Chapter 9 – Hackers and Crackers
Beach in Barcelona
The water is light blue and the sand is warm. Ray and Gracy are among the large numbers of people enjoying the Mediterranean coastline. Gracy grew up here so she knows her way around the city. Dressed in her two piece bikini, she lies down on the beach ready to relax and not worry about anything else. After being in the sun for half an hour, Ray and Gracy decide to go to one of the huts in Barceloneta. Sitting on one of the chairs is a young man barely 18 years old. He looks very familiar to Ray. The young man senses someone is looking at him and raises his head from his tablet. He sees Ray looking at him. They both nod. “Hi Cole,” Ray greets the young man.
“Oh hi Ray. Didn’t expect to meet you here.”
Gracy gets two drinks and joins Ray.
“Gracy this is Cole, George's youngest son. Cole, this is Gracy, my girlfriend.” Cole and Gracy shake hands.
“So what is this I heard about you being a black sheep?” Ray inquires, smiling.
“Oh just some disagreement. Just because I like to speak my mind does not make me a black sheep,” Cole defends himself.
“You still like to hack into people's computers?” Ray asks.
“Again a misconception. I hack to find flaws, holes, spyware, malware and viruses. I am a hacker not a cracker.”
“What is the difference?” Gracy wonders.
“Hackers find weaknesses in things so they can fix them or force the responsible organization to acknowledge their faults and fix them. They are also tinkerers of stuff in order to learn how it works and to innovate. Crackers, on the other hand, crack and break stuff. They have malicious intent and just want to break-in, steal or break people's stuff. Without hackers, there would be no one to point out the vulnerabilities. Then only the crackers can take advantage and steal your data and use your computers to commit crime. Most companies are forced to fix a problem only after a revelation from a hacker.”
“Thanks for that insightful information Mr. Walter,” Gracy says, smiling at Cole,
“You are welcome my lady.” Cole smiles, almost blushing.
Ray and Gracy bid Cole goodbye and walk back to the beach to relax. Moments later Gracy decides to go to the washroom. Ray was content to just lay there with his drink on his hand.
Ray starts wondering what is taking Gracy so long when she shows up. They chat and lock lips before deciding to head out. They then take a leisurely walk to Colon, a 60 meter high monument with a Christopher Columbus Statue pointing to the sea. They then continue to walk toward Las Ramblas, the popular pedestrian street.
Two guys are walking frantically and almost bump into Gracy. “Excuse me,” says one of the guys. Then Gracy recognizes the other guy and yells out his name as they walk past them. “Jacinto!”
Both guys stop and turn around. Gracy sees that Jacinto has grown. He is well built and tall, and looks more mature than the last time she saw him. But he still has a boyish demeanour but a determined look. His friend is a bit shorter than him and has curly black hair and his cheeks are a bit puffy, no doubt that has earned him a lot of cheek pulling from admiring adults when he was a baby. Jacinto’s angry face smiles upon recognizing Gracy. He then approaches Gracy and they hug.
“Jacinto, this is my boyfriend Ray. Ray, Jacinto my nephew.”
“Nice to meet you.” Jacinto offers to shake Ray's hand. He then gestures toward his friend. “This is my friend Cristobal.” Then gestures toward his aunt. “My Aunt Gracy.” Gracy shakes Cristobal's hand.
“Looks like you guys were on a rush,” Gracy asks.
There is a sense of hesitation with Cristobal elbowing Jacinto's waist lightly as if to stop him from saying something.
“Well it is a long story. Our friend is in trouble.” Jacinto then looks at Cristobal as if to reassure him. “My aunt works for a technology firm that invents all sorts of cool stuff. Maybe she can help us.”
“What kind of trouble is your friend in?” Gracy’s eyebrows pull up toward her temple.
Jacinto hesitates again. “We don't want to waste any more of your time. You guys must be on vacation.”
“We have nothing else to do and if I can help my nephew then that would be a bonus for us.” She looks at Ray. Ray nods without hesitation with a relaxed look on his face.
