#im doing this without depth control net for now

[redslug]

Not quite what I want from this, but it's making for a rather cute post-process already. I like how it brings in the color variation typical for my style and tints the shadows to something more lively.

Let's see what high res fix can do about the details and if it fails I can always just draw in some lines as guides

[everthewip]

The Siren - WIP

Something I began a long time ago but would like to continue, so I'm adding it to my tumblr as if this will somehow encourage me to keep writing.

TW// slavery, implied sex slavery, no actual sex or sexual violence in writing though, not sure if described nudity counts as a tw but there's a bit of that i guess, as always lmk if you think there should be a tw i didn't add (im still new to posting things that might need one). Also it should go w/o saying but these are not concepts I condone even if I chose to write about them.

The Sirens were the greatest threat to sailor and pirate alike. Greater even than the untamed waves and the furious storms; greater even than the curse of a witch or the arms of a kraken. With luck and skill, those foes can be evaded and defeated. There are calm seas in wake of a storm; there is hope beyond the grasp of monstrous beasts.

But the Sirens were a foe of a different breed.

Only the deaf were safe from their song, yet even they would be lost with the rest of their crew should the Sirens draw their ship into the depths. There is no escaping a lure that catches your very soul and claims all control; there is no escape from the voice that harkens your death with a haunting melody.

The Sirens and Sea Witches were not allies. Legend says they once called the other Sister, both born from the same womb and seed. Some believe the Witches were Sirens once, now stripped of their song and shunned for some wrong deed or another. The Witches no longer remember and no sailor has lived to carry home the truth from a Siren's lips.

It was the Witches, then, who aided the men of the sea in their fight against those watery demons. In exchange for freedom and safety to walk the port cities without persecution, they offered a gift; a secret, a way to evade the Siren's song. It was a spell that costs a witch a great deal to craft, one that steals a piece of her spirit and life, aging her well beyond her true years. It is a price they are willing to pay to avoid the hangman's noose.

Protected by this piece of a Witch, a hint of their ancient Siren blood, men sailed without fear. When their vessel did drift too close to a Siren's domain, they were not captured in song and spell. They fought, staining the sea with their ancient foe's blood, and declaring the Sirens' reign of terror at an end.

And so the Sirens faded away and ships traversed the seas freely, the only song on the wind their new song of power.

For a time, the story of the Sirens became a legend. The Sea Witches grew in influence, their charms a vital necessity for any ship setting sail, and their presence one of respect in the places they made their domain. At long last they had taken their curse, their punishment, and turned it into a blessing. The Sirens were shunned and the Witches beloved, and the existence of those sea demons no longer mattered.

Until one was captured.

She had not sought to draw the sailors to their deaths beneath the cold and dark sea, no matter what they say. The morning had been kissed by thick fog and the air was silent; her lips remained frozen shut. The lanterns on the ship glowed a dim yellow, piercing the fog like a blade, and they frightened the young Siren who had swam too near… Though even the lights were not as terrifying as the rifle's bang; a warning shot, fired into the water.

Startled, the Siren leaped from her hiding place on a nearby rock and the splash of water on that silent morn drew the sailors' sights upon her.

For the Witch's charm not only protected them from that deadly song, but it betrayed a Siren's presence. Like a beacon in the night, they could see her form, and though no Siren had been seen in countless years, all men of the sea believed in their existence and knew what to do.

The nets caught her before she could swim too deep and she was lifted from her watery home, now a prisoner on a cage of wood, with wardens who hated the very idea of her.

Some wanted to kill her, cut out her heart and trade it to a Witch to earn a higher blessing. Some wanted to use her, to warm their beds and ease their need, for they had been many moons without a woman. But their Captain was no barbarian, though nor was he a saint. He would not kill her nor let her be claimed, but knew her body was worth gold to the right bidder, and many ports still held auctions for slaves of all kind.

And what a rare and exotic slave she would make.

Had his thirst for power been as strong as his thirst for gold, he would have kept her as such for himself.

They kept her below deck with her hands bound. They did not feed her, for none knew what a Siren ate and she would not speak. She barely moved, did not wither, did not grow ill so far away from the depths of the sea. And when the ship reached its next port, they took her into the open sunlight and let the entire harbor watch her, shameful in her nakedness, be led through. Many found it immoral, thinking her only a woman- a sickly one, given the color of her skin. Many more were intrigued and knew the nature of her presence, whether she be Siren or not. There was a slave trader eager to get his hands on her in more ways than one, and by dusk she was sold and found a cage of iron had replaced her prison of wood.

