Cyber Witches

October 2024 -

Do you think that witches are not interested in cybersecurity? Read the following story, and you’ll have a different opinion!

The 2024 Women4Cyber conference was over and the Auditorium at the Louwman museum in The Hague was now empty. Yet, there were still resonating echoes of the speakers of this very successful second edition which gathered 200 cybersecurity experts, for two days, during the Hague cybersecurity week. Organised by the Women4Cyber Foundation, it was a real cybersecurity conference, with a content level often much higher than some other too conventional conferences, but in a more informal tone.

The organisers are still looking how to improve participation at this conference of another population, men, as the large majority of participants were women, but eventually that will change in the future. Indeed, there is no need to convince women about the need for inclusion, men should be supportive and present as well. Yet, the message about women and diversity was there and attracted the interest of an unexpected kind of “population”. In the beautiful hall of the car museum, there was an unseen group of participants: the ghosts of old Dutch witches.

Though the number of witches in The Netherlands trialled and executed has been lower than in other European countries, a few hundred women have been accused and killed in the second half of the sixteenth century. Their ghosts are still wandering around the country and some of them have been attracted by this strange and for them new, gathering of women experts in the cyber domain, something that for witches was sounding like … witchcraft.

They assisted at the passionate keynotes and panels and decided that cybersecurity was a topic they could leverage upon to bring forward their message. Not a message of revenge, but a message of lawful fairness and equality. But how to do that?

To find a solution, they organised, the night after the end of the conference a witches’ sabbath, also inviting some wizards and warlocks, as they also realized that the two genders, working together, were more powerful. A special invitee was Kevin Mitnick, likely the most famous black and then white hacker, who passed away in 2023.

The sabbath was organised in the same auditorium where the W4C conference took place, under the amused look of the museum’s ghosts (as in any respectful museum), the owner of the ancient cars exposed there, that were still supervising the status of their cherished belongings.

Kevin, standing on the podium, explained to the assembly in very simple words what a computer was, what a network, what internet, what a database was and how this was needing a protection – the cybersecurity – and how this protection is sometimes circumvented for crime or for fun.

Saskia Vandenbrugge, the spokesperson of the Dutch witches, asked Kevin what concretely could be done to organise a “trick” for the coming Halloween that could bring their message.

Kevin responded that something simple but with an extreme impact could be done, if he would have managed to influence the mind of some old hacker friends still active on Earth, to change some parameters in certain software.

Without giving more detail to the Sabbath, Keving invited them all to wait and look at the consequences on November 1st, the day of Halloween.

Kevin had less than a month to organise all this, but considering that ghosts do not sleep, he had enough time to subliminally influence his living friends to prepare an attack that would have been triggered on the due date. Yet, as Kevin had turned black to white, the attack would have been limited to a demonstration on how the world could look differently with a minor, but very visible change, considering gender issues.

Contrary to Kevin, his living hacker friends had to work quickly to be ready for the coming patch Tuesday of October 8th. The change they introduced as part of the patch would have its effect only on November 1st and would be felt all over the digital world, not only in The Netherlands.

Preparation of Halloween was in full swing and pumpkins and jack-o'-lanterns were exposed on the windows of many houses, for the joy of kids. But something more subtle was in preparation … In the week before Halloween, IT departments worldwide reported unexplained system anomalies. Databases flickered between male and female entries, and facial recognition software struggled to categorize genders correctly. News outlets began reporting bizarre incidents: men's voices suddenly pitching higher during important speeches, women's voices inexplicably deepening during conference calls. These occurrences were dismissed as technical glitches, but an undercurrent of unease began to spread.

At midnight on October 31st the change in software started to be operational. To have a major impact across the globe, Kevin decided to trigger it at the midnight of a specific country, choosing for respect to his new friends, the ghost witches, the midnight of The Hague.

At 00:00 the software of the Registry Offices around the world changed in such a way that the identity of all men was transformed into women identity. The only ones that did not suffer the change were the non-binary. For the rest of the population, there were only women on November 1st. Earth had become literally a “no man’s land”.

The consequences during the day were heavier than expected by Kevin. All official documents and IDs of men become inaccurate, causing problems with identification verification and, for instance, problems in travelling by plane or at borders. Certain financial operations resulted to be impossible as the man giving the instruction was not recognized. In the health sector, that day men were scheduled for certain unusual for them medical screenings, such as mammograms. As world leaders gathered that day for an emergency UN session, chaos ensued. Male presidents and prime ministers were denied entry, their security clearances invalidated. The few female leaders present found themselves in an unprecedented situation, solely responsible for global decision-making. In sports, the matchup of the day on American football between the Houston Texans and the New York Jets was postponed, as players were identified as women and not allowed to participate in the men’s league. AI systems trained on this incorrect data perpetuated and amplified gender-based biases and errors… just to name a few of the issues that were faced by men that day.

But the chaotic spell was due to an end atmidnight on November 1st .

As normalcy returned on November 2nd, society grappled with the implications of the “Day Without Men”. Men were again men, better realizing that gender diversity is something that should be handled together, respecting the differences, the complementarity and the strengths of the other part. These discussions about gender equality and the arbitrary nature of gender-based systems dominated public discourse for weeks.

The witches of The Hague, now known in the supernatural world as the “cyber-witches”, observed the aftermath with mixed emotions. While satisfied that their message had been delivered with intent, they were sobered by the unintended consequences of their actions. They realized that true equality couldn't be achieved through chaos, but through understanding and cooperation.

Saskia Vandenbrugge, speaking for the ghostly coven, mused, “We sought to right past wrongs, but perhaps we've shown that the future lies not in reversing roles, but in dissolving the very concept of gender-based limitations”. With this new insight, the cyber-witches turned their spectral efforts towards more subtle, yet equally powerful, methods of promoting equality in the digital age. One of the first cooperation actions was to get in touch with their co-mate of Salem to ensure that the Women4Cyber Foundation would be sufficiently supported with donations to be able to continue its work and organise its conference with women and men alike. The 2025 edition would indeed be the real test of the powers of the cyber-witches!