The Joker: Nihilism, Mental Illness, Incel’s and Societal Pressures

Creation of the Joker: Mental Illness and Abuse

The recent controversies over the new ‘Joker’ movie were not lost on me as I sat through it recently. Given that there have been BOLO’s put out by the US Military and the FBI concerning the threats of active shooters attacking theaters playing the film, even I had some trepidation in going to see it for fear that my theater might be the one targeted by some shooter. In fact, I deliberately went to see the film at a matinee during the week in order to have very few people there, and thus in my mind, less of an attractive target for a would be shooter. As I watched the film there were in fact moments of “ah ha” this is why some were concerned about this being a touchstone for those who might carry out such acts. At it’s heart, the movie is a character study of the Joker, aka Arthur Fleck.

The Story:

Arthur fleck is solitary figure who still lives with his mother in a strained relationship. He works as a clown for children’s parties and the odd gig fronting for a store closing sale. It is at this job we start to understand Arthur’s situation even further, as he is beaten by a gang of kids who stole his sign. After he is reprimanded by his boss, he has a conversation with a co-worker who gives him a revolver to protect himself with. This gift implies a couple of things in the conversation. The first is that Arthur has been feeling like he needs a gun and had talked to this co-worker before about it, and secondly, that this co-worker is not really his friend, today we might call that person a ‘frenemy’ with an agenda of bullying Arthur while being his ‘friend’.

Arthur starts carrying the gun and eventually gets fired for having it at a children’s ward where it drops on the floor. He is summarily fired for this and on his way home is taunted by three Wall Street types who finally end up beating him. That is until Arthur pulls the gun and kills them. This is the catalyst for Arthur’s transformation to begin from Fleck to ‘Joker’ as he has his first taste of not only power, but also recognition as the incident makes it into the press where some are lauding the unknown clown as a hero. Finally, Arthur is starting to feel like he is powerful and seen where most of his life he was a nobody and invisible. During this time as well, Arthur has a relationship with a woman down the hall. She attends his stand up comedy night and all seems good with them. One might think at this point that, murder aside, he is starting to become empowered and perhaps might be ok, that is until he discovers a letter from his mother to Thomas Wayne and learns in there that he is in fact his illegitimate son.

Arthur’s discovery that his mother has been lying to him about who his father is (Mr. Wayne) causes a dualistic reaction of anger against his mother and hope that he is in fact Wayne’s son. A hope that is dashed when he confronts Wayne and is told that his mother was delusional and that in fact she had spent time in Arkham because of it. It was then that she adopted Arthur as a prop to keep her own delusion in place and perhaps leverage Wayne. Arthur then goes to Arkham to see if there are in fact files that show his mothers illness and what he gets confirms not only this, but also the long standing abuse he was subject to that he had been suppressing psychically. Meanwhile, his mother has a collapse and is brought to the hospital. Arthur is being sought by police in the investigation of the subway murders, and while he is sitting with his mother he see’s his idol, the Tv Show host, air Arthur’s painful standup routine mocking it for a national audience.

Fleck is brought on TV by this host because he, fleck, is inadvertently funny as a standup comedian because he is so spectacularly bad at it. Fleck’s uncontrolled laughter during the performance is an alleged medical condition wherein he laughs, or rather cackles, uncontrollably when he is upset. This response is a trigger for attacks on him by others both verbally and physically that also add to his psychological state of ‘negative ideation’ which he talks with the social worker about. Fleck realizes from the start that he is being mocked by the TV host he has idolized as a surrogate father in his delusions.

After murdering his mother in the hospital and feeling a release, Arthur goes home and accepts an appearance on the TV show knowing that it is just an opportunity to make fun of him for a live studio audience. It is at this point, after going off of his meds, that Fleck has the psychotic break and the personality of Fleck is subsumed by “The Joker”, a name given to him by the tv show host as a sleight. It is at home while he is getting ready to go on air that his ‘frenemy’ and another friend from his workplace show up. The frenemy wants to insure that he is not going to get into trouble over the gun he gave Arthur that he used in the subway killings. Arthur finally has had enough of this man and kills him violently while the other man, a dwarf, hides in the corner. It is at this point that we see Arthur spare this dwarfs life saying that he was in fact the only person who was decent to him.

