Black Hat Blues (11 page)

It was empty except for a cluster of a few dozen people around some

tables and chairs two thirds of the way down the hall. He definitely

recognized some faces and thought he might recognize a few others, but

no one he knew very well. His old work friends who were supposed to

be coming by weren’t due in until later that night, so he’d have to make

the opening night cocktail circuit on his own. That was fine.

He picked up his badge—he used his real name, not some silly hacker

handle—and went into the middle ballroom, which had about fifty or

sixty people in it. There was a mobile bar tucked into one corner, with

a bartender serving a limited drink selection and charging somewhat

inflated prices. Ollie got a Coke and started mingling. It was time to

get some solid networking in, and he loosened his business card holder

in his jeans pocket for some quick-draw action when he needed it. He’d

brought along some work cards, but most of them were his personal

ones—the one’s with the private e-mail and the non-corporate phone

numbers on them.

People were generally happy to talk. There were a couple individuals

who were what passed for celebs in the hacker scene that always had a

few people coming up to them and saying something or another. Ollie

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53

didn’t bother with them. He’d read that the best way to get something

from someone was to make them feel special. Those guys already felt

special enough without him blowing smoke up their butts. He went over

his opening conversational gambits again. He had them on his phone if

he needed to check, but he’d gone over them enough on the plane that,

along with the mnemonic device he’d come up with to help him, there

was no way he’d forget. He’d put together the list from a couple dozen

different books he’d read on ice breaking, networking, socializing, and

dating. This would be his first time trying them in action, and he was

eager to see how the conversational gambits would pay off.

He started by moving in front of another guy who was standing

there alone, looking a little lost. He was beefy, with an unbuttoned,

un-tucked gray and red shirt worn over a black t-shirt for what Ollie

assumed was a band named Whole Wheat Bread. Ollie asked how the

man was doing, introduced himself, commented on one of the more

interesting looking people in the room, and asked the fellow what he

did. And the guy was happy to talk about himself, especially once Ollie

got him going. He was a sys admin at a university in California. He had

lots of opinions that Ollie mostly shared. He never asked once about

what Ollie did, and soon got distracted by his need for another drink

and an obvious disinterest in talking anymore after he’d told his own

life’s story.

The next two people he talked to behaved in much the same way.

Neither of them had jobs that were in fields Ollie had any interest in,

so he didn’t feel like he was missing any opportunities when he decided

to experiment and see how long it would take for anyone to actually ask

him about himself. None of them did. Funny. The books had assumed

that most people would be at least polite enough to return one of Ollie’s

gambits with something like, “And what about you?” But no, not these

guys. Was it that hackers were self-involved or socially inept? Could

be both.

He’d just watched his fourth conversational gambit falter, this time

because the guy’s friends showed up and they left for dinner before Ollie

could ask him much of anything. He turned around and surveyed the

room, his gaze settling almost at once on a woman he hadn’t noticed

before. She was tall, dark skinned, and ridiculously pretty. She was

wearing a form fitting skirt/suit combo that struck Ollie as very profes-

sional and yet still pretty hot. She looked like she might be Indian to

him. Some kind of Asian possibly. She was talking to another woman

Ollie recognized as a tech reporter from
Wired
, but the Indian woman

caught Ollie staring at her and gave him a wink.

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Geek Mafia: Black Hat Blues

He waved back, deciding that winking back felt too unnatural. Two

minutes later she was walking by him, offering to get him a drink. He

asked for a Coke as she passed, and waited in anticipation of he didn’t

even know what until she returned with two Cokes a couple minutes

later. “Hi, I’m Toni,” she said, after handing him his drink.

“I’m, Oliver. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” They shook hands. She had

soft hands of course, with a light but firm grip.

“So what do you do, Oliver?” She asked, leaning one arm against the

high top table beside them and cocking her head slightly to the left.

“I’m a penetration tester,” he said with some pride. He could see her

eyes flash for a moment and her mouth curl up into a half-smile. Was

she impressed?

“Really? How interesting. And who do you pen test for?”

“Oh, it’s for a private firm. I’m not really supposed to say who, for

security reasons. We do a lot of government contract work, you know,

testing at government facilities and highly secure locations, that type

of thing.”

She moved a few inches closer to him, still smiling. “That must be

interesting. And you live around here?”

“No, no, I’m from St. Louis.” Ollie fought the urge to back away a

few inches. The books said this was a good sign. “I flew in for the con.

My company pays for it even though they’re not really super happy that

I go to these things because they’re all afraid it will somehow make

them look bad to the government auditors or something, which doesn’t

make any sense at all anymore if you think about it, because there are

feds speaking at these things all the time now.”

“I know what you mean. It’s hard to get people to understand what a

hacker con is really about. Are you giving a talk here this weekend?”

He shook his head. Should he move towards her now? He didn’t.

“Not this time, no. But I have before. I’ve presented at a couple of cons.

I spoke at Def Con two years ago and was on a panel at Black Hat and

did something at Notacon too. I like giving talks, but since I can’t talk

too much about my work…”

“It’s probably hard to find things to talk about,” she said, complet-

ing his thought for him. She was really paying attention to what he

was saying! “That must be frustrating, right? I mean, part of what’s so

great about cons is that we’re supposed to share what we know with

each other.”

