by Sijal Aziz
She went out and bought some cleaning supplies, a cheap bedsheet, a pillowcase and a towel and went to work. It took her two hours to make the toilet useable. She then cleaned the rest of the room changed the bedsheet and the pillowcase and left the dirty sheets at the reception.
Kate then settled in her bed and turned on her laptop.
She knew that every person’s criminal record was available on the internet through a Criminal Reporting Agency or CRA but also knew that, that option for checking a record was not free. She did not want to pay through her credit card as by now the police would have put an alert on it.
So, hacking into a CRA was her only option. She googled for CRA and went to the very first CRA site that showed up.
She checked whether the site address ended in “php?it=”. It did, so it offered Kate a way to get into the site.
She then checked the site’s database record to see which database management software the site was using. It was using MySQL 5.0. From there it was relatively easy to break into the sites database records and then locate her file in their system.
To her surprise Kate had a rap sheet a mile long. She was staring at her police record in Maryland and Washington DC. The charges against her included domestic violence, petty larceny, narcotics possession, battery and assault and two counts of prostitution.
Kate couldn’t believe her eyes. No wonder the detectives did not believe her when she told them she was innocent.
Kate was now sure that someone was trying to frame her for Matt’s murder, but she could not understand why they went through all the trouble of giving her a criminal history because not every crime in the city was solved or the criminal apprehended.
The only way someone could change someone’s record was through hacking into the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information System or CJIS for short.
Common people didn’t have access to CJIS, and they didn’t go around framing others and changing their background.
Kate understood computers and it was not easy to break into the CJIS and give someone a criminal history.
Kate’s mind went to work, and she started analyzing how someone would break into CJIS through different angles.
The first method for changing her record, was by someone who had access to CJIS database. Which would mean someone within the FBI had changed her record.
But that was too farfetched. Because the CJIS system logged in the details of the person who edited the records and she was sure no one at the FBI would even risk jail time for changing her record. So that impossible.
Second option was that if someone broke into the CJIS and changed the record. But if something like that happened the FBI will find out about the breach within minutes, if not seconds and set their server back to before the breach happened.
When Kate couldn’t think of a third way, she started searching for the companies that worked with the FBI on CJIS. If she found such companies then there was a small possibility that somehow one of them could have had gained access.
The net showed that a number of firms worked with the FBI but Channeler firms were the only firms that provided data to the FBI. They acted as a middleman between the general public and the FBI. They collected applicants’ fingerprints for the FBI, ensured completeness of the applicants’ data, sent electronic requests to the FBI's CJIS Division for noncriminal justice history record checks, and received record check results to be provided to authorized individuals.
“Hmmm. Here’s a start”, Kate thought, “True that the channeler firms don’t have access to CJIS database, but they do send data to the FBI”
Now if a channeler firm loaded a file with a very discreet spyware and the FBI uploaded it to their system it would be easier for that person or entity to gain access to the main database and change records.
Another way to do that was to upload a sleeper program into CJIS system.
Sleeper programs are softwares that sleep harmlessly in a software unless woken up. A two-liner code embedded in an email or attachment can be used to wake them up and once they are up and running, they can carry out any tasks that they had been designed to do.
Kate liked the latter option better. The first scenario for the installation of sleeper program was if someone from the FBI could have done it. But any changes to the main CJIS program would raise alarms and the system would not allow the culprit to install any new software into the root. So, there was a very slim possibility that that was possible.
The second possibility was that the company that developed the CJIS, already had the sleeper program embedded in the main software before it was handed over to the FBI. That possibility made sense.
Just like there was a backdoor in the drone policing software, there could have been a sleeper program in the CJIS.
She started searching for companies that had helped develop the CJIS. There was only one company that had developed the entire CJIS for the FBI, Kent and Cooper Inc. They also provided regular upgrade service to the FBI on the CJIS.
“Hmm, this is interesting”, Kate said out loud.
So, someone from Kent and Cooper, was a very good candidate for manipulation of the records at CJIS. The person would not be stupid enough to install the sleeper program during the upgrades, so it must have been left there by Kent and Cooper at the time of development of the software just like they left the backdoor in the drone policing software.
Now it was time to check, which channeler firm was both associated to the FBI and Kent and Cooper.
After about half an hour of scrupulous research on the internet, Kate found the name of the firm, People2People Inc.
She carried out a thorough review of the People2People Inc’s website. It appeared like a harmless firm, but it was a subsidiary of Kent and Cooper Inc.
She checked the clock and it was 4:00AM in the morning so she decided to turn in for the night. Kate went to sleep thinking about Matt and had a dreamless sleep.
When she woke up in the morning, she took her laptop and walked over the closest café that offered free wifi. Once in the café she ordered some coffee and a sandwich and sat on a corner table where no one would be able to see her face. She continued her research on People2People Inc.
