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Post by Da Pwny on Jun 24, 2008 20:10:07 GMT -5
You know what life is like, don't you? A 9-to-5 office job, a boss who hates you just because, and you can't complain because you happen to be born whiter than a snowman with baking soda splattered on it, health care you'll probably get to use once or twice before you end up having to pay out of your ass for doctor's appointments, and a one-room apartment shared with a 'close' friend who cheats on you every day when you aren't home with another man, and even occasionally at night, saying that he's going out with the guys to some bar... and you know he's lying through his f*gy white teeth. Yeah, that pretty much explains my life; only difference is that I might be working for the United Central Agency for Security and Intelligence, but it still blows fruitcakes. Stupid McDonald's-working, bisexual prick... what a nerve he has, and what idiocy I have not to put an end to our 'relationship', except for the fact that he's paying my rent until I can get a solid job at the UCASI.
Ok, maybe this started off wrong. First off, I wasn't even supposed to be in a one-room apartment until I was too old and incontinent to control my own bladder. I was supposed to be in a two-story rich-girl's house, living the high life, getting wasted every night, and making millions off my first game series or whatever that I started. MIT graduate, IQ higher than some people can count, good family. And then things just went to sh**...
First, mom died in a car accident, and then dad got into some bad stuff and ended up in jail. Ends up they'd never gotten around to making a will, so I ended up getting nothing, not that we had much to begin with. On top of that, my first four applications to some major corperations are REJECTED! That's right; whether it was 'lost in the mail', or just 'we aren't taking applications at this time', no one wanted me it seemed... and then the UCASI came knocking. Said they heard about how I was, and offered me a job. Just like that.
At least, after I passed the internship, which was six months. Having started little over a week before, I've been catching flak from some of the black ladies working there. Of course, you know, the instant you retort they start calling you racist... so I told my boss, gave him some names, and none of them have talked sh** since.
Anyways, the job isn't bad at all, and I was promised a week or so ago that I would be doing field work, because they liked how I did my office bit. Field work! I've never shot a gun in my life, outside of the little bit of training I got for self-defense and such, and here I am, about to go outside these walls of safety, to places where I've never been before... to actually do something. Talk about a great feeling... just the kind of stuff movies are made of, right?
Right?...
<10.24 AM>
Sitting down at her office desk, Catherine sighed. Another day in Cubical Paradise, isn't it? she mused silently, observing her coffee cup with a bland sense of boredom. It was Monday, and a whole week inbetween her being stuck here getting payed to play with Windows some more and being thrust into the middle of an action-packed insanity... or at least that's how she dreamed it would be. Life had a tendency to whack her over the head from time to time, as it usually did when she wasn't in the best state of mind.
Taking a sip, she set the cup down and decided to mess around some more. There wasn't much for her to do... she'd finished her assignments for the next two days, and she wasn't allowed to work on anything real as of yet, so she was pretty much stuck twiddling her thumbs. Searching random sites on the net was about as good as things got, so she decided that's what she'd do. Pulling up a spreadsheet she'd been working on, Catherine then clicked on the tab at the bottom and went straight to a video site to entertain herself for the next few hours watching monkeys sniff their butts and comedians attempting to act funny.
She stumbled across a few modifying videos, which showed one how to modify their toaster into a wi-fi hotspot. "Idiot" she grumbled, "anyone who knows what you're doing will tell you that you solder the capacitor to a resistor first, not directly to another capacitor. That'll just blow up in your face after twenty or so hours..." Still, it was interesting enough to keep her entertained for the next few minutes, upon which she left a comment, and then moved on to some other stuff. Soon, she came across a freshly-removed video with an interesting title that was in the process of being erased. Using a little hacking magic, she got a nice fat address, and skittered on over to it to see what could get itself removed from said vid site after only a half-hour on the net...
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Post by knightc3 on Jun 25, 2008 1:24:43 GMT -5
He didn't know when he had got himself into when he accepted the full scholarship he was offered out of the blue upon graduation from the public high school he went to a few miles from his home in Brooklyn. Maybe if he had't been busy trying to get his things in order to leave the hell hole he had lived in for the past 17 years, he might have decided to try and find who exactly was sponsering all these expenses.
He found out eventually when he went on a searching spree on the net using the whole network in the Computer Science Department to try and dig through the world wide web to find he was being sponsered by UCASI! It was partly out of a need for pocket change and partly because of this plan that he had applied for a night assistance/support guy for the department server and network. He had used the massive bandwidth available to him throughout the night and had hit the treasure box in the sand of the internet.
