The hack
ALWAYS plan you exit, yeah right, but at this scale. Blue Circle, HNMBies on the move in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Operator was born for such a time as this.
FenceLink:
Drones are following us out of the lake, what to do?
You've got people with 12 gauges right?
Yeah, pause, yeah
Blow them out of the sky, you're a scene commander, command. But do it at the same time so they don't respond by evasive flight tactics.
Had to laugh a bit. HNMNBies were allergic to assault rifles, but a surprising number of households had an Remington 870 or two around.
The big problem was satellite. The command and control is based on physical protection, there isn't enough room or power in space for advanced encryption. But the links to the radios would be highly protected.
TrapDoor, is there any way to beat the crypto for satellites?
You have to sign the command and control messages, that is how they authenticate.
So what do I need?
You need the private key.
How could I get it?
Hmmmm, maybe, just maybe, by asking for it. There was an old hack, Bleichenbacher or some such, it can yield the RSA Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) #1 version 1.5 specification key which would be good enough. They never update industrial control stuff, they never, ever update satellites, it could work.
How long would it take?
2, maybe 3 minutes.
3 minutes is an eternity when your entire nation is on the run and the radios used would be exposed forever. Start the attack, Operator barked, rig our sites with thermite. Everybody that can, go mobile now.
OK sat guys, if we do get in what can we do.
Tweedle Dee looked at Tweedle Dum and they shrugged. Fire the jets, you can burn all the gas in the can in a minute, kick them out of async, no way to recover, space junk. Whatever you do, you have to do it fast, soon as they know they will light up jammers, but the bump is a single series of commands. Operator nodded, get the opcodes ready to send. He felt a little bit bad, it took millions of dollars to put those birds in place, but he didn't start it, he was covering his people's retreat. Sobering; how many people's lives would be disrupted forever this day? How many lives would be lost?
We have the key boss! Without hesitation Operator ordered them to fire the thrusters on the satellites, they would be useless in minutes. Everybody out! The last command he gave was to the AI, safety interlock off, please confirm. Safety interlock off, replied the AI.
Operator's chair loaded into his RV. He was headed for the world's largest egg, which is either in Winlock or Mentone depending on who you want to believe. The last guys, Dee and Dum, out of the command center, opened a panel, inserted their keys, attached a bag with a USB key to the panel and ran for their vehicle. Soon a fire at 2200° C would engulf the facility, the concrete would fail, rebar melt, nothing left to analyze. The blast door should not fail though, it would fuze shut.
Operator sat back in his power chair and gave one big sigh. It was going to be a very long day, but the adversary was going to be partially blind.
Fencelink:
Operator, it's Christmas.
Are you mad? All hell's breaking loose.
Not yet it's not.
Come again.
You had to crack the private key to send the birds away, but we had to do it from their facility. We are in right now and boss, it's Intel inside.
Sorry to be slow Trap Door, what are you telling me?
They use Q10 series maintenance robots. While you guys had your eyes on the bird in the sky, we reprogrammed the Wake on LAN. I have the Intel Management Engine up, we can do literally anything in this facility we want to.
And your recommendation?
Two fold boss, we are scanning right now to see what it connects to, but we can start overwriting the data they have collected on millions of American citizens for the past 30 years. The robots have been piling the tapes up by the degausser. Permission to proceed?
Please do so Mr. Door. And if you find reflexive permissions with other data centers, or shared credentials, don't waste time calling me, shut as much down as you can.
Operator knew 2 things were certain. This would only be a tiny dent in a massive spy infrastructure, but it was a dent that would hurt. He also knew he had exceeded his authority in a big way, he thought about explaining there wasn't time, then he smiled, exactly what were they going to do with a quadriplegic that had already exceeded his expected lifespan by a decade?
= = =
Sir, it will be a few days before it is safe to even inspect the facility with a ordnance robot, but I can already tell you from the heat signature there will be nothing, absolutely nothing to find. X-rays show the blast door melted to the door frame. That is no normal fire. Herculite, thermite, who knows, but they would have used all the oxygen up before it reached 1800°, it got to 2400° so it was intentional, oxidents were in place, nothing will be left.
We have this USB key, held out the bag. The forensicators have made copies, no crypto, no trap doors, nothing but .txt files. Whoever put it there wanted us to have it. And early analysis is pretty damning. This group, whoever they are, was spied on. The either were, or believed they were, running for their lives. And sir, I am pretty sure they know at least as much about us as we know about them.
General Prescott nodded. He was sure there would be surprises in the data cache, but he was no dummy, knew the outlines, he was an engineer, his sons were both engineers, who did they think built the whole spying infrastructure? Engineers! And to declare war on techies, in the generation of AIs and robots. He had given 30 years of service, believed in and loved his country. But the day a white misogamist, populist, (whatever that means), with a GED, was elected president, something inside him had died. Make America Manual Again? Really?
