Infinite Exposure

by Roland Hughes

  Jeremy,

  We will have to postpone our trip to Salish Lodge for at least a month. I'm headed off to get trained on some Pytho software product, then off with their team to France to train client site staff. There are about six of us going from here to Pytho.

  It should be a fun trip, but not nearly as much fun as our trip will be.

  Love,

  Stacie

  Normally Stacie wouldn't use the “L” word in an email, but she had elected to send this email from work and needed to cover her tracks. Nobody here needed to know it wasn't a relationship based on love, but rather one based on incredible sex between good friends and the favors they could do for each other. At least she sent it to his personal email account so it shouldn't set off any alarms.

  In truth, she had just found out this morning from Kathryn that the deal was closing. Pytho had agreed to some changes wanted by the Board of Directors at the bank and a new contract was being prepared for their signature along with a new timeline for roll-out. The board had demanded France be the first country converted followed by a list of other countries they did business in. Everyone was assuming the U.S. and Canada would be the last on the list, but the timeline wasn't going to include those for now.

  Tomorrow, Stacie had to report to Pytho Corporation's training facility along with the others from here. They were getting a phi-slamma-jamma training course on how to train bank tellers in the basic functions needed to do their jobs. She was selected because she had taken a semester of French in college. Pytho was supposedly giving about 20 of their own people in France this same crash course. The bank had agreed to send the senior tellers from each location to a one-day training seminar put on at a Pytho location. They were limiting the trip to two tellers per location and the offer was only supposed to be made to the senior tellers.

  Stacie hadn't used French in years. She and some of the other girls were hiding in a conference room with a tourist brush up tape. Stacie planned on digging out her French book when she got home. It was one of the few books she had saved from college because she wanted to travel there some day. This wasn't exactly the kind of travel she had in mind though. Here Pytho would only be teaching them in English. From here they would all go to the same training seminar the bank tellers were attending. They were to be paired off with a native French-speaking Pytho employee and sent to a bank location on the day of the roll-out.

  What amazed Stacie was the grand assumption going on. By virtue of acquisition, Stacie found herself with an account at First Global Bank. She never changed banks. Her bank was one of those eaten by First Global. From what she had been reading in the days before, Pytho software “ass-u-me-d” there was a PC running some form of that worthless Windows operating system at each teller window. Stacie had actually ventured into her branch more than once and knew for a fact there was some great big monster terminal there with a funky looking keyboard that had all different colored keys on it. There was a big IBM logo on it and while it had normal typewriter like keys in the middle of it, there were at least three other keypad type sections built into it. In truth, it looked like you could hold that keyboard up in front of you to stop bullets.

  Finally Stacie had to bow out of the French language brush up. She went in search of Kathryn and found her coming out of a conference room.

  “Hello Stacie, I thought you were brushing up on your French for your upcoming trip,” Kathryn said as she approached.

  “I need to talk to you,” responded Stacie in a serious tone.

  Kathryn had never really pegged Stacie as being a girl with brains. While she had been smart enough to pass French in college, Kathryn attributed the taking of the class to a young girl's fantasy of world travel. “I have about 10 minutes between meetings.”

  “That should do,” responded Stacie as they walked toward Kathryn's office.

  After arriving at Kathryn's office they entered and Stacie closed the door behind her. The closing of the door set Kathryn on edge. After the dicey deal with Pytho software that may yet have her giving back her Mercedes convertible. She wondered what was up.

  “I spent a good part of this weekend reading through the Pytho promotional and specification documentation you gave me. Every piece of this literature makes the assumption a teller already has a PC running some flavor of that unreliable Windows operating system. I stopped at my bank this Saturday. Like many other people, my bank was eaten by First Global when it went on an acquisition spree. There are no PCs at the teller windows. They have some big hulking thing and a massive keyboard you could use to stop armed robberies. Granted, this isn't France, but has anybody actually walked into one of the French locations and seen what is currently at the teller window?”

  Kathryn sat there mortified. This skirt and heels was more than a sex toy to be handed over to old men buying Viagra in bulk. Most of her mortification seemed to be centered around the thought that she should have put the top down on her way in this morning because after this bomb detonates she wouldn't have it to drive any longer. Finally she stammered, “I'm sure Kent took that into account during the presentation and determined all was well,” trying to cover the obvious problem.

  “With all due respect Kathryn, Kent couldn't smell a stink and determine someone farted.”

  Something sounded so completely out of place seeing such a sweet and innocent looking face utter the word “farted.” It was like someone with a very posh British accent suddenly dropping the F-bomb in the middle of a conversation. First there was Shock & Awe, then there was hilarity. Kathryn burst out laughing. The absurdity of the sound coupled with the correctness of the analysis allowed for no other response. Finally, when she stopped laughing she said, “I'll get it put into the contract right now,” as she picked up the phone.

  Stacie turned to leave.

  “Stacie.”

  She turned back around “Yes?”

