Mentatul

Category: Satire

Satire pieces. Fake news. You name it.

  • Hackers all around Us!

    Hackers all around Us!

    Whenever news comes in about some sort of data breach or hacked service, we’re often treated with pictures of the assumed perpetrators and how their office (bedroom? garage?) looks. Mentatul managed to get in touch with some of these unique people. They were happy that somebody is interested in their private lives and difficult working conditions.

    Let us begin with Paul, a young man from Edinburgh who started hacking banks when he was 15 years old.

    Paul
    Paul

    We asked Paul about why he decided to become a hacker and about his daily routine:

    “I knew I am destined to be a hacker when I realized that simply by looking at a computer screen I could see zeros and ones fly out of it, along with words such as “password”, “identity theft” and “data security”. I then turned to the Hacker Fraternity and they told me only precious few have this talent, which they call The Gift. They told me I’m a natural.”

    “But even with such talent, my job is very difficult. I always have to dress in a menacing yet stylish outfit. Wearing gloves makes typing difficult. The sunglasses force me to crank the screen brightness for my laptop all the way to the max. It seriously impacts battery life.”

    Another interesting story is that of m4~, a housewife from Kansas who started hacking out of boredom.

    m4~
    m4~

    “Watching cats and dogs videos on Facebook gets old after a while, so I took a course in hacking. Suddenly, whenever I was looking at computer screens, a blue mist enveloped me, and I could see passwords fly through it. After winning a recipe website hacking contest, the Hacker Fraternity awarded me with this special hoodie that makes me disappear when I’m hacking. The dramatic effect is important for online success. The only problem is that my son got scared a couple of times when he saw mommy disappear in a dark blue haze when she turned on her laptop.”

    And then there’s Ulf, the boy-wonder from Switzerland who makes a living by stealing Bitcoins from rich.

    Ulf
    Ulf

    “One day I found this special magnet that attracts Bitcoin straight from the wireless networks of the rich. During the usual two-hour ride in my black van throughout the priciest neighborhoods in central Switzerland, I make about $4000.”

    Through our correspondent in New Zealand we got to know The Grewsome Crew, two siblings from Auckland. We asked them to tell us if they know of any good hackers that are able to do their job without this natural gift of seeing ones, zeros and cryptic symbols when they touch a keyboard.

    The Grewsome Crew
    The Grewsome Crew

    “Not really, no. Only those with The Gift can make it out there,” said the brother using a vocal distortion filter. His sister filled in: “It’s very tough competition. Sometimes the only thing that makes the difference is the hoodie. It also helps if you have a map of the Earth in your secret bunker. It’s good for geotagging victims.”

    Then there are those that, in addition to The Gift, have additional Gifts, such as p00r 0wn3r. He called us through a network of crypted relays and refused to give his location but judging by his English accent, we can safely assume he’s from a French-speaking area of the world.

    p00r own3r
    p00r own3r

    “You see, I was born with a severe eyesight handicap, so I learned Braille. Soon after finishing gymnasium I realized that I can come up with the correct password simply by touching text boxes on the screen. It’s called “tactic decryption” and there are very few of us that have this gift.”

    Concluding our series of interviews, we discussed with one of the unfortunate hackers who do not have The Gift. Meet Ovidiu from Moldavia.

    Ovidiu
    Ovidiu

    “Not having The Gift complicates my life. I must always use fancy lights and a fog machine to be even able to bypass the simplest security measures. If I wear an expensive suit in combination with a thick balaclava I can look threatening enough to manage some simple weekend heists. I’ve been kinda depressed due to all this.”

    S3Kr3T
    Mentatul, be careful what you’re writing. This is your first warning from S3Kr3T. I uploaded a picture of me to warn you that I can own this website whenever I want.

    That’s all folks, a glimpse into the unique lives of those that force you to change passwords every now and then, and sometimes even manage to siphon money from your bank accounts.

    If you want to see more pictures with hackers, just follow this simple Google search:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=hacker&newwindow=1&dcr=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwim3syFlOTXAhWBB5oKHSofDrUQ_AUICigB&biw=2560&bih=1305^

     

     

     

    This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.

