CONNECTED

by Denman, Simon

  “The software didn't work?”

  “I never had a chance to find out. The PC was stolen during the night.”

  “You're kidding me!” said Doug incredulously. “Really? While you were there?”

  “I know, it sounds unbelievable. I hit the mother of all traffic on the way up and by the time I arrived, it was just so late, I decided to leave the files until morning. Just my bloody luck! Out of all the things they could have taken, they picked the bloody PC.”

  “Was it a laptop?”

  “No, it was a desktop. That's what's even more crazy. They left all the valuable stuff like jewellery and silverware. They didn't even touch the high-def plasma, or home cinema gear in the lounge. All they took was an old PC base unit and a cheap Hi-Fi midi-system.”

  “Maybe it was just a bunch of kids, and they bottled out.”

  “I don't think so, you know. I heard their voices and they were definitely grown men - East European I reckon, by the sound of them.”

  “Well, at least you and your sister-in-law are okay.”

  There was another pause. “Yes, I suppose so,” said Peter finally.

  “So what are you going to do?” asked Doug.

  “We'll just have to recreate it the same way Kal did. Any idea what editing software he might have used?”

  “No idea, I was trying to figure that out myself.”

  “Okay. Well, I'm almost home now, let's talk again soon. Thanks for calling back.”

  Doug hung up, reflecting on Peter's intonation. There was something else troubling the man this morning. Then again, he had just made a long and ultimately futile trip, not to mention being robbed in his sleep. It was hardly cause for celebration.

  He stepped out into the crisp sunshine where Becky was standing awkwardly, fiddling with her mobile. Her red hair was still damp from the shower, but combed back neatly, framing the wide, but now healthily glowing face. A long blue cotton dress and baggy jumper went some way towards disguising the unfortunate shape of her body.

  “Nice dress,“ said Doug.

  She stared at him for a moment, as though trying to gauge the level of sincerity, and then smiled appreciatively. “Thanks.”

  They started to walk back to the centre of campus.

  “I'm sorry about Kal, by the way. You were good friends, weren't you?”

  “Best friends,” replied Doug, sadly. “Did you know him at all?”

  “No, not really. We only really spoke a couple of times. Quite recently in fact.”

  “Oh yeah, what about?” asked Doug, hoping to goodness it wasn't anything to do with their bet.

  “He approached me a couple of weeks ago asking if I knew of any open-source video editing software. He had this home-grown graphics program from which he wanted to create some kind of video. Apparently none of the commercial packages would accept the format, so he wanted to find something he could hack.”

  “You've got to be kidding me. I was literally just discussing this on the phone with someone. It was to do with a paper we wrote together. So you helped him create the video? Can you remember how he did it?”

  “Well, I suggested some Linux shareware I'd come across and then later on he thanked me saying it had worked really well ...but I don't know exactly what he did with it.”

  “Could you at least show me which shareware it was sometime?” asked Doug excitedly.

  “Sure! I could show you now if you really want,” she said. “Are you in one of the towers?”

  “Yeah – would you mind?”

  “Of course not – you can make me that coffee while I find it for you.”

  They switched direction and cut across the park towards William Morris, chatting easily now as though they had been friends for years. Becky, Doug soon realised, was one of the sharpest and most friendly people he had met since coming to Essex. Once again he felt ashamed that it had taken him so long to discover this.

  Back in the tower, Doug stuffed his dirty laundry into the bottom of the wardrobe and hastily cleared some desk space around the booting laptop. He then logged on for her, and went to make the coffee. As he came back with the two mugs, Becky was peering intently at some lines of code on the screen.

  “There's something weird going on with your computer,” she announced without looking round.

  “Like what? I've noticed it's been running a bit slower than usual. I was going to try the de-frag tool, but hadn't got round to it.”

  “It's not that,” she said, continuing to scrutinise the screen. “One of your virtual ports is open that shouldn't be.”

  She had now opened up several more windows, but was switching between them too fast for Doug to follow.

  “Here!” she exclaimed. “Thought so! You've been infected!”

  “What – like with a virus, you mean?”

  “Err...worse, I'm afraid. Looks like some kind of key-logger.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, I always keep the antivirus software updated.”

  “Well...unless of course, you happen to have written your own root-kit to hide away under the operating system and periodically send large text files to this host-name,” she said, pointing to the screen.

  Doug looked over her shoulder. Sure enough, the code was instructing the computer to transfer a hidden file called cap32log to some remote server.

  “Let's see what secrets this little package has been pilfering,” she said eagerly, punching a few keys and invoking a large block of text. “Please tell me you don't bank online!” she said.

  “Oh shit!” said Doug, as a sickening feeling took hold of his stomach.

  “This little beauty is sending absolutely everything you type - your emails, your assignments, IM chat sessions...and along with it, any login and password information to your online accounts!”

  “Oh shit!” said Doug again, his mind racing back over everything he might have done the last few weeks.

  “You're going to need to change all your passwords and check your bank statements. But first of all, let's just try to disable this thing and make sure you haven't got any other nasties lurking in some dark corner of the disk. On second thoughts, you should probably re-install the operating system.”