Arthur goes on the show in his clown makeup and regalia while the city is seizing up in mass revolt in an ‘eat the rich’ movement that has taken the clown image of the subway killer on as their rallying cry. He is brought out on stage and has requested that he be called ‘joker’ and proceeds to confess his killings on the subway and through questions by the host tells him that he believes in nothing and that they should be careful who they treat poorly.

Arthur Fleck : What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? You get what you fuckin’ deserve!

Joker then pulls his gun and shoot’s the TV host dead. The crowd in the audience screams and start to flee, and Joker runs around the stage manically. He finally runs off stage and out of the camera frame. We next see Arthur in the back of a police car being taken ostensibly to jail while the city is in the middle of a spasm of violence by the joker rabble protesting. As he is watching this as they pass by, a truck plows into the cop car and we next see the joker’s taking Arthur/Joker from the back and laying him on the hood. Joker rises and starts to dance to the adulation of the mass wearing clown masks. The scene cuts to a white room with Joker talking to  a therapist who is asking him questions;

Social Worker : Is something funny?

Arthur Fleck : I just thought of a funny joke!

Social Worker : Do you mind telling it?

Arthur Fleck : …You wouldn’t get it.

Next you see Joker running the overly white halls of Arkham Asylum and the music swells, the end.

Nihilism: Believing In Nothing Is Liberating

Joker, is a film that sets the stage for the character of “The Joker” as the clown prince of crime, a character with no real backstory in the ouvre of Batman, which makes him all the more interesting. It really wasn’t until later years after the ‘Dark Knight’ graphic novels and the movies, that the character of the Joker began to take on an even more menacing tone. In “The Dark Night” (2008) the character of the Joker took on new dimensions with a portrayal of a nihilist character who’s seeking to cause anarchy because he believes in nothing and no one. In “Joker” we have the backstory (akin to the Batman graphic novel “The Killing Joke”) of how the Joker emerges. In this film as in the graphic novel, the Joker has, what is termed in the book as ‘one bad day’ as he tells Batman, and that bad day broke his psyche thus becoming the Joker.

The bad day, or days, in Joker are exacerbated by Arthur’s mental illness, the pressures of life in the city, and a series of circumstances that lead him to go off his meds and begin his life of crime. Once the break happens, Joker, now fully formed, announces on the show that he is the one who killed the three men on the subway and repeats that he is not political, he is making no political statement here at all. He in fact believes in nothing. This is the core of the philosophical system of Nihilism, and now Joker is an adherent. This is a key point in the movie and one that carries over into the reality we have today concerning the fears of mass shooters who may be incel’s or other Nihilists actors.

While Joker believes in nothing, Arthur believed in his mother, believed that the system could help him, and that by being a nice person, would be reciprocated by others. Arthur’s descent into madness was hastened by learning that the sole person who he knew loved him, was in fact a delusional individual who adopted and then proceeded to abuse him as a means to an end for her own needs. This core betrayal is the linchpin in Arthur’s break and rebirth as Joker. In the moments before Joker shoots the show host on live TV, the host asks him why he had come on the show and why he was doing the things he had done. Joker looks at the show host and mockingly says

Arthur Fleck : How ’bout another joke, Murray?

Murray Franklin : No, I think we’ve had enough of your jokes.

Arthur Fleck : What do you get…

Murray Franklin : I don’t think so.

Arthur Fleck : …when you cross…

Murray Franklin : I think we’re done here now, thank you.

Arthur Fleck : …a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash?

Murray Franklin : Call the police, Gene, call the police.

Arthur Fleck : I’ll tell you what you get! You get what you fuckin’ deserve!

[Joker shoots Murray in the head, killing him instantly]

While Joker does not call out the specifics, or knowledge of Nihilism, he is certainly espousing it saying that he now believes in nothing. His actions throughout the comics and the movies have shown him to be a Nihilist as well as an agent of chaos. This is what I believe is one of the foundations of this film and the overall canon for Joker and his foil Batman. They are intimately intertwined in their history, in some places it is Joker who created Batman by killing his parents. In others, it is Batman who creates Joker after dropping him in a vat of chemicals that make him go insane, as well as have the green hair and white skin. In each case though, his break from sanity is of a kind where he see’s life as a cosmic joke meaning nothing.