“We are heading back to my place to try to piece some of the puzzles together,” Jacinto says.
“Oh a puzzle, I love puzzles.” Gracy says enthusiastically, brushing her palms together close to her lips, as if she is still talking to his nephew when she was babysitting and playing with him.
Jacinto smiles and says, “You want to join us?”
“Absolutely,” Gracy replies and Ray nods.
Jacinto's Place
Jacinto narrates the tale of Angelino's arrest at his place and the charges against him. Both friends swear to Angelino's innocence challenging Gracy's initial scepticism.
Cristobal then takes out a tablet. “Angelino said he told no one else except through instant messenger program that we created ourselves. It has a very high encryption. We were chatting while he was playing the game Izaron's Realm. The only communication going out of his computer that is not monitored is through the game. I remembered he said he had an altercation earlier in the night but no one was really hurt. He was tired and going to sleep. But whoever wants to frame him must have known what time he was out of contact with everyone so that there would be no alibi. And that night we played until 5 am. And the alleged murder happened conveniently at 6 am when Angelino was already in bed. I can see the prosecutor claiming he logged out of the game at 5 am, and he arrived at the victim's place and killed him. Which takes about 20 to 25 minutes by walking. The problem is Angelino did not really know where that guy lived. But it would be hard to prove that he did not know the victim's place in court.”
Ray and Gracy think for awhile, and then Ray speaks up, “Fingerprints are considered very reliable evidence. From what you guys had told us they got at least 20 points match. That would be really hard to dispute unless you claim you were at the crime scene for other business. But this happened at the victim's residence with his own gun, and Angelino's fingerprints are on them. So pretty hard to disprove that.”
“So you mentioned this might have to do with Angelino exposing the Italian Prime Minister’s e-mail?” Gracy asks.
“Yes. Apparently the big news about a scandal from an e-mail that shows the Italian Prime Minister taking orders from someone to pass a bill. It has detailed instructions provided for expanding on the ID system and identifying the blacklist of government critics. That nearly got him kicked out. One vote saved him from the non-confidence motion. The whistleblower was never found, but Angelino thinks they knew all along that it was him. How? He does not know. Angelino knows his stuff and would have covered his tracks,” Jacinto explains.
“I wonder if the hardware is also compromised. That is my next place to check, but it is harder to crack. Meanwhile, I managed to reverse engineer the games code, a time consuming process of pretty much breaking it down to as close as machine language of zero and one,” Cristobal says.
“Tell them what you found,” Jacinto says.
“The program is clever in that it encrypts the communication, so you can't simply sniff the traffic to see what is being transmitted. That is a good security feature to have. However, it also means that if it tries to transmit your private data, you won't be able to tell. At least not easily. What I did was see what the program does. I had to break the digital lock, breaking the Common Market Consortium's copyright and patent law. But screw that backward regressive law. It turns out the program does scan your system slowly so as not to increase the load too much and possibly alerting the user. It also slowly transmits that data that they have spied on and transmits it along with legitimate game data. Again, bit by bit, so as not to have a huge chunk of data going out alerting the user. It demands access to your computer to prevent cheating on the game. So it w
as able to log what we typed on our keyboard or to capture a shot of our screen. In short, the program has been cracked to monitor activity on Angelino's computer. And they have obviously monitored our chat.” The room was quiet as Cristobal continues working on the computer.
“Since Angelino is pretty careful on securing his system, this tells me the cracker did not alter the game program but it came with the program like that. Whoever is behind framing Angelino has connections to the game manufacturer. I have also just confirmed that the same code was present in my version of the game. And I am pretty sure I'll find the same thing on millions of copies of the game out there. I'll probably just send out a notice to everyone online and they can verify it themselves if they break the digital lock,” Cristobal concludes.
“Aren't you exempt from breaking the digital lock law if it is for security purposes?” Gracy asks.
“That is a misleading claim by the consortium. It is not what they say it does that you should believe in, but what is actually written in the law. The wording in the law gives them so much leeway and people have been prosecuted under copyright when the people's intent was clearly to make legal copies of their program,” Jacinto says.
