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June 10th, 2001
It was
a sad day when I took the Callaway Corvette in to the dealer
to trade it in, but Diane was right. The Corvette had to go.
What started it all was when we were out for a Sunday drive
in the wine country. It was a blue sky day, and we had the
top down. Diane's blonde hair was flowing and flopping in
the breeze.
"You know, Max, I've been thinking. Corvettes are for old guys."
"Huh?" I was concentrating on my driving.
"Middle aged men go into mid-life crisis and decide they need a Corvette to attract young women."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Young women aren't interested in gray-haired guys driving a Corvette. It's desperation. It's pathetic."
"But I ain't that old! And I sure don't have any gray hairs."
"But you're six feet five and you cram yourself into this Corvette and strut around San Jose. Makes you look old."
"What do you suggest?" I held my breath.
Diane squinted her blue eyes. Her head was resting in her hand and her elbow resting on the door. She turned slightly and smiled. (Uh oh.) "I propose a car with class. How about a Porsche Boxster S."
"A Porsch?
"No, a Porsch eh. It's pronounced like Shakespeare's Portia."
"What is it?"
"Think of a Swiss watch with 250 horsepower."
"Sounds low. Top speed?"
"About 160."
"Sounds low."
"Let's go look at one."
And that's how I ended up with a black Porsche Boxster S. Actually it's quite a cool car. Matches the color of my gun too.
I remember the phone call because it was the afternoon right after we picked up the Porsche. It was an astronomer from Berkeley. Diane and I were in the den, and she was fussing with her new notebook computer. I put the call on the speaker phone.
"Are you Mister Hadron?"
"Yep. Carrier of the strong force."
There was a long silence on the other end. Finally: "Oh, I get it. Did you make that up?"
"No, it's my name."
More silence.
I winked at Diane and continued. "How can I help you?"
"My name is Dr. Will Pattersen. I've discovered something very troubling here in our lab. And I've received a threatening note."
"Have you talked to the police?" I asked.
"They wouldn't have a clue what's happening. Anyway, I want to talk to you first. I was referred to you by a friend." Pause. "She says you are an Internet security expert."
"One could say that." One can say anything these days. Diane smiled and rolled her forefinger in a circle, indicating she wanted to hear more. "Go on," I said.
Another long silence. "Can we meet somewhere?"
"You name it."
"My parents live in Milpitas. I'm heading down there now."
I looked at my watch. I was getting hungry. "Do you know where the Sheraton San Jose Hotel is in Milpitas?"
"Sure."
"Can you meet us there at, um, seven pm? We can have some dinner."
"Sure."
"I'm bringing a friend."
"Who? This is very confidential."
"She's my security consultant. We're a team. You hire me, you hire her."
"How will I know you?" he asked.
"I'm six feet six in street shoes. My lady friend is blonde. Won't be a problem."
Diane and I fired up the Boxster and headed for 880 North. I had a chance to let the Porsche open up a little, and Diane was right. It's like driving like a Swiss watch on steroids. The little Boxster accelerates smoothly and effortlessly up to 100, and you have so much fun, you forget to look at the speedometer. I tapped the brakes. What a feeling that was. All I can say is that American car manufacturer's don't really understand brakes like the Germans do. My 'vette was terrific, but hitting the brakes in the Boxster was almost an erotic experience.
When we walked into the lobby of the Sheraton, a dweeby little guy stood up and approached us. He was short, had long black hair and a three day beard. He was in jeans and a tattered, blue wind breaker.
"You Max?"
"Yep." We shook hands. "And this is Diane Meyer. She knows everything there is to know about computers." Pattersen looked at Diane as she extended her arm. He swallowed with difficulty, and he seemed to be both looking at her and trying not to look at her as they shook hands. Diane was in her classic black leather miniskirt, black heels, and a white sleeveless turtleneck. Some people never do recover from that sight.
We were seated at a booth in the restaurant, and Pattersen started talking nervously. "Is this confidential?"
"Absolutely," Diane and I said in unison.
"I work as a systems administrator in the Berkeley astronomy department. In addition to the research I do. Anyway, I'm one of the people responsible for the security of the SETI computers."
"Whoa. Setty?"
"The search for extraterrestrial intelligence. We collect data from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The data is saved on tape, and it's FedExed up to Berkeley where we load the data on the servers and parcel out the analysis to home computers. What we're looking for is any kind of signal that's from, uh, another civilization."
"That's the screen saver you see on my computer," Diane nudged me and smiled.
"Okay. Sounds pretty technical. So what's this about a threat?"
"Last week," Pattersen gulped some ice water, "... last week, I discovered a trojan horse program. That's a program that's inserted into a computer from the outside. It sits dormant until it's triggered by some event. It was very small and well hidden, but I found it when my security software found a suspicious checksum on one of my directories."
