I have been viewing the world as in a state of World War for some time now. It is occurring in all nations. It is simply being fought in ways that have never been seen before. Because, most of us do not see the battles and where they are occurring we are losing them.

One of the places I've written about before is a war for the mind. I've mentioned how we think in words. Yet we allow Cultural Marxists to hijack and redefine words (often the opposite of the actual meaning) and then society at large goes along with these redefinitions. Since we think in words a method of thought, or mental territory as it may be described is lost. They are only successful because people don't see their minds as important real estate which must be defended. Perhaps they do, but is it too late by that time?

Engineering / Security / Internet

Like I said I have spoken about that before. There are other areas that I will talk about that are going to be technical and could be dry. I am familiar with these as I am a network engineer and I work within the telephony industry. I manage the infrastructure for Cloud PBXes, phone trunks, and more. Our business is primarily in the United States and Canada and I am one of a three person team of engineers. In particular I spend a lot of time addressing security concerns and maintaining our IP (Internet Prototcol) space. Mostly this is done in what is known as IPv4 of which we have two /21s. We have a much larger IPv6 block as well but we have not yet transitioned to using it.

It is not unusual for me to blacklist IPs on a multiple times per week basis. Sometimes I'll blacklist entire networks. This used to be a lot easier as I'd simply put all IP blocks outside of the U.S. and Canada in a special group that was more restricted and only clients that signed a waiver would be exposed to those external sources. For the past two years that has rapidly no longer been successful. The bigger IP blocks owned by companies all over the world are being chopped up into smaller networks and often IP space that was inside the U.S. will suddenly be leased by other countries.

Why is this important?

Not all countries have the same restrictions on hacking and attacking other nations. Also the United States has a big target on its back. Often we find out about these new leases when we suddenly start seeing brute force login attempts, SIP invites, SIP registrations, etc. I then go to work blocking those. Sometimes we notice it enough in a big block that I end up having to spend time analyzing all the networks and how they have changed hands. This can take some time.

So far all of this may seem like no big deal and common sense. Hackers are hacking. Script kiddies are running scripts.

Yet that ultimately is not the big issue. Keep in mind what I referred to as territory earlier. I have a different perspective on the long term ramifications of these actions and our mitigations of the attacks. Yet I must first share another type of attack I am seeing rampant these days. This is one that most of you are likely becoming more aware of than you would like.

Phones

How often are you getting spam calls, fraudulent calls, etc.? How many times have you been called about your vehicle warranty when perhaps you don't even own a vehicle? How many times have you been called about a package that was misdelivered? How many times have you been called by people claiming to be Social Services, or the IRS? How many calls have you received from people wanting to get you involved in class action lawsuits as they rattle off a laundry list of possible cases you might be part of?

These are ALL frauds and scams. I hope you are reporting and flagging such calls. Yet that introduces some things related to territory again.

Phone numbers that you have in the industry are known as DIDs. Your cell phone number in my industry is known as a DID. I can get DIDs from virtually all area codes around the U.S. and country with very little effort. It doesn't matter where the phone is actually going to be at. I could set up a phone in Florida with a DID from California if I wanted.

This again is likely something you've encountered. In the age of cell phones it is not unusual to move from one area code to another but decide you want to keep your old cell phone number (DID).

What about when a DID is reported as SPAM, or FRAUD? That likely ends up in a database somewhere.

As the person using the DIDs for dishonest and even criminal activities eventually I can reach out to a carrier and return some DIDs I no longer wish to use. I might ask for a new batch.

Those DIDs that are flagged in databases all over the world as spam are back in the pool of available numbers.

You as a new phone user request a new phone number and you get one of these DIDs. Perhaps you call people and they are informed you are a source of spam, or fraud. Why? You are using a number that has been released by the criminals. It now is your number.

If you consider attrition as we fight to stop these spammers we are flagging DIDs which they relinquish and now it has become tarnished telephone territory.

Over time there likely won't be many DIDs that are not considered sources of spam/fraud. How do you get a clean DID? You likely can't.

IP Space

This is also true of IP addresses being blacklisted by security people like myself all over the world. Yes, it is stopping an attack for now but have you ever stopped to consider the implications of all of these little IPv4 pieces of territory being blocked? What happens when the lease ends and someone else is using that IP address? Do parts of the internet not work for them because their IP address was used for nefarious purposes by someone else in the past.

While we are being attacked with hacking and scamming we are fighting back but in the process we are marking territory as BAD. The territory thus is declining. Our attempts to defend could also result in us crippling some things.

Perhaps that is the intention... And that my friends is why I wrote this.

Perhaps our defenses in some cases give them the victory they were seeking.