Counting from Zero (8 page)

Jocelyn was happy to hear a couple of stories from his trip.
 
She made him promise to call his niece Sam again soon.
 
When he hung up a few minutes later, he placed one more call to a local motorcycle dealer friend to make a few important arrangements for the week after next.

Early the next
week, Mick snaked his way through the JFK airport security line, heading to the gate for his flight to Seattle, Washington for yet another security conference, an invitation-only event for industry insiders and select
security professionals.
 
This was the first year he had been invited to speak, so Mick was excited.

In the past, Mick had found airport security lines vaguely erotic – all that undressing, dressing, removing of belts and shoes.
 
These days, though, the full-body searches by security personnel were well beyond erotic…

As long as he could remember, Mick had always loved airports.
 
Everyone there is on his or her way to somewhere exciting, or heading home to family and friends, bursting with stories and souvenirs.
 
There are welcomes and reunions by the baggage claim.
 
Husbands and wives picking each other up; the short kiss in the car perhaps just a prelude to a longer welcome home later in the evening after the children are asleep.
 
Even the sometime tearful goodbyes at the security checkpoints didn't get Mick down – often it is a place where normal emotional reserve is abandoned in favor of a decent public display of affection.
 
For some, perhaps it is a rare chance to find out how someone really feels about you, albeit as they are leaving...
 
He had all kinds of happy memories of flights between London and New York, and flights to Melbourne to visit relatives.
 
These days, he flew all around the globe for business.
 
This morning, he was looking forward to the cool air of the Pacific Northwest – Seattle was one of his favorite cities.

Through security, he camped out at his gate, waiting for the connecting flight to Chicago to board and take off.

Regardless of the destination, Mick looked forward to flying – the longer the flight the better.
 
Where else could he be guaranteed a certain number of hours of reading, thinking, and relaxing?
 
He enjoyed the lack of interruptions, unless he sat next to a talker, but then he would pretend to speak very little English.
 
He could usually finish a book on a short flight.
 
On his longer transatlantic or transpacific flights, he would sometimes go through a couple of books.
 
Despite their bulk and weight, Mick still preferred paper books
over
electronic books for his personal reading, although his friends thought he was slightly mad.
 
He just liked the distinction it made between his professional reading, which was exclusively online and electronic, and his personal reading.

Of course these days he always got upgraded to first or business class, but he loved flying even back when he always flew coach.
 
His noise-canceling headphones, used to listen to music, separated him from the world.

A few minutes later, as the plane accelerated down the runway, the overhead flat screen showed the groundspeed of the plane at 188 mph in archaic units.
 
(For Mick, these units for speed were only slightly less out of date than his favorite – ‘furlongs per fortnight’.)
 
Doing the mental math, Mick realized this was almost exactly the same as the top speed of his Shinkansen ride just ten days ago.
 
Thinking of Nihon made Mick
think
of Kateryna, which made him smile to himself.

Over the next few hours, the farms of the northeast gave way to the plains of the Midwest.

The short stopover in Chicago was uneventful.
 
Mick caught up on some technical journal reading he had been putting off.
 
In seemingly no time, the plane was circling SeaTac Airport and preparing to land in Seattle.

Having finished his reading, Mick relaxed and shut his eyes for a few moments.
 
He thought about the security logs from the web server zero
day
the previous week.
 
Besides his personal mobile and computing devices, Mick kept a couple of his own personal servers in data centers which he used to backup his files and manage his communication and mail.
 
Besides the ‘Carbon is Poison’ web server compromise, he did find another one of his servers that had been compromised and had been acting as a spambot – a spam sending robot – automatically sending out hundreds of thousands of spam emails per hour into the Internet.
 
Mick had not yet been able to figure out how this had happened.

On the ground, he caught the light rail train to his hotel downtown.
 
Mick very rarely rented cars – he almost exclusively used public transport, although he occasionally made other arrangements.

Mick had expected Gunter to attend the conference, but Gunter had announced he was staying in Europe this week.
 
Liz had corporate meetings while Lars was lying on beach in the Maldives.
 
It would apparently just be him and Kateryna.

For Mick, visiting Seattle was a caffeinated adventure.
 
He always came away wishing some other local coffee brand had gone global instead of the one that did.
 
Mick checked his location software,
then
headed for a café near his hotel.
 
It was just an average coffee house for Seattle, but it was still better than any he frequented in New York.

He found Kateryna sipping a cappuccino, and joined her after ordering an espresso.

“Mick!” she called out, looking up at him.
 
He really liked her accent, and the way she said his name, making it sound similar to ‘meek’.
 
Mick enjoyed accents, and especially loved to listen to women speak in Nihon.
 
He had a definite weakness for the sound of a southern Irish accent in a woman.
 
And of course, the every-statement-is-a-question intonation of Australian women also drove him crazy.
 
Then he wondered at this long list and whether he had some kind of aural fixation.

“Hey Kat! Long time, no see.”

“Yeah, this is getting to be a habit!”

“What are you up to?”

