by JT Kalnay
“The Air Force types had a big blowout, so… I decided the old bird needed some interior work. I now have my trusty laptop control center plugged into two hundred and fifty million dollars worth of Uncle Sam’s most very sophisticated hardware. So if this bitch wants to light it up tonight, I’ve got some serious MIPS at my disposal to whip her flipping ass.”
Craig rolled his eyes and typed a few more commands. “One word for you. Geek. Let the games begin.”
#
Hours later the game concluded. Once again the Marauder ruled and Craig and his friend had died slow, painful deaths just at the moment they thought they had finally beat the shadowy demoness.
“How did that happen?” Craig asked Jack.
“How does it ever happen? I don’t know if we’ll ever beat this thing. Anyway, adios amigo and all that crap,” Jack typed from Turkey.
“See you next time, same Bat time, same Bat channel. Too bad about being expired by that bitch yet again. We’ll get her next time,” Craig typed. He said a final good-bye, logged off the network server and put his workstation to sleep. Craig flipped off the light in his study and shuffled his bare feet across the deep pile carpet on his way to the bed where his mostly naked girlfriend lay curled up on her side. Craig’s body reacted predictably and vigorously, but he fought the urge and quietly slipped in beside her. He checked her fever with the back of his hand and then pulled the covers up over her.
“I love you baby,” he whispered.
Chapter
February 26th, 1994
San Francisco, California
Glints of sun tried to shine on the California city, but most were turned away by the low fog. So it was gray as Craig walked into his office at home. He immediately noticed that his computer was running.
“Stacey? Did you use my computer this morning?” Craig asked. He stood staring at his computer with his hands on his hips and a look of consternation on his face.
“No. Why?” Stacey asked.
“Well. It’s logged on to a Marauder game server. I was playing last night but I’m sure I logged out and put the machine to sleep.”
Stacey looked at him with a “you are such a moron” look that most men immediately recognize.
“You must have been dreaming that you logged it off,” Stacey said as though speaking to a garden slug.
Craig shook his head. “No. I’m sure I logged off. I left the machine running because I was expecting some email and I had a program ready to respond to it but I am sure I logged off the game server,” Craig said.
“So then what happened?” Stacey asked. Craig felt the verbal demotion from garden slug to single celled organism.
“I don’t know.”
“I know what must have happened Craig. Martians broke in during the night, saw that you had Marauder code and decided to sneak in a game while you were sleeping. They probably logged into a game on Neptune, so look for some steep network charges. Okay?” Stacey teased.
Craig frowned.
“You’re right. I must have left it on,” Craig said.
Stacey smiled a knowing smile. “So Stan wants you to go to AirCom for the rollout later?” Stacey asked.
“Yeah. That guy is getting tough on our relationship. It shouldn’t be too bad a trip. And Stan’s got me hooked up with baseball tickets to shmooze them with after. So, it’ll be okay.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
“But that’s a long ways off, so let’s not worry about it.”
“Right. Have you seen this new map for our climbing trip?”
“Tell me again why I decided to do this?” Craig asked.
“Because you love me. And you know I love climbing.” Her eyes took on a far-away look. “Up high, it’s really the only place I ever really feel, feel,… feel what I feel up there.”
Craig gave his “I’m trying to understand” look.
“It’s… you are one hundred percent in the moment. There’s you and what you’re doing and that’s it. I love it.”
“And I love you,” Craig answered.
The couple immersed themselves in planning for their climbing trip.
Chapter
March 1st, 1994
San Francisco, California
“Stacey this code is so cool. Have I thanked you for getting it for me?” Craig asked.
“Once or twice. So you really like it?”
“You know it babe. This stuff could keep me busy for years,” Craig said.
“What’s so cool about it?” Stacey asked.
“Well first off, it’s very well engineered with objects. A lot of people talk about the benefits from object-oriented programming, but it’s a paradigm that mere mortals struggle with. The guy who wrote this knows everything there is to know about object-oriented analysis and design,” Craig said.
‘How can you tell?” Stacey asked.
“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain, but, basically he’s got a very well formed class hierarchy that knows how to extend itself to react to any situation. It combines dynamic allocation with automatic run time class polymorphing and ties into a just-in-time compiler that enables all kinds of on-the-fly changes. I think that’s why no-one can beat this thing. It isn’t rigidly coded to react to just pre-known sets of inputs, and after you’ve done something once, it can create a new subclass of actions and data to be able to deal with your approach. And here’s what’s kind of devious about it. After you’ve done something that might lead to a win for you, the game knows how to replicate itself and show you the replicated version without letting you know that you might have been able to beat the other version. I’m guessing that it’s almost impossible to beat this thing.”
“Craig?”
“Yes Stacey?”
“How do you know it’s a guy?”
“What?”
“You always say, ‘the guy who wrote this.’ With all that misdirection and subtlety, how do you know it wasn’t a woman?” Stacey asked.
