Hacking Innovation. Josh Linkner
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electrical grids and a need to produce clean energy with non-traditional methods. Had she fallen in love with the solution – a soccer ball that generates electricity – she would have never expanded her company or been able to leave a gigantic, non-carbon footprint on our planet.
Hackers are drawn to problems over solutions. In fact, the art of hacking involves seeking to uncover the most elegant solution by trying numerous approaches to overcome an obstacle. Even if an approach delivers a positive result, the relentless pursuit of a better way drives the hacker to continue her craft in search of an even better approach.
Inherent to core mindset #2 is a willingness to take on pursuits without a charted course. In the same way a football team takes the field with a general strategy, but may need to change plays on the fly, hackers look at their sport as unscripted play. Rather than a detailed master strategy followed by mindless execution, these innovators journey down an unmarked trail with creative confidence.
THE BIGGEST BANK HEIST IN HISTORY
A masked man walks into a bank, hands the teller a note demanding that unmarked bills be placed in a paper bag and handed over. Or else. For many of us, this is what comes to mind when we think of a bank robbery. It’s been done the same since long before the days of Bonnie and Clyde.
Perhaps the most famous bank robber of all time, the notorious John Dillinger robbed 13 banks across five states in the Midwest, making away with over $300,000 in loot. His criminal feats were so compelling that his exploits have been glamorized in 14 star-studded motion pictures.
Compare that to the 2015 heist that most of us never heard about. Over 100 banks across 30 countries were taken for over $1 billion. Though robbers like Jesse James are more infamous, even his spoils pale in comparison to these perpetrators, who have never been identified or caught. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky issued a report that documented these new robbers’ exploits. Thought to be a gang of hackers from Russia and China, they leveraged hacker mindsets to perpetrate the biggest heist in history.
Studying the crimes, Kaspersky reverse-engineered their approach. It began not only with a clear motive (stealing money) and target (banks), but also with intense curiosity. Rather than following a traditional approach, the hackers relentlessly questioned conventional tactics. They dared to try completely new strategies.
One part of their scheme involved breaking into the source code of ATM machines, allowing them to be remotely controlled. From thousands of miles away, the gang instructed specific machines to literally spew cash at exact times. They enlisted ‘money mules’ to approach the ATM machines at a precise time and collect the cash without even pressing a single button. Another aspect of the plan included deducting small amounts from thousands of accounts and then routing these funds from one account to another, through a series of inter-connected servers, making the eventual flow of funds untraceable.
To accomplish this historic heist, the robbers first had to get inside the fortress. To do this, they sent thousands of emails to unsuspecting bank employees around the world. The emails lured bank employees to open an attachment. With a single click, secretive malware was installed on the banks’ computer systems, providing the hackers unfettered access from the inside.
Rather than executing a quick grab-and-go, the patient hackers used their newfound access to study the inner-workings of each target bank. Their sense of exploration drove them to find new, better possibilities. They carefully studied each bank’s security protocols, audit trails, reporting structures, and asset flows. Their underlying quest for more insight led them deeper into their victims’ cyber-vaults, allowing them to reveal unprecedented access to near limitless funds.
Hacker mindset #2, Compasses Over Maps, enabled a crime of epic proportion and allowed these deviants to cover their tracks for a clean getaway. Rather than locking on a plan before launching their scheme, they learned and adapted along the way. They playfully taunted bank security professionals by rigging ATMs to spit out cash, and they harnessed curiosity to walk away unscathed, with over a billion dollars.
We should all feel uncomfortable here. There were real victims in this crime, and the criminals who committed these thefts should be brought to justice. I certainly don’t condone their crimes and am not encouraging you to break the law. But if we put aside their malicious intent, this small group solved a very complex problem in a novel way. Their innovative hacks outsmarted their competition and enabled them to achieve, if not exceed, their desired outcome. Embracing the hacker mindset of Compasses Over Maps can empower you to achieve your own outcomes with the same skill of these notorious criminals. But please direct your hack toward positive, legitimate ends.
NOTHING IS STATIC
After procrastinating for nearly a week, you finally get around to actually putting the clothes in the washing machine. You are pressed for time, but you’re finally out of clean underwear. You grab the bottle of detergent, turn it upside down, and...nothing. After 15 seconds completely inverted, a small drop peeks out from the bottle and lands in the machine. Frustration mounts as you realize that you’ll need to make a special trip to the store for more detergent, or, well, you’re out of other options.
This frustration is the exact thing the folks at Amazon are on the lookout for.
What began as an online bookstore has expanded into the 9th most valuable company in the world, valued at over $340 billion, with 230,000 team members intently focused on discovering what’s next, rather than just executing what already is. Jeff Bezos, now the 8 th wealthiest American, views the company as a living organism whose purpose is to constantly evolve and adapt to changing circumstances. Right from the start, he worked to build a company that was fluid in its offerings and approach. The only immovable principles: an obsession with serving customers better and a commitment to ongoing innovation.
So how does this help with you standing in front of your washer without detergent or clean underwear? Instead of whipping the empty jug across the room in defeat, you press the small button affixed to the front of your washing machine. The button connects to your home Wi-Fi network, logs into your Amazon account, looks up your last order of detergent to ensure you get your favorite brand, and immediately ships you a fresh bottle overnight, billing the purchase to your credit card. All with the single touch of a button, the Amazon Dash button.
This little invention is one of hundreds that keeps Amazon on the forefront of change and progress. As you may expect, you can get a Dash Button for just about anything. A Glad button placed inside a kitchen drawer can be pressed to re-order plastic sandwich bags. Low on shaving cream? Press the Gillette button you placed in your bathroom to have it rushed your way. Paper towel, bug killer, dish soap, and even condoms are available with the touch of a button. Amazon is making it dead simple to do business with them.
Fueling Amazon’s incredible success is the fundamental hacker mindset that Nothing Is Static. Transforming from an online bookstore, to a full-scale online department store, to offering technology and web hosting services to other firms, and recently even venturing into space travel, the company is in a state of constant motion. Bezos reinforced this philosophy by saying, “A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last.” What dazzles a customer today will be soon be commonplace, so he pushes his team to reinvent early and often.
HACKING LANDMINES
There are over 110 million landmines planted beneath the earth’s surface, killing 60,000 people per year and injuring many times more. This worldwide issue is a terrifying daily threat to people in the desert region around Kabul, Afghanistan.
Growing up just outside Kabul, Massoud Hassani witnessed some terrible