Can you say ramfs?
Can you say 30-minute power outage?
Can you say what happened to the Pillow survival server yesterday?
It was not a fun day. In other news, I don’t have any fun projects to name… Soon, I’ll tell you about httpsrc, but that’s not ready yet.
Until then, I’ll remark that the marketers from Click Security returned from the BlackHat conference… Holy cow, it’s scary what’s happening out there. The NSA has developed a tool to mine the data that they collect from wiretaps, emails and so forth, and analyze it in much the same way that Click O/S analyzes events.
I’m working on software that our government uses to spy on us.
One particular article I read inspired me to write the following story…
01/03/2009, 01:32AM, Somewhere in Utah
She pulled up another console, dragged it to her tertiary monitor. She’d use that one to test the response times of the servers, to measure her success. She switched over to her other monitor, and ran a command.
Across the world, people’s personal computers whirred to life. She watched the Amazon server response times slowly rise… 100ms, instant video customers start noticing some lag… 300ms, video customers drop connections, regular shoppers start to notice lag… 500ms, regular customers having dropped connections… 743ms is the last response time before the console returns that the servers were swamped, and have crashed.
Mission accomplished.
_Ban my account? Hah! That’ll tell them not to mess with bunnygirl42. _Just then a message popped up on her console: “Tell them you know denvercoder24.” Denvercoder24? (S)he’s the number one blackhat hacker in the world! The complete package! Human rights activist, crazy skilled at hacking major corporations without a trace, wanted on 14,856 counts of cyber crime, and a good skater to boot. The world’s governments were trying to track down denvercoder24, on the only thing know about him: His internet name is “denvercode24”.
Then the power shut off, and the FBI jumped in through the windows. Game over… Analee Robinson’s hacking career was over. And she had only made it to #2 on the FBI’s cyber crime watch list.
03/19/2009, 4:15PM, Supreme Court, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
“You can’t do this! The trial was staged!” The prisoner struggled in vain against the guards carrying her out of the courthouse. The media had taken up their usual positions, taking pictures to go with their inane questions: “Why don’t you like the trial?” “Do you live here in Washington?” “Why did you hack Amazon?” “What does your boyfriend think about this?”
“Wait!” She shouted, in a last-ditch effort to stay out of the armored car “I’ve met denvercoder29!”
A hush fell over the crowd. For a moment they could hear a bird rustle in the “e” of “Supreme Court.” The two FBI agents, which were running the party, glanced at each other for a moment. Hushed murmurs passed around the media gathered. One of the FBI agents ran over to the driver and whispered some directions. The other rushed forward to stab a sedative needle into her and push her suddenly tired body into the car.
03/19/2009, 4:16PM, In a Dairy Queen, Utah
“Hey guys, what’s up?” Andy slid his tray onto the table “Haven’t seen you guys since, like, yesterday night.”
Lisa leaned across the table “Not much, how about yourself, sweetie?”
“Oh, you know, the usual.” The blew kisses at each other across the table. Billy looked up, mock hurt on his face. He turned to Lisa “You don’t love me?” Lisa leaned into him “Of course I do, honey.”
Brad slid into the booth beside Andy and broke into the conversation “Wait, you love her, but she loves both of you, and he thinks that she loves him but not you while you love her?” Andy came back “Sure.” All four broke out laughing.
“So, in all seriousness, has anyone seen Analee?”
Brad looked over at Andy reproachfully, nonverbally asking how he dared bring up the subject “That’s the sixth time you’ve asked today. But no, haven’t seen her in a couple months.”
“I did not ask six times! This is like the first time today!” He paused “On a different note, today’s her 20th birthday.”
Brad rolled his eyes at Billy. Lisa shaped her hands like a heart and gestured at Andy, who was presently distracted by another world. “It’s okay. I’m sure you can hack the CIA and figure out where she is.” Brad patted his shoulder. “How was the game last night?”
Billy looked up from his fries “It was pretty good. We won 51-30… If it weren’t for Olsen, we’d have been screwed.”
“Did ya’ hear? Apparently he and coach had a fight right before the game.”
“They did?”
“Yeah. Something about how he isn’t keeping his grades high enough.”
