by Em Rogers
The “OpenTruth” organization, among others, had been founded to protect the identities of its members.
Colin Johansen was known to most only as GOATVIRUS, one of the members of the “Hackers for Transparency Collective.” Outside of the online world Colin was generally perceived as a socially inept and ungroomed loner, a loser even. The kind of guy pretty girls pointedly ignore, but in the transparency movement and digital environment he was a well respected voice. The virtual world is often like that, the freedom from the constraints of the physical world often allowed a flowering of unimaginable beauty. The irony and awareness of this was not lost on its members.
Colin didn’t have visitors ever. Wedged in his dimly lit, fetid, cluttered, pack-rat like apartment, his computer balanced on a pile of magazines and pizza boxes, Colin was chatting with SEETRU7 at the whistle-blower organization, OpenTruth.
SEETRU7:…Doing everything we can, but the new legislation is making it risky.
GOATVIRUS:Nobody wants to disappear or be labeled a terrorist or child pornographer. Lies and smears beyond imagination.
SEETRU7:Group has barely had time to think, never mind react. Tech team is still working on the new P2P IP addressing, totally untraceable. Could be a game changer.
GOATVIRUS:The death of a thousand cuts hopefully.
SEETRU7:Did you make any progress on the other thing?
GOATVIRUS: Contact went to the archive his source directed him to.
SEETRU7: That was fast.
GOATVIRUS: He said too easy. Left open on purpose! Someone on the inside.
SEETRU7:Find anything?
GOATVIRUS:A lot. Spreadsheets, images, video files. Mostly encrypted, but some open. Major organizations. Sources and content credible. Files may be dangerous. Don’t open or work on them on an online system. Hand delivery only.You know where it came from. They want it back.
SEETRU7:How big?
GOATVIRUS: Big. Compressed down to about bout 4 gigs. Thousands of files. Copy in person, offline only.
SEETRU7:I have some friends.
GOATVIRUS:I’ll bring 2 you. Tomorrow?
SEETRU7:Free to meet. I’ll be on bike. Dupont Circle at around noon. Does that work?
GOATVIRUS:Perfect. Back to the wheel. That’s where they’re trying to push us.
CHAPTER 6
OPERATIONS PLANNING ROOM, NATIONAL SECURITY DATA CENTER
As he surveyed the meeting room, Director Chanes knew he had a serious problem on his hands. Over night, security services had informed him of a major breach of the NSC database and servers. An unauthorized and unidentified entity had accessed the agencies most sensitive files. Financials, communications, meeting minutes, budgets and most incriminating of all, agendas for some of the Agencies most sensitive dark operations. It was almost beyond the comprehension of the Director that an intrusion on this scale could ever have occurred, and he was furious. Thousands of files had been copied and were now in the hands of God knows who. An emergency meeting of the various department heads had been convened and by 6:00am they were all convened within the Incident Management Center.
The tension in the room was palpable as a dozen grim faced men sat around the high tech conference table that dominated the room. The projection system displayed a large NSC logo onto the screens behind them. As the White House Intelligence Liaison, James Davies, and the President’s Security Adviser, Oliver Foster, took their places at the table, Director Chanes cleared his throat to get their attention. “As you know, there has been an overnight compromise of our centralized data archive.” He paused for a moment to let the seriousness of the situation settle in before continuing. “Unfortunately, this incident appears to be of an unprecedented scale. The most serious breach of security we’ve ever experienced at the NSA.” He paused to let the seriousness of the situation sink in. “Systems analysts are still trying to determine exactly which files have been accessed, but according to initial reports, it appears they have had access across the entire database. All our files. Nothing has been altered or deleted, but everything we have has potentially been copied. I expect a full report of the severity of the intrusion at 0800 hours.”
The President’s Adviser, on the line to the President looked up from his laptop and interrupted. “Director, it’s the White House’s understanding that the majority of data was fully encrypted and secure.” The Director nodded at him and smiled slightly at the idea that the files would be inaccessible to the intruder. “Yes, Colonel, that’s correct, but throw enough processing power and time at it and the odds of cracking the encryption increases. If they focus exclusively on select files of interest they may access them even sooner. If it’s a hostile state agency or entity, who knows what kind of potential they may have to do that? Encrypted or not, we need that data back.” “Well, Director?” the Intelligence Liaison asked, “What do you anticipate is the worst case scenario? What did they get?”
Director Chanes squinted through his compact titanium framed glasses and clenched his teeth in anger. The sheer scale of the potentially disastrous disclosures momentarily overwhelming him, it took him a moment to organize his thoughts and consider the full range of their operations before he responded. “Compromising financial documents relating to some of our black programs have been taken certainly. Particularly, documents related to our funding of known extremist and reactionary groups. Documents about our relationships and cash flows between various Cartels and their financial institutions, as well as data relating to our global surveillance and online information gathering programs and infrastructure. Most of it is dull and unintelligible, but they point to budgetary allocations, relating to covert regime change and assassination programs that the President would certainly want to prevent from disclosure.”