Incel’s, Hand Wringing, and Mental Illness:

This film has had such a polarizing effect on audiences as well as reviewers. Much of the criticism has been around the story of Joker being something that plays well with those who might want to shoot up a theater full of people and idolize the Joker. In the case of this film though, to date there have been no incidents and the hand wringing that has been going on by the media has only served to perhaps egg those actors into action more than having any greater meaning.

The families of the Aurora shooting victims went as far as petitioning Warner Brothers, about the films violence and possible call to those unbalanced souls like James Eagan Holmes, who committed the crime in 2012, attempting to link his actions to the Joker. The fact of the matter is that Holmes did not act out as the Joker, and only chose the film because it was going to be a full theater. The linking of the two was an emotional reaction, not a rational or correct one.

Other reviews of the film tagged Incel culture with this film saying that Arthur was an Incel and thus this film would be a call to others to act out in emulation. In reality, Arthur was not in fact an ‘Incel’ by strict interpretation because he was not solely acting out because women would not date or have sex with him. While Arthur has a delusion of a relationship with a woman in his building, it is not that she rebuffed him that caused his break with sanity. This argument by those who have made these claims are I think, putting social justice warrior ideals and fear above actually looking at the story line as a more nuanced picture of a man on the edge of a psychotic break.

My Take-away’s:

Joker was a good film in my opinion. The film is a great addition to the whole Batman franchise and gives more nuance to the Joker and perhaps one backstory. There are parts of the films plot I did not cover in the beginning of this post that have direct connections to the Batman timeline that are incongruous. If you take this film as the ‘prime’ timeline, then this Joker is not ‘the’ joker that Bruce Wayne as Batman fights because this Joker would be geriatric if not dead by then, so this could be the Proto-Joker that starts a movement and one of those later ‘Jokers’ becomes the one he battles.

This is a well put together film and you will leave the theater thinking about it. In today’s world where everything seems so pressurized, it is not uncommon to see mass shootings by perhaps mentally unstable people. It is an every day thing now unfortunately for us, and as such, this film touched a raw nerve with people. As I said at the start of this post, I too was apprehensive about going to the theater to see this for fear that someone would decide that this is the theater to shoot up. It is this world weariness and constant fear with live with today that I think, made this film such a touchstone for the hate on it as well as the attempts at cancel culture that were made against it by certain factions.

I personally find the psychology of Joker fascinating as well as the others within the Rogues Gallery that Batman fights. There are books and articles about the psychology of all of these characters that you can read and they are good. There is much more to understand than just that some guy couldn’t get a girl and had a bad day so he became a psychotic criminal. This film does a good job at trying to show just how this could happen and why.

Most of all people, it’s just a movie!!

Go and enjoy it.

K.

Anders Brievik and Brenton Tarrant: Parallels of Manifesto’s, Actions and Psychology

I recently began to consider the parallels between the Christchurch and the Norwegian mass shooters which was sparked by watching a special on Anders Breivik. In the documentary on Breivik, they delve into the manifesto and his history a bit and these two things seemed to track a bit with Brenton Tarrant’s actions. In fact, it seems that Tarrant was directly influenced by Anders and his actions as well as his manifesto. So much so, that Tarrant say’s in his manifesto that he idolized Anders and in fact reached out to the “knights Justiciar” online and had communication with Breivik; “Receiving a blessing for my mission after contacting his brother knights”  in his own manifesto placed online minutes before the attacks.

Digging in further, I located several copies of the full video that Tarrant was live streaming on Facebook on the darknet. I watched this and took notes on parallels between what Breivik’s and Tarrant’s actions methods and actions. It quickly became clear just how much Tarrant had taken from Breivik’s attacks and methodology. From this, I then sought out each of their writings online and their manifesto’s. I then began to map out just how much one had imitated the other and started to ponder if they are both suffering from the same mental maladies and to what extent. I began to see the parallels quite clearly and this is something the media really has not delved into. First, let’s look at the planning stages of their actions.

