Spyder Web

27

Spring’s arrival was not only apparent in the weather, but in the attitude of Ann Arbor’s inhabitants. The student body let out a collective howl and took to the outdoors for recreation and a change of study venue from the libraries and dorm rooms they’d occupied for the last seven months. The academic year was nearing an end and a sense of new beginnings filled the air.

Nolan Kilkenny guided his freshly washed and waxed 1968 Mustang into the parking lot of the MARC building. The Acapulco blue pony car glistened with a finish that seemed almost liquid. It still had the magic for turning heads on the street and garnering whistles from passersby. Kilkenny parked next to the Grin’s faded yellow VW microbus.

‘Morning,’ Grin called out from the VW.

Kilkenny switched off the Mustang’s engine and set the parking brake. ‘Having a little morning tailgate, I see.’

Grin sat in the open door of his van with his legs dangling out. Kilkenny could see a thin layer of mud covering his hiking boots.With one hand, Grin held out a well-worn canvas tote bag. ‘Nothing but Mother Nature’s finest. Have a taste.’

Grin’s harvest contained a variety of nuts, wildflowers, and berries, some of which Kilkenny had a difficult time identifying. ‘Did you get all this tromping around in the Arb this morning?’

‘Naw, it’s still early in the season, though I did find a few goodies out there. Most of this comes from my favorite bulk munchy store. My little nature walks are pretty much for the soul until mid-May.’

Kilkenny dug into the bag and pulled out a handful of dried fruit and nuts.‘I’m looking forward to harvesting that strawberry patch near my grandfather’s barn.’

‘Just remember me when that crop comes in.’

‘Will do,’ Kilkenny agreed as he bit into a dried apricot.

Grin and Kilkenny ate quietly, enjoying the earlymorning calm before the working world forced them indoors. Kilkenny pulled out a thermos of juice from his workout bag, splitting the last two cups with his friend.

As the clock approached eight, the MARC parking lot began to fill with other employees, including Nolan’s father. The elder Kilkenny parked his red Ford Explorer nearby and walked over. ‘Morning, boys, I see you’re enjoying the sun on this glorious day.’

‘You bet. Care for some organic munchies?’

Sean peered into Grin’s bag and, finding nothing that he could identify as food, returned it. ‘No thanks.When you have your heart set on a chocolate cream-filled doughnut, granola just won’t do. Actually, to change the subject, have you had much luck tracking those strange signals on the network?’

Nolan shook his head.‘Not much, but Grin and I have a few theories about what’s causing it.’

Grin picked up on Nolan’s lead. ‘It’s really a strange phenomenon. For the past few weeks, we’ve been picking up this intermittent signal traffic. It’s like someone’s on the line, running inside our own transmissions. It might just be some signal rebounding that we’re getting over Nolan’s high-speed data line, but I haven’t been able to nail it down yet.’

Nolan drained the last of his juice and snapped the cup back on the thermos bottle.‘Fortunately, when Kelsey designed this experiment, she anticipated that we might want to monitor performance at various points in the process for troubleshooting and fine-tuning. Grin and I plan to check the signal traffic at several different points to see if we can isolate the source of the anomaly.’

‘Sounds like a reasonable plan,’ Sean agreed. ‘Are these signals dangerous to any of the other equipment?’

Grin shook his head. ‘No, not that I can see. The signals are low-voltage ones, like the rest of our communications traffic, so we’re not dealing with a power spike that could do some real damage.Nolan’s processor seems to be fine, same with the Cray. I’d write something like this off as an open data connection to the network, but there aren’t any that I can find, and campus sure hasn’t billed us for any time. It’s just one of those strange puzzles that drives you to solve them just for the sake of solving them.’

‘Well, you boys can keep chasing these anomalies as long as it doesn’t interfere with our project schedules.’

‘It shouldn’t, Dad. Grin and I are going to spend a couple hours this morning jury-rigging a laptop to act as signal filter on our network lines. When it pops up again, we should be able to isolate it.’