Although there was no information about the staff of the company, but Kate’s search on google provided her with the name of the CEO.
On a whim, Kate went over the public phone in the café and placed a call to People2People Inc. The secretary on the other end picked up the call, “People2People Incorporation, how may I assist you?”
“Hi this is agent Beth James with the FBIs Cyber Crime Unit. We have reason to believe that your account has been hacked as the files that you have been sending to CJIS are landing with a spyware. This is pretty serious as your firm can lose its license over this. I would need to talk with your CEO, John Curtis”
The secretary at the other end was obviously worried, “Please wait one moment while I put you through”
There was a 15 seconds pause and then someone at the other end said, “Hello, what is this all about?”
Kate cleared her throat, “Hello, this is Beth James with FBI’s Cyber Crime Unit. We have reason to believe that your computer system has been hacked or its security has been compromised as all the record files that you are sending us have a hidden spyware attachment. Since this is a serious matter, we will need your full cooperation. I would need to visit your office and check out your computer system”
John Curtis replied after a few seconds, “I don’t believe our system can be hacked or the security has been breached since we have an inhouse security team that keeps runtime checks on all our systems.
Furthermore, we use our firm’s own software tools, and no one can pass through our secure gateway, that is one of the reasons why FBI chose us as a channeler firm. You are more than welcome to visit our office and meet with me, please let me know your badge number so that I can arrange a pass for you”
Kate hung up. Kate had not anticipated the badge number
question and she resolved to do her homework thoroughly before she called someone again.
John Curtis shrugged and hung up. He figured that Beth James or whoever it was, was a telemarketing representative from a firm trying to sell them their anti-hacking software. He brushed the whole episode aside and went back to work.
Kate went back to her seat and looked around. A couple behind her were having a heated discussion on privacy. The woman was saying, “We need to be more secure. The police cannot be in all the places at all times. I think the government has done the right thing by allowing drones to monitor our streets”
The man retorted, “This is invasion of privacy, we cannot allow the police to monitor us all the time.
I mean I welcome police if a crime has been committed. But with these drones, they will be monitoring us everywhere, on the roads, on the streets, in the shopping malls and the next thing could be our homes. Whatever happened to our right of privacy?”
The woman shot back, “I would rather live than have privacy. Look at all the mass shootings and terrorist activities. If there would have been a monitoring mechanism like what the government has promised, mass shooters would have been killed on site without waiting for police to arrive”
The couple went on and on.
Kate had not read the news in the past two days, since it carried nothing but her story.
She went to New York Times webpage and the main headline was that the drone policing software was handed over to the government and president Trump was going to inaugurate it at a launch ceremony next month. The article also gave the history of “Keeping it Safe” program. United States congress had passed the bill for the use of drones by police after a deliberation of almost four years. In the pilot phase, the program would be operational in four states across the United States including New York, Washington DC, California and Florida.
It was also mentioned that the bill was passed on two main conditions which were that the software was foolproof and could not be hacked and that it carried the minimum risk of drones falling on people or their properties. The government had conducted test runs of the program and it was very happy with the software and hardware.
Kate shrugged at the thought of fully weaponized drones being controlled through the backdoor by terrorists. Once terrorists got access to the backdoor, they could kill anyone anywhere by taking control of a drone or a number of drones across United States.
Kate had informed her boss about the backdoor. He had given her an explanation that did not make sense. Maybe he was trying to hide something, or he wanted to investigate further without raising any alarm. In any case, Kate needed to tell someone else about the backdoor as it could not have been deleted from the program so soon since the program had already been handed to the government. Also, Kent and Cooper looked more suspicious after Kate found out that they compiled CJIS.
Kate decided to call Detective Derek to tell him about the backdoor. Kate did not know whether he would believe her or not, but she decided to give it a shot since it was a matter of life and death for many.
Down at the police station, Detective Derek was having a meeting with Captain Theodore Brown after his discharge from the hospital.
Captain Todd was in a foul mood and was barking commands at Derek at the top of his voice, “This Hawkins case is getting on my nerves. The mayor has somehow been involved and I don’t know why the hell it’s getting so much publicity. It is as if someone wants to make my life a living hell. I want you to focus all your attention on this case and try to apprehend Hawkins as soon as possible. That bitch Hawkins is already making the station the laughing stock of the whole state. I don’t want to go down in history as a captain who let a woman run away. I want you to work on this case 24/7 and handover your current cases to detective Andrews.
“Yes sir, I would get on it right away” and detective Derek left. He still felt pain in his neck, but the doctor had said that it will happen. He was lucky to get away with no fractures. He was happy to be back at work again as he had a lousy time at the hospital.