    P.S.: if you want to understand more about hackers than what the silly stereotypes online show, you can start from this Wikipedia entry:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker^

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/02583-HackersAllAroundUs-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Hackers all around Us!’ desc=’Mentatul managed to get in touch with some of these unique people.’]

  • North Korea Open Sources Nuclear Weapons Program, Goes KickStarter

    North Korea Open Sources Nuclear Weapons Program, Goes KickStarter

    The Internet is abuzz following the news that North Korea has Open Sourced its nuclear weapons program. General Nuk Yu of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the person behind a new GitHub account that has uploaded ballistic missile and nuclear warhead designs. The readme.md file of the repository says:

    “We are setting nuclear weapons free. No longer will imperialistic superpowers hold countries hostage with technological superiority. Now, any country on Earth can take up arms against these imperialistic superpowers.”

    The repository also contains a how-to guide to avoiding United Nations sanctions, a list of countries and regimes willing to work together towards an Open Nuclear Stockpile and a manifesto about ensuring world peace through mutually assured destruction.

    Furthermore, General Nuk Yu and his staff have launched a KickStarter campaign seeking several billion dollars towards constructing a ballistic missile capable of deterring the USA’s THAAD system^. Apparently the North Korean missile will contain smaller missiles that can shoot down THAAD’s interceptors, essentially rendering the USA vulnerable to nuclear attack.

    We reached out to North Korea’s embassy in Sweden who had the following statement for us: “We believe that mutually assured destruction is an important deterrent for nuclear war and that the United States has broken the rules with their THAAD system. We are simply trying to even the odds and ask all peace lovers on Earth to unite and help us.”

    North Korea & KickStarter - A Match Made in Heaven
    North Korea & KickStarter – A Match Made in Heaven

    As any KickStarter campaign, project Nuke Skywalker has several interesting rewards:

    • Pledge 1$: knowledge that you contributed towards world freedom.
    • Pledge 20$: your name will be added inside all of the missiles’ CMOS memory, to go up in a ball of fire in case of nuclear war (plus all of the above rewards).
    • Pledge 300$: signed poster with Kim Jung Un and General Nuk Yu (plus all of the above rewards).
    • Pledge 4.000$: your name will be etched on the inside of the ballistic missiles (limited quantity!) (plus all of the above rewards).
    • Pledge 50.000$: your name will be hand-painted (in gold) on the outside of the ballistic missiles (limited quantity) (plus all of the above rewards).
    • Pledge 600.000$: personal call with general Nuk Yu on the topic of “world peace” (plus all of the above rewards).
    • Pledge 7.000.000$: lifetime tickets for you and a companion to a North Korean Century Vault (a nuclear fallout bunker equipped for survival through a potential nuclear winter) (limited quantity) (plus all of the above rewards).
    • Pledge 987.654.321$: luxury apartment for 6 inside a North Korean Century Vault (limited quantity) (plus all of the above rewards).

     

     

     

    This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/02026-NorthKoreaKickStarterNukes-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’North Korea Open Sources Nuclear Weapons Program, Goes KickStarter’ desc=’The Internet is abuzz following the news that North Korea has Open Sourced its nuclear weapons program.’]

  • Catholic Church Releases “PopEye” Digital Guardian Angel

    Catholic Church Releases “PopEye” Digital Guardian Angel

    Less than a month after introducing the SalveAtion Digital Assistant^ to the world, the Catholic Church is at it again. Wishing to expand its virtual economy, the Church has identified several key areas for improvement. Enter PopEye, a faithful’s most faithful guardian angel, designed to keep track of the user’s sins or lack thereof.

    In case you haven’t been following the news, SalveAtion – launched three weeks ago – allows Catholics to purchase various Church services using a virtual currency called the innoCent. The currency can be gained by the faithful when they listen and share sermons or convert their friends to Catholicism. innoCents can also be purchased for real money. However, Vatican’s Business Intelligence division has noticed that shortly after SalveAtion went out of beta, purchases of innoCents took a nosedive. This is where PopEye comes in.