“With regards to that game with the malicious code in it, while that is quite a revelation, you still have the fingerprint problem,” Ray observes.
Gracy continuously pinches her chin while thinking. “Yeah that would be really tough.”
“Any chance someone might have sneaked in while Angelino is sleeping and let him hold the gun. Maybe they gave him a date rape drug or something,” Jacinto wonders.
“Not possible. Angelino has a state of the art home security system. It would have alerted him. And he did not sleep that well that night. He remembers waking up several times, so sleeping pills and date rape drugs are out of the question. And he checked in the morning and the alarm did not go off that night,” Cristobal says.
“Something’s not quite right here. I can't quite put my finger on it, but we'll figure it out. The truth always comes out in the end,” Gracy offers.
“Thanks Aunt Gracy. We appreciate you coming by,” Jacinto says.
“Not a problem. We’ll be in touch,” Gracy promises.
Barb Stanton's residence
Barb Stanton has been hiding for days. She is not sure if she is growing paranoid or there really is someone following her no matter how she tries to lose them. She has turned off her cell/watchphone, thinking that it might give away her position. She has turned off the data connection on her tablet. She later throws away her phone after transferring the content to her unit. She decides to sneak back home. Her office thinks she is away sick. She just has to pack up her clothes quickly and run away from here.
The rectangular computer unit is resting on the table. From Barb's peripheral vision, she thinks the camera light blinked. But she checks and the unit is off. She laughs and thinks she is losing it.
Somewhere in Paraguay
Someone at the conglomerate's cyberwarfare division swears angrily as the light on the camera of the unit he is controlling remotely blinks. “Tell someone to check the code for these units, the light is not supposed to come on when the camera is off. How else are we going to secretly monitor our target,” He commands the other staff in the centre.
Helmut Groos was a decorated general before retiring at age of 50. He now oversees the cyberwarfare division of the conglomerate. His clothes are ironed to perfection and his self made uniform looks like those worn by Nazi officers. To his right is Luitger Gerhold. A young disenchanted man that Helmut met in one of the secret Nazi meetings in Germany. His skill proves invaluable for the cyberwarfare division.
Their target has been elusive. She even threw out her phone. But she still has her unit with her. Helmut Gerhold can see that Barb Stanton is determined to run away with the data that Morris commanded should be retrieved or destroyed or both and that the target is dispensable.
Helmut Groos instructs his staff to hold off on any shadowing, confident they would not lose her.
Algonquin Park, Canada
Barb knows where to go from here. Her friends left her cottage key with her since she will be going away for a while. Barb decides to head to Algonquin. She rents a car and inputs her destination. She uses her friends’ ID to pay. She will apologize to Juliet Ayers later. Barb is initially apprehensive and keeps switching to rear-view on her windshield to make sure nobody is following her. After half an hour she finally relaxes, convinced she has finally lost whoever was tailing her.
She arrives at the cottage and decides to sit back at the docks. Knowing that there is no internet connection in this cottage and that her wireless is off, she turns on her unit, projecting it to a piece of white cardboard she put down on the table. She starts copying the file to another memory pendant typing away at the table.
Barb then decides to look for an internet connection to e-mail all her friends. She hears a canoe approaching. She quickly hides her unit away. She then sees a young adult who looks familiar.
“Hi.” the person waves to her.
“Hi.” Barb waves back smiling.
“Gorgeous day,” he says with a broad smile on his face.
“Yes. Very refreshing,” Barb says, trying to remember who he is.
“I am Orad. I live two cottages down that way,” Orad says, pointing to where he came from.
“Oh yes, I guess you were here for Juliet Ayers’s party. That's why your face looks so familiar. I am Barb”
“Yeah, that was a long time ago.” Orad paddles to move closer to Barb's dock.
“Come up here for a second,” Barb says.
Orad lands the canoe on the dock and ties it to the dock.
