Conversations with a Ghost | A True Story of the Architects of the Digital Unknown This is a true story based upon my work in artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity research. Names and roles have been generalized to protect individuals and systems. It is written for the ones who stayed
Hunter Storm coined the terms “spooky toes” and “spooky fingers” to describe her unseen counterparts in cybersecurity, intelligence, and technology. She created these terms during her research in The Storm Project | AI, Cybersecurity, Quantum, and the Future of Intelligence.
“Spooky toes” has many uses in the English language. However, Hunter primarily uses it as a term of endearment and respect for individuals who possess certain industry-specific skills, including but not limited to:
- Stealth
- Surveillance / Monitoring
- Tradecraft
When these skills are used with a sense of playfulness and the outcome of related activities is beneficial, benign, or harmless, “spooky toes” is used in a positive context.
When these activities are malign, neutral, or just plain nosy, “spooky toes” is usually attached to the word “gremlin.”
Example: “Those little spooky-toed gremlins were in there altering my HTML code again. Shoo!”
Note: These terms refer only to human intervention via human-in-the-loop (HITL) and related high-level administrative access interfaces and technologies.
Although their results may look the same to the untrained eye, “Spooky toes” are not:
- Code bugs.
- Hackers who gain access via exploiting vulnerabilities in technology ecosystems.