said:


> Good on you pointing that out. Even if they were on the mark with the signs, it would still look pretty bad. I can imagine as a parent reading this and knowing nothing, panicking and thinking my child is on their way to a life in jail for cyber-terrorism. Could you imagine? What would you do? I probably wouldn't tell anyone and I would be on that kid so fast... become their shadow and make sure they don't pull off any traffic shutdowns with their hacker friends.


IKR... more like on their way to making 200k a year as a cybersecurity specialist.


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## robot zombie (Feb 19, 2020)

phanbuey said:


> IKR... more like on their way to making 200k a year as a cybersecurity specialist.


For real though! I would be so excited for my kid to be learning about how things really work. I'd be helping them along and learning with them any time they were interested. Just so proud. How many kids even really think about how the internet works? For most of them it's just a tool. If they're perceptive enough to wonder "How does that work?" and smart enough to start working out ways to reverse engineer it, I'm encouraging that if anything. That way, I don't even have to worry about them abusing anything too much because I'm already involved in a positive way, by sort of giving a platform.

I mean, you never know what a kid's future might be like, but even if something like that is only a piece of it, that's not insignificant. To have a mind for it early is meaningful in itself. That should be easy enough to grasp, even if that's all that makes sense about it to you. They're taking some initiative in looking deeper into how something works.

I mean, couldn't you just... I dunno... _ask_ them about it? Talking about all of this 'watching for the signs' parenting... but they might've been missing the road on this one. I'd like to know what these organizations actually know, haha. Did they maybe just out things they consider when looking into people?


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## Arjai (Feb 19, 2020)

LOL. 

WMROCU!


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## biffzinker (Feb 19, 2020)

robot zombie said:


> I mean, couldn't you just... I dunno... _ask_ them about it? Talking about all of this 'watching for the signs' parenting... but they might've been missing the road on this one.


This happened not to long ago whether it was a prank or not.













						Cooler Master Changes Its TIM Packaging So They Look Less Like Syringes
					

Cooler Master in a recent tweet shows why they are changing the packaging for their thermal paste, to make them look less like medical syringes!




					wccftech.com


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## robot zombie (Feb 19, 2020)

The Ethernet cable tourniquet is a nice touch.


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## phanbuey (Feb 19, 2020)

It's so funny -- it's true these are basically the same people...

"OMG JIMMY IS DOING DRUGS,  CALL THIS 'COOLER MASTER' AND TELL HIM HE WILL NOT BE MASTER OF MY BABY!"
[on the phone...]
"Oh... Thermal... Paste?? for Computers?"
[2 days later sees poster]
"OMG JIMMY IS A HACKER CRIMINAL, HE IS ON DISCORD WITH ALL HIS DEGENERATE FRIENDS PLANNING ON SHOOTING UP AN UNKNOWN PLAYERS BATTLE PLAYGROUND AND THE POLICE ARE ON TO HIM!!"

Little did Jimmy know that building his own rig to play PUBG with his friends would tear his family apart at the core.


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## thesmokingman (Feb 19, 2020)

phanbuey said:


> View attachment 145231



It's a travesty that movie only got 6.3 on imdb!


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## R-T-B (Feb 19, 2020)

AsRock said:


> They are just trying to make parent(s) aware.



With misinformation...  I mean seriously, discord is a platform for "exchanging hacking tips" now?

I'm not surprised it's the UK though... their whole policy on what goes on online has been backwards for a bit now.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 19, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> I'm not surprised it's the UK though... their whole policy on what goes on online has been backwards for a bit now.


There we go. And yes, the UK government has been overstepping it's boundaries for a few decades now. The sheople of that nation do not see the danger that besets them. With each passing year the UK becomes more like NAZI Germany than anything else.


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## phanbuey (Feb 19, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> There we go. And yes, the UK government has been overstepping it's boundaries for a few decades now. The sheople of that nation do not see the danger that besets them. With each passing year the UK becomes more like NAZI Germany than anything else.



I think that's a general trend, at this point, for quite a few countries.


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 19, 2020)

That's what you get having uneducated people at wrong chairs at the government.

