Sockpuppet: Book One in the Martingale Cycle (14 page)

‘– that I’d be able to crack the encryption key and find out what exactly Bethany sent Mr Perce.’

‘Mark, I don’t want to believe she could be capable of – I
can
’
t
believe that. But you see, to access data on a Digital Citizen, you need two things: the original record stored by Mondan, and a unique double-lock code held by the ministry. Even if someone did hack our data, they would still have needed the double-lock code for every member of our target group before they could read their details. It’s a fail-safe, like a safety deposit box.’ Mark waved the details by. ‘This is why we’re so confidently saying we haven’t been hacked. Why some rag-tag bunch of hackers couldn’t possibly have used our data for the Pigglies thing. These double-lock codes are only accessible to a highly restricted group of people, including –’

Neither of them needed to finish the sentence. Mark picked up the thread.

‘But in spite of this, ten thousand people who gave you their data are still being spammed by images of those obnoxious pigs. Somebody has their data.’

‘This is why I didn’t sleep a wink last night. Knowing she sent this mail just days before this whole thing started. It can’t be coincidence. But on the other hand, why on earth would Bethan and Perce conspire like this? And what on earth could that have to do with cartoon pigs? I can’t make sense of it.’

Mark shook his head in slow motion. The expression taking over his face was exactly the one he used to assume when playing chess.

‘Do you know what I thought when I saw the story yesterday?’ he said. ‘I thought: why the Giggly Pigglies?’

‘Well, it’s some nonsense from these teenage hackers, isn’t it?’

‘Only if your data were actually hacked. Which I think you just said was impossible?’

‘All right, true. And so?’

‘The Giggly Pigglies is an eight-figure brand. Highly marketable, currently in the process of expanding from TV into toys, apps, online games and books.’

J-R smiled.

‘You seem to know a lot about children’s TV, Mark.’

‘I know a lot about who’s making money in digital. And who do we know who makes tens of millions selling data to marketing companies? And who, when the Digital Citizen goes national, will get data on every man, woman – and
child
– in the country?’

‘Mondan? That makes no sense. Why would they use our data to market a brand? Why now, just before we launch? Look at the news. This is a car crash for them, PR-wise. And for us.’

Mark shrugged.

‘Maybe it was an accident. A fat finger error. Maybe this Pigglies spam was something they were working up in R&D – proof of concept for a marketing tool that invades people’s computers and plants ads. Literally, viral marketing. A way to get their clients’ brands deep inside our computers, tablets and phones. Maybe this virus escaped from the lab? Maybe someone pressed the “go” button early?’

J-R found himself strangely angry at this conspiracy-making. He’d come to Mark for a sober perspective.

‘You’re clutching, Mark.’

Mark took a miniature sip, set his cup down and considered J-R for a moment.

‘Am I? Mondan keeps doing random stuff – and then refusing to apologise when it blows up in their face. They know they’re too big to fail. I heard one of your girl’s colleagues refer to them as a
national asset
the other day.’

‘Yes, the Cabinet Secretary said that. Neil Cullen. But that’s my point. The picture you’re painting is nothing like the reality.’

‘All right. Paint me a better one.’

J-R was taken aback. He’d forgotten how blunt Mark could be.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve been impressed. Revenues doubled in two years; data storage and processing for some of UK plc’s biggest brands; sixty-four data centres in Europe alone—’

‘That’s just facts. What have you actually
learned
– about their character?’

‘You mean Sean Perce?’

‘No, no, no. The character of the firm. Corporations have personalities, just like people. Why make the choices they do? Why, for instance, those data centres? Why so many?’

‘Because – they handle a lot of data?’

‘
Pfft.
’ Mark brushed that away. ‘Why not one big data centre? No, there’s a drive here for ubiquity. Look at that Babel of a building they’ve thrown up on City Road, like some great bird of prey looking down on us.
404 City,
they insist on calling it. Did you know it actually takes up the even street numbers from 406 to 410? But Perce was so desperate to use that dorky name, he also bought and demolished the building at number 404. Turned it into green space.’

J-R had no notion why the numeral 404 should be so important – a lucky number in some astrological system, perhaps? – but he smiled as though he’d got the reference.

