Chapter 6
“What possible kind of home-made ‘security system’ could prevent a 10,000 strong botnet from crashing its target?” inquired Dong Hyuk, an obvious tinge of skepticism lining his speech.
“One built by my friend. You would find him to be quite impressive in network engineering,” I replied in smooth retort. Confidence is my most valuable asset; I cannot afford to demonstrate any cracks in it. Taming the lion is a balancing act. If your focus slips, you are eaten.
“I’d love to meet this friend of yours.”
“He prefers to remain anonymous. As I’ve explained before. The technology he is using is sensitive information, and cannot be imparted.”
“Diverse denial of service attacks are impossible to deal with short of breaking network connectivity, resulting in a simulated crash anyway. Your friend is a fool.”
“We are paying you the equivalent of 800,000 won for a single day of rental, which is certainly not for the purpose of charity. The payment is for your compliance, and for discretion.”
“You are fools. This is easy money for me.”
“See it as you wish.”
This guy was being rather annoying. Days of pointing out possible failures on the forum thread, and pointing out discrepancies absolutely irrelevant to the job. He was putting the other owners on edge, and pushing me over as well. I can’t afford to simply hire someone else either, without potentially validating his critiques. If I drop his contract, he will use it to his advantage and claim it was because of the discrepancies he “discovered”. With only two weeks left, such an incident would be unacceptable. The resources supplied by these contracts is invaluable, and wholly essential to the execution of the attack. It took the entirety of the past two weeks to gain enough exposure on the PC room forums and reach this point. Only a few contracts remain to be sealed in order to reach my target, this particular one among them.
“I want more,” requested Dong Hyuk.
“What?”
“I want another 400.”
“400,000 won? Are you out of your mind? I am paying you many times your maximum revenue for the same time span of rental. It is literally impossible for you to make this much money so quickly.”
“I don’t care. Give me another 400 or you can bring your business elsewhere.”
He was being even more difficult than I had anticipated. This was outrageous. I am paying him handsomely for his services, and he wants more.
“100,” I insisted.
“No.”
“150.”
“400,000, or leave.”
“250,000.”
“350,000.”
“Fine,” I replied, defeated. He followed my response with a poisonous smile, then rounded the far end of his desk and seated himself. I left. No farewells were necessary. I might well have slit his throat if he had tried to shake my hand.
Once outside, I realized how famished I was. I better find something to eat. Reaching into my pocket, I removed my phone and swiped through pages of gridded apps. There’s a 7-Eleven three blocks from here. That seems like a good bet. It would be best not to spend exorbitantly at this point, I’ve already been sucked dry. With this in mind, I started forward while making sure to cast one last glance of disgust behind myself in the general direction of that despot.
Yet two blocks removed from my destination, something among the passing traffic bothered me. A small bus, painted a fading sky blue hummed with the impatience of pistons forced to endure a red light. Shortly above its hexagonal grille, the Kia insignia sat welded to the vehicle’s steel frame. Inside, scores of children manned the rows of seats behind windows stained by small hands insistent on constantly touching them, much to the bus driver’s undoubted appall. Gathered in small groups within, the children were laughing. I wonder what’s so funny. This was likely one of the few times during the day these children were allowed to act freely. The words “English Stars” were inscribed upon the sides of the bus in bright yellow lettering. They contrasted starkly with the obviously faded and aging paint surrounding them. What a vibrant yellow.
The children upon that bus, much like the overwhelming majority of other Korean children across the country were enrolled in a collection of extra-curricular courses and activities designed to enhance their academic ability. This particular group was likely destined for one of the numerous and highly profitable English hagwons or academies strewn throughout Seoul. Hours of mindless memorization and work awaited them there. What happened to the sanctity of childhood, the freedom to be happy? Are we so bitter and cruel as to deny our own children the opportunity to spend their early years in blithe bliss? This morally unjustified repudiation of our young generation’s freedom is only a single reason for what I am doing. It alone justifies my actions, but do not believe for one instant that it is the only justification. Such belief is foolhardy at best and cruelly ignorant at worst.
The nigh dystopian deficiency of freedom imposed upon the people of this nation does not end when they are young. It is only the beginning. First, it is the race to university, as students compete in a ruthless rat race to achieve academic superiority over one another. Tutors, academies and deathening hours spent studying occupy the lives of high school students, each vying for acceptance into the world’s elite universities. Particularly sought after are the legendary SKY universities, Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University. This trio represents the epitome of high academic achievement. When you are accepted however, the work does not end. You are subjected to grueling courses and workloads supposed to prepare you for employment after graduation. Then, after graduating, you seek out employment from one of the few “chaebol” in Korea, such as Samsung, LG or Hyundai. If you do so, you win in life. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Except you are subjected to long work hours, a competitive work culture and little creative reign. For many in this country, life is not worth living. There’s a reason we have the highest rate of suicide in the world. That is not acceptable. Moral vacuums must always be filled, lest they grow to black holes of disgusting negligence and vile behavior. Justice must be served.
Green. The pistons returned with a roar, and the bus hummed into the distance.
“Are you okay, little brother?” asked a stranger, placing their hand upon my shoulder.
Surprised, I replied with a hurried, “Yes,” and continued onward.
I had been standing in place staring at that bus the entire duration of that light. That must have been a full two minutes. Time really does fly. Less than a minute later, I entered the convenience store and bought my food. A bowl of ramyeon and a package of kimchi. The clerk scanned my items, awarded me with a pair of disposable chopsticks and called for the next customer in line. I waded my way through the aisles to the water boiler and filled the bowl. I dropped into one of the seats arranged at the back end of the store and began eating.
I must consider my next move. The virus is almost complete. Only a few days of work likely remain for its completion. Once it is, I can finalize the preparations with my contact in Boryeong that I established yesterday. It was astonishingly easy finding one to be honest. I simply crawled Facebook for people listing the plant as their location of employment. I then vetted the list of names returned for management staff in order to ensure the ownership of a personal computer in the workplace. From there, I scanned their friend list for a lesser friend with low income. This way, they are unlikely to bear strong loyalty for my target, as well as ensuring their loyalty to myself through payment. All she has to do is upload the virus to his computer, and it will do the work from there. I will schedule the virus’ network exploration for five days from now. If I complete the virus soon, my contact will have plenty of time to plant the virus, after which I can make the final decision on the manner of attack I will be mounting.
No matter the decision made, traffic will be routed through foreign VPN’s, all of which have been scheduled for rental already. Things are coming together. I hop
e Eun Seo doesn’t go into tiger mode with the Suneung on the horizon. I’ve already been forced to prepare extensively, and I doubt I will be able to continue the work necessary to successfully pull this off if the workload increases beyond its current threshold. I finished eating and cleaned up.
The Mutable World Page 6