It is not a problem only around UK... in general, just some sort of idiot again, just like US had PMRC during eighties trying to regulate bad influence from Rock artists. Lucky there were really intellectual people like Dee Snider, Frank Zappa during the Senate hearings dismissed all the false perceptions. I haven't heard such nonsense about children education across northern or eastern EU thou.

There will be always some unknown that casts fear to uneducated parents. It is only natural... go on... nothing unusual.



lexluthermiester said:


> like NAZI Germany than anything else.



These claims are rather extreme and wrong. Can anyone at last leave the WW2 alone? We have Germans also here btw.


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## E-Bear (Feb 19, 2020)

AsRock said:


> A small part of the UK,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


These parents are.... Notts...  Badum tsss


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## Vayra86 (Feb 19, 2020)

R-T-B said:


> With misinformation...  I mean seriously, discord is a platform for "exchanging hacking tips" now?
> 
> I'm not surprised it's the UK though... their whole policy on what goes on online has been backwards for a bit now.



I vaguely remember a porn ban.

A PORN BAN.

I guess Brexit was for the best? I mean this is next level backwards really. As in, third world country backwards, in so so many ways. What's next, a campaign against condoms?


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## Frick (Feb 19, 2020)

__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3rfukp
Yeah.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 19, 2020)

Frick said:


> __
> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3rfukp
> Yeah.



Wait. This reddit post is NOT a joke?

Humankind is doomed, srsly


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 19, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> Wait. This reddit post is NOT a joke?
> 
> Humankind is doomed, srsly



IMHO stupid people are parents too. They are scammed, told by some youtube crap presenters, sales man, THEY NEED AV. There is no other way and everything is a lie, your kid lies to you(the basic irony). Hard to blame. Because the quality of the content around is horrid and unregulated.


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## Frick (Feb 19, 2020)

Ferrum Master said:


> IMHO stupid people are parents too. They are scammed, told by some youtube crap presenters, sales man, THEY NEED AV. There is no other way and everything is a lie, your kid lies to you(the basic irony). Hard to blame. Because the quality of the content around is horrid and unregulated.



in this case I really dislike the stepfather mainly because he got angry and demanded the kid paid the firewall back. Ignorance =! stupidity, not knowing isn't bad as such, but how you deal with new stuff is very important.


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## dorsetknob (Feb 19, 2020)

Backtrack not mentioned
it can be a liveCD ( no files on HD ) or it can be installed


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 19, 2020)

Frick said:


> but how you deal with new stuff is very important.



The stepfather was properly worked on by the product salesman... well daily job, he knows his ways, sweet talk etc, here's the result. Rebel youngster. Ignorance and stupidity often comes hand in hand, depends on the severity of the case.

Normally, we don't complain on reddit about such matters, that's also a bit odd. I would have asked my IT teacher for help, as they are trusted persons can assist in cases like that, further the teacher could call and approach the parents also the parents should have respect and trust in the teacher because of his standing position. That's the normal way in my books, I often seen cases like that. Explaining and solving some common conflicts in between parents and children.

Still, that's the fact, the amount of information quality for the masses is very poor. Online usually works as double edged sword. You can get so many wrong answers, so cases like these do not surprise me.



dorsetknob said:


> Backtrack not mentioned
> it can be a liveCD ( no files on HD ) or it can be installed



Go full retard, get a floppy running KolibriOS, some may call that sorcery or being possessed or something, how this works. Old English fellow Matthew Hopkins must be called.


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## silentbogo (Feb 19, 2020)

dorsetknob said:


> Backtrack not mentioned


Backtrack is now Kali. If anything, it's the kids that should report on their parents for using this ghost of 2000's.
P.S. I should have a liveCD somewhere in my desk as well.... please don't call British Police.


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## xtreemchaos (Feb 19, 2020)

yes that's our police force for ya, you carnt get them to investigate a real crime outside London but there shithot if your a kid or non white or got no tax on your car.


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## shamus21 (Feb 19, 2020)

Typical example of UK police desk-job creation because we may get hurt if we have to go out of the station.


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## robot zombie (Feb 19, 2020)

Frick said:


> Yeah.


Oh god... as I read that, I am reminded of what it's like to explain important, routine things to a 4-year-old. All the way down to the part where you kind of give in to part of their reality and make little compromises to keep it on a level they understand... and then things go. Not always right, not always perfect, and you find yourself saying all kinds of things you never thought you'd be saying in your life, but they do go. So much more relatable than I thought it would be, in all of the worst ways. Oh that poor family.

