The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella (14 page)

'We should call ourselves the Cyber Defense
League,' one of her colleagues wrote. 'We're going to be like a
super hero group fighting for the rights of humankind.'

'No, Cyber Defense sounds like terrorists,'
another protested. 'I don't want to sound like terrorists.'

'Maybe the People's Army,' another offered.
'Because we are fighting for the people.'

'I like a combination, Cyber Army,' another
weighed in. 'We're defending cyber rights. We are fighting for
cyber freedom.'

Apex looked up. For days, she had been
advising her friends in the clandestine online world to be aware of
the accelerating plans related to building a global surveillance
and online tracking system. She did not give the COSA name for fear
the word would leak out and alert FedSec that the idea was being
circulated. But she encouraged her isolated colleagues to think of
their profession as leaders in a defense force against planned
government trampling of their privacy and civil liberties. Any
cross-border negotiations or business plans aimed at globally
unifying online tracking of individual activity were fair game for
their list of suspicious government operations.

Separately, she organized the COSA documents
to provide the background material her group would need to move
forward. Unlike Julia and Marco, her friends would have to operate
completely out of public view, preferably out of all views. But to
stealthily manage together, they would need their own parallel
online communication system, one not connected as a sub-layer
within the current Internet, which people called the Dark Net, but
as their own functioning independent infrastructure connected only
when necessary to the public Information Superhighway. They would
need to use narrow virtual paths allowing one-way access to the
Internet but no way back. Their portals would also have to be
impenetrable to government searchers by virtue of invisible doors
to which only they would hold the keys.

'To do this we'll need money,' Apex thought.
'But how can we raise money without being noticed.' Within a minute
she thought of Carter but quickly dismissed the consideration. 'We
are on opposite sides now,' she mused. 'He has succumbed to the
demands of his government overseers and his help is unlikely to
materialize in this fight.' Almost on cue her phone buzzed, and she
looked down to see Carter's number reaching out to her as he had
almost every waking hour since they had parted. Reluctantly she
answered.

"Yes," Apex guardedly said.

"Finally," Carter responded, exasperated,
before quickly leveling his voice to gentleness. "How are you? Are
you all right?"

"Yes I'm fine."

"Are you still in D.C.?"

"Yes."

"Are you coming home anytime soon?"

"No."

"C'mon..."

"Why would I come home? I have work to do.
Many people are galvanizing against your illegal intrusion
plan."

"It's not my plan. Are you telling
people—"

"No. Not the details, only the general idea.
I'm asking how we would prepare for the possibility."

"What are people saying?"

"Basically, we need our own internet,
completely separate from the official one where we can communicate,
trade ideas, even surf public Internet sites if we want. But in our
world, no one's private data would be tracked for any reason. No
one would be able to analyze your surfing history and determine
which cereal to sell to you before breakfast."

"Sounds cool."

"Yes I agree."

"But?"

"Well you know...the usual issue, who's
going to fund our intentions?"

"Who indeed?" Silence fell over them.

"Under normal circumstances, I would have
asked you to contribute."

"What are normal circumstances?"

"You and I lying in bed and talking about
our hopes, plans and dreams for the future."

"You can have that anytime you wish, just
say the word."

"I can't have my desire while you are in bed
with your government friends. That would be too crowded for my
tastes."

"They are not my government friends."

"Who are they to you?"

"You know as well as I that I was asked to
participate in a project of sweeping implication," Carter stated,
his voice evenly strained. "When they pitched the idea to me, I saw
an opportunity for my companies to weigh in on the basic security
and infrastructure options that will govern our lives for decades
to come."

"Sounds fabulous," Apex flippantly
responded.

"You know as soon as I realized they were
going to implement a global surveillance and tracking system,
without succumbing to the rule of law or democratic vote, I told
you the nightmare I saw coming and I encouraged your initial
response to fight back."

"Yes you did."

"When I told you the other day this first
phase was lost, I was being realistic. I'm not trying to sabotage
you. I want you to realize the challenges you're up...we're up
against. A couple of federal civil servants have aligned with
global businesspeople and co-opted the extensive resources of the
government, and in some cases, the world, to satisfy the
requirements of their own plan. Marco, Julia, and the rest of them
are running a private covert operation. I doubt this incredible
depth of subversive behavior by government cabinet members has ever
existed before. They have their own version of national and
international security and they were able to move quickly. But you
have flexibility and freedom and brainpower and you can move
quickly too."

"What are you saying?"

"What would it take to build our own secret
communication system?"

Apex was stunned. "You'll..."

"What would it take?"

"The physical infrastructure is
straightforward, server farms and satellites. But everyone will
want access to the public Internet without being seen. We'll have
to create the software for our required functionality."

"Do you know who could create the
software?"

"Besides you?"

"Yes. I do not have time."

"Okay, yes I think I know who could do the
coding or at least a few people who would try."

"Can you design a viable physical
footprint?"

"Yes."

"Okay let's make a plan."

"Carter, I..."

"This should be a fair fight between people
and their government. The process will likely take years but I want
to do my part to level the playing field. And I'm guessing there
are a few others like me who would be interested in the same
opportunity to help."

"You're..."

"I know, I know, when am I going to see
you?"

"I'm on my way home."

"Good."

"I love you."

"I love you too. Go design a secret internet
for us and I'll see you soon."

*

"Hello Carter, sorry to bother you but I
wanted to follow-up on a point from your security report," Marco
said to Carter over a secure communication line recently
re-developed for the offices at Horizon.