    Here’s what father Luigi Banuti, archcoder of the application told us: “We sought ways through which to boost innoCent spending. Sin redemption was an obvious choice. When a sin is recorded it will be stored in the user’s Digital Purgatory database until it is redeemed via SalveAtion, our other application. To keep our subjects interested, PopEye will offer increasingly large rewards the more days a person has been sinless.”

    We asked Luigi how will PopEye realize that a sin has been committed: “We have enlisted the help of machines for this most noble work, but there will be supervision by mystic volunteers. PopEye will be a faithful’s ever-watchful angel. It will use the smartphone’s camera and microphone to send us information that will help our subjects attain a sinless life.”

    When asked about the privacy implications of all this, Luigi declared that true faithful have nothing to hide. Interestingly enough, the application has been growing in popularity. Christians seem to be happy to have their lives beamed directly to God’s representatives on Earth.

    Even more interesting is the tiny press conference held just hours after PopEye launched. During the event, which has escaped the attention of only but the most inquisitive of journalists, the Vatican has announced a sweeping partnership with the Interpol and law enforcement organizations in many Catholic countries.

    For its benefit, the Church will get access to criminal records and minor offenses (speeding tickets, parking violations, etc.) for all of its subjects, ready for easy conversion into sins that can later be redeemed via innoCents using the SalveAtion app. As part of the deal, law enforcement agencies will be provided with information that can help sinners be delivered sooner and more effectively than ever.

    Vatican’s newly established Digital Deliverance department has provided us with the list of rewards that sinless faithful can expect to get the longer they last without committing a sin.

    • 1 day, “Sinner No More”, 2 daily innoCents.
    • 3 days, “Careful Faithful”, 4 daily innoCents.
    • 10 days, “Sinless Decathlon”, 10 daily innoCents.
    • 50 days, “Devotee”, 15 daily innoCents.
    • 100 days, “Watchful Faithful”, 20 daily innoCents.
    • 300 days, “Ardent Follower”, 40 daily innoCents.
    • 1000 days, “Micro Saint”, 100 daily innoCents.
    • 4000 days, “Most Faithful”, 150 daily innoCents.
    • 10000 days, “Mini Saint”, 200 daily innoCents.

    Clarification: officials were adamant that we should emphasize the “Pope” in PopEye and capitalize the “E” so that this most sacred software work is not confused with the cartoon character. We’re not so sure if this is such a good idea since some readers might spell it as “pop eye” or “pope ye” rather than “pope eye”.

     

     

     

    This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/01898-CatholicChurchPopEye-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Catholic Church Releases "PopEye" Digital Guardian Angel’ desc=’Catholic Church launches PopEye, a faithful's most faithful guardian angel, designed to keep track of the user's sins or lack thereof.’]

  • Catholic Church Introduces “SalveAtion” Digital Assistant

    Catholic Church Introduces “SalveAtion” Digital Assistant

    Faced with the prospect of ever-decreasing popularity, the old religions are starting to take serious measures in order to catch up. Taking some cues from the world’s fastest growing religion, Consumerism^, the Catholic Church has launched a promising new product.

    “SalveAtion is one part virtual church and one part shop”, declared father Pepe Monezi, archcoder of the application. “We’re streaming an ever-increasing number of sermons. Faithful Catholics will receive in-app currency when sharing religious content on popular social networks or when convincing their friends or relatives to join our religion. The app also provides an instant baptism service. All you need is to do is say ‘Hello Salvation, please christen me’. Converting has never been easier.”

    The Church’s newly established Digital Deliverance department is in charge with developing the application under the leadership of archbishop Dominicus Panteos. We asked the archbishop for more details about the in-app currency:

    “Our digital currency is the innoCent. The faithful will be able to gather innoCents by doing good deeds, listening and sharing sermons and convincing others to install SalveAtion and baptize themselves. Of course, innoCents can also be purchased with real money.”

    Naturally, we became curious what can be purchased with innoCents via the application. Sure enough, the Catholic Church seems well prepared for bringing itself in the third millennium and has provided us with a list of services the faithful can enjoy, along with an example voice command that can optionally be used to activate said functionality.