• Breivik planned his attacks meticulously for eleven years
• Tarrant planned for two years

 

• Breivik wrote extensively about certain regions and histories around clashes of cultures
• Tarrant seems to have traveled to those countries and regions that Breivik wrote about as a means to understand what Breivik had been writing about

 

• Breivik researched and wrote quite a bit on his plan and his mission to include a manifesto over one thousand pages long
• Tarrant wrote a seventy six page manifesto and his research was haphazard and minimal as to targeting

It seems that Tarrant lacked the concentration or perhaps the methodical nature that Breivik shows. By looking at the manifesto’s side by side, you can see that Tarrant pretty much just cribbed Breivik’s style and format as seen below. The imagery and the motive seem to be pretty parallel but once again, the diversion is on Tarrant’s side where he could not muster the longer and more convoluted writings as well as the complex ideas that Breivik is trying to get across in his writings. Of course the writings that Breivik put out also are cribbed as well from many sources and are mostly overly complex, the machinations of a disturbed mind. Actually, they remind me a lot of the writings of Ted Kaczinsky.

 

 

Breivik

Tarrant

Breivik Manifesto

Tarrant Manifesto

Formatting is not the only similarity that these two documents hold though. Tarrant actually copies Breivik’s style as well. In the much longer Breivik manifesto he drones on and on but finally toward the end has a Q&A with himself as a Justiciar Knight to describe what and why he is doing what he is doing. This is a direct attempt at self justification as well as a narcissistic pastiche about seeking others to emulate him as a warrior for the cause. In both cases they show the same pathology of attention seeking and self aggrandizement as rationalization for their actions and a call to others of like mind.

• Both saw themselves as warriors in a greater war
• Both have a need to be seen as a great actor in history
• Both uploaded the manifesto just before actions
• Both expected that these actions would be the lynch pin in causing a race war or cause great social changes

In addition to the manifesto’s and desires to be “great men” both actors had very specific needs to look and play the part of the warrior. What I mean here is that both nationalistically needed to be seen as well as heard. In this way, Breivik made the mold that Tarrant re-used and added to in his attacks. While Breivik did not live stream his attack, he did plan it and carry it out in a way that made him look and feel the part. Tarrant as well followed these visual and audio cues in his own way.

• Breivik created/bought military uniforms to include full regalia
• Tarrant created/bought a military uniform with added Neo Nazi black sun logo
• Both use imagery and language concerning knights (Neo Nazi black sun in Tarrant’s equates to Wewelsburg and SS knights)

I would be interested to see if more of Tarrant’s writings and or images come out during his trial. This would add context to the comparison between the two actors actions and psyche’s. It seems that both planned for acquiring weapons and tactics much the same way, but, it is yet to be seen if Tarrant had any plans for bombs or had been working on or researching such things. My guess is that Tarrant lacked the patience for this and went for the quick hit instead. This is also visible in his shorter planning phase as well as his brevity in manifesto. It is also clear that Breivik’s hate was directed not only outwardly at Muslims or foreigners but also inward at his own country in his attacks and professions. Tarrant just went for the Muslims and the foreigner in a more spree killing modus.

Finally, I will cover the video that Tarrant live streamed. It is a hard thing to watch in total but it shows some cues that backstop this idea that Tarrant was really emulating Breivik down to some fine details.

• Breivik wrote about using an iPod during the attacks to mute out the screams. This he said was to prevent him from losing his motivation
• Tarrant played neo nazi music in the car and was dubbing this also over his video live feed
• Breivik game-afied his attacks and played video games incessantly in preparation for the attacks
• Tarrant did much the same making the video a “first person shooter” game with video as he gunned people down

It is pretty clear that Tarrant took Breivik’s model and upgraded it with the technology today of Facebook and a helmet cam. This I believe will not be the last time we see this kind of activity as the technology becomes even more ubiquitous. The question is then, how much amplification we will see with such attacks being footage that can be watched and re-watched online to activate others of like mind and mental states. It’s pretty clear that the motive of creating such videos is to activate others as well as get that 15 minutes of internet fame that the narcissist needs to sate them momentarily.

As a parting thought, I would also like to say that both of these men seem to have the same mental illnesses but I am afraid there isn’t enough evidence in the case of Tarrant as yet. Breivik clearly is a paranoid schizophrenic and I believe that was the diagnosis of him at trial. Tarrant’s history and a review of his mental status as yet to my knowledge has not been carried out and released to the public. I would be interested to see more of Tarrant’s history and biography to see if there are parallels as well. As of this date I know that Tarrant’s father died when he was ten years old but there seems not to be a similar history of mental illness as presented by Breivik even at an early age. Nature versus nurture is still a coin toss as far as I am concerned so there is still much to learn about Tarrant before we can make any pronouncements of mental illness. I will keep watching as more comes out but I thought this was an interesting set of circumstances to write about.