Of course after that he could very well guess they would want him to work for them and he didn't have any problems with that. The basic combat training had been relatively easy. Being where he was from and especially if you were different like him, you had to know how to watch your back or end up dead on the street or alley somewhere. He had never used a gun before but it was easy enough to pick up during training.
He was literally living in these office for the first month or so after which the call for the 'special' assignments came for the director. He couldn't wait to get his hands on the files having finally got something more than just writing reports on the existing, obsolute and outdated internal security and communication systems. He was told he would get access on a probationary basis to modify the systems as he saw fit and he just might get a field assignment if he could do it. It seemed the management were finally paying attention to his reports, they should after the last leak that showed up on the public information domain.
His work life was finally looking good and he was looking forward to somebody try and challenge the new measures he had in place so he could get on to that field work posting soon. On the personal front he had been on a streak of bad luck since his childhood. His dad was a alcoholic and beat up his wife and him frequently. He said she deserved it and he would become tougher. His mom finally snapped after a few years of taking this torture and killed him. She went to prison while he gave his school exams. The conditions never improved much after that either with his mom now turning into a cranky hostile woman. He wondered a lot of times if she was spending her social security checks on drugs. He never found out as she died an year into college.
He had it a bit better in college but wasn't really among the popular kids. He never found a girl interesting enough or smart enough to like or hang out with for more than a drink. He lives alone now in a rather shabby apartment complex due to the lack of finances, him being straight out of college and the stipend being spent on the other necessities.
<10.22 AM>
Justin was slouched back in his chair staring blankly at the two screens in front of him, moving his fingers on the mouse pad on his laptop, deployed in front of the dual screen display of the desktop. He was watching a grid view spread across the two screens, waiting like he had been for the past two hours.
It was a a few minutes before a small area on the screen started blinking and he shot up straight in is chair, throwing commands at the console that had popped up. After about 5 minutes, longer than he thought it would take, he found the source of the "unauthorized use" of company network. "We have a winner...", he said to himself and gave a satisfied smile. He looked behind him before throwing in a last command that used a backdoor he had drilled into the personnel database and brought up the information he wanted, this time on his laptop rather than the monitored desktop. The best part of the network he had setup was he could issue discreet commands from his laptop to his desktop and used it as a relay host and avoid detection. This way, he was not going to fall into his own traps.
Ms. Catherine Yatis had used flagged commands, which meant she had used the UCASI network to hack an outside source which would be fine considering what UCASI really did but the catch here was she didn't have the access or authorization to do so... and neither did he. He checked the address and his smile dissapeared instantly. Hadn't he removed it already? , he thought and sweared under his breath. She was a pro, which made sense as she was here in UCASI.
He quickly locked his desktop, watching proudly his system continue to work for a moment. He then picked up his laptop and bag and headed towards this fellow hacker and the one who had probably given him his ticket for field work. The least he could do is treat her to a coffee.
((Uh, I am not exactly clear but you do you want your char VS my char ? Or would they work together? I have kinda left it all vague about the video for now so I can tilt it either way... ))
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Post by Da Pwny on Jun 25, 2008 5:24:06 GMT -5
*edited*
Catherine knew she'd been watched the instant she hit the space, even though there wasn't that much interesting to her; the site was a set-up to catch people just like her. She quickly erased her tracks amidst hushed cursing and did a forced set up to the site using a core-killer virus; even if whoever it was went back to show their superiors who'd gone there, it wouldn't appear on record unless they'd saved a log of it somewhere. Having killed the track back to her, she took reprieve and made a trip to the loo to take a wizz. All the coffee she'd had from the night before had finally caught up with her, and she was still recovering from that all-nighter she pulled on Sunday helping her supervisor crack down on that one crack dealer that was exclusively using young boys as his drug mules.
She'd left her laptop back at her cube, since she really didn't see any need to lock up what was plain for all to see. The history was erased completely from her computer, and with her IPs belonging to the person next to her, Catherine felt pretty safe about her little misadventure not falling into the wrong hands...
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Post by knightc3 on Jun 25, 2008 7:46:03 GMT -5
(( Uh, you confused me more now. Along what lines, Vs or allies? Oh and I will see about a second character too if necessary. It was a dummy site? Then Justin thinking he had deleted the video already doesn't make any sense now... I will just leave it be I guess.))