I see this same mentality from some parents at work. And the thing is... there will be 1 or 2 in the group who are genuinely neurotic about everything. The rest could be pretty normal and grounded in reality, but the moment a neurotic parent stands up and starts putting ideas out there, they spread. And it can linger for months, after which point most people kind of come down to earth and realize that it's stupid, not really a concern, and not worth the trouble. I've seen these people start putting money down on these ideas, start getting sticker-shock, and then come around to realizing that it's all drama. That is literally the first time they sincerely realize that nothing about whatever the obsession is makes any sense. Weird progression. Groupthink is like a drug... or maybe some kind of spiritual possession that just floats through groups of people with similar parameters in play. There are only a handful of people actually responsible for everything that's going down, but instead of saying something about it, everyone else just regurgitates it to keep things going.

Makes me glad my parents were more chill than that. Man, I can't imagine. Their rationale was "That's all weird over there and I don't know how I feel about it, but I don't know anyone who knows what any of that stuff is, let alone how to make that machine do those things, so this is life now..."

They would catch wind of the same kind of stupid crap and ask me about it, and I would explain it to them. If I knew something was exploitable, I would say how and not even have to think twice about it, because to me it was like "but why would I do that?" So after a while they kind of got used to it. At least I was honest about what was possible. They understood that, at least. I never told them about the time I took our first home computer apart and put it back together just to see how that all went down. For a couple of years they didn't even realize I had set it up for a windows/linux dual boot. I just had the bootloader auto to windows right away. You had to go from a usb stick to start it. I didn't necessarily mean for it to go that way... I kind of broke the bootloader. Tense moments in my mid childhood.  But mostly the point was to not interfere with either of them using it. Over time, I got it running much better and the questions kinda stopped being about 'what if' or 'I read that' and it became normal.

The kind of thing in that post, I would only read about online and just kinda hope my own parents knew better.

Now, I'm stuck managing all of their technological things and I don't know if that's necessarily better. Rather than being scared and dubious of everything, they think I know everything at this point. At any rate I'm glad I never had to sneak around like that.


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## Lorec (Feb 19, 2020)

robot zombie said:


> Oh god... as I read that, I am reminded of what it's like to explain important, routine things to a 4-year-old. All the way down to the part where you kind of give in to part of their reality and make little compromises to keep it on a level they understand... and then things go. Not always right, not always perfect, and you find yourself saying all kinds of things you never thought you'd be saying in your life, but they do go. So much more relatable than I thought it would be, in all of the worst ways. Oh that poor family.
> 
> I see this same mentality from some parents at work. And the thing is... there will be 1 or 2 in the group who are genuinely neurotic about everything. The rest could be pretty normal and grounded in reality, but the moment a neurotic parent stands up and starts putting ideas out there, they spread. And it can linger for months, after which point most people kind of come down to earth and realize that it's stupid, not really a concern, and not worth the trouble. I've seen these people start putting money down on these ideas, start getting sticker-shock, and then come around to realizing that it's all drama. That is literally the first time they sincerely realize that nothing about whatever the obsession is makes any sense. Weird progression. Groupthink is like a drug... or maybe some kind of spiritual possession that just floats through groups of people with similar parameters in play. There are only a handful of people actually responsible for everything that's going down, but instead of saying something about it, everyone else just regurgitates it to keep things going.
> 
> ...


Bro, You just responded 3330 characters to a "Yeah" 

Now putting that aside, 
I agree the misinformation is incredible. 
It became partly business on its own too. 
People are not willing to share knowledge instead they'd prefer to make a business out of it. 

In this specific case its the police itself who is misinformed which is sad and somewhat disappointing that ones who supposed to protect us have brains size of a peanut. 

I remember there was a "dictionary" somewhere on the web for parents to find out when their kids talk drugs,sex and rock'n'roll.


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## ste2425 (Feb 19, 2020)

Its always funny seeing things like this that are obviously geared towards people with very little knowledge of computing, created by people who probably have equally little knowledge and just using a bunch of buzzwords.