    • “Hello Salvation, Washy my sins” begins an online confession with Washy, a virtual priest with a library of more than 2000 soothing phrases and 300 inventive suggestions for acts of contrition. The user needs at least 100 innoCents for the command to work. Otherwise, a “Be more innocent” error message will be spoken or displayed on screen.
    • “Hello Salvation, lift me up” sends a request for a favorable mention during the prayer of the nearest local priest. Cost: 200.
    • “I actually liked Benedict”. Cap with ex-Pope Benedict’s printed signature: 600.
    • “Helpdesk my sins”. Online confession through our Helpdesk: 999.
    • “Make me a bit pure”. Forgiveness of minor sin: 1500.
    • “I like to show off”. Poster signed by a genuine Vatican priest: 2000.
    • “Do me like in the church”. Online confession with a genuine priest: 3000.
    • “I want to get stoned”. Pebble from the gardens of the Vatican (transport not included): 5000.
    • “Make me really pure”. Forgiveness of major sin: 15000.
    • “I need more fame”. Mention of your name in the monthly “May These Faithful Be Redeemed” public statement, available on the Vatican’s website: 18000.
    • “Bling me up”. Flower bouquet from the gardens of the Vatican (transport not included, limited availability): 25000.
    • “Put in a good word for me”. Favorable mention during prayer in a random church in Italy: 35000.
    • “I ain’t no saint”. Submit your name for the monthly Virtual Canonization lottery. Winners’ e-mail addresses will be added in the application’s “Hall of Saints”. To add realism to the canonization, the user’s account will be purged from the database, so better do this when you have an exact number of innoCents. Cost: 52137.
    • “Hello Pope”. Ask the Pope a question (answer not guaranteed): 82000.
    • “Hello God”. Ask God a question (answer not guaranteed): 250500.

     

     

     

    This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/01850-CatholicChurchSalveAtionDigitalAssistant-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Catholic Church Introduces “SalveAtion” Digital Assistant’ desc=’Faced with the prospect of ever-decreasing popularity, the old religions are starting to take serious measures in order to catch up.’]

  • The NSA Goes Commercial with Data Restoration Service

    The NSA Goes Commercial with Data Restoration Service

    During its first participation at the International Big Data Conference, the National Security Agency made a surprise announcement:

    “We are in a fortunate position that allows us to uniquely compete with Amazon, Google, DropBox and other major cloud providers. Since we already have all our potential customers’ data, instead of charging for data storage like our competitors, our service will provide files and passwords restoration. Say you lose a beloved picture, or you forget some password. You just log in to the all-new NSA Data Restoration Portal and, for a moderate fee, you can recover any of your digital information”, declared Eddie Rainhouse, product manager for the NSA’s new Monetization Initiative that has been created within the Data Collection Services Division.

    The news has already caused quite a stir in the cloud computing community. Private companies complain that they can’t compete with the NSA’s eleven billion dollars budget and glowing public reputation.

    The famed American security agency has also purchased struggling hard disk maker Seagate in order to “ensure a steady and healthy increase of available storage capacity in order to accommodate more potential customers”.

    So far, members of the NSA’s Data Restoration Beta Program seem very satisfied with the service:

    “I accidentally wiped my iPhone. I didn’t even have to get out of the house to fix it. I just connected it to my MacBook and accessed NSA’s Data Restoration portal. Twenty minutes and ten bucks later, everything was back in working order. Even my family videos are there, along with all my applications. They even restored my Candy Crush progress. It’s an amazing service!”, declared Manny Datas of Arizona.

    Another user, Lo Safeson was saved by the NSA’s PayBack Plus service: “Somebody hacked my Facebook account. I immediately logged in to the NSA portal and I used the Facebook back door system to reset the password of my account. For three hundred dollars I also got an NSA consultant to delete all stolen private information from the hacker’s computer.”

    The NSA ensured us that they have a solid authentication service in place that makes sure that nobody except the user and the authorities can access the user’s data. It’s a custom built three-factor login process that uses classified biometric data.