Justin took the lift down a level and reached the desk number that had popped up. He read the name tag to confirm he had the right person. He leaned down to look at the screen of the laptop and smiled. Unlocked, that meant she had cleaned up after her. He just hoped now she hadn't gone after the system or if she had, the system had been able to block her attempt. If not, she was in a bigger trouble than he could get her out of. The system he had integrated with the current, messy network that existed was in testing only right now and officially only a few people knew about it, and him and now possibly her. He couldn't be sure if she had guessed or interpreted the system yet. He hoped not, or she was probably gonna replace him when the director heard about this incident and he would be out on his ass on the job market and possibly not getting work with anything related to even a calculator.
He didn't touch the laptop. Leaning back on her desk and waiting he looked around the floor and found everyone with their heads into their computers. He had been able to reach her mostly because he was tracking the routing path used. Even though a normal IP check would have stopped at her neighbor's IP, his algorithm detected the routing back to her laptop.
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Post by Da Pwny on Jun 25, 2008 15:50:04 GMT -5
*it was late at night and i had a few other posts going >.< best I could think up... I'll get around to changing it a bit here soon >.<*
Catherine came back from the crapper to find someone with the tenacity to lean against her desk, a definite no-no. At first, she thought it was her manager, but then she realized he was too small to be that. The way he was dressed... she rolled her eyes when she realized it was just another intern. Walking up to this mystery man, she stated in a slightly edgy voice "Excuse me, but you're leaning against my chair. Do you mind?"
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Post by knightc3 on Jun 26, 2008 3:45:13 GMT -5
He had been looking the other way and didn't pay attention to the woman's footsteps, mix with the noisy keyboards around him. He was startled a bit and stood up straight when he heard her object. Man, she was cranky! He then looked at her face and recognized the familiar look of someone who had had an overdose of coffee. He somehow didn't think she would receive his offer of a cup of coffee too well.
He turned around after stepping aside from her chair and extended his hand and gave her a friendly smile, "Good morning Ms. Yatis, it is 'miss' right?" You never could say, it was best to confirm. "My name is Justin Wyde. I just came along to thank you for being the test subject I guess. Listen, would you like to get a hotdog or bagel while I brief you before...", he dropped his vioce to a whisper, "... before you get called by the compliance team?"
Hotdog or Bagel? What in the world was wrong with him? But he couldn't really discuss a system that was not supposed to exist on the floor or in the office anywhere so he just blurted out what came to his mind next after coffee, anything that would give them an excuse to get out of office.
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Post by Da Pwny on Jun 26, 2008 4:15:48 GMT -5
At first, Catherine stifled a giggle at what seemed to be the worst pickup line in the world, and then nearly let her shock show with his next few words as her blood ran cold. How'd he pulled off that, unless... still, she wasn't one to drop her poker face before the hands were shown, so Cath played it cool, rebounding off his apparent inefficiency with speaking to the opposite sex.
"You sure know how to play the ladies, don't you? Sorry, but I'm not sure I quite follow you. I at least have the right to know what I'm being accused of, don't I?" She adjusted the collar on her blouse, showing just a tinsy bit of cleavage. Nerds always choked up at the slightest sight of breasts; it was a known fact, even in the case of those who didn't quite look the part...
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Post by knightc3 on Jun 26, 2008 4:36:15 GMT -5
He raised a brow and said, "Excuse me? Look I know thats probably the crapiest pick up line that you have heard...", he paused and looked around. This was getting bad to worse, he wasn't trying to 'pick her up' or was he? She was good looking, there was no doubt and was obviously smart, probably smarter than him so...No, no! She can get me fired along with herself, dont go there... yet , he thought to himself.
"Look...", he tried again and paused just a fraction too long as she readjusted her top and his eyes traveled down her chest. Oh she was cunning. "...you have more than a right, you need to know otherwise its your ass on the line." He made it a point to make it look as if he was looking down at her figure as he said this. "But not here, understand? You rather have another cup of coffee then, would ya?", he said putting his hands to his waist frustrated.
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Post by Da Pwny on Jun 26, 2008 20:17:25 GMT -5
Catherine had Justin on the defense. That was perfect... meant he wasn't going to try and warp the moment, nor did she have a need to follow him and could dismiss him at her will. Still... she was done with her work already, and unless something else came up at the last moment, Cath had nothing else to do. Lunch break was coming up in under an hour, but she hadn't used her break yet. She'd planned on using it to get a few minutes of rest, but seems like she wasn't going to get that far.