  “Good catch. Really good catch.”

  A warm and honest smile lit up Stacie's face as she said, “Thanks!” then left Kathryn's office.

  That girl just saved my ass, thought Kathryn as she called the team writing up the new contract to make sure First Global Bank was responsible for ensuring PCs running some flavor of Windows were at each teller station.

  Stacie didn't know much about technology. She had a girlfriend in college whose brother was an Uber geek. When he was cleaned up he wasn't bad looking, if you could get past the fact he was nearly six feet tall and only about 120 pounds. He had been the one who got Stacie through her one required computer class and had always fixed her notebook so she could do her other assignments.

  Her mind slipped back to that one evening at college when Uber geek returned home from something called a “Black Hat” conference. He was exhausted and he reeked from being locked in a room all weekend without showering. Under his eyes were those big black rings you get when you've been up too long and taken too many NoDoz tablets. It was a look college kids understood well during midterms and finals.

  Uber geek dropped his bags, set down his laptop, opened a beer and plopped on the couch. After some severe prodding from the girls, he went to take a shower, then came back.

  “So, you had a good time playing Cowboys and Indians?” Stacie had asked only a little sarcastically. He smiled and continued with a second beer. Seeing him drink beer was an oddity in itself. Stacie had only ever seen him consuming Mountain Dew or iced tea their entire time in college together.

  “The Black Hat conference is a gathering of the best and brightest hackers in the world,” he responded. “Each year we gather pretty much every system known to man and attempt to exploit security vulnerabilities in them. Some attendees are professionals from software companies, some are professionals from organized crime, a few work for the government, and the rest are simply hobby hackers. People from the NSA tend to slip in just to see who is there.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Bond!” Stacie retorted, simply dripping with sarcasm.

  Uber geek got up and went over t
o his back pack. Stacie began sputtering something which sounded like an apology and Uber's sister simply had a perplexed look on her face. Uber geek returned handing Stacie a business card and said, “He wants me to apply for a job when I graduate.”

  There was absolutely no denying it now. There in Stacie's hand was a business card from an NSA special agent. She handed the card to Uber's sister and watched another set of eyes go wide.

  “So what do you do at this conference then.”

  “We play a security game called capture the flag. Each team managing each system is given a flag file. In that file is a special identification number that only the game moderators know. The file name is pretty much known to all players and posted on an overhead display. Where it is and how you get to it is up to each team.”

  “So,” interrupted Stacie, “you sit around trying to hack into each other's machines and get the number from this file?”

  “We actually try to get the entire file,” responded Uber.

  “How many flags did your team capture?” asked Uber's sister.

  “46.”

  “How many did it take to win?” both girls asked together.

  “High score was 72. We placed third.”

  “No wonder you are being recruited,” said Stacie.

  “They make the offer to a lot of people at the conference. It is the one place they can both keep surveillance on the criminals they are after and recruit potential criminals into the agency.”

  “Potential criminals?” queried Stacie.

  “While a good many people get paid a lot of dollars by software vendors to do what we do, if you weren't hired to do it, what we do isn't legal.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anything else interesting happen there? You guys all go out for lap dances or something?” asked Uber's sister.

  Uber chuckled “Few people left the room. The most sleep anyone on the team got was four hours. They did ban one system from ever coming back though.”

  “That bad huh? Something from Microsoft? I know you are always talking about how much Microsoft products suck.”

  “No, that good, and no, it isn't a Microsoft product. Nearly 200 hackers sat there mainlining caffeine and poking at it relentlessly. It never gave up the flag, and not for the first time.”

  “How is that possible,” asked the sister. “You guys know every nook and cranny there is to exploit.”

  “It is the most secure operating system on the planet. The NSA and DOD use it extensively as do a lot of companies.” He looked both girls in the eye as best he could given his condition and said, “If you are serious about running a business and keeping it secured, you put it on OpenVMS because it never gives up the flag. It is designed so that if there are N machines operating in a cluster, one of the machines can be taken out via nuclear strike, and the cluster will continue without losing a single transaction. I was the most familiar with it and that is why the NSA guy asked for my resume on the spot. He is calling on Thursday to discuss bringing me in before I graduate.”

  Once again the girls had that deer-in-headlights look on their faces. The dude was only a sophomore in college. Stacie doubted he'd ever been laid by anyone his sister hadn't begged to do the deed, yet he basically had a career type job already lined up. When Thursday came, Uber had accepted the job. He transferred to a college close to where they wanted him to work. Stacie and his sister became roommates.

  It had been five years since that day and Stacie still remembered what he had said. Yes, every place she looked seemed to use Windows, but Stacie knew it was a joke. Windows still held the world record in surrendering the flag at the annual Black Hat conference. Uber was nice enough to send her an email with the results every year. Stacie still tried to keep in touch with Uber's sister, but now they lived so far apart it was difficult. She was glad she had never been asked to do Uber. He wasn't a bad guy, just not a guy on Stacie's radar. If the request had been presented, she would have been obligated. Thankfully that request shouldn't come now. She had attended Uber's wedding last year and heard they were expecting a child now. I Guess some guys really will marry the first girl who sleeps with them twice, she thought.