Its the same reason i put some Pokemon in the list of technologies/languages i know in my CV.


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## Frick (Feb 19, 2020)

Ferrum Master said:


> Normally, we don't complain on reddit about such matters, that's also a bit odd. I would have asked my IT teacher for help, as they are trusted persons can assist in cases like that, further the teacher could call and approach the parents also the parents should have respect and trust in the teacher because of his standing position. That's the normal way in my books, I often seen cases like that. Explaining and solving some common conflicts in between parents and children.



Considering a lot heavyweights and IT professionals responded (including a "global solutions architect leader" at Red Hat) offered help I'd say it wasn't a bad idea. I mean I hate Reddit and well a lot pf things online as much as anyone but we can't party like it's 1999 anymore.


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## robot zombie (Feb 19, 2020)

Lorec said:


> Bro, You just responded 3330 characters to a "Yeah"


I was responding to the post he shared. I just left out the embedded post from the quote to simplify things. I figured everybody would see the 'yeah' and know what I was responding to. There are several posts on it.  

Also, did you really run a character count on me, bro? 



> I remember there was a "dictionary" somewhere on the web for parents to find out when their kids talk drugs,sex and rock'n'roll.


I remember all sorts of things like that, too. Mostly just lists and articles tabbing out whatever arbitrary things they have 'deciphered' like mystics. Certain clothes or accessories. Or a game. Some website. I think my favorite was in middle school, girls liked to wear those really thin gel bracelets and give em to each other. Somewhat of a primitive form of 'likes' I think. Pretty regular stuff for innocent girls to do. But of course out there online parents would forward email guides on what each color means. I'm talkin like someone would make a geocities page, or angelfire. It looks exactly like you're probably picturing.

There was a color that was supposed to mean you were "down." For what, varied, between all of the fun things. It was like somehow, the bracelets had to be some sort of advanced code developed to bypass parents... because they needed bracelets to do that, obviously.  Kids started teasing each other based on those lists and they went out of style fast. It went from being a thing kids did just being kids and thinking nothing of to "you will be openly judged for wearing the color bracelet you like."

But it was funny because different girls wouldn't be allowed to wear different colors to school (I guess they couldn't agree on what the bad colors were,) so they'd trade them on the bus to get their favorites. Keep in mind, we were all around 11.

I swear, they probably remembered having things like that soured by their parents. Adds new parts to their reality. Their nutty, overly-controlling parents kind of stole an innocent moment from their lives and probably never realized. And those kids had to know that. That kind of thing stays in your head. It'd be no wonder if it made them rebellious. We all know how effective that old D.A.R.E scaremongering was... at getting kids to want to try drugs.

Kids are diabolical geniuses sometimes, but it can be interesting to see how people who have forgotten what's its like try to interpret that genius and fail miserably. The technological gap just adds another layer. You'd think we'd be about past that and fully into a couple generations of parents now who aren't total noobs at everything. But I guess when the people in the government above them are still about 30 years late to the party, that changes things somehow... or maybe it doesn't. Were there any parents who sniffed this out and hopped on social media? I like to think it caught some bad buzz from the many people out there who do keep totally with the times, are familiar with tech, and happen to be some of the same parents this is targeted at.


My big question here is... Okay, so they acknowledged discord as something used for hacking, right? This is something they consider to be a dubious tool. So that must mean it is someone's job to, I dunno... troll through random kids' twitch discords all day for signs of nefarious activity or something. What a job that would be eh? Sitting around listening in on discord chats and sifting through Kali Linux communities for child hacker splinter groups.

Tor... man any time someone hears dark web or deep web they think it's like some sci-fi dark alley - it's the mysterious underbelly to them, like not just anybody can go there and it must be a hacker rite of passage to find it. But what they're missing is that most of the stuff they'd actually want to protect their kids from is on the publicly indexed internet. There's some shady stuff on the other side, sure. But the regular internet is honestly so much worse.


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 19, 2020)

Frick said:


> Considering a lot heavyweights and IT professionals responded (including a "global solutions architect leader" at Red Hat) offered help I'd say it wasn't a bad idea. I mean I hate Reddit and well a lot pf things online as much as anyone but we can't party like it's 1999 anymore.