"Fine" she stated in a slightly whiny voice, adding a huff for good measure, "I really shouldn't be taking my break this early, but I guess you're just too persistent. There's a place across the street; I'll see you there in... five minutes, right?" Her eyes added to the irritated demeanor, but really she wanted to see how he'd take it. One way she knew she'd be able to weasel her way out, and another... well, she knew she'd be in trouble. Even as she thought it out, her eyes remained locked on his, being careful not to give away her current amusement with this 'Justin' character...
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Post by knightc3 on Jun 26, 2008 21:33:48 GMT -5
It didn't take long for him to 'read' her. The psychology courses he had taken in the university as part of the diversification program were coming into play. He wished now he had done a minor in it when he had the chance. It seemed she took pleasure it keeping an upper-hand in confrontations with men possibly because she had been or was in a relationship with one where she had unwillingly lost the advantage and was probably tied up in the situation due to some factors not in control. In short, she didn't have control over her life and she used any opportunity to get some back fiercly. But he did remember he was taught that one could go completely wrong in reading such things.
He wanted to retort, really badly. She was making sure he knew she didn't like him interacting with her. Even a child could see how irritated she seemed to be. He kept quiet, smoldering inside. "Yeah... fine", he said tersely, his frustration clear to anyone who heard his tone.
He made his way back to his desk and checked the system. Half his work was destroyed by some kind of virus be hadn't anticipated. Thankfully it had gone for the fake server, having being routed away from the network core. She probably hadn't realized but she would have unknowingly hit the firewall on the company servers and had her details logged. It wouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes for a termination letter to come up in her inbox after that.
But his laptop, the fake server he had setup, was nothing more than an empty pizza box now, the virus having being routed to it. He checked it and sweared loudly. She had used a core-killer virus. He prompted threw his laptop in the wastebin under his desk and walked away empty-handed towards the lift, with a deep frown on his face. He reached the cafe easily and sat down at a corner table away from the rest of the patrons. He never called the waitress and she, seeing the look on his face didn't approach him. She could make out after 5 years on the job when a man didn't like being approached.
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Post by Da Pwny on Jun 27, 2008 5:07:09 GMT -5
*ok, ok >.< shesh...*
Catherine smiled and turned back to her desk, deciding to send her work in early. If Justin was the guy she thought he was, then obviously he hadn't seen the rest of the 'work' she'd done earlier... Sighing, she pressed the "Send" button and dumped the cold coffee into the waste bin beneath her cube table.
Slinging the backpack she carried everywhere with her, she slipped off to check out and get on over to the coffee shop. If there wasn't a pink slip waiting for her in her email when she got back, then most certainly there'd be another task for her. It seemed her boss loved working poor Catherine to the bone; even just from the month she'd been here, that fat wench had given her more assignments than others had been tasked with for the last few years...
She soon found the coffee shop, and slipped quietly inside. Catherine wasn't looking for anything inparticular besides Justin, so she didn't have a need to cause a commotion... yet. He wasn't too hard to find, so she slipped into a chair across from him, dropped the bag, and rested her head on her fingers as she looked at him. The waitress came by and got her order, then shuffled off quickly like a spooked cat. Raising an eyebrow, Catherine remarked sarcastically "Justin, you certainly do have a way around women."
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Post by knightc3 on Jun 28, 2008 4:10:29 GMT -5
He looked around first, seeing if someone was observing them. The cafe was mostly empty, this being the busiest time of the morning for most people in the offices around this place. He then looked back at Catherine, clearly not in a good mood. He spoke, in a low and calm tone, although slightly irritated, "You know how close you were to getting caught, fired and probably jailed. The system you encountered in your stint while trying to hack that website today was built into the mainframe network. You would have taken out the company server with that attack."
He paused to not get worked up about his laptop. She obviously didn't target it intentionally but it was dead anyway and now he would have spend a lot more money to get a new one. "Listen carefully. Even though you erased the tracks, they will find you the same way I did. They have those records on another database which you probably didn't go after from what I saw. When they ask you tell them it was a test run for a classified project under the director. It is really there and I will inform the director you were helping me for the test. There you are covered...", he added.
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Post by Da Pwny on Jun 29, 2008 22:17:37 GMT -5
*just to be clear, most any terms used in here are purely made up... if anything resembles something in real-life, then please, don't kill me XD <-Message to the CIA if they're watching this*
Catherine raised an eyebrow. Wasn't it kinda already her job to be stressing the current system? Or were the recent rumors true and a new system was being tossed in as they spoke? She remained calm, although there was some willpower at work diverting the sweat that would be running down her face to just beneath the lines of her shirt, and it was starting to get just a tad bit hot down there. "Jesus... all I did was bypass a few feeder systems, tunnel beneath a layer of anti-virus programs, and instigate an IGB to get around the main system. Hardly even went through it, whatever this new system is supposed to be... besides, if that's all you caught, then there's definitely a few holes in your security network."