K.

A Psychological Thumbnail of Donald J Trump’s Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Its Implications

 

DSM-V Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

As you may have noticed of late I have been pretty quiet here. Since the election I have been taking stock of what is happening and trying to assess what is yet to come and what courses of action might be appropriate. As they say, when you are quiet you can hear more, unfortunately in this environment of late the cacophony is 24/7 and now has so many ‘alternative facts’ it is hard to parse it out and keep one’s sanity. I have though pondered 45’s psychology because he has been giving us all quite the window into his psyche since his inauguration. Of course if you have been paying attention to Trump throughout the years you have seen glimpses of his disorder but one could just shrug that off because he was a celebrity and not the president. Now though, he is in the presidency and he has control of many levers of power.

With that in mind I would like to acquaint you all with NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) from the clinical point of view and expand a little given what we all have seen unfolding in the media as he overreacts to those things that challenge his own reality of grandiosity. As you can see from above, the diagnostic keys for NPD align to much of what we have seen of Trump over the years but in particular highlighted recently with regard to his exceeding need to have the “largest ever” crowd at an inaugural. Let’s map his recent actions with the DSM shall we?

• Identity: Excessive reference to others for self definition and self esteem regulation; exaggerated self appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self esteem
  • I have the best people
  • I have a great brain
  • I had the biggest turnout at an inaugural
  • The rain stopped and the sun shown down on me during the speech
  • The media is at war with me
  • The CIA is acting like the Nazi’s against me
  • His whole Twitter feed
  • The Spicer incident with Trump ordering him to have his first press conference to trumpet his own reality of exceptionally large crowds at the inaugural post the Women’s march

• Self direction: Goal setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations.
  • All of Trump’s products with his name on them proclaim to be the ‘best’ the gold standard
  • He is the son of a rich man who he sought to please but has always held the entitlement of being a “winner” per his fathers ideology of winners and losers
  • Gaining his fathers approval was key in his youth (being a winner)
  • As to motivations, he has vacillated on topics to garner attention in the media on many occasions then lies about being pro or anti anything even after the footage is produced

• Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the  feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over or underestimate of own effect on others.
  • Mocking the disabled
  • Othering of lower classes
  • Reactions only when the attacks are against his own self worth or perception thereof (See debates “I’m like the smartest guy I know”)

• Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others‟ experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain
  • Most telling, when asked who his friends were by a reporter he said “I don’t really have any”
  • All relationships therefore in light of that comment (which was then backstopped) are then for gain of some kind as perceived by Trump

• Pathological personality traits in the following domain:
  1.Antagonism, characterized by:
  A. Grandiosity: Feelings of entitlement, either overt or covert; self centeredness; firmly holding to the belief that one is
  better than others; condescending toward others.
  B. Attention seeking: Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others; admiration seeking.
  C. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and consistent across situations.
  D. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual‟s developmental stage or socio cultural environment
  E. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma)
  • See all indicators above
  • See arc of his personality over time in the media
  • He has no sense of the disorder whatsoever, in fact admitting such would only dimish his own portrait of esteem
  • We are not aware of drug abuse or trauma to the individual

You can see where he is lining up with the DMS-V categories and I could go on with citations but we don’t really need to do we? All of this should be rather apparent and become even more nauseatingly clear as we move along in his presidency. It is also of note that leaks have started to appear due to the president’s outbursts from his narcissism at his staff. He is already alienating staff and likely will continue to alienate others around him who must work with him as his narcissistic tendencies assert themselves against them.

Another narrative I would like to bring up is the whole kompromat against Trump and how the NPD plays in this milieu. If there is kompromat on Trump then it is likely to be the one thing that would really work against a sufferer of NPD. Imagine the amounts of schadenfreude Trump would have to deal with if such documented evidence were to be released? Particular to this vein of thought would not be the sexual foray’s, I should think that some part of Trump would rationalize this as is overt manliness and sexual prowess (if only sex acts with hookers, if it was in fact being urinated on, well, that is another bent that may lead to diminishing his self perception) and use it to self re-enforce his beliefs. The kompromat that would be most damaging to him would be financial and call into question the quality of his businesses and his products. Alternatively the evidence of bad business dealings, dirty deals, and most of all, Trumps not being his own man but being beholden to others (i.e. monies lent and lost etc) that would diminish his grandiosity and perception of his world.