Craig shook his head and smiled a crooked smile. The two young lovers shared a good laugh at their ongoing battle of the sexes.
“So anyway. I’m just putting the finishing touches on a little test version of this Marauder code. I’ve added my audit trail stuff, you know, tracking statements, waypoints, logging and profiling code so that when I’m playing my test version we can keep track of all the machines it communicates with and which lines of code are executed most frequently and so on. That way I can figure out where to focus my research,” Craig said.
“Be sure you’re not playing that thing at work anymore. You know what Stan said about video games at work. He said he’d fire anybody who was playing. And now wouldn’t be a good time to get fired. So at least make it look like you’re working okay?” Stacey asked.
“Sure. But Stan would never fire me. Remember, I am the world’s best programmer. And like Stan could tell the difference between auto pilot software and Marauder software anyway. And what do you mean now wouldn’t be a good time to get fired?”
Stacey wrinkled her mouth and looked sideways at her boyfriend. “Craig. The guy used to write code you know. Didn’t he do the payroll program for the entire State of California? The program that they’re still using?”
“Sure. But that was COBOL and that was the seventies for crying out loud. Nobody does that stuff anymore. He wouldn’t recognize a C program if it bit him in the ass,” Craig said.
“You better hope not. But that’s pretty big talk from a guy who got taken for a bucket of beer by a seventies vintage programmer while I was in Washington isn’t it?”
“Yeah I guess,” Craig answered.
Craig stood up and put his arms around her. He kissed her gently on her forehead and brushed a wisp of hair from her face.
“Thanks for the present. You always look after me.” “Someone has to. And I love you,” Stacey answered. She looked into his eyes and smiled her warmest smile. Craig felt himself falling even deeper in love with he
r.
“I love you too,” he answered.
March 2nd, 1994
New York, NY
Assembled From New Wire Reports
Continental Flight 795, scheduled to fly from New York to San Diego aborted takeoff at La Guardia airport today. One hundred and ten passengers and six crew members were unhurt. One report indicated that the MD80, an updated version of the DC-9 sat on the runway for forty minutes after de-icing. The pilot aborted the takeoff when the plane failed to develop lift. Unconfirmed reports indicate that a computer bug may have been responsible for incorrectly reporting the time period after de-icing that the plane waited before attempting to takeoff. Sources familiar with the airline report that they have scheduled a software check for their entire fleet of MD80 aircraft.
Chapter
March 2nd, 1994
San Francisco, California
“Craig? Did you see this thing in the newspaper about the MD80 in New York?” Stacey asked.
“Yes.”
“Would our new software have helped that?”
“Sure. The FAA says no more than twenty minutes after wing de-icing before you can taxi to takeoff. Our latest software would have prevented that plane from ever taxiing forward. A timer routine would have fired. There’s no way that thing would have tried to take off.”
“How would our stuff have known about how long ago the wing de-icing had been done?” Stacey asked.
“The de-icing equipment would transmit a wireless update to the autopilot,” Craig said.
“What if it didn’t?”
“It’d have to. Or else the plane couldn’t move. Our planes have an FM radio link to the aircraft meteorology control center. The ice warning broadcast network fires up and that plane ain’t moving until the de-icing codes are entered or manually overridden by both the pilot and a ground controller.”
“Cool,” Stacey said. “Sounds bulletproof.”
“Pretty much. Unlike the phone system. Did you see this phone bill?” Craig asked.
“No.”
“It’s huge!”
“How huge?”
“One hundred and fifty three dollars huge,” Craig said.
“Why so big?” Stacey asked.
“Well. Remember that night I thought I logged off, but when I woke up the computer was still logged on?” Craig said sheepishly.
“Yes,” Stacey said. Her eyes narrowed in knowing reproach.
“Well. I guess I didn’t log off. The phone bill shows an eight hour call to a Marauder server in Marin County.”
“Thank God it was only Marin,” Stacey said.
“No shit,” Craig said.
“Here’s an idea, play less, pay more attention to your girlfriend,” Stacey said.
“Why would I want to do that?” Craig teased.
Stacey stuck out a hip and put a pouty look on her face. “I don’t know,” she said.
Craig swallowed hard and took a step toward her. She immediately switched back to all business. “Wait a minute big boy,” she said. “There’s got to be a local server around here by now. Why don’t you skip playing today and look around the news groups and the Internet and find it before we end up with another one of these,” Stacey said. She snatched the phone bill from Craig’s hand and examined it closely.
“So I guess you’ll have to wait another two weeks for those new sneakers?” Stacey asked.
“I guess,” Craig answered.
“Anyway, a few days off the game will leave more time for training. Remember, we’re leaving pretty soon.”
“Right.”
“Craig?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever worry about flying?”
“What?”
“I mean look at what happened in New York with the de-icing. We just take it for granted. Don’t you ever worry?”
“Maybe during takeoff and landing, but what’s a mountain climber like you worried about flying for? Climbing’s got to be a lot more dangerous than flying.”