‘And those giant screens they’ve wrapped around its pinnacle,’ said Mark. ‘Blasting out constant information. So now we can see their point of view from every high window in London. Lucky us. And it’s the same beneath the ground.
As above, so below.
You know they’re gradually buying up all of London’s fibre-optic cable? All our Internet points of presence? I’m talking about the boring physical stuff here. Piping, conduits, routers – access to transatlantic and North Sea cables that connect us to the world. These days, if you want to provide access to the UK Internet, if you want to be found by a UK user, you pretty much have to go through Mondan. And then –’

Mark drained his coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He was on a roll, shifting on the bench seat with an urgent energy. This was a pet topic.

‘– then,’ he said, ‘there’s the slew of software start-ups they’ve acquired in the Old Street area.’

J-R sat forward.

‘Like Parley?’

‘
Including
Parley. Over thirty businesses in the last three years. And you know what all these acquisitions have in common? Apart from their physical location?’

J-R shook his head, though the gesture wasn’t needed.

‘They all have exceptional data sets. Really exceptional. Consumer demographics, purchase histories, behaviour. They buy them up and they move them wholesale into 404 City – or into one of five or ten other properties they’ve bought up around its skirts. Sometimes they’re only moving a company two hundred metres, but still they insist on having them inside the fold. They hook them all together on a single secure network, on cables running underground beneath the buildings, suck all their data into one data centre, three storeys under City Road. They have this need, this
drive,
to know everything, be everywhere – but keep everything to themselves.’

Mark sat back, having apparently exhausted himself. He picked up his espresso cup, glanced into it and replaced it on the saucer, disappointed; then looked around for someone to bring him another fix. J-R stared into the muddy surface of his own coffee.

‘I can’t say I’ve registered any of that,’ he said quietly. ‘This is a major government contract. We simply looked at the evidence in front of us.’

‘But that’s nonsense. You buy on chemistry. Let me guess: Mondan were up against Terasoft?’

J-R did his best to stay impassive. Mark grinned. Of course Terasoft was in the mix. The lumbering IT giant had its hooks into every part of government. J-R could not turn on his official laptop without their sober logo commandeering the screen for two or three minutes.

‘So,’ said Mark, ‘Terasoft would have brought everything to the table – aggressive pricing – desperate to stay supplier of choice to HM Government. But The Big “A” sold you the dream. Sean Perce would have been all over you; all over your minister?’

J-R shrugged. Mark nodded.

‘It’s what he does,’ he said. ‘And he’d relish the chance to drive a stake through Terasoft’s monopoly. He loves to be the punchy outsider. Loves to win.’

‘You think we made a bad decision.’

A creeping disappointment came over J-R. Why should he expect that he could call up a friend he’d not seen in years, out of the blue, and find him immediately eager to help? Mark seemed determined to crush the whole enterprise under the weight of his criticism.

‘I’m not saying that. But –’ Mark made a couple of generalised movements with his hand, groping for a thought. ‘Nobody ever knows what Mondan’s up to until they’ve done it. They’re obsessively silent. You rarely see Perce. He lets his divisional CEOs out to play – Jonquil Carter gets touted as ethnically diverse corporate cheesecake – but they’re always gagged.’

Remembering something, Mark put down his coffee cup and laughed.

‘Allegedly, Perce once told a leadership meeting,
If media exposure is cocaine, you are my crack whores.
’

‘He called his senior managers
whores
?’

‘Very much his style. I’m about to hear him speak, as it happens, at an event on Tower Hill.’ He checked his phone. ‘Here.
Identity Crisis: Securing the Digital Transactions of the Future.
’

‘Yes, Bethany’s speaking there as well. I wrote her speech.’

‘It’ll be a good crowd. People like me tend to hang on Sean’s prognostications.’

The use of the first name pricked J-R’s attention.

‘You know him?’

Mark shook his head.

‘Met him a few weeks back, at an industry junket in Spain. He just about acknowledged my existence. Think a Burnley Steve Jobs, if such a thing is possible. Hugely impressive. But the kind of guy who’d try anything – anything he thought he could get away with – to conquer another parcel of land.’

He trailed off. The café buzz echoed around them.

‘And so?’ said J-R, discreetly checking his watch.