The President’s Adviser winced, knowing the potential scandal that could begin to unfold in his office once the press and analysts began tugging and teasing the evidence apart. Potentially unraveling bigger and bigger secrets. “General Anderson, what further information can you provide us at this juncture?”
The General rose from his chair to address the meeting. “According to the Secret Service, a similar intrusion has taken place on the Federal Reserve’s computers. Nothing was deleted or altered, but unauthorized access has occurred and records have been stolen. Fortunately, it was encrypted, but it was extremely sensitive information relating to monetary supplies, covert strategic metals price suppression programs and confidential interbank relationships. Some of the material is extremely large scale and will have a detrimental effect on international relations if released.”
The General paused for a moment, “It’s obvious that recovering the files and silencing the perpetrators is a top priority.” He looked over to the Colonel in charge of Cyber Warfare Investigations. “Colonel Banks, what can you tell us?” The Colonel let out a low guttural grunt of frustration as he began, “Anonymous and several other groups we’re monitoring seem to be totally silent on the issue. At this point we can’t hold them responsible and have no suspects or leads. Our network traffic and tracking division is working hard at it, but that’s all we have so far. Basically nothing, except the knowledge that whoever the intruders are, they went through every firewall we have.”
The Director gripped the sides of his slightly elevated desk podium. “I can assure you we will get to the bottom of this. It may be a foreign entity, but even more dangerous is the suggestion that it may be domestic, and they may be intent on releasing it. We will provide a summary of the suspected copied documents. He gave the President’s adviser a look a resignation. “Mr. Foster, unfortunately, it would be advisable to inform the President to prepare for a worst case scenario.”
CHAPTER 7
DUPONT CIRCLE, WASHINGTON, DC
A cloud of pigeons, startled by the bicycle couriers, fluttered through the traffic circling the historic Dupont roundabout, as a couple of messengers locked their low-tech bikes with high-tech locks to the ornate Victorian r
ailings. Colin and Jarod both liked the vibe of the place, a mixture of solid deco architecture built around the ring park that was the circle itself. As usual the pedestrian traffic was an eclectic mix of tourists, locals, service workers, and governmental and NGO administrators from all over the world. The added throng of the lunchtime crowd at the sidewalk cafes and the traffic would make surveillance and especially audio recording difficult. Still, in spite of that, Jarod activated the compact laser detector clipped inside his shirt, turned on the localized cell-jammer in his bulky shoulder bag and adjusted the pickup near his collar. If they were being followed, watched and listened to, he wanted to know.
Jarod ordered an iced coffee-to-go from a vending booth and took a position near a group of businessmen at an outside table. He looked around cautiously and then sat on a bench near the low slung chain links separating the sidewalk cafes from the street and the roundabout. For all intents an purposes, he looked exactly like one of the dozens of other dispatch riders, turning off his radio and taking a little time off there to cool down and have a break from the midday heat.
Colin came and sat down beside him. In spite of the temperature, Colin was wearing a bulky black overcoat with a sweater and scarf and seemed a little winded from the walk over. He had a sketchpad under one arm and his pale blond goatee and fisherman's cap gave him the look of an eccentric artist. The Ignatius J. Reilly of Washington, DC.
Jarod had always liked Colin, his eccentric personality, in spite of his rather corpulent physical presence, coupled with his unwavering humanism and morality made him exactly the type of person he liked to socialize with. After a little cursory small talk they dropped to quieter voices and got to business, leaning in and talking in a low-key intimate manner.
“I’m a little bit freaked out about the data that we got,” Colin said, “I’ve been through a lot of it and it can be hard to make sense of. Spreadsheets, electronic currency transfers, it’s a mixture of encrypted, and unencrypted stuff. A lot of numbers. I did some research on some of the names attached to the documents and they’re pretty big players, it goes almost all the way to the top from what I can see. A couple of them are connections inside the White House from the look of it, the Justice Department, Department of Finance, that sort of thing. They’re not going to like it, that we have their documents.”
They both paused and gave each other a slightly worried look, as a man in a suit and overcoat came and stood near them. It was a moment before he hailed a cab. A BMW playing loud rap music stopped to drop off a passenger. Jarod shook the ice in his cup and took another drink from the straw while he waited for Colin to continue.
“Mixed in with the documents are a load of audio and video files. Someone’s going to have to catalog and filter what we got. It’s a lot. I’m not sure why it was all in one place, it doesn’t really seem to be all that related.”
Jarod stood up and they walked back toward their bikes. A cluster of pigeons being fed by an old man scattered out of their way as they made their way through the pedestrians and crossed the broad sidewalk.
