Authors: ed. Simon Petrie
“I suppose so,” said Wainwright. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll be in my office.”
“Certainly,” said Raahi.
“And I should get on top of—” started Dakota.
“No,” replied Raahi. “I will be needing your assistance, once we’ve completed our inspection.” Wainwright was useless, but he would need both of the other two.
Getting from the offices to the server farm meant walking through endless beige corridors, populated with people in business suits. Most of what was done in the US branch involved selling things to US clients, and keeping US clients from getting too upset, but there was the same hushed intensity in those hallways as there was in the home offices in London, or the R&D facilities in Hyderabad. Either because they took their tasks seriously, or because they had heard that someone from overseas was coming to poke a stubby brown nose into their business. Either way, it was comforting.
“The contractors are coming in tomorrow to patch the damage,” said Al, as they went through the airlock that told Raahi they were going into a server farm.“As things stand, we’re paying more than we should in air conditioning.”
Very rarely did Raahi appreciate the cultural standards that required him to wear a suit jacket. His occasional visit to a server room was the exception. It was clean, and it was cold, and there were racks of boxes, all blinking happily. “Why are we keeping this data in the US anyway?” asked Al. “I mean, it’s—”
“EU privacy laws,” said Raahi. “And physical plant attacks in India.” It was fine that Al wished to learn, but if Raahi had wished to teach, he would be an academic. “This is where the racks were, that were taken?” They had come upon an empty space on the floor. The windows opposite were plastered over with garbage bags, which billowed out with the pressure of the air conditioning.
“Yes,” said Al. “The alarm sounded fifteen seconds before the servers went off-line; physical security was here within six minutes; they spotted a gray van leaving. According to the police, a van with that license number had been reported stolen three months ago.”
“Mm,” said Raahi. “Cables were cut?”
“Even the power cords,” said Al. “From what was left, we’re estimating that there were three people involved in taking the …” he trailed off, as Raahi headed over to the windows, and opened one of them.
There was the physical weight of summertime humidity, and the buzzing of air conditioning fans shifting up to a higher speed. The alley that the window opened up onto was quiet; there were cars parked on either side, but there were none moving in the street. “This is a recommendation too late to help,” he said, “but the server room should be moved to a higher floor, as soon as possible.”
Al nodded, as Raahi leaned back in, closed the window behind him. “It’ll mean reinforcing the floors,” he said. “It’s why Mr. Wain … why the server farm has been kept on a lower floor until now.”
“I am far from expert in architectural matters,” said Raahi, “and I can appreciate the difficulties and expense in a change of this magnitude. But looking across the way, it seems that we are the only building in the immediate vicinity to have our servers at ground level.”
Al nodded again, made a tick on his palm-top. “Anything else?”
“You have reported this crime to the police?” asked Raahi.
“We did,” said Al. “It’s necessary, in order to—”
“Interesting,” he said. “I take it that this is standard procedure, locally?”
“Absolutely,” said Al.
“Very good,” replied Raahi. “Can you get a list of recent thefts from them?”
“Unless insurance claims are filed, there’s a certain pressure to keep these things off the public record,” said Al. “The DMCA3 means that unless we can—”
“Dakota,” said Raahi. “How much would it cost to get this information from a data haven?”
“Nothing to fifty dollars, depending on how good a source you want.”
“Very well,” said Raahi. “We shall splurge. Put in a bid for fifty dollars, and have a presentation ready by two. I will take my lunch now, and consider what I have seen. We’ll meet in Wainwright’s office, for your presentation, if there are no objections.”
Lunch was a schwarma from a halal street vendor, and a can of Coke; both were nasty, but neither took long to prepare or to consume, and Raahi had work to do. When he had gotten his degree, he had imagined living in a gated community near an office park, doing high level programming, or managing a team of programmers. His current career was superior to that, but it had its sacrifices.
As he had suspected, the Cydec building was the only one in the vicinity with a server farm visible through the windows. But there were other places that had been robbed; there were new padlocks on padlockable doors, and security guards who frowned menacingly at him when he looked too closely at the buildings they were protecting.