CHAPTER 11
In order to apprehend Katherine Hawkins, detective Derek needed to dig into Matthew Raymond murder. He started working on his murder board. A murder board is a board on which detectives post all the relevant data about a murder case. He made a timeline of the events starting 9:00AM till the time they found the body with the murder suspect.
He put the picture of the murder suspect, Katherine Hawkins and the victim, Matthew Raymond, on the board. He went over the file over and over again. He went over the 911 call transcript. Everything was pointing to Kate being the murderer.
Based on Kate’s history it was clear that the motive could have been jealousy. But in order to build a strong case against Kate, the detective needed to establish a strong motive and then there was his gut feeling again telling him that Kate was not the murderer.
Detective Derek was perplexed over another anomaly in the case as well. If Matt was sleeping with another woman or a number of women, why hadn’t they come forward yet? Considering the amount of publicity, the case was getting someone should have come forward by now.
Detective Derek decided to focus on the murder case first because if he was able to investigate it further, he would be able to locate Hawkins. In order to investigate the murder case, he needed to investigate Hawkins’ friends, family and colleagues.
Detectives usually worked their cases inside out. Meaning they first started with friends, family and people who knew the murder victim or the suspect and then spread their investigation to other people who were not directly linked to the suspect.
In this case however, Detective Derek could strike out the family part as Matt did not have any family members except distant cousins living in Los Angeles, California and Kate was an only child and her parents had died several years ago.
Detective Derek made a list of places he needed to visit first in order to investigate the murder. The places included Kate’s workplace, her apartment building, her university and finally her friends, if she had any.
Detective Derek checked his notepad and as he was about to pick up his car keys to leave the phone rang.
Detective Derek debated whether to pick up the phone as he had been instructed by the Captain to only work on Hawkins case. He decided to pick it up anyway as someone could be in need of help, “Detective Markus. How may I assist you?”
“Hello”
“Yes, who is this?”
“This is Katherine Hawkins. I just wanted to let you know that I am innocent of Matt’s murder and someone is trying to frame me”
Detective Derek replied carefully, “Ms. Hawkins the best thing for you to do at the moment is to hand yourself up to police. If you are innocent you have nothing to fear”
“Please listen, you need to check my company Kent and Cooper. I was working on the drone policing software for them and I found out something that was not supposed to be there, a backdoor. It will allow anyone to take over the drones. As soon as I found the backdoor my boyfriend was murdered, and I was framed for his murder.
Another thing, as I had said before why would my company hire me if I had a police record. Remember my company works with the government and all the employees they hire have to go through stringent security checks to make sure there are no skeletons in their closets that could jeopardize the firm and its work with the government”
“Ms. Hawkins….” Detective Derek started to say and then he heard the click of the phone. Kate had hung up.
Detective Derek reported the call to Captain Tod, leaving out the conversation about Katherine’s company and asked for a tracer to be put on his landline.
Captain Tod assigned Jim from the surveillance unit to trace calls received by detective Derek. This wasn’t the first-time detective Derek had worked with Jim. Jim was very good at his job. He sat quietly without doing any small talk until a suspect’s call was received and then Jim became alive.
Jim brought one GPS surveill
ance locater and his laptop to detective Derek’s desk and quietly went about setting up his surveillance devices to detective Derek’s phone line.
“You are all set up Detective. Whenever you want me to trace the call just give me a signal. Remember you have to keep the caller online for no less than 60 seconds”
Detective Derek nodded and thanked him.
Derek sat there thinking about what Kate has said. Of all the things she had said, one thing made sense. Why would her company hire her if she had a police record? Computer companies and banks made sure that their employees didn’t have a police record. If she had a record dating back to her college, why would her company have hired her?
So, with that thought nagging at his mind, detective Derek added talking to the head of Kent and Cooper to his investigation plan.
Kent and Cooper was half an hour drive from the police station but because an anti-drone policing protest going on, the police diverted all the incoming and outgoing traffic onto one road.
Finally, when he reached the office complex after a couple of hours, he showed his badge to security guard and was guided to the main reception desk.
There were three very attractive secretaries standing behind the reception desk guiding the visitors.
Detective Derek walked over to the most beautiful of the three. She was a blond in her early twenties with a body that showed a lot of promise. He put on his brightest smile and took out his badge, “I would like to meet Mr. Alexander Cooper. I am conducting an investigation into one your company’s employees, a Katherine Hawkins”
“Of course,” the blond replied with an intoxicating smile “Do you have an appointment?”
“I afraid I don’t”, Detective Derek said putting on all his charm.
“In that case can you please follow Shonda here. She will take you to the waiting room. I will inform Mr. Cooper and ask if he can see you today”, the blond responded pointing to the brunette next to her.