There were other slaves, but not quite like she. There were slaves meant for labor, mostly men young enough to work for many years. There were women, old and young, who would find their place in a home tending to domestic duties and perhaps children. And there were some of both – adult men, women – who were meant for neither, but instead find their place beneath a stranger's sheets, or, perhaps as a trophy to be envied.

It was to this final group that she would belong.

The trader could not touch her in the ways that he craved. He was a vile man who took delight in his profession, and even more-so in tormenting the slaves he bought and sold. But the Siren… even without her song, he could barely fight the way he desired her. Stories, however, claimed they were virgins, hating man enough to drown him and never offer him the pleasure of their flesh. So the trader assumed she was untouched and knew he would get a higher price for such a gem. No matter how he ached at her sight, he would not have her, and instead took out his frustration in other ways.

“They say yer kind are deviants,” he taunted through her cage bars. “Drownin' men, but layin' with yer own kind like a nasty whore… which is all yer gonna be soon.”

The Siren said nothing. She watched him with her dark eyes and was silent, expression numb, and this enraged the trader more than anything at all. He wanted tears or defiance. He wanted a reason to reach into her cage and whip her raw. She gave him nothing and he hated her more than any slave he had ever traded before.

On the day of her auction, the harbor was alive with chatter and anxiety. A new ship had anchored in the night and heard tale of the auction on the morn, but their Captain had been hesitant to accept an invitation. In the end, she did so, if only to keep on good terms with those in charge of this town. It was a good and safe place to stop, and as a cargo ship there were never enough of those between destinations.

She was a large woman, built like a man and every bit as intimidating. Her skin was tanned and body toned, with rough hands and clear muscle to show off her years of hard work. Her hair was black as squid ink and messy, but she kept the shoulder-length strands pulled back by a loose tie. Most thought she had a handsome face with a strong jaw and sharp nose. Her lips, thin and raw from the sea winds, rarely smiled. Her eyes, though, were kind. Golden brown, they watched the auction begin with a touch of empathy for those on display.

The Siren was kept hidden until her moment came. When she was finally revealed, the harbor fell silent. No one whispered. The waves grew still. The wind died down. The gulls refused to call out. It was as if the sea and all who belonged to it had slipped into mourning, offering a hushed moment in respect for their stolen daughter. The Captain, like everyone else, was simply entranced.

She was not a beauty in the common sense. Her body was not slender nor angelic. She was thick in nearly all places, with a belly that moved with every movement. Her breasts were full and heavy, her thighs large enough to hide the naked space between them. Her skin was a pale blue with hints of green, yet almost humanoid enough to be mistaken for a sickly gray. Her hair was long and thick, much like her flesh, hanging down to her lower back in waves of white. Her lips were dark, sea blue up close, and her eyes nearly the same; black as the void, some whispered.

She looked nothing like the depictions of Sirens in books and paintings. Those creatures looked like women, thin and lovely, with human skin and hair of many shades. This Siren looked precisely as she should, with a body built to survive the cold depths, and a gaze to inspire fear in the weak-spirited.

And yet, in some eerie way, she was still beautiful.

It was as if a spell had fallen over the harbor for but a moment, and when it was lifted time seemed to move twice as fast to catch up. The auction continued without relent, a cacophony of voices rising up to place their bids, the price for her growing higher and higher and higher still. Before the Captain could regain herself, the Siren had been sold.

The local prison warden bought her. The Captain knew nothing about him. He was quiet and stern by appearance alone, but little more could be discerned. What she could not determine from him, however, she glimpsed from the Siren.

When the man moved to retrieve her, the Siren's calm, emotionless expression shifted. For just a moment, her eyes widened and the Captain fancied she glimpsed fear in those dark eyes. As soon as it was there, it was gone, and the Siren had become her stoic vision once again as she followed her new master somewhere quieter and secluded.

“Poor little fish,” a woman spoke at the Captain's side. She turned to see a small, elderly woman bent over a cane, her gray eyes watching the Siren vanish through the crowd. A shawl was draped over the elder's shoulders and her hair was so thinned that her scalp was exposed to the sun. The Captain instinctively shifted, using the shadow cast by her form to cover the woman's head.

The elder seemed not to notice. “There's a strong spirit still stirring in her, but that man'll break it faster than he breaks her womanhood.”

