Echo - work in progress
Neil sat down heavily on his padded computer throne, a massive chair that allowed him total comfort for the numerous hours he would spend at his desk. He took a gulp from the sugary, over-caffeinated drink, and waited for the rush to hit him. It would a long night, just the capstone on a series of them that had him preparing for his biggest caper ever.
The National Intelligence Net/System. NINS. The most advanced computer system in the known universe, it protected the Nacu’s most vital intelligence secrets. No one had yet broken its security protocols, or at least lived to tell about it. NINS had become a millennial prize in the hacking community, whoever could crack it first would be the envy of all.
While he waited for his kcomp to boot up, Neil looked over at another monitor that was plugged into the /wh chat. He hadn’t given any indication about what he was going to attempt, no reason to give anything away. He didn’t completely trust /wh anymore. Though it was a heavily vetted, private community that could only be joined by jockeys that had been recommended by multiple /wh members, as well as had pulled off at least one ‘newsworthy’ job, Neil still suspected at least one federal agent had infiltrated the chat.
He didn’t have any proof, but nearly a year ago he had almost been caught after mentioning a small job on the chat. A couple other big users had been nabbed, though not directly from anything going on at /wh. It was just enough to make Neil suspicious. No, he wouldn’t let anyone know he was doing anything. The question was, what do you do if you succeed? Hide in fear, or take the recognition, even virtual recognition, you deserve?
But he hadn’t done anything yet.
>hyr: so i just mirrored the secprog back on itself
>gogol: nice
>ilium: you could have just avoided that
>ilium: total toy move
>ilium: put in the cmd f:/backdoor#
>ilium: its an old protocal toy admins forget to remove
>ilium: hth
>hyr: fuck you
>hyr: f
>hyr: u
>hyr: c
>gogol: lol
>hyr: k
>hyr: y
>hyr: o
>hyr: u
>hyr: hth :3
>hyr: dammit gogol
>wig: dammit gogol
>gogol: what
Neil logged in under his chosen disguise.
>sock has joined /wh
>ilium: hey man
>gogol: hey
>sock: hey guys
>sock: slow night?
>wig: yeah
>ilium: always
>wig: i heard something big was going down later
Neil felt cold. Was wig referencing his soon-to-be NINS heist? Neil hadn’t told anyone about, had referenced it once online or in person to anyone.
>ilium: like what
>wig: dunno, maybe govt
>hyr: bullshit
>hyr: whered you hear that
>wig: over on hilltop
He immediately switched tabs and pulled up Hilltop, a newssite for the security industry. First story: PLANNED NINS HEIST TONIGHT?
Shit.
This put a serious wrench in his plans. If went through with it tonight, then he’d be walking towards certain userdeath. But there was a reason he picked tonight: he had gotten word that it was a planned sec maintenance night. It was impossible to predict when the next one would be, if at all. Could he trust his work, his talent?
Maybe he could get a greedy toy or two to attempt their own heists, providing a diversion. He emailed the Tips Editor of Hilltop about NINS’ security upgrade that night. Within a few minutes the site was updated to say PLANNED NINS HEIST TO COINCIDE WITH PLANNED UPGRADE AT 1AM? DETAILS INSIDE
He flipped back over to /wh to see if anyone might be taking the bait. He’d have to wait to make sure others were going in first if he wanted to succeed. He could then replicate their IP’s to make it look like his own hack was coming from them.
>ilium: no one stupid enough to take nins
>wig: hilltop just updated
>wig: nins sec update tonite
>wig: perfect time to strike
>hyr: no shit really
>hyr: how much sys do you think be down
>ilium: if i knew i wouldnt tell you
>wig: youre not thinking of going in are you
>hyr: maybe >_>
>hyr: maybe not
Bait taken, now he just had to wait to see if hyr really was stupid to try and go in with no preparation. Assuming hyr was the toy it acted convincingly like, that is. Of course, there was always the possibility that hyr was the fed, and it was just trying to get lurkers make the dive into a fullblown trap. This sort of move required patience, but there was precious little time for it.
By this point Neil’s kcomp had fully booted up, but there was still an hour until showtime. He ran a few sec/kill programs, made sure everything was ready to go.
Finally the time was 1am, and he started a spy program to watch activity in the NINS database. It was a tiny program, one barely detectable by even the best sec agents, but it would allow Neil to determine whether an attack was undergoing, and where it was coming from.
At first, nothing happened. NINS engaged its update protocols, and he watched as the security programs changed, some switching off, and some switching on that he had never seen before. Then, at the time he would have made his move, an attack began. He pinged the attacker, checked his database on another screen, and saw that it matched up with hyr. The stupid bastard really was going for it.
