
The Burglar with His Very Own Mac Attack - kposehn
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/01/the-burglar-with-his-very-own-mac-attack.html
======
andkon
This reminds me a lot of BLDGBLG's post about Die Hard's architecture[1],
especially this line:

    
    
      his dream house included a maze of trap-doors and what 
      Sergeant Scheimreif called “escape holes.” It was everything
      he seemed to want a building to be—with near-infinite ways 
      of getting from one room to another and no upper limit on 
      the places he could hide.
    

This stuff is a weird obsession of mine, probably stemming from being a
skateboarder for my whole life. Eventually, you realize that all space is
something you can rearrange.

[1] [http://www.bldgblog.com/2010/01/nakatomi-
space/](http://www.bldgblog.com/2010/01/nakatomi-space/)

~~~
detaro
It is by the same author, Geoff Manaugh.

I find his writings work best in collection, e.g. if you read a lot of
BLDGBLOG. In the individual pieces the meta-level ideas are kind of strange,
if you read more and find the same aspects over and over again it makes more
sense.

------
HoopleHead
I know it was just a taster, trying to interest us in a forthcoming book. But,
nevertheless, I thought that story was very long on hyperbole and very short
on detail.

~~~
egjerlow
Exactly. In what way did roofman engineer the toys-r-us store? What kind of
regularities did he exploit in his burglaries?

------
BWStearns
It's always interesting to see the systems that get engineered (engineer
themselves? abiogenerate?) as externalities. It's like a scaled up
pathological version of [https://xkcd.com/1172/](https://xkcd.com/1172/)

I don't think this is common enough to justify having pentesters think about
your corporate procedures' exposure to such behavior but it's definitely an
interesting thing to think about when designing sensitive human or mixed
human/computer systems.

Edit: word building fix

------
y7
> But there was more to it than that. Hidden inside the repetitive floor plans
> and the daily schedules of these franchised businesses, Roofman had found
> the parameters of a kind of criminal Groundhog Day: a burglary that could be
> performed over and over in different towns, cities, and states—probably even
> different countries, if he’d tried—and his skills would only get better with
> each outing. In a very real sense, he was breaking into the same building
> again and again, endlessly duplicating the original crime.

> For Roofman, it was as if each McDonald’s with its streamlined timetable and
> centrally controlled managerial regime was an identical crystal world: a
> corporate mandala of polished countertops, cash registers, supply closets,
> money boxes, and safes into which he could drop from above as if teleported
> there. Everything would be in similar locations, down to the actions taking
> place within each restaurant. At more or less the same time of day—whether
> it was a branch in California or in rural North Carolina—employees would be
> following a mandated sequence of events, a prescribed routine, and it must
> have felt as if he had found some sort of crack in space-time, a quantum
> filmloop stuttering without cease, an endless present moment always waiting
> to be robbed. It was the perfect crime—and he could do it over and over
> again.

> For Roofman, it must have looked as if the rest of the world were locked in
> a trance, doing the exact same things at the exact same times of day—in the
> same kinds of buildings, no less—and not just in one state, but everywhere.
> It’s no real surprise, then, that he would become greedy, ambitious,
> overconfident, stepping up to larger and larger businesses—but still
> targeting franchises and big-box stores. They would all have their own
> spatial formulas and repeating events, he knew; they would all be run
> according to predictable loops inside identical layouts all over the
> country.