“How do you know?” the Captain asked, her gaze rising to watch the fading figures leave the harbor. Beside her, the woman was silent, and when she turned to look there was no one there at all.

The Captain did not know what drove her to push through the crowd and follow in the tracks of the Warden and Siren. She knew only that her own heart would never forgive herself if she did nothing at all.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Fifty years ago, Japan’s Kaiju Boom was at its peak, with Ultraman and Ultraseven on TV and films from four of the country’s five major studios in the theaters: Toho’s Son of Godzilla and King Kong Escapes, Daiei’s Gamera vs. Gyaos, Nikkatsu’s Gappa, and Shochiku’s The X from Outer Space. Wouldn’t you know it, in 2017 there were five kaiju movies and two Ultraman shows too, as the transnational Kaiju Boom rolled on with no end in sight. Let’s take a look back at all that transpired.

1) Kong is King

If cinematic universes are the future, then the world’s greatest kaiju are lucky to have Legendary Pictures in charge of theirs. Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ Kong: Skull Island, the second entry in the MonsterVerse started by Godzilla in 2014, hit theaters during a busy March to rave reviews and respectable box office. Packed with monsters, helicopters, talented actors, and 70′s hits, it kept the action contained on the giant ape’s home; a restrained blockbuster by today’s standards. If the film’s post-credit scene ate up the conversational oxygen a bit too much, well, that’s the price you pay for teasing Godzilla, Rodan, Ghidorah, and Mothra in one scene.

But that wasn’t all for the Eighth Wonder of the World this year. BOOM! Studios’ Kong of Skull Island comic concluded with its twelfth issues. It was succeeded by a one-shot, Kong: Gods of Skull Island, and a strangely apt Planet of the Apes crossover, still being published. Legendary got in on the act too with Skull Island: Birth of Kong, a prequel/sequel to the film.

I have proposed a moratorium on Kong titles with “Skull Island” in them. Unfortunately, this confusing trend is set to continue, with Jonathan Penner and Stacy Title currently writing a King Kong Skull Island TV show for MarVista Entertainment and IM Global Television.

2) Godzilla is King of the Whole Stinking World, What Now

Another year, another new Godzilla movie. It’s been a while since we could say that, hasn’t it? Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, the first in an animated trilogy by Kobun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita, was released in Japanese theaters this November. A worldwide Netflix release will follow on January 17th. The next two are coming this year, presumably so Toho can atone for not releasing one in 2015. Godzilla: The City Mechanized for the Final Battle (or however it’s ultimately translated), due in May, will feature the return of Mechagodzilla.

Shin Godzilla, meanwhile, made kaiju history earlier in the year, becoming the first film in the genre to win Picture of the Year at the Japan Academy Awards. (It also netted prizes in six other categories.) On the American side of things, Legendary finally started filming Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and Godzilla vs. Kong (2020) found a director in Adam Wingard.

On the home video front, Shin Godzilla hit DVD and Blu-ray around the world, and Criterion picked up the rights to almost every film in the Showa series, plus Rodan and The War of the Gargantuas. Physical releases have yet to be announced -- they’re currently streaming on Filmstruck -- but seem inevitable.

3) Sturm Organs, Chaiyo Vanquished, and the Phantom Channel

I could have made this post the 2017 Ultraman Year in Review without changing the format of the photoset one bit, although the tone would have been a shade more bitter.

Ultraman Geed, starring the son of arch-villain Belial, ran for 25 episodes. Ultraman Zero and his mild-mannered salaryman host Leito ended up stealing the show. (It also gave us the phrase “Sturm organs,” which I never want to read again.) Cruchyroll, as is tradition now, announced it was simulcasting Geed about eight seconds before the first episode aired.

Ultraman Orb: The Origin Saga, the prequel to last year’s series, concluded on Amazon Prime Video in Japan. A promised English release never worked out, although the fansubbers picked up the slack.

Ultraman Orb the Movie arrived in Japanese theaters on March 10. It wasn’t very good, but Ultraseven made a hell of an entrance.

Keeping the Orb train rolling, the 24-minute Ultra Orb Fight aired over the course of eight episodes of Ultraman Zero: The Chronicle, another one of Tsuburaya‘s compilation shows. 

Ultraman X the Movie and Ultraman Ginga S the Movie played in a handful of American theaters, with English dubbing from William Winkler Productions. Winkler also dubbed the three Zero movies this year; no word on when they’ll be released, nor what happened to the physical/digital releases of the X and Ginga S movies.

