Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier Part 32

Par was suddenly silent. Electron sat at his computer, quietly laughing to himself, halfway across the world from Par. Well, he thought, that ought to freak out Par a bit. Nothing like a subtle hint at law enforcement to drive him nuts.

'Did you see THAT?' Par whispered to Phoenix. 'UnderFED. What did he mean?'

'I dunno,' Phoenix whispered back. Then he forwarded a copy of Par's private message on to Electron. He knew it would make him laugh.

Par was clearly worried. 'Who the f.u.c.k are you?' he whispered to Electron but Guest 0 didn't answer.

With growing anxiety, Par whispered to Phoenix, 'Who IS this guy? Do you know him?'

Phoenix didn't answer.

'Because, well, it's weird. Didn't you see? FED was in caps. What the f.u.c.k does that mean? Is he a fed? Is he trying to give me a message from the feds?'

Sitting at his terminal, on the other side of Melbourne from Electron, Phoenix was also laughing. He liked Par, but the American was an easy target. Par had become so paranoid since he went on the run across the US, and Electron knew just the right b.u.t.tons to push.

'I don't know,' Phoenix whispered to Par. 'I'm sure he's not really a fed.'

'Well, I am wondering about that comment,' Par whispered back.

'UnderFED. Hmm. Maybe he knows something. Maybe it's some kind of warning. s.h.i.+t, maybe the Secret Service knows where I am.'

'You think?' Phoenix whispered to Par. 'It might be a warning of some kind?' It was too funny.

'Can you check his originating NUA?' Par wanted to know what network address the mystery guest was coming from. It might give him a clue as to the stranger's ident.i.ty.

Phoenix could barely contain himself. He kept forwarding the private messages on to Electron. Par was clearly becoming more agitated.

'I wish he would just tell me WHO he was,' Par whispered. 's.h.i.+t. It is very f.u.c.king weird. UnderFED. It's spinning me out.'

Then Par logged off.

Electron typed, 'I guess Par had to go. ' Then, chuckling to himself, he waited for news on Gandalf's Deszip copy.

If Pad and Gandalf hadn't kept their copy of Deszip, the Australians would be back to square one, beginning with a hunt for a system which even had Deszip. It was a daunting task and by the time Pad and Gandalf finally logged back into Altos, Phoenix and Electron had become quite anxious.

'How did you go?' Phoenix asked. 'Do you still have Deszip?'

'Well, at first I thought I had forgotten which system I left it on ...'

Electron jumped in, 'And then?'

'Then I remembered.'

'Good news?' Phoenix exclaimed.

'Well, no. Not exactly,' Gandalf said. 'The account is dead.'

Electron felt like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on him.

'Dead? Dead how?' he asked.

'Dead like someone changed the pa.s.sword. Not sure why. I'll have to re-hack the system to get to the file.'

'f.u.c.k, this Deszip is frustrating,' Electron wrote.

'This is getting ridiculous,' Phoenix added.

'I don't even know if the copy is still in there,' Gandalf replied. 'I hid it, but who knows? Been a few months. Admins might have deleted it.'

'You want some help hacking the system again, Gand?' Phoenix asked.

'Nah, It'll be easy. It's a Sequent. Just have to hang around until the ops go home.'

If an op was logged on and saw Gandalf hunting around, he or she might kick Gandalf off and investigate the file which so interested the hacker. Then they would lose Deszip all over again.

'I hope we get it,' Pad chipped in. 'Would be gr8!'

'Gr8 indeed. Feen, you've got the key to the encryption?' Gandalf asked.

'Yeah.'

'How many characters is it?' It was Gandalf's subtle way of asking for the key itself.

Phoenix wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to give the British hackers the key, but he was torn. He needed Pad and Gandalf's help to get the copy of Deszip, if it was still around. But he knew Electron was watching the conversation, and Electron was always so paranoid. He disliked giving out any information, let alone giving it over Altos, where the conversations were possibly logged by security people.

'Should I give him the key?' Phoenix whispered to Electron.

Gandalf was waiting. To fend him off, Phoenix said, 'It's 9 chars.'

Chars was short for characters. On Altos the rule was to abbreviate where ever possible.

'What is the first char?'

'Yeah. Tell him,' Electron whispered to Phoenix.

'Well, the key is ...'

'You're going to spew when you find out, Gand,' Electron interrupted.

'Yes ... go on,' Gandalf said. 'I am listening.'

'You won't believe it. The key is ... Dartmouth.'

'WHAT???? WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' Gandalf exclaimed.

'No!!! IT's NOT TRUE! Bollox! You are KIDDING?'

The British hacker was thumping himself on the head. The name of the frigging university! What a stupid pa.s.sword!

Phoenix gave an on-line chuckle. 'Hehe. Yeah. So hard to guess. We could have had Deszip for all these months ...'

'Jesus. I hope it's still on that JANET system,' Gandalf said. Now that he actually had the pa.s.sword, finding the file became even more urgent.