There were also CCTVs, in their dozens. Nothing like London, of course, and these were all private, rather than state installed. If Cydec were to ask for help, it would be up to the hundred different owners to decide whether or not to grant that help. Perhaps Dakota could get him the data off some of those cameras. Not just yet; for the moment, they would be confining their illegalities to the trivial. The US was notoriously litigious, and he had been sent to fix problems, not start new ones.
“Let me guess,” he said to Dakota, when he was done with his promenade around the neighborhood, and retired to Wainwright’s office. “In addition to our servers, there have been thefts of monitors, piping, cables, and perhaps air conditioning units from the businesses in the immediate area?”
“Huh,” she replied. “Yeah, it’s more or less that. There’s also a shop fridge, three hundred cans of diet Pepsi, ramen, a few cars, and—”
“That seems sufficient,” said Raahi. “Someone is building a server complex, and they aren’t paying for anything.”
“Brilliant,” said Wainwright. “It was in front of our faces all along.” He shook his head.
“Yes,” said Raahi. “Our next step is going to be finding this place, and—”
“Is this really our concern?” asked Wainwright. “We were victims of whoever this is, but if they’re not after our data, do we really care what some hooligan is up to?”
Raahi favored him with a smile. “If I do not miss my guess,” he said, “the perpetrator of these crimes is building a data haven.”
“So?” asked Wainwright. “Again, a problem, but it’s not our problem.”
“Three hundred cans of diet Pepsi and a few crates of ramen is not a long term operations budget,” continued Raahi. “This man is going to set his trap, get a few hundred thousand stupid people to give him a few hundred dollars each, and then run away.”
“Is this about being a good corporate citizen, or something?” said Wainwright. “Because the fact is, we don’t use data havens, and our clients don’t use data havens. If anything, a scam like this one will help us against competitors who put their trust in outlaws.”
“Mister Wainwright,” said Raahi. “What happened to Joshua Simm?”
“Who?” he asked, utterly puzzled.
“Didn’t he write the Corewars virus?” asked Dakota.
“He did not write the Corewars virus,” said Raahi. “But he was fingered by the first wave of forensic programmers as the author of the Corewars virus.”
“Oh,” said Al.
“Oh, indeed,” replied Raahi. “Fifty million people were annoyed sufficiently by that virus to contribute to a fund rewarding whoever killed its author. They gave an average of four dollars and eighty three cents to the bounty fund. The men who killed Josh did not collect the two hundred and thirty million, as he was not the author. But that was not, I think, much comfort to the surviving members of the Simm family.”
Wainwright shook his head. “But—”
“Given that this data haven is a scam,” said Raahi, “No matter how incompetent a scam it is, there are going to be tens of thousands of people who are taken. There is an unending supply of stupid people. Many of those stupid people are eager to dodge taxes, or to conduct illegal business from the comfort of their home. This time, when the scam goes up, people are going to learn that it was conducted on our servers.”
“But they were stolen,” said Wainwright. “We’re not responsible—”
“We’re not talking about reasonable adults,” said Raahi. “We are talking about people foolish enough to fall for this sort of scam. A few sensible people will be caught as well, but those do not concern us; sensible people do not pay money to have men killed. The idiots will see our name in the reports, and they will hire professionals to send us bombs.”
“We could argue—”
“You cannot argue with anonymous,” said Raahi. “They are far too stupid to hear reasoned discourse of any kind. You cannot argue with them, and you cannot fight them. From time to time a newsfeed may show you a twelve-year-old going to prison for using his mom’s credit card to pay a bounty, but that neither ends twelve-year-olds nor restores the dead to life.”
Wainwright opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He was, perhaps, not entirely a fool. “What do we do next?”
“They are stealing power from somewhere,” said Raahi. “They will have to be. Can you get the information from the electric company?”
Dakota shook her head. “ConEd patched their security a month or two back, and they haven’t leaked since. I can poke around for a script, but best estimate is that it’s going to take at least another month before anyone gets through.”
“You got the police reports in three minutes,” said Wainwright. “This is unacceptable.”