"Sure go ahead," Carter directly
responded.

"Were you able to tell who owned the
original flash drive and had access to the files before it was
given to Dallas Winter?"

Carter did not change the inflection in his
voice as he bluntly lied, "No the investigation did not uncover any
origin evidence. Why?"

"Julia's paranoid about some chatter from
overseas."

"What kind of chatter?"

"Some hacker circles are talking about an
idea sounding suspiciously like COSA."

"What hacker circles?"

"These are people State is tracking. Some
are talking about a government idea that sounds like our idea."

"Is the chatter part of the same leak at
Horizon, Marco?"

"To be honest, I don't know. But these
hackers have a lot more information than Dallas had on the flash
drive."

"Is their chatter about material stored at
Horizon?"

"No, not completely. Hackers are hackers
they could have picked up the information from anywhere. Any one of
our sponsors could be vulnerable."

"This is unbelievable."

"Look since you say we cannot trace the
original source of the flash drive files, we can do no more except
keep monitoring this situation and see where events go."

"Monitoring? What are these hackers
planning?"

"We don't know."

"Any ideas?"

"No. What about you? Any ideas about what
they could do?"

Carter was surprised by the question, but
knew his myriad ideas were actual facts he could never reveal to
Marco. "If they know about our plans their idea will be to sabotage
COSA. They'll try and figure out how to hack us, that's what
hackers do, and they'll go for the usual viruses and bugs."

"You think that's all they'll do."

"Sure, what other options could they
have?"

"I don't know. I mean, I guess you're right.
They're too independent and dispersed to actually organize a
coordinated response against the physical infrastructure. But
considering all the trouble they went to, I was thinking their
actions might be more dramatic."

"How?"

"Well they've got brainpower but no
organization. A bunch of guys in Russia, a few more in India, a
couple in Silicon Valley - all of the talent to fight back but no
common platform or approach. One advantage we will always have in
this war is the inability of our enemies to function as a unit. We
may get hit by one rogue technologist or another but I doubt the
attacks would ever be in any prepared fashion."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Carter
supportively responded. "How could independent technologists figure
out how to get together?"

"They would need a communication system we
could not find."

Carter laughed. "Imagine. Probably
impossible to cooperatively and independently build their own
operations."

"Of course it's impossible. Would cost them
billions and they would have to hide the infrastructure from us.
The functionality we're building is designed to avoid that very
outcome...they are out of luck."

"Most likely. But are you prepared for the
one-off guys you mentioned."

"Oh sure, those are the guys we are dealing
with all the time. Of course we keep getting burned, but we're
getting better. By the time our system rolls out, we'll be way
ahead of them."

"You think so?"

"I know so. Rogue technologists are not
going to catch us once COSA is up and running. Terrorists with
bombs are not the only people we are looking for. We have to catch
the online guys too. We will absolutely deploy COSA to neutralize
their options against us. When we are set-up we'll be able to trace
every digital signal and there will be nowhere to hide."

"That's the plan?"

"Yes certainly."

"Sounds good Marco, you guys are really
ready."

"As ready as we'll need to be."

*

"I wish I could put a drone on her 24/7,"
Julia complained to Marco. "We need to know who she has been
talking to." Dallas's second article about how a sharing economy
website company for private room rentals was working on addressing
the issue of racism in booking acceptances, had segued into an
analysis about whether race and gender bias could be coded into
online ordering websites. Several Internet companies had vehemently
complained the suggestions in the article could not be attributed
to any existing software. But civil rights groups equally protested
the government needed to immediately formulate legislation to
prevent the re-establishment of Jim Crow online.

Marco turned the front-page newspaper
article over in one hand while scrolling through the social media
traffic displayed on his smartphone, with the other. The story was
quickly blowing up in all corners with speculation as to whether
Silicon Valley could implement a segregation agenda. He shook his
head as he realized Dallas was challenging him to proceed on his
threats. "I'm sure she was not intending this response," he said,
downplaying his angry emotions.

"Yes she was. She's trying to create a story
where none exists. She's trying to force us to tell her the details
behind those policy files."

"I think she's writing about issues that are
already out there. The space sharing company raised the racism
issue as their problem. She did not create the idea. A couple of
their executives were on some public discussion panel and brought
up the difficulty based, I guess, on reported incidents."

"Were they prompted to bring up these
incidents? Maybe by the threat of the story coming out another
way?"

"I don't know. I mean, not that I know
of."

"I wonder. She managed to exploit a
completely separate issue to fit into her agenda about the document
she had read. She's playing us, Marco."

"I don't agree. But what do you want to do
about her actions?"

"If our law enforcement drone protocol was
in place, I'd be following her with a camera right now."

"I think she would notice."

"Not in the future we're planning. In our
scenarios, once unmanned aerial vehicles are used everywhere, my
surveillance drone would be one of hundreds in the sky. The
machines would be overhead all day delivering packages, assisting
emergency rescue, handling manual labor, and gathering close up and
detailed information for weather and the news. The rules will be
straightforward. With our technology protocols, automated drones
can be flown in any public space provided the machines are
automatically tracked, noiseless, broadcast a unique signature, and
are equipped with sensors to detect humans, birds, buildings, trees
and other objects. And commercial drones can be any shape or size.
Once civilians accept daily use, having drones as operational tools
in law enforcement will be routine."

"The plan for law enforcement drones
involves a lot more human rights issues."