  ***

  It had taken Margret two days to get the information from her people at the remaining data centers. They were a little perplexed when she asked about their expansion capabilities and per kilowatt cost of electricity.

  “I thought we were all being off-shored?” asked one data center manager.

  “I don't believe it will ever be all of the data centers, just most of those we inherited which have a really high operational cost.” responded Margret. “The board is interested in how much we can expand two of our existing on-shore data centers.”

  “So the smallest one loses?” asked the same manager.

  “More than likely they will move to one of the other two.”

  “Oh.”

  Margret really wanted to tell them more, but she didn't dare. There was a remote possibility Kent would find out about all of this or they would ask him a probing question if he should happen to speak to them. She was sure what she had told this data center manager would spread like wild fire as soon as she hung up the phone.

  Getting the clearance information from HR had been another tooth-pulling contest. Finally, she had Carol deal with HR while she simply asked the data center managers for information yet again. Oddly, this request for information seemed to invigorate them. Margret could tell they honestly believed there was a regulation somewhere that was going to protect all of their jobs. Best to let them believe it for now, she thought. In a couple of months it could actually be true.

  At any rate, she put the report and spreadsheet together, emailed a copy to Carol and to each member of the board of directors individually. Once that was done she put a copy of the report in the network directory containing all of the report requests.

  Just as she finished doing this Kent dropped by with a new copy of the contract and the roll-out schedule. Kent hadn't bothered to read through anything, he simply looked at the timeline document and was upset that the United States and Canadian locations hadn't been included. “I can't present this to the board,” Kent said in an exasperated tone. “She'll just have to do this over.”

  Margret took a look at the document and the contract while Kent went rambling on about something. Finally she looked up and said, “The board only asked for the international locations when they came back with their letter. My honest opinion is that the board isn't ready to risk the U.S. or Canadian operations on a new system until it has been in the field for over a year.”

  Kent stopped his pacing and stared at her.

  “Think about it Kent. The U.S. and Canadian operations allowed us to eat nine other banks because it generated enough cash for us to risk taking over some poorly run corporations. They aren't going to risk the golden goose when all they are really trying to do right now is save money.”

  Kent still had that “I was born stupid and been losing ground ever since” look on his face.

  “Take a look at the list of countries they authorized to be converted to this system and look at the order of the conversions. It is an inverted list of our highest to lowest cost IT operations. Simply gutting those operations makes it worth taking the risk on this system. Hell, once the French IT workers are all gone, the entire cost of this project will almost be paid for. When they get the second country on-line we are turning a profit from this move. After all of the other countries have been converted and are running smooth, they will allow the U.S. and Canadian operations to use the same software, but not until then. That will be a separate project.”

  Margret was very determined to not let it slip about the Canadian and U.S. data centers having to remain on-shore and be staffed with U.S. citizens to keep FDIC insurance. Carol was no fool. If Carol thought the board was setting Kent up for a fall, Margret was going to be on her hands and knees behind his legs telling them to push. Briefly, Margret wondered if Kent's job came
with stock options. She tuned back into the room just in time to hear Kent say, “So you think I should present this to the board as-is?”

  “Yes. It is what they asked for. If they come back and say it needs to include the other operations you can show them the request they sent out and say we complied with their request, but will be happy to work up yet another quote if their wishes have changed.”

  Kent picked up the other folder he had brought in, presumably it contained the copies for the board, and walked out.

  Could the little bastard be catching on? Margret thought to herself. One thing was certain. None of the big boys had taken Kent out to lunch since he got back from hobnobbing around the globe. Margret had assumed they were simply punishing him for turning in too big an expense report, but perhaps they had people in the legal department telling them to keep their distance for when this went bad. It certainly wouldn't be the first time this bank had chosen a sacrificial lamb for a federal investigation.

  ***

  Jeremy had been idly surfing the Web for a few hours at work. The surfing was thinly disguised as doing research. He was bored and he was tired. Spending the weekend with Stacie had pretty much worn him out. He didn't really feel it until the second day back when his muscles started to stiffen up. I really need to start working out, he thought.

  Finally, he decided to check his personal email. Technically they weren't supposed to do that due to the risk of virus. Lenny had made them all start using Ubuntu on their desktops since there were no known viruses for it and the OS was rock solid. Indeed, the only time Jeremy ever rebooted the machine was when an update got installed and popped up a message saying he needed to reboot for it to take effect.

  Once he went to the Web page to look at his personal email he saw the message from Stacie. At least she didn't send me the email at work, he thought. When he read the email he was damned glad she hadn't sent it to his work email. He quickly printed out the message and walked into Lenny's office. When Lenny looked up he didn't say a word, Jeremy simply handed him the sheet of paper.