“Exactly!” She’d hit the nail right on the button. That was one rea-

son he wanted a new job—so he could release all his cool exploits

and discoveries which, for now anyway, he wasn’t allowed to do at all

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55

because of his employment contract. “I’d really like to participate a

lot more. There’s things I could tell these guys that would blow their

minds, let me tell you. I’m serious. But I’m not supposed to and so I

guess I won’t.”

“Not yet anyway,” Toni said. “Someday maybe?” She sounded hope-

ful, like maybe she wanted that someday to be soon.

He smiled and felt a little warm. “Nothing lasts forever, it’s true.

Someday maybe.”

“So tell me some gross generalizations then. Don’t give me any details

that will get you in trouble or anything, just some good stories.”

“What do you mean?”

Toni patted his arm. “You’ve got to have some good stories. Every

penetration tester I’ve ever met does. Change the names to protect the

incompetent as necessary, but tell me a story.”

Ollie thought for a moment. He had some great stories, most of

which he’d never told to anyone but his coworkers because, well, aside

from the fact that he didn’t talk to anyone else very much, it was all

supposed to be secret stuff. But Toni was right, he could easily leave

out the sensitive facts and give her the gist of it. “All right, sure,” he

said. “I’ve got a great one that happened just a couple weeks ago in fact.

Wait’ll you hear this.”

He launched into the redacted details of his latest red team assign-

ment working on contract for the Department of Energy, explaining

to her in more detail than maybe he should have if he were following

the letter of his contract, but nothing that could identify the facility

or the personnel or even the type of database he’d managed to corrupt

with such efficient ease. Well, ease for him anyway. As he explained to

Toni, databases were kind of his specialty. One of his specialties that is.

She loved the first story and asked for a second and then a third, and

by the time he was done with that one, digging deep into his past for

something he thought might impress her, Toor Con’s opening night

cocktail hour had drawn to a close.

She laughed at his last joke, which he didn’t think was that funny, but

he wasn’t going to complain if she thought it was. As they were ushered

out of the small ballroom, she said. “Oliver, it was really nice to meet

you. Thanks for sharing your tales of adventure with me.”

“Not a problem,” he said, butterflies in his stomach all of a sudden.

She sounded like she was getting ready to say goodbye. He knew that

he needed to do something now to stop that. Now. NOW! “Hey, I was

wondering, I know it’s kind of late, but would you like to get something

to eat?”

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Geek Mafia: Black Hat Blues

Toni smiled at him, “Thanks, but I’m afraid I’ve got to go meet some

people. But can I take a rain check? Maybe tomorrow night or the next?

When are you flying out?”

“Monday morning.”

“And you’re staying…”

“At the Marriott.”

“Great, great. Lucky you. Do you have a room that overlooks the

stadium?”

“I do!” he said, and caught himself from inviting her to come see it.

“Let’s exchange numbers, although I’m sure I’ll see you at the con

here bright and early tomorrow morning, right?”

“Definitely.” They traded numbers, him giving her a card and her

scribbling her number on the back of one of his cards. They said their

goodbyes and he pretended to need to use the restroom so he wouldn’t

have to walk with or just behind her down the long hallway after they’d

officially ended the conversation.

As he stood in the bathroom, washing his hands so at least he wasn’t

just standing there, he replayed his whole meeting with Toni in his

mind, focusing mostly on any clues that she might really be interested

in him. It took him a minute to realize she’d broken the trend and actu-

ally asked him about himself and another five minutes before it dawned

on him that he hadn’t asked her a thing about herself. Well, that would

give him something to talk to her about next time they met! Ollie

walked out of the restroom and down the long, empty hall towards the

escalators, going over in his mind what questions he’d ask Toni first.

He saw Toni around the con throughout the next day quite a bit. She

smiled and said hi every time their paths crossed, but she was always

either on the move or already in conversation with someone and Ollie

didn’t want to intrude on her time. She went to a few talks that he was

in, but usually she stood at the back, coming in late and ducking out

early. For a few hours in the middle of the day, she was nowhere to be

seen at all. He continued with his own experiment in conversation,

meeting new people and seeing who would ask him about himself. The

statistics started to even out a little, but not all the way. Two-thirds of

the people he talked to still mostly just talked about themselves. Of

those who did inquire about him, most were pretty nice, but none of

them seemed like the kind of contacts that could help him find a new

job. By Saturday night he was starting to wonder if maybe finding a

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57

lead on some new career opportunities here might not be as easy as

he’d first assumed.

The Saturday night party was held outside the convention center, at a

bar on the edge of San Diego’s tourist-friendly Gaslamp Quarter. From

experience, Ollie knew to get there early because the place was too small

to hold even half the attendees and many of the people trying to get in

would be left outside. Besides, he didn’t feel like going out to dinner

with anyone (Toni was nowhere to be found). He needed to cool down,

and calm his head. He didn’t want to go into the evening angry.

A trio of total yahoos had given a talk earlier in the day. Ollie didn’t

know them, but found their talk description, which promised “out-

standing o-days” and “mind-ripping exploits” to be tacky and probably

ridiculous. If the guys really did have anything worth talking about,

he could watch the video of the talk later. Instead he’d gone to a much

more interesting talk about the historical development of technology

and hacker conventions. It was good, and he wanted to talk it over with

some of his fellow attendees afterwards, but out in the vast hallway,

everyone was discussing the talk he’d skipped. Apparently the speakers

had revealed all sorts of alleged vulnerabilities in Firefox and Open