In summation I would just like you all to have a look at the DSM-V on this and his pathology he has shown us all and will continue to as time goes on during his presidency. I would also like you all to consider this thumbnail as a core aspect of how you might resist against him. Mocking him seems to be the best tool to use to flummox him and cause a reaction, perhaps I should say over reaction really. Additionally, look at this in light of how other countries will react to him and maybe learn to use this model as well. The way I assess it, if he is mocked enough and in the right ways he will over-rotate and cause ripples around him. Those ripples will come back at him and cause him to react more, it is a feedback loop that may in fact lead to his presidency ending through impeachment.

Interesting thoughts…

Dr. K.

ASSESSMENT: Insider Threats, Espionage Recruitment and Psychological Profiling

Insider Threat SNOWDEN:

The insider threat has always been and always will be the bigger of the threats or so the aphorism goes. In reality it certainly seems to be the case in the Snowden affair and the NSA is still stinging from it as I write this. Snowden leveraged his administrative access where he could and used technical and social means as well to gather the information and access he wanted to ex-filtrate out of Ft. Meade. Since Snowden was so successful and the NSA and IC has been blindsided by the ease of the attack and their stunning lack of controls the government and IC has been re-thinking their security around insider threats. Since much of today’s technology allows for ease of access and people tend to be the weakest link in the security chain (on average) the NSA is looking to more proactive controls against this type of exploit. Since they failed logically and technically to stop an insider attack I assume that they are in a real bind trying to assert control over not only the data they house but also the custodians of that data and architecture as well.

The Insider Threat Has Always Been The Largest:

Since the dawn of time the insider threat has always been a go to if possible in waging war against anyone. The Trojan Horse for example is the greatest use of the “insider” by placing outsiders inside and making the opposition the method of their own doom. Insiders though are commonly traitors or spies (sleeper or other) inserted or bought to work for the opposition to gain access inside the confines of the sanctum. In the case of hacking and digital malfeasance this often times takes the shape of an insider who feels they have been wronged in some way and either steals IP or destroys operations within a company or org to cause great damage. What has come to light though over the years and now has been brought to the fore are the psychological and social cues or traits that make a person more likely to be an insider threat.

In the case of espionage the recruitment of spies really is the tale of an insider threat. What makes someone become an asset for a service like the CIA? Within the IC (CIA) a lot of time was spent on the psychology of recruitment and handling of assets. MICE was the standard by which the CIA handled recruitment and handling up until recently when a new paradigm was put forth (RASCLS) which is much more reciprocal instead of just carrot and stick. Where all of this touches on insider threats though in the common vernacular of INFOSEC is where the motivation lies for someone’s actions. In a paper put out recently called “Inside the Mind of An Insider” the focus is on technologists and insider attacks that they have or may carry out and their personal motivations as well as proclivities to do so within the tech sector. I however would assert that this take is only a sub header within the larger umbrella of motivations and actions that an insider whether or not they are a spy or just an aggravated tech worker would have or carry out.

in the paper (cited above in picture at top) the writers lay out the “six characteristics” that coincidentally make up much of the same ideals and motivations that you will find in a recruit-able asset within the IC sphere. In fact, I would assert as well that if in fact Snowden were at all contacted by an outside security services to do what he did, these motivations would have been leveraged within him as well. What it all comes down to human nature. We are all subject to wants and desires as well as feelings of being under appreciated or not appreciated at all in our daily lives. This makes anyone potentially an insider whether they self activate or are handled by someone.

