Black Hat Blues (40 page)

John explain.”

Chris took a breath and retracted his sweaty left fist up into his coat.

“Thanks, Trisha.” He moved to the next slide, a complicated diagram

showing links between dozens of systems and computers. “We call our

covert army of battle bots Legion. Like most botnets, it runs hidden in

the background of thousands of computers all over the world. Unlike

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most of them, we have permission. The bots come bundled with adult

entertainment, video downloads, and some music downloads, all of

which are sold at a discount in return for permission to install the

Legion client on their machines.”

“And people knowingly agree to this?” asked Roger.

“They do,” Bee replied. “It’s in the EULA.”

Roger laughed at that, and nodded. Chris wasn’t sure if it was approval

or disapproval. “OK, I gotcha. So tell me how it works.”

Chris launched into his description in considerable detail, maybe

even more detail than he would have used with someone besides Roger.

But Roger would be able to really understand what he was describing,

even if it didn’t actually exist. It was an idea Chris had been playing

with for a number of years now, not just the aggressive defense thing,

but also the idea of opt-in botnets. There were a number of opt-in dis-

tributed computing things out there, like SETI at home and the folding

at home one to study protein folding using excess processor powers on

PS3s. This was the same idea. Of course, just having the army wasn’t

enough. You also had to know what to do with it.

He explained to Roger that they’d developed a system for fingerprint-

ing and tracing botnets that used a combination of massive databases

they’d compiled of known bots and some proprietary code that would

allow them to use their army of bots to counter attack against the

enemy bots and, in many cases, trace them back to their point of origin.

The Legion could serve many other uses as well, including distributed

computing and, if necessary, launching DDOS attacks anonymously on

behalf of their clients. And Legion was just one of the tools in Propter

Hoc’s arsenal. They also had custom software packages designed to

secretly identify, track, and seize the boxes of anyone caught snooping

around a protected network in a suspicious way. Oh! And they had a

crack forensics team that was especially skilled at dissecting malware

and recovering lost data.

Roger’s face was unreadable. Had he bought any of this? Chris began

to have serious doubts when he finished his pitch and Roger started

asking technical questions. Lots and lots of questions. He hadn’t been

prepared for this kind of scrutiny, and he could feel what seemed like

lakes of moisture pooling at the small of his back and under his arms.

Maybe that was why businessmen wore suits—it hid the embarrassment

from others. He answered as best he could. He just imagined what the

answer would be if they had infinite resources at their disposal and,

unlike most company’s, were actually willing to do the smart thing

rather than the cheap thing. The company he described would have

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been a dream place to work. Chris had to remind himself that it wasn’t

real. Then he began to worry that maybe he’d made it sound too good.

Roger asked the next obvious question.

“How are you paying for all this? What’s your revenue stream?”

Chris froze. Was he supposed to know this? Apparently not. Bee

jumped in at once, spinning tales of silent investors and high-paying

clients who wanted to keep a low profile. Lots of hints about European

and Asian technology cartels. He couldn’t imagine that Roger was sat-

isfied with any of it, but if he had his doubts, he was keeping them to

himself. They finished up meeting and Roger saw them to the door.

Inscrutable to the last, he said, “Thanks a lot for coming in. Really

interesting stuff. I’ll give Emily my report and I’m sure you’ll be hear-

ing something soon.”

They caught a cab once they were back on the main street and headed

for Union Station where they could jump on the subway and meet up

with the others. Chris felt damp, exhausted, and beaten.

“You were awesome!” said Bee, as soon as they were in the cab and

out of sight.

He was more than surprised to hear her say it, he was stunned. He

couldn’t tell if she was teasing him or not. “I just babbled on and on

like a freaking idiot,” he said.

“No, no. What? No, are you kidding? It was awesome. Really impres-

sive. Roger obviously thought so, too.”

“That’s not what I saw at all.”

She shook her head. “No, c1s, you were great. Really. I’m totally not

just saying that, OK? You had him eating out of your hand. He was

loving every minute of it, I swear. We did it!”

“Huh,” said Chris, not wanting to argue. Who knew, maybe she was

right. That would be nice. And hell, maybe she was. That was the big-

gest problem, intellectually speaking, that he had with being part of

The Crew: he could never accept that the plans they came up with were

going to work. When you knew the truth, it all seemed so obvious. Bee

kept reminding him that the whole point was that no one else did know

the truth, which was why it worked. Maybe she was right. They’d see.

A day later, back in Baltimore, it looked like things had worked out

after all. Bee had sung his praises to the others, and they’d congratu-

lated him, clapping him on the back and assuring him that they’d

known he had it in him. All that praise felt pretty damn good, he had to

admit. And when they got the call the following afternoon that Marsh

wanted to meet with Chloe and Sacco’s alter-egos to discuss using

Propter Hoc, he felt awesome. They’d set up as much of a provenance

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as they could for the fake company, buying a Belize-based off the shelf

International Business Company that had been in existence for over a

year (just waiting for someone to buy it). Chris used some of the IDs

he had on different hacker forums and sites to give some cred to the

thing and they’d put up some testimonials. There was enough out there

that a casual or even only moderately thorough investigation would

find some real evidence that a fake cabal of hackers had gone into the

security business together. Paul put him to work almost at once though,

coming up with more fake activity and using scripts that he wrote for

forum discussions about the new company. There was no time to slow

down and enjoy the success. No time to stop and think about what had

just happened. They had a plan and were committed to it 100%, which

was fine with Chris, especially since he’d done the hard part. The rest

was just hacking, no talking necessary.