“This is how hacking works,” said Raahi. “No system is perfect—sooner or later, a hole will be found. But it takes time to find a hole of that sort, which we do not have.” He turned to Dakota. “What if we put a million or two on our bid?”
She shook her head. “Even someone on the inside would have trouble accessing accounts without numerous passwords. This’d need access to everyone’s bills, including the city’s.”
“Humpf,” said Raahi. “Very well. I should like for you and Al to find some other angle. The space being used will not be inconsiderable, and it will not be paid for; that is a possibility, I think. Find somewhere in the vicinity where the farm might hide.”
“Why just the vicinity?” asked Al. “They could be anywhere.”
“They could be anywhere,” said Raahi. “But they are here. If this person was willing to leave this neighborhood, they would have stolen the servers in Newark, and the pipes in Yonkers. They have stolen everything from within a few blocks, perhaps because they do not wish to travel with stolen goods, or perhaps because they are timorous by nature. They are in the walls, somewhere close. Find them.”
“What’s our timeframe?” asked Dakota.
“It will be perhaps a day,” said Raahi, “perhaps a week, before the people on those servers are defrauded. Not longer than a week before they are aware they are defrauded. Perhaps another day or two after that, our name will be linked with this fraud. But that is the broad timeframe. If the two of you cannot manage to find them before tomorrow evening, we will bring specialists in.”
“And when we do find them?” asked Wainwright. “The police?”
Raahi considered. “Possibly,” he said. “No, more than possibly. A very good idea. If we can get the police here to get a warrant, we’ll have them knock down the door. We will purchase one of the other businesses who have had a theft, and you will make the complaint through them. The channers aren’t going to blow up the government of the United States, and will be satisfied with the destruction of an air conditioning store. Good.”
“And will you be joining us?” asked Dakota.
It was tempting. Or, more accurately, it would have been tempting, if he was still twenty. “No,” replied Raahi, “I will not. I am still a bit jet-lagged, and would be more of a hindrance than a help. In addition, there are reports that need to be made to people on London time, and on Hyderabad time. I will be here tomorrow morning.”
There were the formalities of ending the meeting, and then Raahi was in the cab to the hotel. He still wasn’t going to use the ambient, but at least he had a working laptop with him; by the time he got there, he had his preliminary report and observations ready. Once in the hotel, he had a secure line, and that meant conversations with London and Hyderabad, making sure that everyone who had a reason to know what was happening knew, and that something plausible was out there to explain the situation to those out of the loop.
There were other moves that needed to be made; bids for security experts, in case Al and Dakota failed to find the pirate haven, and, after consideration, a purchase of a large chunk of Cydec stock. While knowledge of the theft had not yet leaked, something had gotten out, and Cydec had dropped a few points on rumors. On the balance, Raahi decided that the risks were lower than outside investors seemed to think, and data havens had made trading on inside knowledge impossible to detect.
The next morning, Raahi was at the Cydec offices at nine. Al and Dakota were there as well, looking rumpled, and with bags under their eyes. They were happy.
“We got him,” said Al. “It was heat.”
“From the cooling system, you mean?” asked Raahi.
“Exactly,” said Dakota. “There are microclimate monitors that produce publicly accessible data on temperatures for all five boroughs; we cross-referenced before and after, and there he was.”
“It’s not a bad setup,” added Al. “He set up shop inside a bakery—he works there, I guess, and hid the heat exhaust from his system by venting it into the big fans. It’s a very minor change in the bakery’s output, but it matches the timing, and it’s sustained.”
“This sounds like it would take a great deal of painstaking work to determine,” said Raahi.
There was as long pause, as Al and Dakota looked at each other, and then at him. “Come now,” said Raahi. “Mr. Wainwright is not in attendance, and even if he were, I have considerably more influence than he does.”
“We bountied it,” blurted out Al.
Raahi raised an eyebrow. “Bounty?” he asked.
“There wasn’t enough time to write an algorithm to check every data point from the last month, and compare it to what had been there before, and there were just the two of us,” said Dakota.