‘Sounds like a good plan, just don’t let it turn into a sacred quest. I’m speaking from experience in dealing with obsessive problems,’ Sean Kilkenny admitted with an embarrassed smile. ‘I recall once that Nolan and I nearly tore down my Jaguar because of this annoying rattle. It turns out that I took the car out only on sunny days, when I’d wear sunglasses and set my regular ones on the dashboard. My own glasses were rattling right there in front of me, in plain view. I couldn’t believe it.’

Kilkenny and Grin spent the first few hours of the morning jury-rigging a laptop computer to act as a signal filter for monitoring the network lines inside the MARC lab. When they finished, a bundle of thin wires fed out from a port in the rear of the laptop to the network switchboard at the base of the Cray. The duo then returned to their regular duties, waiting to see if the anomaly resurfaced.

‘Nolan, you got a second?’

Kilkenny saved the file he was working on and turned toward Grin’s station. ‘Yeah, what’s up?’

Grin tapped on the network diagnostics monitor. ‘Our anomaly has returned, and I’m up to my eyeballs with something over here. Can you try to pinpoint it?’

‘Sure thing, boss.’

Kilkenny tapped the space bar on the laptop and brought the portable computer out of its energy-saving hibernation.

The laptop passively scanned each of the network lines, much like picking up a second phone to listen in on a conversation. The first signal Kilkenny locked into was the internal communications line between the Cray and the optical processor. A window popped up in one corner of the flat active-matrix color screen displaying the same information currently shown on the Cray’s monitor.

‘Well, that one’s my project.’

Kilkenny instructed the monitoring program to filter out the first signal and to continue scanning the remaining lines. The next few lines were either unused or carrying network updates, which appeared as intermittent signal traffic, but not the type of anomalies that they were experiencing. Kilkenny moved on to the next line, which displayed a system log-in screen for an underground Ann Arbor Web server.

Kilkenny just shook his head in disbelief. ‘Guess what, Grin? It looks like some hotshot is using the university’s network to surf the Net.’

‘You’re kidding me. I wonder how that got bounced all the way up here.’

‘Well, I’m going to isolate the line so we can trace it back.’ Kilkenny filtered the line from the network bundle.

‘Hey, Nolan. That squirrelly signal we’re chasing just disappeared. You want to check that line again?’

Kilkenny switched the line filter off and on several times, and each time the mysterious signal reappeared and then disappeared.

‘Well, it looks like this is our anomaly,’ Kilkenny agreed. ‘I thought for sure we’d find something echoing across the line from the optical processor. Still, it seems strange that campus would route a signal up here; we are a little out of the way. In any event, Kelsey will be happy that her processor isn’t causing the problem.’

Grin walked over and sat beside Kilkenny. ‘I’ll be damned. How’d he tickle an outside line from campus?’

‘I take it that that’s not supposed to happen very easily?’

‘Hell no, or we’d have every student with a modem logging into the network and making long-distance calls for free.’ Grin leaned back in his chair and grabbed the phone off the lab bench. ‘Outside lines are accessible only to the system administrator. All other communications are regulated within the network. If this isn’t Carl, the people down on campus are going to be very annoyed.’

Grin dialed the number of his counterpart at the university’s Main Computing Center, Carl Moynes. The phone rang several times before Moynes’s deep voice filled the receiver. ‘Computing Center.’

‘Yo, Carl. Grin here up at MARC. We’ve got a little problem you might be able to help us out with. You got a few minutes?’

‘I’ll make the time,’ Moynes agreed cheerfully. ‘What can I do for you, old buddy?’

Grin punched a button and switched the phone into speaker mode. ‘Carl, I’m putting you on the speaker so my compadre Nolan Kilkenny can listen in.’

‘Fine by me,’ Moynes replied.

Grin smiled; Carl Moynes was a good man. ‘We’ve been tracking a peculiar signal on the network lines for the past few weeks, a real odd one.We originally thought it was something rebounding from that new processor we’re testing.’