‘So all right,’ said Mark, leaning forward to click and mouse about on J-R’s laptop. ‘Sure. I’ll have a go at decrypting your mail attachment.’

Stupid gratitude flooded J-R’s chest.

‘No guarantees,’ said Mark. ‘If Perce gave Bethany the tool to encrypt this file, it’ll be high-grade. But the file is big-ish. That’ll help. More pattern to exploit.’

Mark pulled a small device from his pocket and inserted it into J-R’s USB socket. The intimacy of this action made J-R shift in his chair. Mark stopped and looked directly into his eyes.

‘But whatever I find,’ he said, ‘I’ll give it to you straight.’

J-R nodded. He desperately wanted an answer; but he only wanted it to be favourable. Else he’d rather bury it deep underground.

‘I’m choosing to believe that this is nothing to do with the hack or the Giggly Pigglies affair,’ he said. ‘Maybe somehow some teen hackers have cracked Mondan’s codes. Or maybe you’re right and Mondan are doing something fishy with the data. I’d actually prefer either thing to be true, than to know that Bethany has done – I don’t know what. Either would make more sense.’

‘Not so unusual for a politician to collude with a private business.’

‘Mark, I don’t actually think that’s true.’

Mark pulled the USB stick out, closed the laptop and handed it back to J-R.

‘Really,’ said J-R, taking the computer. ‘Why would Bethany do such a thing – after everything she’s put into this programme?’

Mark shrugged.

‘I still say, look harder at Mondan. At what’s in it for them. You’re giving them all this data to add to their already vast collection. What are they doing with it? What are they
allowed
to do, legally? Do you know what’s in your Ts and Cs?’

‘Terms and Conditions?’

‘What do your so-called “customers” sign up to?’ Mark made air quotes around the word. ‘Ask yourself: when did you last read the Ts and Cs for a piece of software? I suggest you read your own. Or –’ He weighed something up. ‘If you want, I’d be happy to look over the legals. If you don’t mind sharing them?’

J-R swirled the foamy soup at the bottom of his cup.

‘Is that wise?’ he said. ‘You’re already looking at that mail attachment.’

‘Wise for me or you?’

‘I don’t –’ it didn’t seem right to mention Mark’s blog. ‘This would be between us?’

‘Of course.’ A business card had appeared in Mark’s hand. ‘Here. My professional email.’

J-R knocked back the dregs of his coffee and stood, hitching up his backpack. Would any other spad even blink before sending sensitive information to a private sector contact? He paused for just a second before taking the card.

‘I’ll email you later today. And, look, Mark, thank you.’

He held out his hand. Mark, still sitting, took it.

‘Anything for a mate.’

He gave J-R an easy smile.

¶riotbaby

Have you heard from this guy, children? Be his devotee
/now/.

>>cite ¶identikid

We have one chance to stop this government stealing our anonymity and our freedom. Two days to stop them invading our lives forever. Don’t let them take away your privacy. Don’t open your life to state-sponsored snoopers. Don’t let them launch the digital citizen.

Listen to the kid. Friday’s the day.

Five

Identikid proffers like none other. He’s primed to push the button on TakeBackID. Epic to ride this breaker with riotbaby citing him and his devotees ballooning. Usually it tends to zero likelihood you’ll get cited by a Persona even once but there it is, for the fortieth time since he cracked the DigiCitz homepage and added the pennant. A twelve-year-old could have done that exploit on their shitty government SSL set-up. But they didn’t. It was identikid.

He didn’t birth the pennant, either – but he owns it now and it’s trending, invading searchspace, daily favourites, RSS: building, building. And whenever he adds the Pigglies meme as well, it goes turbo-shareable. Those little pigs are smoking clickbait.

None of his network knows who actually swiped the DigiCitz data or did the Giggly Pigglies stunt but whoever it was they’re some kind of genius. You’d have to be a ghost to walk through Mondan’s defences and jack all that data off them. And the Pigglies trojan they got onto all those people’s PCs was a sweet hack for sure. Word on the security boards is nobody can get the damn thing off those devices. They strip it off, it automagically rebuilds itself in the system registry and there it is back again, like wiggly wiggly wiggly.