Queen Zaria Trilogy

by Danny Dunn

  Mr. Jones, from beginning to end, about how long does it take you to complete each one of the hack forms submitted here today?

  Mr. Jones replies about 4 minutes each.

  Pong, "could you write a large number 4 to the right of the breadcrumb line, please.

  Mr. Jones writes a large four to the right.

  Pong "and Mr. Jones about how long it would take the world's best hacker to complete each of the 75 hacks."

  Mr. Jones, "I have seen cases where the hacker could be in an out in under 6 minutes each.

  Pong "could you now write a large number 6 under the 4, please

  Mr. Jones writes a large 6 under the 4.

  Objection your honor, "the defense needs to limit their questions to determine the knowledge of their field of expertise.

  Pong "Well, your honor, I could argue very easily that apparently no one on their side can add or multiply but no problem, we can come back to the math later.

  The judge starts looking more closely at the 75 documents and sees the time stamp on the first document and then looks at the time on the warrant and sees that there is only a 45-minute gap between the time stamp and the time stamp on the warrant. The judge looks over at the prosecution, who are all sweating bullets and talking with each other.

  Pong, "Your honor, we accept Mr. Jones as an expert witness and will want to keep this grease board up for future reference and request that it be entered into evidence. We do request that photos be taken and entered into evidence, so they don't get erased accidentally during a break. Pong glares at the witness and then the prosecution table from the big screen."

  Pong "Before we go any further with this Mr. Jones, I would like to offer you option A. Would you like to take option A."

  Prosecution "Objection your honor, this isn't a movie or game show.

  Judge "Objection sustained"

  Pong "Sorry your honor, I will take the plan B approach then."

  Mr. Jones, "You stated that you "prepared" exhibit "A"? what does that mean exactly?"

  Mr. Jones, "It means I was alerted about the break-ins within seconds of you hacking our site. I responded immediately by entering the back end of the site and retrieved the hack information and entered it into the forms, which are submitted here today."

  Pong "At what time did you receive that first notice.

  Mr. Jones looks at the first hack form and says that he received it yesterday at precisely 3:15 p.m.

  Pong, " I see your signature on each one of the 75 forms. Does that mean you completed all of the forms yourself?"

  Mr. Jones asks for a recess.

  The Judge now gets what Pong has and tells Mr. Jones no and instructs Pong to continue.

  Mr. Jones "Yes, I completed all 75 myself. We have a very sophisticated alerting system that alerted me immediately. I was at the computer when the hack occurred and entered the information onto the forms in less than 5 minutes from when you broke into our site."

  Pong smiles, "so tell me, what are the steps for completing 1 form?"

  Mr. Jones, “I log into the detection system, it shows me the page, and gather all the information and print it out. I sign it and submit it.

  Pong, “and how long does that take again?”

  Mr. Jones, "As I told you before, each one takes about 4 minutes each."

  Pong "On exhibit "A" you show the bread crumb trail line.

  Without providing specifics, could you please go up to the example you very competently entered on the grease board and point to the part of the example that represents the part you entered on the redacted breadcrumb line on the form.

  Mr. Jones "What do you mean?"

  Pong "Mr. Jones, you just filled in an entire grease board with an example of what I bread crumb line looks like of a hacked page. So, I am asking you again to show us what part of the breadcrumb trail is entered into the form as it relates to your excellent example. "I ask because what you entered sure isn't the entire bread crumb line of a hack unless you are using microscopic-sized text on the form. So, I am asking which part is hidden in the redacted breadcrumb line.

  Mr. Jones, "What I have entered into the form is redacted for national security reasons.

  Pong "Now Mr. Jones, that didn't address my question at all now did it? On the grease board example, please point out the portion of the bread crumb line, which represents the portion you have entered on the form."

  Mr. Jones, "I entered the first portion of the breadcrumb line and ran out of room on the line."