‘I’ve been reading about that, a very radical piece of hardware. How’s that going anyway?’

‘The processor?’ The question caught Grin off guard. ‘It’s fine, but back to our problem.We wired up a signal skimmer so we could take a look at what’s passing over the lines, and we’ve found something that might interest you.’

‘Do tell, old friend, do tell.’

Grin interlocked his fingers and cracked his knuckles. ‘Carl, are you or any of your fellow computer gurus currently logged into the Warlocks of Doom?’

‘I’m surprised that you would make such an accusation.’ Moynes’s denial was deeply sarcastic.‘You don’t think that our fine upstanding group of computer scientists would utilize the university’s property for their own personal amusement, do you?’

‘Never in a million years,’ Grin responded flippantly, ‘but seriously, we’re sitting here watching someone log into the Warlock server over one of your outside lines.’

‘Give me a second and I’ll bring up the system status on that end of the network.’

As Grin waited for Moynes to check his system, Kilkenny leaned over and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘What’s up?’

Kilkenny angled the laptop toward Grin. ‘See for yourself.’

The hacker had broken into the Warlock server and was using it to access another phone line. They couldn’t hear the modern dialing tones, but the screen told them that the intruder was passing to yet another computer system.

The Spyder had successfully navigated through the U of M’s network hardware, where it opened an outside phone. A week earlier, it had observed a hacker intrusion, via the Warlock server, into the university’s network. That experience taught it a new means of reaching the outside world. The hacker’s intrusion was successfully blocked by an observant system administrator. Unlike the hacker’s attempt, each of the outside connections made by the Spyder was virtually undetectable. The Spyder also left no trace of its presence on the network’s system logs.

Late the previous night, the Spyder had uploaded its latest acquisitions to Roe’s E-mail address and downloaded its new instructions. Its current target was the Chrysler Corporation. An automotive engineer, currently pursuing an MBA at the university, had unknowingly taught the Spyder how to access Chrysler’s computer network when she logged on from her office at the Auburn Hills Tech Center. Recent news indicated that Chrysler was poised for a major push into alternative powered vehicles, and Parnell wanted inside information on the automaker’s financial structure, suppliers, and engineering data on their electric-vehicle systems.

Kilkenny watched as the hacker’s phone call was received by the next computer. The laptop’s screen cleared and the main log-in screen for the number-three automaker appeared in vivid color.

‘This guy’s busting into Chrysler,’ Kilkenny announced. ‘Carl, can you cut him off?’

‘I hear you,’ Moynes’s voice answered through the phone’s speaker. ‘I’m looking into it from our end, but I’m not showing anything active. Which line is he running through from your Cray?’

‘I’ll check.’ Grin ran back to the Cray’s operator station and began furiously issuing commands to the supercomputer. In a few seconds, the machine responded with a full report on current system activities. Everything appeared normal, with no network lines currently accessed.

Grin ran back to Kelsey’s lab. ‘Carl, I know somebody’s out there, but the Cray’s telling me that we don’t have any user lines open between your system and mine.’

‘This is very weird.’ Moynes sounded puzzled.

Kilkenny was checking all the diagnostic points from the laptop when he found something. ‘Hey, guys, the hacker is physically on line five leading out of the Cray. Carl, how’s that match up with your switchboard?’

‘Give me a second and I’ll check.’

Grin and Kilkenny could hear Moynes flipping through pages of a systems manual, looking for the physical addresses of his network connections. Normally, he would be able to track any network connection through his system-administration programs, but this intruder forced him to doubt what his computer was telling him.

‘I got it,’ Moynes’s voice boomed over the speaker. ‘Let’s say we bounce this guy off the system.’

‘Easy, Carl,’ Kilkenny replied. ‘We can’t just blast this guy. We’ve got to be a little more subtle.’

‘Fuck subtle,’ Moynes growled back. ‘I say we kick his sorry ass off my computer.’

Moynes was justifiably angry, but Grin knew that Kilkenny was right.