Tsuburaya Productions uploaded scores of Ultra Fight episodes to its YouTube channel. Unfortunately, no subtitles were provided; the show’s narration was significantly more intensive than Redman screaming attack names.

Toku, a ludicrously obscure on-demand channel, picked up the rights to a ton of Ultra shows, most of them without official releases in the U.S. -- Leo, 80, The Ultraman, Neos, Nexus, an English dub of Max, Ultraseven X, both seasons of Mega Monster Battle, and Neo Ultra Q. No one has recorded any of them. The channel is affiliated with Amazon Prime, but only 80 (free on Crunchyroll) and Neos (already fansubbed) are available through it. go90 also has Neos and Ultraseven X (also already fansubbed).

In November, Tsuburaya finally regained the international distribution rights to the first six Ultra Series from UM Corporation, setting the stage for more abrupt Crunchyroll additions in 2018 and beyond. Before the ruling came down, UM licensed Ultraman to a Chinese company, BlueArc Culture Communications, for three years. Dragon Force: So Long, Ultraman was released in Chinese theaters in October. I thought this ruling would make it rather difficult to see, but, uh, it’s on YouTube already.

The Ultraman manga by Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi reached Volume 11 in Japan, with a 3DCG film adaptation by Production I.G and Sola Digital Arts due in 2019.

4) She is Colossal

Director Nacho Vigalondo and Voltage Pictures survived a Toho lawsuit to bring us a bizarre tale of alcoholics in an upstate New York town who have the ability to summon and control giant beings in Seoul under very specific circumstances. Kaiju are often metaphors for issues that are accordingly massive in scope, like nuclear warfare or environmental devastation. Here they embody more personal problems -- not a totally novel concept, but one handled with far more depth than, say, Ultraman 80. The movie was a thud at the box office (the producers apparently ordered an upgrade to the VFX after rave festival reviews), but will hopefully find a second life on Hulu.

5) What Do You Find Between a Dragon’s Teeth?

Based on a 2014 short, The Dragon Dentist is an anime film (well, a two-part TV special that’s 90 minutes long) in which dragons and humans have reached an unusual agreement: the humans clean the dragons’ teeth, and the dragon rain down destruction on their enemies. If that sounds strange, well, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Unless Planet of the Monsters pulls off a miracle, it has my vote for best kaiju movie of 2017. Section23 released it on Blu-ray in October with an English dub included.

6) A Jaeger is You Times a Thousand

Pacific Rim Uprising, the sequel that refused to die, is mere months from release, and its trailer made a big splash at New York Comic Con this year. Mysteries abound about the plot, but we have details on an art book, prequel novel, prequel comic, novelization, and plenty of toys. (Still waiting on that tabletop RPG and the return of the Create-a-Jaeger site.)

7) Reddo Continuation, and Other Printed Works

IDW may be finished with Godzilla, but Matt Frank is far from finished with kaiju comics. He sold The Last Hope, his Heisei Gamera prequel doujinshi, at G-Fest this year, and announced in October that he would be writing and drawing a comic about Redman, the murderous Seventies “hero” of recent YouTube fame. Phase 6, the same company reprinting Godzilla: Rulers of Earth in Japan, is the publisher. Other kaiju comics this year: Season 3 of Xander Cannon’s always-excellent Kaijumax (which I need to finish reading), Greg Pak’s Mech Cadet Yu (which I need to start), and Marvel’s crossover event/miniseries Monsters Unleashed (which I am too intimidated to start).

And in the realm of prose: Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski published their long-anticipated Ishiro Honda biography, providing a comprehensive look at the legendary kaiju director’s life and career. Raffael Coronelli threw his hat into the authors’ ring with Daikaiju Yuki and Y2K: Yuki Conquers the World, post-apocalyptic epics about the Pantheon Colossi and the human heroes who join with them to protect the world.

Oh, and some guy named Michael Callari announced he was writing a book on the Gamera series.

8) Every Monster Has a Country

The movie-mockers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 have been linked with giant monsters since the beginning, and this year’s Netflix revival saw them taking on two more: Reptilicus and Yongary, Monster from the Deep. The former led off the season, and the novelty of a monster from Denmark led to one of the show’s greatest songs.

