“A man-in-the-middle attack,” Luka observed, leaning slightly to peer at my screen. “Or shall I say a boy-in-the-middle? Is that Crackjammer?” He was up to speed on the latest warez. “Not the best way. There are two viruses embedded in the code.”
“I found three.” Scrubbing the code line by line had taken me a week. The best hacking programs are booby-trapped—their creators aren’t charity types. Novices download them from pirate sites thinking they are hunters. They end up being hunted. Luka nodded as if I had passed the first test. Around us, coffee cups clinked.
“Keep going.” I loaded other apps to filter the incoming data. It takes the right tools and experience to decipher all the numbers swirling by.
Focus.
The world dissolves around thirteen inches of glass, and I step through into another. Bits and bytes coalesce into meaning. A girl sends an email, a missive of love bundled with a picture, to someone in the United States. Her email promises undying love if he’d get her a green card. Someone is streaming porn, maybe the person squirming in the corner, his computer on his lap. A student is chatting online with his professor about a biology project. Another chat channel, this one with his girlfriend, reveals he thinks his professor a world-class idiot.
A stubby finger broke the reverie. Luka pointed to the student’s chats. “Can you find out who he is?” He waved his hand around the café at the people. Eavesdropping online is one thing; pinpointing the exact person is harder. I pulled up the chat file, copied what the man was typing to his girlfriend and sent it to his professor. Five seconds later, the man in the corner looks wildly around him. Luka’s chin wobbled as he covered his laugh with a fleshy hand. “I was thinking of a technical solution for triangulation, but elegance is what matters, eh?” Elegance—that’s what Father said about coding. I felt myself straighten.
“These little secrets and lies…” Luka nodded slightly, dismissively. “How about something more serious?”
Serious? How serious? For a while, my mind ran wild, straying to the rumors one always hears about on the underground bulletin boards. Programs that control powerful ion satellites orbiting the world; Artificial Intelligences that can, or have taken over the world already; master hacks that control anything—do you want to copy the world, delete, ignore? Vaporware is mostly smoke and myth. What’s serious enough for him?
“Well?” he asked mildly.
I had to come up with something fast, so I expanded my network scan. Corporate hacking is usually a team effort. Any decent hacker will tell you it’s easy to force your way around, to smash and break things—but to do it without getting caught, that’s the hard bit. Bayesian analyzers use heuristics to study your techniques; honey pot traps lure you with fake promises. Professional hackers work in teams. They plan ahead. Sniffing programs are used to understand a system’s maintenance schedules, find all the loopholes. They lurk in the system for months, before getting out. Then, they have ways to sell the data they grab. Most importantly, they do everything with style. I considered my alternatives as I pinged the world. Small businesses are easy targets. Even a newbie can take them down. A brute-force attack algorithm can hurl permutations of characters, trying one set, then another, against their digital locks. Chance and frequency work in cahoots until the right key is found. Simple yet inelegant.
So I do something different.
A few clicks later, my shadow slips under a virtual door crack. Tack, tack, tack, Luka’s wedding ring makes a heavy sound as his fingers drum the table. I’m in, but the challenge has grown. From Root, the sub-directories spiral out like mazes. It’d take forever to find my way around, so I seeded my favorite hack for subnets. I call it Silver Rose after the flower Old Nelya puts in the vase before my mother’s picture. A few seconds is all it takes to creep and twine and blossom. Almost there.
As I wait, I look up at Luka, then glance away as his shaded eyes study me. I feel like I want to prove myself. Tack, tack, tack, his fingers continue. Is this enough? Can I do more? I want to do more!
Focus.
Down the road, a digit flips in the inventory system of a supermarket. Soon, the store assistants will think all their milk expired three days ago. Across the street, a digital billboard on a pink and white building blinks into a smiley. Hug me, it reads. Amused onlookers begin to gather and point. “That’s good.” Luka chuckles at a couple across the road hugging and taking a selfie. Fifteen seconds later, the sign changed back to its original message, informing people of the perks of being an American Express cardholder. “Very cute,” Luka says. Before he turns to me, I hit a final command.
Send.
“That’s it?” Luka seemed disappointed when I shut my laptop. “I expected more.” His phone vibrated. “Hold on.” He froze as others reached for their phones. The same ring tone was resonating across the café, a snippet of a Cossack lullaby I had taped Old Nelya humming while I was experimenting with the Knock-Knock virus a while back. I’d slapped the virus onto the music like a jet pack and aimed it carefully, an on-the-fly adaptation.
Luka stood up. “Let’s go.” Despite his bulk, he flowed from his chair. He kept toying with his phone as he headed out, pretending to be as puzzled as everyone else.
Outside, everyone stared at their phones. Old Nelya was the hottest singer around Patryarshy Ponds. “Shall we head that way?” He spoke conversationally as we walked, then leaned closer. “If you do stuff like that again, make sure you get sunglasses. Keep moving. Walk, don’t run.” After a block, his brisk pace slowed. “This hack, it’s a variant of that virus you posted. You ran it while I was looking at the billboard. I never gave you my number and everyone’s phone is affected, which means…” He looked around until he noticed the rooftop of a maize-colored building. “There.” He pointed at a stand of paneled antennae facing the junction. Moscow Telecom controls the network here, from cell phones to satellites.
I stared where his finger pointed, up high. Before today, I would never have dared to try a prank like this. A wall had crumbled.
“It’s high up, so the technicians update the software wirelessly. You used the Knock-Knock virus as a carrier and customized the music as its payload. That affected all the phones nearby.” As he spoke, a belated fear seized me. What have I done?
Then, I saw him smile. “Let’s go. It won’t be long before someone investigates a mad wireless cell site.” We walked to the entrance of the nearby Metro. “Elegance, misdirection, and still so young. We can work together.” His expression was reassuring as he stretched out his hand. “Call me Luka.”
His handshake had a weight that drew me close.
1.20
It’s been a while since that first time. Luka and I still meet up at cafés whenever we don’t have to be online and Anton’s not needed. Those days, I bring a duffel bag because Luka always insist on lending me a book or three. “You don’t need school. The great Russians explain everything. Stay with me, I’ll take care of you,” he said. Once, I told him I could download e-books and he’d glared as if I’d uttered heresy. He has a certain old-fashioned streak, I think. Or maybe the books have special meaning to him. There are always soft pencil marks in their margins. These are not written in his blocky handwriting; these are round, lilting strokes. A mystery.
Today, however, was another day in the warehouse.
When we met, Luka pulled up the website for a data protection company called Level 7. He has an archaic six-finger typing technique, like a stiff dance, a style more suited for a typewriter. “That’s our mark.” Luka tapped the screen of his laptop. It revealed little. A barebones website with a login portal. A clean interface. Monochrome colors. This website was so plain it begged to be hacked. I felt tempted to change their font to something bigger and brighter.