Imagine that kid telling his stepdad about something about that redhat guy said. 

Meanwhile that parent googles red hat. 






They wouldn't care, people only would listen to someone they know in the face, and not also all the time. Some random guy from the internet... nope... it won't work.


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## Lorec (Feb 19, 2020)

robot zombie said:


> I was responding to the post he shared. I just left out the embedded post from the quote to simplify things. I figured everybody would see the 'yeah' and know what I was responding to. There are several posts on it.
> 
> Also, did you really run a character count on me, bro?


Im soo guilty! 
I read that post but I didnt notice that "Yeah" underneath the link! 
Thought it refers to some other post.
Didn't try to be offensive, more like playful! 
Your posts are usually solid reads! 

as for the rest of the post: 
I soo agree there! 
actually it seems fitting to mention a book im reading recently : "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by  Yuval Noah Harari. 
"Imagination" plays a big role here like Harari writes in his book.
Thats how we operate as species and those behaviours are all connected, surfacing in every field.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 19, 2020)

phanbuey said:


> I think that's a general trend, at this point, for quite a few countries.


Agreed. However, it is most apparent in England.


Ferrum Master said:


> These claims are rather extreme and wrong.


Your opinion, not supported by historical information.


Ferrum Master said:


> Can anyone at last leave the WW2 alone?


No. If we do not carefully remember the lessons of the past, we are doomed to repeat them. Your inability to understand that wisdom is disturbing.


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 19, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Your opinion, not supported by historical information.



And exactly what historical information proves your comment????



> With each passing year the UK becomes more like NAZI Germany than anything else.


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## lexluthermiester (Feb 19, 2020)

Ferrum Master said:


> And exactly what historical information proves your comment????


This is not a forum for historical dissertation. However, the level of control the British government is asserting over the public is very similar to the controls the NAZI party imposed on the German people. There are many examples.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 19, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> This is not a forum for historical dissertation. However, the level of control the British government is asserting over the public is very similar to the controls the NAZI party imposed on the German people. There are many examples.








						Godwin's law - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## silentbogo (Feb 19, 2020)

ste2425 said:


> Its the same reason i put some Pokemon in the list of technologies/languages i know in my CV.


LoL. It reminded me our old kid joke


Spoiler



I know karate, kung-fu, judo... and lots of other scary words )))


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## R-T-B (Feb 19, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> Wait. This reddit post is NOT a joke?
> 
> Humankind is doomed, srsly



There is way worse if you look.



Vayra86 said:


> Godwin's law - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Godwin himself stated that Godwin's law fails to apply when...  well, it's truly a similarity.

Sadly, there are many today.


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## robot zombie (Feb 20, 2020)

Lorec said:


> Im soo guilty!
> I read that post but I didnt notice that "Yeah" underneath the link!
> Thought it refers to some other post.
> Didn't try to be offensive, more like playful!
> Your posts are usually solid reads!


Haha I'm not offended. I've just made a hobby of going from serious to sarcastic in no time. If you have  to wonder, and you know you weren't trying to piss me off, it's safe to assume I'm probably not. I don't think anyone online has managed to truly piss me off. Makes more sense to have fun with it, or just go offline. You'd definitely know. I'm one of those people who is generally agreeable... until a line is really, truly crossed, after which it is a very different kind of exchange. Very few people earn the chance to see that side of me 



> as for the rest of the post:
> I soo agree there!
> actually it seems fitting to mention a book im reading recently : "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by  Yuval Noah Harari.
> "Imagination" plays a big role here like Harari writes in his book.
> Thats how we operate as species and those behaviours are all connected, surfacing in every field.


Interesting... that actually reminds me of a nuero/cognitive science book called "Thinking: Fast and Slow"

It's a research and study driven examination of the many, many quirks in how people interact, problem-solve, and piece together reality. Daniel Kahnemen (what a name, right?) has been examining this stuff for a long time. The depth to and body behind his thoughts on it reflect that. He looks at everyone - from regular everyday people of the 1st world, to people under extraordinary conditions, and even to those working in more intellectually-driven fields. He shows the many predictable ways we can be wrong, and what being wrong about that means for the outcome, or what role that mechanism plays in actually making everything work. What I find especially interesting is that the way some of these systems work actually is not contingent on getting everything right.