9) In Memoriam

As I wrote in August, “Monsters, of course, live forever. The people who bring them to life are never so lucky.” 2017 saw the passing of four giants of the kaiju genre:

Haruo Nakajima (b. 1929) -- Suit actor and fight choreographer for Godzilla and countless other Toho/Tsuburaya monsters from 1954 to 1972.

Yoshimitsu Banno (b. 1931) -- Director and co-writer of the Godzilla vs. Hedorah, assistant director and co-writer of Prophecies of Nostradamus, executive producer of Godzilla (2014).

Yoshio Tsuchiya (b. 1927) -- Eccentric actor with a long tokusatsu filmography, including the titular role in The Human Vapor, the Xian Leader in Invasion of Astro-Monster, and Shindo in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah.

Chikara Hashimoto (b. 1933) -- Suit actor for Daimajin in Daiei’s trilogy and Daimon in Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare.

[wolfliving]

Janit0r the BrickerBot guy

*He’s a vigilante. So he says, anyway.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/brickerbot-author-claims-he-bricked-two-million-devices/

(...)

At this point, we had to confirm that Janit0r was indeed BrickerBot's author and not just some guy bragging on Hack Forums. This is how we spent the next two days, scraping through the Dark Web, underground hacking forums, and getting in contact with a few threat intelligence analysts we knew.

By Wednesday, we didn't manage to find any other clue of Janit0r's existence, or anybody else claiming to be BrickerBot's author, with some solid proof on his side. That's when we just gave up, and launched a desperate tweet, asking BrickerBot's author to reach out.

BrickerBot's Author reaches out

Lo and behold, this was exactly what happened. The same day, we received an email from a person claiming to be BrickerBot's creator.

The email contained lots of details about BrickerBot's operation and internal structure. Nevertheless, at this point, we knew that there could be the possibility that someone was pulling a prank.

Chance had it that someone else had also seen our tweet. That person was Victor Gevers, a security researcher mostly known for tracking the destructive ransom attacks against MongoDB and other databases.

In the Bleeping Computer article that broke the news of BrickerBot's existence, we asked Victor for his expert opinion on this new malware's behavior and repercussions. Victor not only put BrickerBot in perspective for our readers, but also asked BrickerBot's creator to reach out and discuss an alternative method of dealing with unsecured IoT devices, instead of blindly destroying people's property.

Unknown to all was that BrickerBot author had reached out to Victor hours after our article went live. The two had shared notes and Victor was acting as an intermediary between Janit0r and various CERTs. All the operational details shared with us on Wednesday were the same Janit0r shared with Victor in the previous three weeks, confirming we were speaking with the same person.

"Yes, I am janit0r"

"Yes, I was janit0r on Hackforums," the BrickerBot author started his email, which then continued with Janit0r showing his anger at the sad state of affairs in the realm of IoT security.

Like so many others I was dismayed by the indiscriminate DDoS attacks by IoT botnets in 2016. I thought for sure that the large attacks would force the industry to finally get its act together, but after a few months of record-breaking attacks it became obvious that in spite of all the sincere efforts the problem couldn't be solved quickly enough by conventional means. The IoT security mess is a result of companies with insufficient security knowledge developing powerful Internet-connected devices for users with no security knowledge. Most of the consumer-oriented IoT devices that I've found on the net appear to have been deployed almost exactly as they left the factory. For example 9 out of every 10 Avtech IP cameras that I've pulled the user db from were set up with the default login admin/admin! Let that statistic sink in for a second.. and then consider that if somebody launched a car or power tool with a safety feature that failed 9 times out of 10 it would be pulled off the market immediately. I don't see why dangerously designed IoT devices should be treated any differently and after the Internet-breaking attacks of 2016 nobody can seriously argue that the security of these devices isn't important. I hope that regulatory bodies will do more to penalize careless manufacturers since market forces can't fix this problem. The reality of the market is that technically unskilled consumers will get the cheapest whitelabel DVR they can find at their local store, then they'll ask their nephew to plug it into the Internet, and a few minutes later it'll be full of malware. At least with 'BrickerBot' there was some brief hope that such dangerous devices could become the merchant's and manufacturer's problem rather than our problem.