  Pong "Whew that wasn’t so hard, could you walk up to the grease board and point to the part you entered into the form that is redacted. Mr. Jones walks up to the grease board and points the first characters he entered into the document."

  Pong "Exactly what did you represent to the Judge was in that redacted part of the bread crumb line that was so compelling that it convinced him to sign a warrant to have me seized?

  Mr. Jones, "I was not there when it was submitted, so I have no idea what was told."

  Pong "Ah, ok, so when you handed the mountain of evidence to your superiors, were the 75 forms redacted?

  Mr. Jones, "no, that is done after me.

  The phones on the prosecution side start buzzing again, and the councilors are texting them back, and the Judge also has put together that the reason the phones are buzzing because their witness just implicated the manager who signed at the bottom of the perjured forms.

  The messages on the prosecution’s phones are from their bosses telling them to stop this now!

  Pong "great, and which of the 4 signatures at the bottom is the superior you gave the mountain of evidence to."

  Mr. Jones "George Seaghold."

  Pong "Great, your honor, I wish to add Mr. Seaghold to our witness list as well as the two other FBI employees who signed off on the 75 documents to establish when in their chain of custody, the forms were redacted.

  The Judge “so ordered.”

  P.O.T.U.S is screaming at the FBI agent in charge of the operation. “She is ripping us apart, Ed. Stop this now! And I mean right now.”

  The prosecution phones start buzzing again.

  The judge tells the bailiff to collect their phones.

  The bailiff walks over, and they hand the bailiff the 3 buzzing phones.

  Judge "so added"

  Pong "Your honor, the defense is going to want to hear from Judge Walters regarding what was implied to be in line two by the prosecution. The Defense would like to hear what the prosecution represented to the Judge that was so compelling the judge signed off on a warrant to seize me."

  Judge "I think I would like to hear that too. So, ordered"

  Pong. "Also, before we leave the breadcrumb line, could you answer this for me, please. If you are testifying that there are 75 separate hacks. Could you tell us if the very first part of the very long breadcrumb is each unique, or are the first breadcrumb lines of each line of the 75 hacks identical?

  Mr. Jones " Each one is a separate hack, so each one has a unique address."

  Pong, " So just to confirm. The portion of the breadcrumb line you entered on all 75 cases all start with unique characters.

  Mr. Jones "That is correct" They are redacted but yes.

  Pong "And so when your people brought in the 75 separate cases and handed them to your superior Mr. Seaghold each line of each of the 75 forms contained unique addresses in the breadcrumb lines, is that right?

  Mr. Jones "Yes"

  Pong "Ok, now let's move onto the time entered on the first line of the form. I see that every one of the 75 forms has the same time entered. Why would that be?

  Mr. Jones, "All 75 hacks were committed by you, so I used the same time for all of them.

  Pong smiles again.

  Pong "now Mr. Jones, let’s turn our attention to the line just above the signatures. What is that line number to the right?"

  I am not sure. It looks like a batch time.

  Pong, "I thought you might say that. When I saw that every form had t
he same time on it, I thought it could be that too, but then I realized that all having the same timestamp made no sense at all. After all, this 1 form would be used to put away someone up to 20 years. For the one form to be used to put someone away for 1,500 years wouldn’t hold up in any court for a second.

  “So, I went through every one of your 50 cases over the last ten years, and guess what? In every single one of your previous cases at the bottom of the form, the text on the left says "case initiation time," and on the right, it states the exact time of the hack down to the 1/100th of a second which told me it is pretty important to track the exact time. So, then I took a look at the 45 cases you have testified to that have multiple pages per case and guess what, every page hacked, in each of those 45 cases, has its unique id numbers and unique timestamp.

  “So Mr. Jones I ask you, why does only the first document have a timestamp, and why do none of them include the text to the left, identifying the time to the right as the Case initiation time and why do none of the 75 pages have the exact time to the right?

  Mr. Jones, "I have no idea."

  Pong, "So it was deleted after you signed off on it and gave it to your superiors?"