She took a pen and paper tablet from her backpack, scrawling out a diagram, then began speaking as she drew around the diagram as she talked, looking over her shoulder before continuing. "First of all, as best I can make out, the n3 coding algorithm has been placed around here, here, and here" she stated, marking asterisks near the locations on the drawing, "but what you should do is place another right here. Otherwise, someone with the right skills can easily slip in through the backdoor undetected and let loose a virus. Also," Catherine marked another spot on the diagram, then continued "you need to strengthen the mainframe infrastructure before someone nibbles away at it and the whole system crashes. Possibly a guard-bot or maybe one of those nice new A32 anti-hacker auto-spike programs that can fry a terabyte HDD in half a minute. Would make anyone who doesn't know their way around it think twice after getting their drive fried by one of them."
And that was just her morning homework. If she hadn't been fired by the time she got back from her break, there would be a boatload more when she did. "Of course, I didn't do all of that alone... now the little incident you brought up... hell, I got bored. I'll be honest in that much; I saw something, and decided to follow it. Whether I get fired or not is up to Mr. Director Man, but I think this has gotten a bit out of hand." She sighed for a moment, turning away as she fingered the coffee before her, wondering just how long it would be before she got herself into some trouble that there wasn't a way out of, or if this was actually to be the end of it all for her...
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Post by knightc3 on Jun 30, 2008 0:51:20 GMT -5
Justin followed her carefully and eventually figured out what he had missed, the extra coding algorithm on the backdoor. It must have been sleep deprivation, or so he told himself as consolation. Once she had finished, he had calmed down a lot. Her trying to help and suggest changes rather than resist/fight him definitely helped. He smiled when she started expressing her concern about the issue getting out of hand and waved his hand.
"Dont worry about that, I just told you I will cover for you didn't I? Just do what I told you with compliance guys if and when they call and it will be fine. Um...", he looked around to see if someone was trying to listen in then continued, "You are not supposed to know this but I think I should explain why I was a bit rallied up earlier. I had a ghost network built on top of the company network and everything now passes through it. It was just for test mostly with my laptop acting as the server, which you fried with the core-killer. You see the cause of my... frustration. Thats also the reason you think the infrastructure needs an overhaul because I wasn't obviously using the full network resources. I had thought about the anti-hack software but I left it out since I would then have to explain to some intern why her computer died on her for no apparant reason", he said with a smile.
"But I did miss the backdoor and thank you for that", he nodded then thought for a while, looking at Catherine. He could surely use some help and she did say she got bored on her current assignment. It was obvious she had the brains to keep up with the project and yes, he would be glad for her company. He shook that thought away telling himself that she probably had a boyfriend already. No, that should be a factor. He smiled and made the offer, "So... you like working for your current boss? I think I have a place in my project if you want it..."
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Post by Da Pwny on Jul 2, 2008 20:37:06 GMT -5
She smirked. He knew his stuff at least, which made him more intelligent than most she'd gone out with or even been around before. Not all, but yes, most of them. At his offer, she exaggeratingly tossed a few strands of hair back, stating "Hell no. I hate the wench, but if I don't finish my internship under her, I won't get into the so-called 'Quality Assurance' area that I've been eying for the last few months. I appreciate the offer..."
Catherine leaned closer, speaking softly into Justin's ear "but don't tell anyone about that little bit of the report. I would get terminated for that bit if a manager overheard me speaking about that part. Say they don't like people knowing before they should.. the usual cloak-and-dagger crap that has this whole place paranoid." Leaning back, she took a few sips of her coffee before saying "So, we have an agreement? Cause I need to get back to work in... two minutes! sh**... I might be getting fired if I'm late in getting back. Anything else you wanted to 'talk about'?"
So far this hadn't been too bad; she was talking with an intelligent, semi-attractive guy, who was about to be skimped a check as she skipped out, and she could be getting fired because of him if he wanted to peep the truth. Fun times all around. Then again, the so-called 'leveling' of society meant that she could claim harassment and get away with it easily, but that wasn't her style at all. No, she had other ways of making life difficult, and the fact that she knew so much already meant that they couldn't just ditch her. Some of the stuff in her brain was pretty heavy by anyone's standards...
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