  “Bloody hell! Thank God I bumped into you today. So how come you know so much about this stuff?”

  She turned, displaying a wide and capricious grin. “You know how most school kids get holiday jobs at like bars or cafés to earn a bit of extra pocket money?”

  “Yes?” he replied slowly.

  “Well I discovered I could make more money dreaming up novel ways of driving internet traffic to online advertisers.”

  Doug processed this for a moment. “You mean you wrote adware?” he finally said. “All those annoying cookies and pop-ups that make our online lives a misery?”

  Becky flushed with embarrassment. “Please don't tell anyone, but yes, for a while I did venture over to the dark side, and among other things, I created adware. It was kind of fun at first, but then it all got a bit too serious.”

  Doug just looked at her in amazement. “You know, I would never have taken you for a hacker.”

  “I suppose I should take that as a compliment,” she said with another grin, turning back to the screen and starting to type again.

  “Have you installed any suspect software recently?” she asked.

  Doug thought for a moment. “Suspect? No not really. I took a look at this data forensics tool the other day, but the vendor seemed pretty reputable. Other than that - oh and the driver software for a 3G dongle I borrowed – they were the only things I've installed in ages. Why?”

  “It's just that this doesn't look like a usual mass distribution thing. It looks like it was physically installed on your PC - perhaps as part of another programme. You see, if it was the result of some drive-by download from a dodgy website, I would have expected it to leave some tell-tale fragments of code here and there, but it hasn't. Also, your browser and operating system have all the latest patches, the firewall i
s still enabled and as you say, the antivirus software is fully up to date which, means that whatever infected you hasn't been out in the wild long enough to earn a detection signature.”

  “That's weird!” said Doug. “Are you saying I've been personally targeted by someone?”

  “Impossible to say for sure, but yeah, that's what it looks like.”

  “But who the hell would want to target a penniless student for Christ sake?”

  “I don't know,” she said, frowning for a moment before the grin slowly reappeared. “If you want though, we might be able to find out. You see the first big mistake he made was coding that host-name directly into the software. From that we should be able to determine the IP address and from there, which service provider he's using to connect to the Internet. Once we know that, we may be able to narrow down his location to a district if not an actual city.”

  Becky's fingers were flying now, as various windows popped up, were minimised and re-opened, with data being cut and pasted between them. The girl was some kind of genius, Doug concluded.

  “Russia!” said Becky eventually with a note of triumph. “Dot RU is Russia. Your key-strokes were being sent to a server connected via a Moscow based ISP by the look of it.”

  “So some bloody Boris hacked into my PC?”

  “Either that, or this is just a way station, and the file is subsequently being transferred somewhere else. It's hard to say really, although I read recently that quite a lot of cybercrime is currently being funded by the Russian Mafia.”

  “So that's it? The trail goes cold somewhere in the frozen wastes of the former Soviet bloc?”

  Becky turned towards him, her eyes widening with excited malice. “Unless that is, we decide to hack the hacker!”

  “How on earth do we do that?” asked Doug, now feeling completely out of his depth. Although a proficient programmer, he had never really taken much interest in the whole sub-culture of hacking, with its black hats and white hats, and that annoying air of geeky smugness which seemed to be its prerequisite badge of entry. Given the current situation however, he was beginning to realise that a better understanding of this, the ugly underbelly of computing, might occasionally come in rather handy.

  “Well, whoever did this must be regularly collecting these files of bundled keystrokes and analysing them for whatever nefarious purposes they were conceived.”

  Doug nodded thoughtfully, realising there must be more to this than the apparent statement of the obvious, but unsure of what that might be.

  “So we give them another file just like the one they're expecting, but this time with a little present attached.”

  Doug looked on blankly.

  “So it'll look like a regular text file, but when they try to read it, a small tracking routine will be executed. Then with a bit of luck, before they realise what's happened, it will have told us some vital clues about the machine being used, and its location on the Internet.”

  “And you're telling me you know how to do all that? That's ...amazing!” said Doug. “But maybe before you do that, I should reset all my passwords and rebuild my system. I've been thinking of switching from Windows to Linux anyway, and having seen what Windows root-kits can do, now seems as good a time as any.”

  “I think that's an excellent idea.” said Becky. “To create the tracking routine, I'm going to need to use some tools that are back on my PC anyway. I'll head back now, and give you a call later, when I have something.”

  “Becky, thanks again. You've been amazing.”

  “It's been fun,” she said, looking very satisfied. “Oh, and by the way, I left the link to the editing software on your desktop.”

  A quick glance at his online bank statements revealed no irregularities, but he changed the passwords anyway. It took most of the afternoon to back-up the data, format the disk, and then install Linux, but the result exceeded his expectations, the machine booting in less than half the usual time, and all the essential programmes running noticeably faster than before.