“You brought your unit along into your canoe?” Barb wonders, looking at the unit Orad has in his hand.
“Yeah it has pretty good picture quality. I was taking a pictures of some loons.”
“Aren't they gorgeous? I love when they make that call.”
“Yeah,” Orad says with a smile on his face.
“Can I ask you a question about computers?” Barb asks.
“Sure.”
“Just theoretically, if someone wants to follow you, can they use the cellphone to do that even when it is off ?”
“Well it depends. If your phone is compromised, they can easily do that even when it is off. I've read that they were able to do that since early 2000. Back then if the phone felt warm and was running low on battery even when it had been turned off, then chances were it had spyware in it that would transmit the camera and even your voice to the person who installed the malware. But our cellphones nowadays do not get overly warm and they autocharge with solar and wireless power charging, so it is hard to tell. But if you don't mind me tinkering with your phone, I can probably check and see.”
“No, I don't have my cellphone with me, but I was just wondering. But if I have it with me all the time then there is no way someone can put something in it without me knowing.”
“If you did not change the default then yeah you should get a warning if someone tries to install something wirelessly. Unless the person you bought it from already installed it.”
“Well that can't be since it was still factory sealed when I got it. I think it is just coincidence. Sorry to bug you with my paranoia.”
“No problem. If you have any computer problem just let me know,” Orad offers.
“Ok, thanks,” Barb replies.
“I better get going. Nice meeting you. If you need anything, just let me know. I am kind of bored by myself there. My parents left for the city and won't be back for a few days.”
“Oh one more thing, where can you get an internet connection here?”
“You can go to the restaurant a few minutes away from here. Just turn right to main road and on the first main intersection turn left and then you should see it.”
“Okay thanks.”
“Have a good day,” Orad says as he launches his canoe away from t
he dock.
“You too.” Barb waves goodbye.
Restaurant at Algonquin
Barb sits down and orders foods. She chooses a corner seat so that no one can see the display on her fibreglass screen that is resting on the table. She quickly e-mails to her 8 friends and signs into Usenet. Usenet has been around since the early days of the internet. It was used by researchers to post messages and later post files and documents to share. Most of its functions are now available through the web discussion forum and files on the server. But it still has its advantages. Instead of worrying about hosting files on your server, you can just post it to a newsgroup and it will automatically propagate to all the Usenet servers across the world. A cracker who wants to stop people from accessing your files will have a hard time, unless they shutdown the whole internet. Whereas a file hosted on your server can easily be compromised by a cracker or a denial of service attack that prevents others from accessing your site.
Barb is aware of these features. Barb decides Usenet is the best way to post this leak. Even torrents would need several people actively hosting, keeping their computer ON. There is no such requirement with Usenet.
Barb has been here for 15 minutes. She logged onto the internet 10 minutes ago. She then encodes her document using the program her friend gave her. The files are automatically split into smaller chunks to make uploading and downloading easier. She initiates uploading of the files to the newsgroup called alt.binaries.whistleblower-leaks. After uploading just 5 chunks of the file, the connection suddenly stops. Barb is puzzled, so she disconnects from the network and tries to reconnect but there is no signal. She then hears another guy asking the waiter if their internet is down.
It is another 20 minutes until Barb finishes her dinner. The internet is still not working. She decides to just head back to the cottage and try again tomorrow. As she hops into her car, another car pulls up and arrives at the restaurant. Barb looks at the car and thinks “What a nice car.” She has always wanted to have one of those. She then directs her car to drive back to the cottage. The sun has already set and it is starting to get dark.
Juliet Ayer's Cottage, Algonquin Park
Barb feels sweaty and decides to jump into the shower. She feels so relaxed, and she can't believe that just a few hours ago she was scared to death. She regrets not coming here more often when Juliet had invited her. She remembers going to one of the interior lakes and just canoeing in clear water where you can see the rocks underneath, and even in the deep areas everything is just so clear and transparent. Barb decides she has been in the shower long enough, and it is time to get out and dry off. While drying herself off, she looks out the huge glass window. A few moments ago she could still see the lake but it has gotten dark so quickly. She gets dressed and is about to turn the lights on when she suddenly sees some movement outside. Like several shadows running for cover. She quickly grabs her unit and backpack and rushes to the panic room, which her friend showed to her while giving her a tour of the cottage. As she is about to close the door, she hears things crashing through glasses and sees smoke coming in. She thinks it must have been a smoke bomb. She quickly closes the secret door to the panic room.