I nodded like I understood all this. Pattersen continued.
"So I worked on disassembling the binary and was able to determine that if we had a significant event that this software would ftp the data file to an address in Virginia and replace the processed data with an older file. One with standard noise."
Diane jumped in, thank goodness. "So if there were a signal with data from an extraterrestrial source, this program would divert the data and you'd never know there was an event."
"Exactly," he said.
Our server showed up and we ordered baked pork chops with plum sauce and garlic mashed potatoes. Diane insisted on some Pinot Grigio.
"Were you able to identify the address in Virginia?" Diane asked.
"No. The IP address didn't resolve to anything useful. But it gets worse. I disconnected the server from the LAN and passed a test file through the system. That's a QA file we use to make sure everything is working. It looks like a real ET signal. I put a packet analyzer on the port and logged all the traffic. As soon as the system processed the test file, the trojan horse program was activated. But here's the scary part. The data never went to the IP address in the trojan horse. It went to a second address."
"Where was that?" Diane leaned forward. I could see her eyes light up.
"The OS vendor. At least somewhere in that domain."
I could tell Diane was stunned. Our potential client and Diane stared at each other for a long, long time. The silence went on and on. I finally broke the ice.
"What did you do next?" I asked. I could feel Diane's fingers digging into my thigh under the table. Clearly, she was alarmed.
"I did a hex scan of the OS code until I found that second IP address. It was in a system library that looked innocent enough, but it wasn't the same library I found on the OS master CD. So I replaced the new library with the old library and reconnected to the LAN. That's when the trouble started."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Two days later, I got an e-mail from a weird address at yahoo.com. It simply said, 'Restore the library. Say nothing or Mandy gets knifed. Be smart.' Mandy is my seven year old daughter. So I replaced the library and started thinking about getting help."
"What do you need from us?" I asked.
"I want you to protect my daughter, my wife, and me. And my parents. I want you to blow the lid off this redirect of the SETI data, but I want it done right. The SETI team has put a lot of work into this project, not to mention millions of people who've donated computer time. If there's an event, we want to manage it according to our policies. Not have the OS vendor go off and steal it from all of mankind. And, as you can see, if I went to the police or even the FBI, it would be a mess and my family would ultimately be at risk."
I looked at Diane. She was squinching up her face in concern. I sensed that she wanted to talk this one out privately. "Doctor Pattersen," I said. "Diane and I need to discuss this in private. Give me your contact data, and we'll let you know if we want to proceed on this. If we do not, you have our absolute promise of confidentiality. Ultimately, even if we do not become personally involved, I think I know some very special people who can help you in the way you desire. Is that acceptable?
"Do I have a choice?" Pattersen mumbled.
"You've done the right thing. And, no, you don't have a choice now."
At this point, our dinners came and we tried to talk about some other things to lighten up the mood. We talked about wines, Pattersen's daughter, and the weather. I tried to talk about cars and ice hockey, but Pattersen was on a completely different wavelength. Diane talked about geek stuff like distributed processing and vector processors which seemed to arouse our client greatly.
Not that I like the thought of Diane arousing our clients.
On the way home, Diane and I talked about the case. I knew she was intrigued, but this one was a hot one and we were going to need some help. She explained to me that this was a very serious issue, involving industrial espionage, national security, and, indeed, could even affect the fate of mankind if ET signals fell exclusively into the wrong hands.
"Sure you want to do this?" I asked as the low hum of the Porsche hurled us along the highway and gobbled up white stripes in the blackness at an amazing rate.
Diane paused for just a second. "Damn straight," her blue eyes blazed.
When we arrived at the house, I secured the Porsche, called Manuel and told him that we were on alert and that he needed to move into the guest quarters in the morning. I double checked the radars and the security system. I made sure Diane had her .380 Beretta in her purse, and I double checked my own weapons.
I had a bad feeling as we turned in. My gut was tight and my brain was sending low-level but persistent alarms. The kind I got in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. I slept restlessly.
Tomorrow would be an interesting day.
Previous adventures of Max Hadron:
The Case of the Paperless Portfolio (Nov 12, 2000)
The Case of the GoogolPlex Smackdown (June 25, 2000)
The Case of the WWDC Murder (June 13, 2000)
Copyright 2001 by John
Martellaro, All rights reserved. Quantum Threads banner
artwork by Tracy Haynes. This is a work of fiction. All
people, places, entities, and events are the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely
coincidental.
About the Author
John Martellaro lives in Colorado at 2,800 meters above sea level with a Ph.D. wife and two cats, Nikki and Data. He holds a B.S. in Astrophysics and an M.S. in Physics. His hobbies, include amateur astronomy, downhill skiing, bicycling, and listening to piano solos. His personal Macs are a B&W G3/400 with a flat screen Studio Display and a TiBook.
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