  The video editing software was quite basic in its functionality, but being open-source, allowed Doug to view and edit the underlying code. The issue with the fractal graphics was that they were produced by an executable programme, and therefore didn't exist as either still or moving image formats. What Kal must have done, Doug realised, was to modify both programmes so that the graphic output of the fractal generator was fed directly into the image acquisition routine of the video editor. Once captured, Martin's audio could be added simply enough, and the two sources synchronised to form a playable video file. It might take a few days to accomplish, but he saw no reason for such an approach to fail. At that moment, an instant message popped up on the screen. It was from Becky, and contained just a single link. Doug clicked on it, intrigued. The browser opened to display what looked like a personal web page of one Dmitri Zhirkov. In the top left corner was the photo of a rather peculiar looking young man with long greasy black hair and piercings through both eyebrows, nose and tongue, the latter of which was stuck out towards the camera in an unconvincing pose of anarchic rebellion. The text was mostly in Russian, but peppered with odd English words, which seemed to stand out pretentiously from the screen. The phone rang. “So what do you think?” came Becky's excited voice.

  “Don't tell me you've nailed it down to this one guy.”

  “He's such an amateur!” she shrieked. “It was the easiest thing. He obviously never imagined anyone would try to hack him back. The tracer led me straight to this machine, which at some point in the past, he was stupid enough to have used as a personal web-server.” She was sounding smug now. “He obviously hasn't used it for years though because none of the links work, and the most recent update was eight years ago. He must have just forgotten to delete this one page which I found in a hidden directory.”

  “You know, it's actually kind of scary how good you are at this stuff!” said Doug, completely in awe at Becky's mastery as a net-sleuth.

  “And guess where this server is.”

  “Not Moscow?”

  “London! Now, if you want to see something really cool, login to Facebook and accept Jasmine Bedfellow as a friend.”

  “Who's she?”

  “My alter-ego!” replied Becky. “I have a real profile too, which you can add later if you want, but this is the one I use for all my Internet stalking requirements.” A nervous and slightly maniacal snort of laughter rattled down the line. “Sorry, I'm just quite enjoying this,” she said apologetically.

  Doug opened up Facebook and accepted the two friend requests. Becky had no profile picture, which was understandable given the circumstances, and a mere eleven friends. Jasmine on the other hand was a stunningly attractive twenty-four year old model from South London with olive skin, dark sultry eyes, and long, luxurious black hair. She had 957 friends, most of whom appeared to be male and curiously indisposed to the wearing of shirts.

  “Wow!” said Doug with a laugh. “You've been collecting men!”

  “It's amazing who'll agree to be your friend when you have a profile picture like this.”

  “Yes, well, the darker sex can be a bit shallow at times,” accepted Doug.

  “It's not just men though...you'd be surprised what some women say they want to do with me!”

  “So who is she...really, I mean?” asked Doug, trying to eschew the image of hot lesbian sex which had just entered his mind.

  “A Columbian porn star.”

  Doug burst out laughing, the former image returning more vividly than ever. “No way!”

  “Yes, but just forget her for now if you can. Try searching her friends for our ring-nosed Russian.”

  Doug typed in the name, and up popped the slightly fatter, older, but still recognisable metal studded visage of Dmitri Zhirkov.

  “Obviously don't try and add him as a friend,” said Becky hastily. “Assuming he's the one who hacked your computer - and judging by all the black-hat forum links in his profile, that would certainly fit - then he may
just recognise your name. But as a friend of Jasmine, you should be able to see most of his details. He's a bit of a show-off you see, and so his privacy settings grant almost full access to friends of friends.”

  “Fantastic! Not sure what I'm going to do with this information, but it's nice to put a face to this mysterious violator of my cyber-privacy – even if it is such a peculiar one.”

  Becky laughed. “Well I suppose you could go to the police, but it might be difficult to explain how you tracked him down, or for that matter to prove that it really was he, who hacked your machine. In any case, I think my part in this is done. I'm afraid I have some real work to do now, so good luck, have fun with Dmitri, and I'll see you in lectures on Monday.”

  Doug thanked her again, and began to delve into the social networking world of his newly discovered hacker-turned-hackee.

  Dmitri Zhirkov had 63 friends, the majority of whom were male. There was an email address under the info section, but no phone numbers. He was fan to a number of obscure heavy metal and punk bands from around the world, and as Becky had pointed out, most of the links listed were to various computer hacking websites. His wall posts were written in a mixture of Russian and English, and largely completed Doug's mental portrait of a sexually repressed computer nerd into heavy metal and fast cars. He browsed the dozens of photographs posted to the man's profile. About half of these portrayed the peculiar little man posing with various groups of similar types, while the other half showed him leering luridly at the camera with an arm or two looped lecherously around the shoulders of a succession of attractive yet clearly unwillingly conscripted young girls. The profile status read “...off to Snow Leopard tonight!” - added two hours ago. A quick search showed a North London strip club of the same name.

  “Yep, that looks like just the sort of place to find a wanker like you,” muttered Doug under his breath. Then a thought crossed his mind. He looked at his watch. If he caught the next train to Liverpool Street, he could actually be at this club by around nine. He wasn't quite sure what he would do when he got there, but he imagined it would come to him one way or another. He knocked on Brian's door.