    For those that would like to enter the Data Restoration Beta Program, there is an early-hawk discount available until the end of 2016. For your convenience, the NSA has allowed us to publish a list of currently provided services:

    • Full Data Restoration: restores any or all of your devices to the previous state of your choosing. Backups are updated regularly for any data-capable device. The backups will not count against your data quota, since the NSA has working agreements with most Internet Service Providers and is part of International Intelligence Agencies Coalition for Data Safety.
    • Memories Recovery: using this feature, you can recover deleted e-mails or messages from any popular provider. You can also playback old telephone or Skype conversations, as long as they’ve taken place in the past five years.
    • Password Recovery: as the name implies, you can recover your password, in clear text, for any website you visited in the past decade.
    • PayBack Plus: provides counter-attack measures to be used against hackers involved in identity theft. You can remotely delete stolen information and expose hackers to public authorities.
    • Sneaky Peeky: provides read-only access to your NSA history, allowing you to gauge the possibilities of the service and determine what sort of Data Restoration operation you’d like to go for.
    • NSA MVC (Most Valued Customer) Subscription: also known as the NSA Prime, this subscription requires you to pay a small annual fee. Doing so will award you Data Restoration Priority Golden Elephant, as well as tempting discounts for any current or future NSA customer-centric service.

     

     

     

    This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.
    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/01276-NSADataRestoration-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’The NSA Goes Commercial with Data Restoration Service’ desc=’During its first participation at the International Big Data Conference, the National Security Agency made a surprise announcement.’]

  • Trump, in. Musk, out. Escaping to Mars

    Trump, in. Musk, out. Escaping to Mars

    After months of reading the media coverage about the elections in the USA, the Tesla Motors chief has become seriously depressed. Fortunately, after a meeting with his secret team of advisers, Musk came up with a plan^:

    “We realized that there is a fantastic business opportunity here. There are very many Americans who, like me, would prefer to evacuate Earth after the election, regardless of who wins. Therefore, in the coming years, we intend to purchase several mining companies and strip-mine the planet, sending as many people as possible to Mars. For a modest price, of course.”

    Around the world, demonstrators gathered in support of the measure. Apparently, the same feeling is felt in many other countries; the feeling that democracy is a fake and that the options on the menu are controlled by the Establishment^.

    We’ve reached out to NASA for a comment. We got the following statement out of NASA’s administrator, Charles Bolden:

    “We’re really thankful to Elon. Considering that in the following years more and more of our country’s budget will go into buggy fighter airplanes^ and cyber-warfare^, we will probably find ourselves without a job by 2020. We expect that after the elections Elon’s business will… let’s say skyrocket… and he’ll definitely consider hiring us into the sprawling SpaceX empire.”

    Not surprisingly, many personalities have already pledged several hundreds of millions of dollars in order to be on the first boat to leave the backward, dying world.

    “We’ll bring high quality rap to Mars, we’ll make Mars an artist’s paradise”, said Kanye West, donning a cap with a blinged-out racing car wheel with a picture of Mars in the middle.

    Religious personalities won’t be missing either. Here’s what Romanian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Daniel had to say: “We believe that every man, woman and child has the right to spiritual education. Our 21st century educational model is unsurpassed in the entire Europe. Our Sunday School will provide the perfect spiritual nourishment for the home-sick cosmonaut.”

    BREAKING UPDATE: soon after publishing this article, we were contacted by Donald Trump’s campaign HQ with the following statement:

    Donald would like to thank you for publishing what is undoubtedly a truth of the modern world. This state of fact has upset Mister Trump for a great many years, which is partially the reason for his sometimes erratic behavior. However, Donald would like to promise that shortly after he is being elected, he will formally request that SpaceX is given at least as much budget as NASA.

    Also, as a new-found faithful Christian, Donald will take a page from the Bible and send his flesh and blood, his son, lovingly called Donald Trump Junior, as one of the first colonists to Mars. Mister Trump has asked me to forward the following official statement:

    “Donald will sacrifice himself to deliver all Martians from sin. He will work tirelessly from his mansion on top of Olympus Mons to best represent Mars in the colony’s relations with me, Emperor of Earth, Trump the First.”
     

    This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.
    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/01075-MuskEscapesEarth-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Trump, in. Musk, out. Escaping to Mars’ desc=’Elon Musk wants to build a rocket and escape the fallout from elections in the USA.’]