Countermeasures And Technologies:

The NSA though has been working on some technical means of detection and deterrence of an insider attack where other logical means have failed. These consist of programs that monitor behaviour patterns of users and access as well as I can only assume their outside activities such as internet access, browsing, and comments on sites. Can such programs really detect accurately the mind of a person and their motivations to lock down on them as a potential threat? I am sure that the technology is getting much better at this heuristic behaviour detection so sure but I don’t think it will be infallible however. I also suspect that it will also mark people as bad actors when in fact they may never even entertain the thought of actually carrying out some plan against the NSA or whatever company that might employ such tech. I would also assume that the people at the NSA will be undergoing more frequent and rigorous Poly sessions as well as perhaps psychological profiling which does not bode well for many I think who want to feel as though they are part of a team. Generally the job is stressful enough when you cannot talk about anything you do and are always fearing that you might slip at some point and give away information that you shouldn’t. The psychological stress of cleared life is hard and this will all just make it a little harder in the post Snowden world.

ANALYSIS:

Whether you call it an “insider threat” or a spy, saboteur, or insurgent the same psychology applies. People are motivated by things that are personal to them. Desires they have for money, power, or fame as well as a myriad of other reasons for their actions. To attempt to detect and deter this activity will be quite the undertaking and hard enough in the classified world. Now imagine that you are not a cleared individual but instead an corporate employee, how are you going to feel about such activities and programs attempting to tell whether or not you might turn on the company and damage their servers? I somehow doubt that many corporations will undertake the threat modelling here for insider threats as seriously as the NSA but I can see where some might want some insight. We already have things like Websense and IDS/IPS/SIEM tech that follows traffic but with the advent of the likes of Facebook, how long will it be until they offer a service that tracks users behaviour and sells it to your security department? If companies are sufficiently worried about their insider threats then they will begin profiling and putting in countermeasures.

Welcome to the brave new world…

K.

Psychopathy Tweets: Too Much Statistics, Not Enough Proof of Concept

On Sunday Defcon 20 had a talk that I had previously written about on the idea of using statistical analysis of word use to determine psychopathy in individuals online. As I sat through the talk and steadily watched people get up and leave I too had the urge to walk away as well. However, I had a mission and that was to confirm if there was any evidence that would say to me this was a viable means of detection for psychopaths.

What I came out with, after many slides of numbers, was “nope not really” Which, I pretty much had thought before. There are just too many variables to this type of venture and you would, in the end, need to have a trained psychoanalyst to talk to the individual to determine whether or not they are a true psychopath.

Sorry Sugg.. It was an interesting idea and I am wondering just where this will go if the author of the original paper tries to expand upon this process. You see, for this to work online possibly, is that the trained individual would chat with the “patient” or “UNSUB” as the case may be, to ask specific questions to elicit responses. See, that would work I think, but it is a manual process not a big data solution. So, while it was an interesting trip into what psychopathy is and possibly how to spot it in word use, it was a failed experiment in my book.

Now, another twist on this idea might be to take the transcripts of anonymous and other IRC chats and wash that through your program… There’s a lot going on there mentally and might show some traits, but, are they really suffering from some sort of psychiatric illness or are they just maladjusted? This has been something I have written about before an the vernacular used as well as the mindset that seems to be prevalent warrants some looking at perhaps.

Maybe next year?

Overall though, I surely hope that the governments and law enforcement bodies out there do not take up this idea and begin to mine people’s chat logs for psychopathy

*shudder*

Ding Dong! It’s the forensic psychiatrist.. We saw your tweets and thought we’d have a chat? What? these cops? They’re just here to visit too!

K.

Asperger’s: The New Insanity Defense for Hacking?

Asperger syndrome or Asperger’s syndrome or Asperger disorder ( /ˈɑspərɡərz/^[1] or /ˈæspərɡərz/^[2]) is an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. Although not required for diagnosis, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported.^[3][4]

From Wikipedia

Since the Gary McKinnon case, the use of the diagnosis by a defence team of “Asperger’s” seems to have become a go to position, at least that is presently in the U.K. justice system. The recent arrest of Ryan Cleary for cracking and DD0S attacks on sites such as SOCA also seems to be showing a penchant in the UK legal system toward launching a kind of an “Insanity Defence” by proxy of a declaration that Ryan is a high functioning autistic (Asperger’s) and that because of it, he may have not been able to stop himself.

While this theory may be in fact be the case in with both of these defendants on some level, the LEGAL aspect of this is this;

“Did they know they were committing crimes? Furthermore, can it be proven without a doubt that they both suffered to the extent that the compulsive behaviour was inescapable?”