The book ties all of these little traits together to demonstrably show, through interesting studies, as well as more relatable experiences, and anecdotes, two different primary modes that all people operate under, each with its own set of blind spots and caveats. I mean, he really lays it out and dives in and for some reason it just made so much sense to me - both when I look at myself and other people. It's a lot to digest, but pretty good food for thought.

Everyone in here (and really... everyone in general) is critical of these sorts of junk biases and use of low-quality information. So we're quick to jump on people we see making the wrong snap judgements, often with at least somewhat pessimistic assumptions regarding the other person's or whole group's intellect, but I can't be the only one who catches himself falling into the same traps. Most of the time, you wouldn't even know it. By the time you had the chance, your mind had shot completely past it. Only a more evocative experience relating to it can shock you out at that point - new information, easy to reach and fully comprehend quickly, that challenges the information you used before in a fundamental way. That has to happen first, and then the part of you that reflects and contemplates can get to work. We try to use simpler, but less accurate methods that work most times on the first go, hoping that's enough. And if that fails, our minds say its time to step back and make sure we get every detail right. It runs on an as-needed basis, and there is a clear set of requirements for that determination to be made.

My takeaway was that beneath our whole means of making sense of things are all of these singular, unflinching operations that actually get things wrong a lot of the time, but we don't even notice because a lot of times we are still able to function... in a sense, everything that we do and see is built up on complex interactions between different biases and fallacies, which just happen to be fundamental to how we figure anything out. They define so much of how things go for us in our endeavors and interactions. For better and worse, it makes us who we are. Pretty interesting book, though very dry, with a tendency to dwell too much on each study.

The overall presentation is pretty neutral. It made me realize that human interaction, or really, anything to do with gathering and using information, is inherently messy - and that it's actually not a terrible way for people to be. It's something that also leads to progress that wouldn't be possible if we were rationally combing through everything consciously. There are benefits to being able to parse a lot of thoughts, language-driven information, and sensory input in a VERY short time, even if it's a far less accurate way to go about things.

We couldn't have survived at all without being able to do that. It is the favored way of operating... much more efficient to set a bar for how much information you need and just stopping the moment you hit that point. The side that wants to figure things out doesn't ever want to kick in without enforced impetus - it's only when someone hits a wall or practices an active discipline (basically delaying gratification,) that the slower, more methodical side of their mind fully manifests. It takes much more time and energy, which are pretty finite. Our minds tire of things pretty easily, so we instinctively save the horsepower for those moments when we absolutely need it. Again, survival.

I can describe the two modes simply. The faster, primary one is characterized as a primitive filter, passing through a lot of info quickly before discarding most of it - there doesn't need to be a lot of support or justification for something so long as it is sufficient for the task and leads to the desired outcome. The slower, secondary one halts on and parses everything before determining what information is and is not valuable  - it searches for the reasons behind the information available. If the first is intuition, the second is contemplation. Guess which one we all rely on 90% of the time.

This is probably why debate is a skill that many people consider pretty difficult to become versed in. We are not built or accustomed to holding ourselves in that "fine comb" state of being at a capcity beyond short bursts with "passive" recharge time between... it is not natural for us to bear down on figuring something out on that level and continually working out how to convey the information accurately. In most cases throughout any one person's day, they aren't any better served by it. The "just grab everything fast and quickly toss what doesn't immediately matter" method is far more favorable.

I said this before in a thread about IQ over in the lounge, I think: Humans simply are not very good at processing things beyond the realm of immediacy. We only do it when we have to.

It pays to be aware of how our thoughts and means of sorting information mislead. But I think it also pays to remember that simply knowing this to be true of yourself doesn't exclude you from the influence of those things. Nobody is safe from these weird snafus.


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## Deleted member 178884 (Feb 20, 2020)

This poster is not real actually but it was funny reading the cringe here.









						UK police deny responsibility for poster urging parents to report kids for using Kali Linux | ZDNet
					

Updated: Using Discord, too, is apparently a warning sign that your child is turning into a naughty hacker.




					www.google.com


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## robot zombie (Feb 20, 2020)

Xx Tek Tip xX said:


> This poster is not real actually but it was funny reading the cringe here.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well, there you have it


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