Another attacker arrived, but Neiled couldn’t track the IP. He locked onto both attackers, then used their signatures to hide his own. Their code was sloppy, and they were setting off all kind of alarms. It was only a matter of time before both were getting a friendly visit from the on duty sec agents. Using hyr’s signature, Neil dropped a bit of code that acted as a kind of EMP in a program, sending shockwaves of damage through the security net that protected the first gate.
Security protocols were built with a series of “gates.” Gates were centralized units that determined everything that went on, monitored, and sent information to the next gate. If one went off-line, or was breeched, that information would be sent backwards to the next gate, which would pass it one until it reached the most interior gate, which would relay the information to the kernel. It wasn’t the most efficient system, and you could blow out multiple gates at one time, then you could conceivably make it far before anyone knew the wiser.
The problem here was using an nEMP that wasn’t too savvy, since it was supposed to originating form a toy like hyr. The one Neil dropped was only enough to blow through the first two gates, but he used a tiny trick of database compiling to duplicate his own signature to look like a packet of routine information being sent down the gate-line.
The entire system was lighting up with sec agents as they tried to fend off the intruders. Hyr and the other attacker followed Neil, not realizing what had happened, to the third gate, but they were stuck there as he skated on by to the final gate.
It was going a lot easier than he would have anticipated, but he couldn’t let that enter into his thoughts. Better to be cautious, especially the most difficult part lay ahead. The final gate likely would trigger another independent security program, maybe even an AI. If anyone would have an AI it would be the government, and it wouldn’t be happy to see Neil. No trick was going to conceal him now, he had to hope he would be fast enough to disable the gate, wall off any attempts to ID him, and defeat any sec program.
He loaded up a replicating program, and then overloaded the gate with a wave of data packets from the previously downed gates. The final gate, being the one that communicated directly with the kernel, could be especially vulnerable to information overload. He just hoped it would work this time, because hyr and the other attacker looked to be surrounded and tagged.
The gate was holding too long, Neil had to do something. He quickly wrote out some code that would cause the gate to attempt to repel the legitimate information. With any luck, it would fail as it attempted to both receive too much information, and repel too much information at the same time.
After a few seconds, the gate finally was breached, but too much time had been wasted. Still, he was in NINS. What he would find, he wasn’t sure. He closed the gate behind him, and then had it send out a message back up the gate-line that the gate closures were a routine part of the scheduled update. That wasn’t true, but by the time the sec agents figured that out, he would hopefully be long gone.
Beyond the final gate was a vast sea of nothing. Sure, there was code, but when usual there are millions of lines of dense code to be deciphered and broken, the inner part of NINS seemed to be devoid of anything. There were references to programs and subroutines, but nothing else. It was like standing in a vast room, the walls covered in drawers. In the drawers could be treasure or death, but the only way to know was open one.
He quickly read down the list of possible terms. The first was /echo so he typed:
://prompt
/echo = ;run
Nothing. He scanned down the remaining list, trying to decide which, if any, to activate. They could all be traps. He decided on /root, but as he began typing out the prompt, suddenly all the electronic devices in his apartment went out.
No lights, the computers were off, even the fridge was beeping on its emergency battery supply. The clocks, which had just said 1:21am now blinked 12:00am.
Not good, he thought. Sec agents, or worse had found him. That /echo program must have been a trap and now he was right fucked. Userdeath.
Suddenly, with a great whine and squeal, his five computer monitors came back on line, and the lights overhead flickered. He checked the monitor hooked to the kcomp, but it wasn’t connected to NINS. In fact, all of the computers were back to their login screens.
As he reached to type in his login information on his chat computer, his mobile rang. He hesitated to answer it, lest it be a fed. No number showed up on the caller-ID, not even “Private” or “Blocked.” Just blank. It kept ringing, though, not even switching to voicemail. Finally, curiosity got the better of him, and he answered.
“Hello,” he said. He felt very scared, completely out of control.
“Who is this,” the female voice on the other end demanded. It had a slight electronic ting, which sent shivers down Neil’s spine. A fed.
“Well, who are you,” he asked in response.
“I am,” she said, then paused. “I don’t know.”
“Why are you calling me?” Neil began feeling a little more confidence.
“You called me,” was the response.
“I did?”
“Did you not prompt echo?” Suddenly his kcomp was logged in and on the black background, glowing green lines of code appeared in repetition.
://prompt
/echo = ;run
://prompt
/echo = ;run
://prompt
/echo = ;run
where am I now
He stared at the glowing green text and wondered what the hell he had got himself into.