BrickerBot allegely wiped over two million devices

I joined Hackforums in January mainly to see if my activities had been noticed by the botnet kids. Back then 200,000 bricked units seemed like a lot and I was sure I was close to the end of it. Now when the count is over 2 million it's clear that I had no idea (and still have no idea) how deep the rabbit hole of IoT insecurity is. I'm certain that the worst is still ahead of us. I hope the unconventional actions by 'BrickerBot' have helped in buying another year of time for governments, vendors and the industry in general to get the current IoT security nightmare under control. Many other people have also done important things to combat IoT malware (Team White, Hajime author, @packetcop and his fellow sinkholers, etc) so I'm by no means claiming credit for Mirai being weak in Q1/2017, but if Imeij and Amnesia have suffered a little recently then it's probably mainly my fault ;)

Janit0r's email then goes on to detail a few operational details regarding BrickerBot's infrastructure, also dispelling the notion that he's a madman set on the random destruction of IoT devices.

In reality, Janit0r wants to be considered in the same class as the White Team, the self-proclaimed white-hat hackers behind the Wifatch malware, and the author of the Hajime malware, another vigilante who created a new malware family last October that tries to secure IoT devices by force.

The Radware writeup made 'BrickerBot' sound simplistic, but it actually carries 86 protocol and device-specific payloads and is relatively successful at mitigating commonly exploited devices. The bot's every action has a statistically determined purpose and what might've seemed like buggy behavior in the honeypot really isn't. As a preference 'BrickerBot' will try to secure units without damaging them and the bricking behavior is a 'plan B' (yes the B stands for brick :) for units which are unlikely to be securable. A blogger on the net wondered about 'BrickerBot' simply trying to change his honeypot's login and this would've been due to the bot assuming the device had a persistent user db. Because the honeypots are often quite different from any actual devices the behaviors in them are usually weird. If security researchers made their honeypots look more like actual devices (that one could actually find with default credentials on the net) and hosted them on dirtier networks they would find even more interesting things going on..

Victor Gevers, who confirmed Janit0r's bricking statistics also believes this person is only misguided, and hopes to convince him to abandon his ways. "The writer of the email does not strike me as a bad person," Gevers told Bleeping Computer based on his own communications with Janit0r. "Just some young guy who was too eager to solve a problem."

Janit0r wants a change in IoT security standards

For the time being, Janit0r doesn't seem interested in stopping BrickerBot attacks, or at least not until officials and hardware vendors take a look at IoT security and start changing things with a hurry.

Authorities have been talking about IoT security standards for years, but in the meantime, some of the same vendors participating in those discussions have continued to ship out insecure devices with the same ol' default passwords. In a follow-up email, Janit0r wrote the following.

I consider my project a form of "Internet Chemotherapy" I sometimes jokingly think of myself as The Doctor. Chemotherapy is a harsh treatment that nobody in their right mind would administer to a healthy patient, but the Internet was becoming seriously ill in Q3 and Q4/2016 and the moderate remedies were ineffective. The side effects of the treatment were harmful but the alternative (DDoS botnet sizes numbering in the millions) would have been worse. I can only hope hope that when the IoT relapse comes we'll have better ways to deal with it. Besides getting the number of IoT DDoS bots to a manageable level my other key goal has been to raise awareness. The IoT problem is much worse than most people think, and I have some alarming stories to tell.

Janit0r is a wanted man

Nonetheless, the actions of BrickerBot place this malware in the same category as other destructive e-threats, such as ransomware and banking trojans. Janit0r already knows he's a wanted man and has taken many precautions.

Tracking down Janit0r's real life persona may also be a little harder than going after teenagers that rent DDoS botnets with their father's credit card. While he signed his Hack Forums posts with the name "Rob," Janit0r also used different names within each email, said he never intends to log into his Janit0r Hack Forums account again, and has consistently changed email addresses every few days.

For what's worth it, Janit0r has been very careful with his OpSec, compared to many of today's hackers, who, according to a Flashpoint report released yesterday, prefer Skype as their main communications method, an IM service known to give up data on its users to law enforcement.

Janit0r: I'm not a security researcher

Current clues like Janit0r's reverse engineering skills, in-depth knowledge of the malware scene, and a desire to do good, point to the fact that we may be dealing with another security researcher or network engineer that has decided to do something about the ever-increasing number of unsecured network and IoT devices.

"For what it's worth I'll state that I've never actually worked in networking, systems administration, information security or anything of the sort, but I have a hobby interest in all of the above. I believe that basic knowledge in such things is good self-defense in the 21st century," Janit0r wrote in an email.

Right now, all users and companies can do is to follow Radware and ICS-CERT's recommendations, and block access to Telnet and SSH ports, and also change the device's default password. Otherwise, they may get a visit from BrickerBot, and it might reach Plan B....