But he was a good soldier. The die was cast in his case. Whatever his opinions were, duty was before him.
FenceLink:
Drones are following us out of the lake, what to do?
You've got people with 12 gauges right?
Yeah, pause, yeah
Blow them out of the sky, you're a scene commander, command. But do it at the same time so they don't respond by evasive flight tactics.
Had to laugh a bit. HNMNBies were allergic to assault rifles, but a surprising number of households had an Remington 870 or two around.
The big problem was satellite. The command and control is based on physical protection, there isn't enough room or power in space for advanced encryption. But the links to the radios would be highly protected.
TrapDoor, is there any way to beat the crypto for satellites?
You have to sign the command and control messages, that is how they authenticate.
So what do I need?
You need the private key.
How could I get it?
Hmmmm, maybe, just maybe, by asking for it. There was an old hack, Bleichenbacher or some such, it can yield the RSA Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) #1 version 1.5 specification key which would be good enough. They never update industrial control stuff, they never, ever update satellites, it could work.
How long would it take?
2, maybe 3 minutes.
3 minutes is an eternity when your entire nation is on the run and the radios used would be exposed forever. Start the attack, Operator barked, rig our sites with thermite. Everybody that can, go mobile now.
OK sat guys, if we do get in what can we do.
Tweedle Dee looked at Tweedle Dum and they shrugged. Fire the jets, you can burn all the gas in the can in a minute, kick them out of async, no way to recover, space junk. Whatever you do, you have to do it fast, soon as they know they will light up jammers, but the bump is a single series of commands. Operator nodded, get the opcodes ready to send. He felt a little bit bad, it took millions of dollars to put those birds in place, but he didn't start it, he was covering his people's retreat. Sobering; how many people's lives would be disrupted forever this day? How many lives would be lost?
We have the key boss! Without hesitation Operator ordered them to fire the thrusters on the satellites, they would be useless in minutes. Everybody out! The last command he gave was to the AI, safety interlock off, please confirm. Safety interlock off, replied the AI.
Operator's chair loaded into his RV. He was headed for the world's largest egg, which is either in Winlock or Mentone depending on who you want to believe. The last guys, Dee and Dum, out of the command center, opened a panel, inserted their keys, attached a bag with a USB key to the panel and ran for their vehicle. Soon a fire at 2200° C would engulf the facility, the concrete would fail, rebar melt, nothing left to analyze. The blast door should not fail though, it would fuze shut.
Operator sat back in his power chair and gave one big sigh. It was going to be a very long day, but the adversary was going to be partially blind.
Fencelink:
Operator, it's Christmas.
Are you mad? All hell's breaking loose.
Not yet it's not.
Come again.
You had to crack the private key to send the birds away, but we had to do it from their facility. We are in right now and boss, it's Intel inside.
Sorry to be slow Trap Door, what are you telling me?
They use Q10 series maintenance robots. While you guys had your eyes on the bird in the sky, we reprogrammed the Wake on LAN. I have the Intel Management Engine up, we can do literally anything in this facility we want to.
And your recommendation?
Two fold boss, we are scanning right now to see what it connects to, but we can start overwriting the data they have collected on millions of American citizens for the past 30 years. The robots have been piling the tapes up by the degausser. Permission to proceed?
Please do so Mr. Door. And if you find reflexive permissions with other data centers, or shared credentials, don't waste time calling me, shut as much down as you can.
Operator knew 2 things were certain. This would only be a tiny dent in a massive spy infrastructure, but it was a dent that would hurt. He also knew he had exceeded his authority in a big way, he thought about explaining there wasn't time, then he smiled, exactly what were they going to do with a quadriplegic that had already exceeded his expected lifespan by a decade?
= = =
Sir, it will be a few days before it is safe to even inspect the facility with a ordnance robot, but I can already tell you from the heat signature there will be nothing, absolutely nothing to find. X-rays show the blast door melted to the door frame. That is no normal fire. Herculite, thermite, who knows, but they would have used all the oxygen up before it reached 1800°, it got to 2400° so it was intentional, oxidents were in place, nothing will be left.
We have this USB key, held out the bag. The forensicators have made copies, no crypto, no trap doors, nothing but .txt files. Whoever put it there wanted us to have it. And early analysis is pretty damning. This group, whoever they are, was spied on. The either were, or believed they were, running for their lives. And sir, I am pretty sure they know at least as much about us as we know about them.
General Prescott nodded. He was sure there would be surprises in the data cache, but he was no dummy, knew the outlines, he was an engineer, his sons were both engineers, who did they think built the whole spying infrastructure? Engineers! And to declare war on techies, in the generation of AIs and robots. He had given 30 years of service, believed in and loved his country. But the day a white misogamist, populist, (whatever that means), with a GED, was elected president, something inside him had died. Make America Manual Again? Really?
But he was a good soldier. The die was cast in his case. Whatever his opinions were, duty was before him.
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