“Just putting the finishing touches on my presentation.
 
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?” she asked, suggestively flashing the screen at Mick.
 
He chuckled and looked it over.
 
It was a good presentation: clear and concise.
 
The views didn’t exactly coincide
with his own,
but they were reasonable and well argued.

“Very nice,” he replied.
 
“
Here’s
mine.”
 
He pulled up his own presentation, which was shorter, blunter, and somewhat controversial.
 
Mick was determined to make the best of use of this platform.
 
Besides, if he didn’t speak his own strongly held views, whose views should he speak?

“Wow!
 
You don’t pull any punches do you?” she asked, smiling at him as she leaned back in her chair.
 
“I like it!”

“Thanks!” he replied, and he meant it.

They talked for a while about industry events as the sun went down.

“Do you have any dinner plans?” Mick asked her.
 
When she said no, he suggested a few good seafood places within walking distance, and they picked one and set off.
 
Over the meal, Kateryna switched the conversation to more personal topics.

“I was looking over your CV the other day.
 
Unless my math is off, you started university pretty young, didn’t you?” she asked.
 
Mick looked up from his plate.

“Yep.
 
I was fifteen when I started at Columbia.
 
Due to my age, I was given permission to live at home instead of a freshman dorm.”

“That still doesn’t quite add up – if you are twenty-four, and have three years industry experience after completing your doctorate…”

“Well, I completed my undergraduate Comp Sci degree in three years, then my PhD in another three.”

“So you really were a
Wunderkind
?”

“Not really, I just found something I’m really, really good at.”

“When did you move out from your parents’?”

“I didn’t really.
 
My parents died in an auto accident when I was fourteen.
 
I was lucky that my sister was willing to be my co-guardian, so I lived with her.”

“I’m so sorry – I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t.
 
It seems like a long while ago.
 
I’m really lucky to be so close to my sister.
 
Even when she got married we have stayed close.
 
We have lots of relatives in England, Ireland, and Australia, but here in the U.S. we only have each other.
 
Are you close to your siblings?”

“Not really, one still lives in Romania, the others are in Montreal.
 
I’ve been living in San Fran for nearly two years now.
 
I saw you were the founder of a startup – how did that happen?”

“It came out of my research – my thesis advisor and I came up with some intrusion detection heuristics – basically algorithms that enable a business or government to tell if someone is attacking their network.
 
I thought they were fairly obvious, but they weren’t, so we patented them and founded a startup to commercialize them.

“We worked for nearly a year and had a product ready to ship when we were bought out.
 
It was the CEO’s idea to shop the company even before we launched – I was against it.
 
I made a lot of money, but the software never got deployed or used.”

“Why?”

“Well, two factors.
 
There was a competing in-house product at the company that acquired us – their management made sure our software didn’t steal resources from their group.
 
And the other was a series of patent lawsuits that competitors filed.
 
They were all bull in my opinion, and I spent six months of hell with patent attorneys, giving depositions and answering questions.
 
The net result was that I quit and I’ve been consulting ever since.
 
It has been difficult getting established, as my views are seen as somewhat ‘alarmist’ as you know, but I think people are starting to realize what is out there, and what they need to do to protect
themselves
.
 
Oh, and I just recently landed a really good consulting job that I am hoping will be the start of many.”

“Congrats!”

“Thanks!
 
I can’t wait to start it – I’m off to New Mexico for at least a week.” Mick was amazed at how much he had opened up to Kateryna.

Why am I telling her all this?

“Well, I’m very impressed – our industry could use more people like you.
 
My work must seem a bit boring and antiquated to you, but I enjoy it.”

“No not really…” Mick began,
then
catching her eye, changed tack.
 
“Well, a bit, yes.
 
But your take on it is refreshing – I’m sure you are a bit of a loose cannon in your company.”

“Loose cannon?”

“Yeah, an old naval analogy – one of your own cannons, not properly secured, can cause a lot of damage below decks, even sink the ship,” he explained.

“I get it.
 
Yes, in my own way, I guess I am a bit of a loose cannon,” she replied happily.

The conference went quickly the next day, and both Mick and Kateryna received positive feedback on their presentations.
 
Mick hardly had time to think about anything besides all the business contacts he was making.

“Are you OK?”
 
Mick asked.
 
He waited for a response from the blonde haired youngster sitting in the chair across from his.
 
Mick was enjoying a not half bad espresso at a café when he heard the boy’s head hit the table with a thunk!

“Yeah, yeah.
 
I’m fine.
”
the boy mumbled, looking up, unfocused.

“You don’t look fine…” Mick continued.
 
“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t know… Can you turn back time?”
 
Mick resisted the urge to bring up special relativity.

“Tell me what’s up,” Mick said instead, trying to encourage him.

“OK.
 
I just got this really awesome job, and it’s going great.
 
The only thing is, my boss has this new idea that he wants to 'connect with employees using social media'…” he replied, using a funny voice as he imitated his boss.

“He
friended
you?” Mick asked.