“It’s different. On the mountain, or on the rock, it’s all right there. Iall "
“Well. I don’t know. Maybe we should drive to Colorado?”
“Works for me.”
Chapter
March 2, 1994
San Francisco, California
Motion activated lights in the hallway flickered on in succession creating a pattern that moved towards his office. Craig noticed the reflection of the lights in his monitor. Quiet but scuffling footsteps came to a slow halt outside Craig’s office.
“Craig?” the chief system administrator for APSoft asked quietly.
“Yes?” Craig answered. He spun in his chair to face the small, ugly, but kindly man. Four pens protruded from a class A geek pocket protector. Two cell phones, two radios and three pagers adorned the thick black belt that cinched ragged blue jeans across the bony hips of the nerd.
“Craig? Were you logged in from home last night? All night? Eight point two hours, to be exact?”
“No. Why?”
“What about Stacey? Was she using your ID last night?”
“No. I don’t think so. I can check. Why?”
“I think we might have a problem then,” the chief sysadmin said. His squinty eyes narrowed even further as a ghost white hand ran through his greasy, side parted hair.
“What kind of problem?”
“The network log this morning showed you transferred twenty seven megabytes of files back and forth between work and home last night. And it says you sent forty two packets to twenty one different locations in three different countries. You telling me you didn’t do any of that?”
“I’m telling you I didn’t do any of that.”
“Well I’ve got to report the anomaly to Stan,” the sysadmin said.
“Fine. I’ll come with you,” Craig said.
“Fine.”
“You know it’s really weird about those transfers,” Craig said.
“How so?” the geek asked.
“Because I just got a phone bill that says I made an eight hour long distance phone call on the night of February 25th, but I know I didn’t. I was playing a game online and I logged off when I went to bed. Well I was pretty sure I logged off when I went to bed. The next morning when I sat down to do some work my system was already logged on. Stacey said she didn’t touch it. That was weird. Now this. Do you think someone’s got my calling card number, or login or security id or someth ing?”
“If I were you I’d change all my passwords and everything else RFN,” the geek said.
“I’m on it,” Craig answered.
The two men left Craig’s office and headed for the president’s office to report the suspicious activity.
#
“Uh-oh. This looks like trouble,” Stan Maxwell announced as he saw Craig and the geek enter his office. “Sometimes I wish you guys didn’t take my open door policy quite so literally.”
Craig and the geek chuckled dutifully. “Stan, there’s something wrong with the network. It looks like someone has a hold of Craig’s passwords. We need to purge and reset him.”
“How long is that going to take?” Stan asked.
“About one millionth of the time it’ll take to replace everything that this hacker could ruin,” the geek answered. Stan shot the sysadmin a look he’d seen a million times in response to his smart ass comments.
“Sorry Stan. It’ll take about an hour. But that’s not the problem.”
“Oh really? So what’s the problem?” Stan asked.
“The problem is that we don’t know how somebody got in, what they took, if anything, and what else they might know.”
“So how big a problem is that?” Stan asked.
“Potentially large. I suggest we do a security audit this afternoon. Without anyone else’s knowledge,” the geek said.
“Do it,” Stan said.
#
Stan walked into the geek’s high tech lab in the rear of the building. “How’d it go?” Stan asked.
/>
“I found three compromised accounts.”
“Three? How’d they do it?” Stan asked.
“They’re all offices on the south side of the building. Offices with large windows visible from that hill across the little pond, the one I warned you about. So I figure someone sat on that hill over there with binoculars or a VCR hooked to a camera with a telephoto lens and just watched them type in their passwords. Typical low tech incursions. That’s probably how they got Craig’s calling card too. That or plain old-fashioned dumpster diving. We have all this super secret high-tech spy stuff to stop online hackers but I don’t know how we’re ever going to protect against dirt dumb stealing.”
“Any chance one of the three sold some secrets and gave away the other ids to cover their tracks?” Stan asked.
“You have a nasty suspicious mind Stan. I like that about you,” the geek said.
“Well?”
“Possible, but not likely.”
“Okay. But run some extra audits. I want to keep a close watch on those three alright?” Stan asked.
“I can do that,” the geek answered. “Or we can try to nab this guy. Leave the compromised accounts active but attach some tracking software to replicated libraries that we’ll leave open. We won’t expose anything that hasn’t already been stolen.”
“You too have a nasty, suspicious, devious mind,” Stan said. “Do it.”
Chapter
March 5th, 1994
“Come on Craig, you know you’re still not ready. We’ve got two weeks until we go to Colorado and you’ve got to do some serious training.”
“Are you sure you feel better?”
“Yes.”
“That was a terrible cold and flu you had. Maybe we should reschedule our trip?”
“Oh no big boy. You’re not getting out of it that easy.”
“I’m not trying to get out of anything,” Craig said.
“Right.”
“No really. I’m just concerned about you. That’s the sickest I’ve ever seen you. I’m worried.”
“Well don’t worry,” Stacey said.
“I can’t help it,” Craig answered.