  Mr. Jones, "I didn't erase it. That is all I know."

  The phones of the 3 attorneys for the prosecution started buzzing on the bailiff's desk. And the judge looks at the prosecution.

  Pong, "I didn't say anything about erasing it, but I guess that is what must have happened, now that you bring it up. But we will sort that out than when your superiors get here.

  But now that you do bring up erasing, I have to ask you. when you handed these 75 forms to your superiors for signature, was the time already erased on not?”

  The prosecution phones buzz again

  Mr. Jones "No, they were not redacted or erased yet."

  Pong, "And did each case have a unique timestamp?"

  Mr. Jones, "I do not recall."

  Pong “Your honor, I am not clear on something. The prosecution charged me with 75 counts of… well, lots of terrible crimes with 20 years’ imprisonment to be served sequentially. If it turns out that there is evidence of 75 counts of fraud, evidence tampering, and perjury are those 75 counts also served sequentially.”

  The Judge responds, “Defense, you are showboating now.”

  Pong, “actually, I am not your honor. I am not sure Mr. Jones or anyone on their side realizes how much trouble they are in.”

  Judge “Proceed pong.”

  Pong "While we are on the subject of time, let's talk about how time relates to your activities.

  So, the form establishes the time of the first hack as 15:15 or 3:15 pm. Does that sound, right?

  Mr. Jones, "yes."

  Pong "In a nonmilitary time that would be 3:15 p.m., is that correct?

  Mr. Jones, "yes, that is correct."

  Pong "So Mr. Jones, would you like to change your testimony regarding what the time represents on the right-hand side above the signatures?

  Mr. Jones, "yes, I do recall now, that it is a unique time."

  Pong "Great, so from that point on, if we take the world's fastest time to hack your very sophisticated system of 6 minutes per hack that comes out to how many minutes?

  Mr. Jones, "I don't know the answer to that."

  Pong, "So now, let’s get you back up to the big board. Could you go over to the grease board and figure it out, please. you can use your phone's calculator.

  End Chapter 22

  Chapter 23 – When You Search For Attorneys, Try Adding Magicians To Your Keywords

  Your honor, we can erase all but the top line of the bread code so we can make this nice and big.

  Mr. Jones walks over and writes 75 over 6 and comes up with 450.

  Pong "great" now divide that by 60, please. The answer I get is 7.5

  Mr. Jones uses the calculator on his phone and comes up with 7.5.

  Great, thank you. So according to your testimony, how many minutes would it take the world's faster hacker to hack 75 of your pages?

  Mr. Jones is silent.

  Judge, "the witness is instructed to answer the question.

  Mr. Jones, "7.5 hours."

  Pong, "Ok, so now let's take a look at how long it takes to fill out 75 of those forms.

  Please, multiply your 4 minutes estimate times the 75 forms and what do you get.

  Mr. Jones multiplies 4 x 75 and gets 300

  Pong "now divide that by 60, do you know how to do that?"

  Mr. Jones looks up at her with pure disdain and divides 300 by 60 and gets 5.

  Pong "great now add the 7.5 hours to the 5 hours, and what do you get?

  Mr. Jones, "12.5 hours."

  Pong, "But Mr. Jones, you testify that you handed the 75 forms to your superior at 16:00/4:00pm. I just have to ask Mr. Jones; how did you process 12.5 hours of work in only 20 minutes?

  Mr. Jones asks for a recess again

  The Judge tells him to answer the question.

  Mr. Jones, "I have to respectfully decline to answer that question because I might incriminate myself.

  The Judge looks over at the prosecution table and gives them a long look with no expression."

  Pong, "Ok, let's change subjects then."

  Pong, "So let's go to that exact moment in time."

  Thousands of web pages start populating the big screen in court. They slow down as they get closer to the exact time, as shown in their document.

  Mr. Jones "What is that? Where did you get that?"