If the answer is definitively that they had no control, then they should be treated and perhaps NEVER allowed access to the Internet again. This might be the way to punish them as well as keep them out of the penal system (even the mental health facilities therein) as opposed to putting them into the general populace in prison. However, I do not feel that the diagnosis of Asperger’s can really allow for their innocence of the crimes that they are charged with. Both of these guys are functionally capable of interacting with others around them and certainly capable of holding technical knowledge and acting upon it for their own ends.

The one point that the lawyers will make though is this notion that Asperger’s sufferers display obsessive behaviours concerning specific things that interest them. Some collect things, others memorise things. In the case of McKinnon and Cleary, they both obsessively hacked into things and stole data. In the Cleary case though, he was caught in the act of DD0s’ing a UK police site when they caught him. As far as I know, this is not necessarily a known Asperger’s syndrome effect or behaviour. (see below)

People with Asperger syndrome often display behavior, interests, and activities that are restricted and repetitive and are sometimes abnormally intense or focused. They may stick to inflexible routines, move in stereotyped and repetitive ways, or preoccupy themselves with parts of objects.^[24]

Pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest is one of the most striking features of AS.^[3] Individuals with AS may collect volumes of detailed information on a relatively narrow topic such as weather data or star names, without necessarily having genuine understanding of the broader topic.^[3][7] For example, a child might memorize camera model numbers while caring little about photography.^[3] This behavior is usually apparent by grade school, typically age 5 or 6 in the United States.^[3] Although these special interests may change from time to time, they typically become more unusual and narrowly focused, and often dominate social interaction so much that the entire family may become immersed. Because narrow topics often capture the interest of children, this symptom may go unrecognized.^[7

From Wikipedia

So, basically we have the lawyers in the UK trying to say “You can’t put Rainman in jail!” My question is just how long will it be before the US legal system catches up to this defence tool too? Can you imagine the next cases in the US being tried and the legal team for the accused finding a shrink that will testify that the cracker could not help himself..

He has Asperger’s after all!

This does not fly with me and I don’t see the court system or juries buying into it either, but you know they will try. Presently, the cases in the UK are being spun up and in the case of McKinnon, he has been fighting extradition for quite some time for hacking NASA. All the while his people have in fact been fighting the case in the media playing up that he is mentally unstable in the hopes that pity will prevail. The very same thing seems to be shaping up already for the Cleary case with videos (him stoned off his ass from huffing glue or perhaps just 420’d) showing up online and the diagnosis making the front pages of many news outlets.

Sorry.. But I don’t buy it. Sure, you may be mentally ill Ryan, but, I still think you knew what you were doing and are high enough functioning to be put in the pokey for it. Which brings me to another statement that is sticking in my craw;

LulzSec disbands: Hacking group LulzSec announced it was disbanding Saturday, 50 days after its first publicised hack. A member of the group told The Associated Press that the group was “bored” and denied that it was stopping its public attacks because of pressure from law enforcement. The LulzSec member did, however, say that some of the chat logs and information about hackers’ identities was correct.

From The Washington Post

Bored? BORED? Really? How about you go out and get some exercise or maybe read a book? Bored, I know that this likely is just a ruse in this case as the Feds are investigating all those DOX put out on you all but really, bored. This does though make me ask why they are doing this, and just how do they all rationalise in their heads about the right and wrong of it.

Does Lulzsec have Asperger’s en toto? Or have we raised and are we will raising generations of sociopaths with computers I wonder? Looking at 4chan, one can see where the Lulz came from and frankly, while some of it is damn funny, other things there are a bit disturbing. The conventions of society seem to have been stripped in the digital world and it is anything goes… AND this is the crux of the issue isn’t it? After all, now the hacking and the cyber bullying etc have begun to manifest real life physical outcomes today because we have networked our lives so much.

The Lulz actions to date really did not amount to much in the sense of destroying lives as far as I know of. However, they have broken many laws and thought themselves to be outside of their dominion. I am pretty sure that some, if not all of them, are about to find out otherwise, but, it is a disturbing trend isn’t it? Because the internet is so new and the parents of these kids likely have had little interface with it, they have not even thought about trying to apply the norms of how they should act in the real world and society to the digital world.

That is the problem.

It’s time to give out the digital spankings.

K.