Personally, I got a bit bored with the author's style of continuously seeking
bold metaphors for the same thing, but I'm curious: do people consider this
interesting writing, or does this style detract from the content?

~~~
mistersquid
(Context: I used to teach American Literature at a Carnegie Mellon R2
university, and I can recognize what other humanities scholars would identify
as good writing.)

From the point of view of a belles lettres/liberal arts reader (as opposed to
an audience interested in journalistic reportage) Manaugh's writing is
engaging, thought-provoking, and compelling. Manaugh makes his points through
his style and, in my view, his style is superb.

From a purely informational perspective, I can see how such a dense and
somewhat repetitive style could be annoying and uninteresting. However, from
the perspective of someone, say, interested in cultural studies as a
humanistic discipline, Manaugh's cultivation of his ideas using a richly
detailed metaphorical scaffolding is aesthetically pleasing and
informationally satisfying.

In terms of the level of engagement and in a domain more familiar to people
develop software, I would compare Manaugh's style to Paul Ford's style in
"What is Code?"[0]. Ford is himself someone quite experienced in the world of
humanities, and his "What is Code?" is a highly-detailed ethnographic window
into the world of bespoke software creation.

tl;dr: "The Burglar With His Very Own Mac Attack" would be considered by many
humanities scholars as well-written, even if they did not agree with Manaugh's
conclusions.

[0]
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjkmenulrnMAhUI9GMKHSbyAyQQFggdMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fgraphics%2F2015-paul-
ford-what-is-
code%2F&usg=AFQjCNFqVVi86DOCCEX2LFdETJ03DN3oXA&sig2=kgUunvpwfhf2cCBHraLgpA)

------
beejiu
This page has download 20MB of content in about 20 seconds. Despite having a
top of the range iMac, I can barely scroll the page without lag.

~~~
yetihehe
Get adBlock. 3 year old laptop plus firefox and I didn't see any slowdowns.

------
svantana
This is reminiscent of the dichotomy of well structured software versus copy
protection/cracking -- software development thrives in clear organization and
separation of concerns, but so does cracking (i.e. having a single function
take care of all license management will make it crackable in minutes). So
software devs who want good DRM are forced to employ arcane obfuscation and
back-handed tactics, sometimes at the detriment of the functionality and
repairability of the software. I guess that's part of why we can't have good
things...

------
SFJulie
So by organizing people by routine franchise open the door to a new type of
crime.

Imagine if an organized mob decided to mutualize the analysis and then stroke
at the same time 100 shops?

Imagine if banks do the same as mc do?

------
cm3
Who else thought this was about a Mac OS exploit?

~~~
Drdrdrq
I thought it had to do with MAC addresses...

------
nxzero
>> "without fail described as polite—in one oft-repeated example, even
insisting that his victims put on their winter coats so that they could stay
warm after he locked them all in a walk-in freezer."

Sorry, but if someone tried to lock me in a freezer last thought would be how
polite they were.

------
marincounty
When I was in college, I had a security job. I literally watched a huge
building on the weekends. It was in a bad part of town, so walking around that
big, dark building was nerve wracking. I had a time clock, and had to punch 15
keys per hour. For two years, I made my rounds on the hour. Ten minutes of
running around that place. Then back to the janitorial closet, and my
homework.

After two years, my boss asked me to mix up my rounds. When I mixed up my
rounds, I saw a lot of people doing things in that building they shouldn't
have. Did I care? No! It was nothing life, or death, and I wasen't going to
die over $7.49/hr. Nor, would I ruin some guys life. No--I wasen't a good
security guard, but the patrons always got their lost purse/wallet back, if I
found their items.

People don't like to hear this, but so much theft is internal. Entities like
to blame professional criminals, drug addicts, etc., but so much theft is
internal.

The people higher up in the organization stole the most. It was then middle
management. And then Cops stole--wow, it was staggering, but they were pretty
slick. And the thefts were always blamed on gangs, the homeless, or that new
janitor.

I stayed quiet, and watched their behavior. I can usually walk through any
store, and spot which employee is stealing. I have found they are usually
overly enthusiastic, care too much about following exact procedure, and they
are usually the last person in the organization you would expect would have a
dark side, and never complain. In other words, the person who gets the
managent promotion.

(I don't want to argue. I won't be back. If you do have a problem with
stealing, really try to stop. If you can't stop, be smart. Don't steal enough
to rack up a felony. I believe it's over $500? Don't ever walk into a
establishment with no money. I forget what it's called, but it racks up big
charges. If you are stealing because of the thrill it brings, take up intence
exercise, or see a therapist. And try to take on Robin Hood morality; Never
take from the poor. Don't let the innocent guy take the fall. Be a stand up
guy?)

~~~
percept
Relating this back to the story, I'd say that instead of punching holes
through the walls, after two years you punched holes through your routine, and
saw new things that had--surprisingly--been there all along, and had no doubt
been aware of you!

Kind of like opening a door into another dimension of existence. (Just
rewatched _Buckaroo Banzai_ recently.)