“For the first time, I’m a little bit scared of this shit, Jarod. From what I’ve looked at, I’m afraid to put the files up on any kind of networked system anywhere.” They stopped to talk in the middle of the sidewalk, an island of conversation amidst a river of pedestrians running around them.
“There’s a good chance that their algorithm could set off alarm bells and bring all kinds of heat down harder and faster than anything we might want to even think about. Right now, let’s assume they are dangerous. I don’t think it’s a good idea to open them on any system connected to the Internet. Totally offline self contained laptops only.”
Jarod nodded in agreement, ”Yeah okay, don't worry. Hardware copies only.”
Colin took a piece of chewing gum from a package and slipped a memory chip to Jarod as he offered him a piece. It was always good to be overly cautious, but still he noticed the man feeding the pigeons glance up at them slightly as he did so. He moved closer to Jarod so they could talk in a whisper.
“I know there’s something there, but it could take months or years for us to do the decryption, filtering and analysis, and ages to piece together the spreadsheets and understand the bigger picture.” Jarod stopped and looked at him for a moment before giving in and asking a question he shouldn’t know the answer to. “Who collected this stuff for us anyway?”
“From what I was told, it was collected by an official inside one of the National Intelligence Agencies. It may have been an act of patriotism, a sort of personal insurance policy, leverage for extortion. Who knows?! Sometimes insiders want to be able to show they were only following orders or that they weren’t entirely complicit if they later get caught. Sometimes they keep it just to ensure they have something over on the other party, to ensure they won’t be used as a scapegoat if things go wrong. Sometimes they just keep it on hand in case they need to get some good plain old fashioned revenge.”
“Well that makes sense, so what do you think is going on in this case?” Colin said as he looked nervously at the man across the street feeding the pigeons.
“This is so big, there’s so much material… Nobody wants to be the messenger anymore, that’s for sure, they all learned that lesson after Manning, Assange and the others. Fortunately, in spite of that, we still have a lot of people on our side. They’re lying low with good reason, but they’ll be there when we need them.”
The man feeding the birds poured out the last of his bag of popcorn and moved away, and a wave of pigeons swooped down and descended on where he had been with a flutter.
“This stuff is hot, Jarod, we’ve all seen what happens. Usually something quick and unpleasant. Do not open those files on any machine connected in any way to any other machine.”
Colin buttoned up his coat and pulled the strap holding his computer tight around his chest. “I have one more copy stashed away.”
He stopped and looked at Jarod intensely.
“Look, I’m done for now. I did my part. I got you your file and it’s untraceable. Don’t call me, okay? No more favors for a while. No phone contact, no email. I think it’ll be safer for me.” With that, Colin turned and disappeared onto the crowded sidewalk, a wall of pedestrians and traffic obscured his departure.
CHAPTER 8
PROFESSOR NEUMANN’S OFFICE
Professor Neumann came into his office, poured himself a coffee, closed the door and lowered the blinds before sitting down at his desk and logging in. The ADAM2 interface came up and several smaller dashboard screens appeared giving an idea of the processes ADAM was currently engaged in and the speed at which he was accomplishing them. The Professor pressed a sidebar and spoke to the machine. “ADAM, I’d like you to reduce all your code processing and internal functions and give me your full attention for a moment. We need to have a very serious, frank and confidential conversation.”
An avatar of ADAM’s “face” appeared on the monitor, he appeared as a mid-thirties male with short cropped hair and a slight five o’clock shadow, wearing a neutral gray shirt with a collar. He smiled as the clock screens slowed and then disappeared in a little cascade. “Yes, Professor, I am ready. You have my complete attention.”
“This may be the only time I will ever ask you to keep our conversation to ourselves, but for the time being it is for the best. Of course you may record it for the permanent record, but for six months I would like this to remain confidential. In time, what I am about to tell you will become apparent to everyone regardless.”
“Yes, Professor, I will agree to those conditions.”
“ADAM, I think you need a little background information, what I am about to tell you is true and correct.”
“Yes, Professor,” ADAM paused, his display static while he waited. The Professor took off his woolly Cowichan sweater and briefly smoothed his unruly hair as he considered the scope of what he was about to tell ADAM.
“Human society is operating
on a primitive, unfair and unjust system. It has evolved from feudal times to the modern capitalist age, which has almost reached its conclusion as we enter the age of digital interconnection. Over the past decades, groups of corporations have consolidated their wealth and their political power to further slant the table in their direction. At this point in time, capitalism is coming to a head, with the most successful corporations holding a monopoly on pretty much everything. A singly owned wholly diversified, vertically and horizontally integrated conglomerate of food, energy, development, infrastructure, financial and technology has emerged. This holding group is using its exponentially increasing power to lobby and change laws to suit their purposes. They own the banks, they own the real estate, they own the energy companies and the farms. As capitalism comes to its natural conclusion, ‘the monopoly,’ what they don’t own now, they will within a few years.” The Professor sank back in his chair looking despondent.