The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella

  *

  "Hello Carter, sorry to bother you but I wanted to follow-up on a point from your security report," Marco said to Carter over a secure communication line recently re-developed for the offices at Horizon.

  "Sure go ahead," Carter directly responded.

  "Were you able to tell who owned the original flash drive and had access to the files before it was given to Dallas Winter?"

  Carter did not change the inflection in his voice as he bluntly lied, "No, the investigation did not uncover a name. Why?"

  "Julia's paranoid about some chatter from overseas."

  "What kind of chatter?"

  "Some hacker circles are talking about an idea sounding suspiciously like COSA."

  "What hacker circles?"

  "These are people State is tracking. Some are talking about a government idea that sounds like our idea."

  "Is the chatter part of the same leak at Horizon, Marco?"

  "To be honest, I don't know. But these hackers have a lot more information than Dallas had on the flash drive."

  "Is their chatter about material stored at Horizon?"

  "No, not completely. Hackers are hackers they could have picked up the information from anywhere. Any one of our sponsors could be vulnerable."

  "This is unbelievable."

  "Look, since you say we cannot trace the original source of the flash drive files, we can do no more except keep monitoring the situation and see where events go."

  "Monitoring? What are these hackers planning?"

  "We don't know."

  "Any ideas?"

  "No. What about you? Any ideas about what they could do?"

  Carter was surprised by the question, but knew his myriad ideas were actual facts he could never reveal to Marco. "If they know about our plans their idea will be to sabotage COSA. They'll try and figure out how to hack us, that's what hackers do, and they'll go for the usual viruses and bugs."

  "You think that's all they'll do."

  "Sure, what other options could they have?"

  "I don't know. I mean, I guess you're right. They're too independent and dispersed to actually organize a coordinated response against the physical infrastructure. But considering all the trouble they went to, I was thinking their actions might be more dramatic."

  "How?"

  "Well they've got brainpower but no organization. A bunch of guys in Russia, a few more in India, a couple in Silicon Valley - all of the talent to fight back but no common platform or approach. One advantage we will always have in this war is the inability of our enemies to function as a unit. We may get hit by one rogue technologist or another but I doubt the attacks would ever be in any prepared fashion."

  "Yeah, you're probably right," Carter supportively responded. "How could independent technologists figure out how to get together?"

  "They would need a communication system we could not find."

  Carter laughed. "Imagine. Probably impossible to cooperatively and independently build their own operations."

  "Of course it's impossible. Would cost them billions and they would have to hide the infrastructure from us. The functionality we're building is designed to avoid that very outcome...they are out of luck."

  "Most likely. But are you prepared for the one-off guys you mentioned."

  "Oh sure, those are the guys we are dealing with all the time. Of course we keep getting burned, but we're getting better. By the time our system rolls out, we'll be way ahead of them."

  "You think so?"

  "I know so. Rogue technologists are not going to catch us once COSA is up and running. Terrorists with bombs are not the only people we are looking for. We have to catch the online guys too. We will deploy COSA and absolutely neutralize their options against us. When we are set-up we'll be able to trace every digital signal and there will be nowhere to hide."

  "That's the plan?"

  "Yes certainly."

  "Sounds good Marco, you guys are really ready."

  "As ready as we'll need to be."