Barb is shaking all over. What has she gotten herself into? She tries to calm herself by breathing in and out. She remembers the tour her friends gave her. This panic room has another secret block that leads to a tunnel that you can crawl through. It then leads to the boat house. But how does she know there is no one there? She then crawls through the tunnel and upon reaching an opening, she points her car's remote and punches in the command to direct the car to drive to last destination. As Barb peeks out, she sees a car parked beside hers that looks like the one that arrived at the restaurant as she was leaving. She hears the car start, and the sounds of tires on gravel confirm that a car has just driven away. She then hears lots of footsteps and yelling. There are sounds of car being started, then speeding off. She knows she only has a few minutes to sneak out of here before they realize there is no one in that car.
She slowly peeks to make sure no one is in the boathouse. She jumps into a canoe and quietly paddles away. Her heart is pounding so hard she almost thinks someone can hear it on such a quiet night. She remembers Orad told her he lives two cottages down. She is glad to pass the first cottage. But does not want to paddle too hard and give away her position in case anyone was left behind at Juliet's cottage.
She finally reaches Orad's dock, at least she hopes it is the right one. She slowly runs toward the house in a crouched position. Someone blocks her way, and she almost screams, but he hold her hand to her lips.
“Shhh. Barb is that you?” he whispers.
“Yeah. Orad?”
“Yeah. I was trying to peek to see what the commotion is all about,” Orad continues to whisper.
“I found something about my boss. I think she has connections to some gang because they are after me and have guns and weapons. I feel like my life is on the line. I barely got away by running into the panic room hidden by my friend's bookshelf. I need to escape from here.”
“Ok, there is a car in our garage, but they will probably catch you if you go out this way. I have an idea. I'll paddle with you to the other side of the lake. One of my friend's parents’ cottage is there. I have the key to their cottage and they always keep a car in their garage even when they are not here.”
“Ok. Let's go.”
Both paddle quietly in the night. Orad knows the lake even with his eyes closed. And that is almost literally what they have to do tonight since there is no moon, and any light would give their position away.
They arrive at Orad friend's place. He opens the garage and closes it again before turning the light on.
“You can let the car autodrive but it will automatically turn the lights on since it is dark. Let me disable the light controller,” Orad says and opens the hood and quickly finds the controller. “Looks like he has done this before,” Barb thinks to herself. Orad opens the controller and moves some switches.
“Look, just turn this three switches up if you want to enable auto lights on again later. I would suggest that you let the car auto drive so that it will not hit anything or go off a cliff. Then turn on the light manually only if absolutely necessary.” Orad then opens the door for Barb.
“Thank you very much. I hope we'll meet again, then I can properly thank you,” Barb says.
“Just go now before they start setting up a checkpoint.” Orad closes the car's door, then turns off the garage light as he opens the garage door. Barb already has the windshield and window set to tinted to prevent any lights from escaping. The car then drives away.
Barb is still fearful but breathes a little sigh of relief. Orad was brilliant in suggesting they leave from the other side of the lake. They took a different path. She plans to head further north then head as far west as she can go.
Meanwhile, Barb's eight friends all receive the e-mails in their inbox, and all of the messages suffer the same fate except for one. All messages to 5 users of The Node have quietly been deleted as if they never existed. The 3 other friends who used their university e-mail have their inbox cracked by Luitger Gerhold. But one of them is a professor who has already read the e-mail. A cleanup crew is quickly dispatched and all communication disrupted, making the professor’s attempts to call out impossible. The next day, there is a news report in the university’s local news of a professor who died from overdose in his laboratory.