  Pong "Oh, this? It is a backup of all my internet activity up to just minutes before we were served with the warrant, and I was seized. Karen, our very meticulous IT Manager, recognized that what they were experiencing was significant and immediately backed everything up and had the backup delivered to an independent backup storage facility. Whew, what a timely move that was, right? Imagine the mess I would be in if you had all my materials and classified them or, even worse, erased them."

  Prosecution "Objections your honor, the defense is making speeches.

  Judge "sustained."

  The Queen is up late at night watching and enjoying every minute.

  Prosecution "Objection your honor, we were not given this in discovery; secondly, this is also material that is included in the warrant and cannot be submitted into evidence.

  Pong "First your honor, we had no idea we were going to need this until the prosecution destroyed evidence. And again, the warrant specifies materials on-site AND in possession.

  "This backup and the derivative documents of the backup being presented were neither on-site nor in our possession at the time of the seizure your honor. It was held by a 3rd party off-site and are not covered by the warrant."

  Judge "Same thing prosecution, the defense is correct, the objection is overruled Defense may proceed.”

  Pong. So back to the big screen, Mr. Jones."

  Mr. Jones is visibly clearly rattled and is looking at the Government bench. He was not expecting and was most likely told the defense would not have any documentation to challenge his evidence.

  Pong ", Our network search data report, shows the exact time and date as your exhibit "A," it also shows our complete bread crumb trails in their entirety. But as you can see, they are the exact length as the breadcrumb trail on your document.

  In fact, before this is over, we will prove that your breadcrumb is a perfect match to our simple page request of an unsecured web page, meaning that not only are the 74 other document copies but that they are copies of a fake first page. But first things first.

  Mr. Jones knows he is in big trouble and glares at the prosecution table.

  Prosecution "Objection your honor. Is there a question coming soon?

  Judge "sustained."

  Pong "Yes, your honor, I submit our version of the same page request pulled from our network backup the day and exact time I accessed the website in question.

  "I am also submitting a copy of the 75 pages in question from the site called Wayback Machine
for the exact time and date of the alleged hack."

  Pong "Mr. Jones, are you familiar with the Wayback-Machine Site Mr. Jones?

  Mr. Jones "No"

  Pong "No? Mr. Jones?

  Pong "Mr. Jones, are you suffering from Alzheimer's or any other short-term memory loss illness?

  Prosecution "Objection your honor."

  Pong "Your honor, given the witness's answers to my question it seems a pretty fair question from my perspective. I have here and am submitting an unredacted 3-page report generated by the IT Manager of the Wayback Machine site that shows that Mr. Jones here has logged into his Wayback Machine account a total of 252 times over the last 3 months."

  Judge "Objection overruled; the witness may answer."

  Mr. Jones, "No, I am not suffering from any memory loss diseases or illnesses."

  Pong “So if I were to have login records showing you logging into the Wayback-Machine.com site, that would be of someone at your facility pretending to, be you? Because I can track the right of the login to your machine.

  Mr. Jones, "I may have been on the site at some point, but it doesn't sound familiar to me."

  Pong "Your honor, I wish to add Scott Thompson, who is the Webmaster of the Wayback-Machine Website as a future witness who will testify to the validity of this report."

  Judge "So added"

  Pong "I now submit exhibits 31-106 in paper and acetate form. I also have copies of the very same pages from the Wayback-Machine.com site I offer as exhibits 107-182 in acetate form."

  Pong "Mr. Jones, I present to you, our backup copy of a report generated by Karen, our IT manager. That report shows that I had accessed over 222,240,125 pages during the exact time you say I was hacking your 75 pages.

  Now I present to you the Wayback machine report that corroborates our network internet reports.

  How do you explain that?

  Mr. Jones, "You probably fabricated them to save your ass, who knows."

  Pong "Objection, your honor, let the record show that I have no ass at this time to save." everyone in the court cracks up.

  Judge "Pong, I told you to behave."

  The President throws his glass across the room.

  Pong "Mr. Jones, let's start with the time. Do you agree that all three show the same time?