Her and Sacco again, as Maria Lanier and Bernard Orozco. This

time though, there was no time for banter or psyching themselves

up, because they were sharing the back of the limo with Ken Clover.

Ken was fidgeting in his seat and kept eying the bar, but it was only

10:00 in the morning, so apparently he at least had some sense of dig-

nity and self-control left. Chloe was actually kind of disappointed. She

wouldn’t have minded the excuse to have a shot of whiskey herself right

about then. Instead she pretended to play with her Blackberry so she

wouldn’t have to make too much small talk with him. Sacco was hiding

behind the shield of his enigmatic Euro-mutt persona, just smiling with

wise indulgence at everything Ken said.

Mostly Ken wanted to talk about how fucked up his life had gotten

and how eager he was to get back at the fucking fucks who’d fucked

him over. Ken really liked the word fuck, and now that he felt he knew

Maria and Bernard he felt free to use it ceaselessly. They’d paid him

$50,000 to introduce them to Marsh, and Chloe had hoped that would

be the end of it. But he’d insisted on hearing what it was they were

going to say to Marsh and how it would help them get their “mutual

enemy.” Once he heard Chloe’s explanation of c1sman’s fictitious botnet

attack army, he was sold, entranced with the vision of taking revenge

on the fucking hacker fucks who’d fucked everything up for him. He’d

insisted on coming along for the final pitch to Marsh herself now that

her tech guru had signed off on it. Chloe hadn’t like the idea, but Paul

had pointed out that having him in the room and on their side might

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go a long way towards easing any suspicions that Marsh might have.

Maybe so. Chloe knew one thing for sure though; she was sending Ken

home in the limo alone. She and Sacco could catch a cab.

“Now the thing is,” said Ken. “Emily’s very old school, right? You

guys have to be totally fucking polite and fucking deferential around

her. The fucking friends she has? Yeah, you be polite. Always call

her Ms. Marsh. Don’t try and talk over her. Let her ask the fucking

questions.”

“In other words,” Sacco said in his Euro-drawl, “Common

courtesy.”

Ken looked at him, and Chloe thought he was trying to decide if

Sacco was making fun of him or not. “Just respect her, OK? The wom-

an’s got some serious pull in this town.”

They rode the rest of the way in relative silence, with only a few

instances of Ken bragging about his former connections to politicians

and media stars that came out whenever they passed some DC land-

mark or bar that reminded him of the time when… The limo stopped

right in front of Marsh’s office door, and the driver opened the door for

them as they exited. Inside was exactly as Bee had described it to her,

only they didn’t have to wait in the reception area or pass muster in the

conference room. The guy in reception showed them straight up the

stairs to Marsh’s office, which overlooked the street below.

Emily Marsh in person struck Chloe as vivacious and strong in a way

her pictures could never convey. She was a small woman, but not frail

or even delicate. Her meticulously tailored suit and subtle but expensive

jewelry presented the woman of power and means that Chloe had been

expecting, but the sparkle in her eyes and the way they seemed to lance

across Chloe and Sacco like a laser was something else. Chloe felt like

a boxer standing across the ring from the heavyweight champ, all the

weaknesses in her game exposed. The two of them shook hands, smil-

ing. Interesting that she’d come to Chloe first, not Sacco or Ken.

“Emily Marsh,” she said. “Thanks for coming in.”

“Maria Lanier. And this is my associate, Mr. Bernard Orozco.”

“A pleasure to meet you both. And how are you Ken? A pleasure as

always. Please, have a seat. Did Larry offer you something to drink?”

They settled into the three leather chairs arrayed before Marsh’s desk.

Chloe suspected there were usually only two, and that the third came

from an empty space along one wall. Larry, the receptionist, brought

them all coffee and then things got started.

“So,” said Marsh, leaning forward in her chair and looking at each of

them in turn. “What do you have for me?”

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“Well, that depends,” said Chloe, “On what you thought of the

Propter Hoc presentation. We were pretty impressed with what they

had to offer. What did you think?”

“According to my expert, they seem interesting. You must under-

stand, I’m not much of a technology person, but I gather from his

briefing that these Propter Hoc people might very well be capable of

delivering on their promises.”

“That was our assessment as well,” said Sacco. “They come highly

recommended by some of our associates in Germany.”

Marsh nodded. “We all seem to agree on that then. The next item on

the agenda is, what would you propose hiring them to do?”

“Well, to begin with, we’d like to go after the people responsible for

the, um, difficulties my associates recently had down in Florida,” said

Chloe.

“Which are the same people who screwed me over,” Ken said. “Or

related to them.”

“And how do we know the two groups are related?” asked Marsh.

“I know law enforcement recently raided a hide-out of some sort in

Key West and is holding one of the members of the group under house

arrest. Those are the individuals responsible for your problems, Ken. I

don’t know of any connections between them and the problems Mr.

Orozco and Ms. Lanier’s associates may have been having. Problems

that are, I must apologize here, outside of my interests.”

“We believe there are connections,” Chloe said. “And if you have only

one person in custody, there are surely others still at large. The damage

done to my… my friends was the work of dozens, maybe hundreds.

And the fact that whatever the hideout the police raided was in South

Florida should indicate to you, as it does to me, that there is some

connection.”

“Perhaps, perhaps,” Marsh said. “It is certainly curious. But none of

this answers why I should care.”