Smack-a-Hack: New Old-School Solution to Russian Internet Meddling

Until last week, this country has been totally unable to stop foreign agents from hacking into American computers, placing bogus videos and inflammatory messages designed to divide the citizenry and create havoc.

Now that problem has been solved.

Smack-a-Hack is a new company with its own campus in Palo Alto, California just adjacent to, but not connected in any way to, Facebook.

Smack-a-Hack is the brainstorm of Ira Cannondorf, a behind-the-scenes Silicon Valley genius who has done work for Google, Apple, Microsoft, Instagram and LinkedIn. Having raised $300 million in startup capital, this week he begins the rollout of Smack-a-Hack in every city and town in America.

“The way it works” Cannondorf said, “is to sign up for Smack-a-Hack. With a $7,000 per year subscription, we will visit your home or office, survey the computers, WiFi portals, phone lines and interior links such as Bluetooth, USB and FireWire and then set up our system, which flushes out all the hacks that worm their way in.”

The system consists of a stepladder, a small wooden mallet, a large goat-skinned bamboo mallet, a Buddhist gong and numerous cereal-sized red control boxes each with a sound system inside and a big red light on the outside. The control boxes are to be attached by a Smack-a-Hack technician, red light down, onto the ceiling in the center of every room in your home or office.

Each box will link to every device in that room—smartphone, iPad, laptop, microwave, mainframe, desktop, Alexa, television, or refrigerator. A knob on the box can be adjusted by turning it down for a small room or all the way up for warehouse-size rooms.

“The biggest rooms we can cover are airplane hangers,” Cannondorf said. “Rooms bigger than that need a second box.”

One week after the start date of your subscription (it gives the company time to get an all-clear about you), a Smack-a-Hack technician, identifiable by his red jumpsuit, will visit your premises, count your rooms, and bring in the required number of red boxes. He will then hold each room’s red box very still against every device in the room until the box and the device shake hands and link up. With the linking done, the techie, using the ladder, screws the boxes into place on all the ceilings.

“The boxes are programmed to study the architecture of the software in your devices,” Cannondorf continued. “If it finds weaknesses and can patch them up through Bluetooth, it automatically does so. If it finds weaknesses it can’t patch, it will take notice of them, mark them down internally and lie in wait for a hacker to try to get in through them. Smack-a-Hack is on the job 24/7.”

When an intrusion is detected from Russia or Chechnya, a red box will spring to life, emitting hoots and flashing lights.

“It will flash and hoot a certain number of times, then pause, then do it again,” Cannondorf continued. “You count the number of flashes and hoots. That number coincides with the sticker number that Smack-a-Hack attaches to the side of each device in the room. So if it’s number seven, and seven is the Alexa, then the hack is taking place with the Alexa.”

A designated individual in every room—this person gets both the small and large mallets—strides over and whacks the device with the small mallet, hard. The hooting and flashing on the ceiling will be replaced by a loud, deep humming sound. That will indicate that the box has done its job. The hack is destroyed and the device is safe again.

After that, you take the giant goat-skin-covered mallet out to your front yard and bang it on the side of the giant Buddhist gong set up on the lawn. Smack-a-Hack employees patrolling your area in red Land Rovers will eventually hear the unique bang of a Buddhist gong nearby. Keep banging on the gong until the Land Rover arrives, then direct the technician to the room where the hum is blasting. The techie will then climb your ladder to re-set the box (the hum stops) and it is ready for the next hack.

You sign the form that he’s been there, and he leaves. Another job well done.