‘Hold on, Carl. I think I see what Nolan’s getting at. If we blast him, he’ll know he’s been tagged.’

‘And what’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing, unless you want to catch the bastard,’ Grin explained. ‘This guy’s not one of our harmless student types, exploring the system.He’s a pro who’s just entered the Chrysler Engineering Projects Library.’

‘If you don’t want me to pull the plug, what do you suggest?’ Moynes replied bitterly, taking his system’s violation personally.

‘Cut him loose,’ Kilkenny explained, ‘but make it look like a maintenance shutdown. Issue a warning that the network’s integrity has degraded or something.’

Grin nodded. ‘Yeah, make it look like there’s a system failure that requires a full shutdown.That way, our hacker won’t know he’s been spotted.’

‘I can do that,’ Moynes agreed, ‘but taking down the whole network will tick off a lot of people.’

‘Carl’—Grin’s voice was calm and steady—‘it’s your call, but consider this: Whoever this hacker is, he’s good enough to punch through our network without either of us ever seeing him. Hell, it was dumb luck that we stumbled onto him at all. We have an obligation to try to catch this bastard, but we can’t do that unless we’re ready the next time he passes through. If we spook him now, he may never come back.’

Moynes relented. ‘That’d be just fine with me, but I see your point. I’ll start crashing the network. The boss is going to have a stroke when she hears about this.’

The intruder rapidly passed through the file indices of Chrysler’s engineering mainframe. A moment later, a message from Carl appeared across the bottom of the screen, warning of an imminent network shutdown.

‘Message received, Carl,’ Kilkenny said. ‘Our hacker is shutting down.’

The Chrysler screen vanished after the intruder logged off. A few more quick keystrokes and he was out of the Warlock server.Grin’s jaw dropped when the screen filled with the live image of Moynes’s system-administration screen.

‘Our unwelcome friend is in your sys-ad program. It looks like he’s playing around with the logs.’

They could hear Moynes punching keys to bring up the information on his computer. ‘I don’t see a thing from my side. You sure?’

‘It’s right here in front of me,’ Grin assured his colleague. ‘He’s going after the network accounting logs.’

‘Shit! What the hell is he doing in my computer?’ Moynes was furious as he scrambled through his network files looking for the hacker. ‘He’s locked me out of the logs. I am not a happy camper!’

The laptop screen went blank and Grin slumped back in his chair, disappointed. ‘He’s off the network.’

‘I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pissed! In five seconds, I’m going to have an office full of angry users, topped off by a short-fused boss who’s going to wonder why I brought the whole network down.’

Grin understood his friend’s anger — the situation was a lot like finding a burglar in one’s home. ‘Carl, it had to be done.We’ve got a dangerous player out there who’s running fast and loose through our network. That’s bad business for all of us, and I’m sure your boss will understand. We’ll back you up all the way.’

‘I’d hope so, since I have no proof that any of this happened.’ Moynes sounded a little calmer, but not much.

‘Actually, you do have proof. The laptop we’re using recorded most of this hack, including your heroic system shutdown.’

‘Grin, I feel like I just threw myself on a grenade.’ Moynes’s anger seemed to be dissipating, but his mood was still foul. ‘Speaking of grenades, my boss is coming down the corridor, and she doesn’t look happy. Gotta go, guys.’

‘Call if you need us, Carl.’

‘Thanks, Grin.’

Moynes’s line went dead and Grin switched the humming speaker off. ‘Well, that was fun.What do we do for an encore?’

Kilkenny pulled the optical-disk cartridge from the laptop’s external drive. ‘I think it’s time we reported this incident. It may not seem like much, but we’ve just witnessed a crime.’

Later that afternoon, Nolan and Grin sat in Sean Kilkenny’s office with two agents from the FBI’s Detroit office. The agents took their statements and toured the computer lab. Despite the fact that computer crime was a serious offense, it didn’t always get the same treatment from the law-enforcement community as bank robbery and drug trafficking. The FBI agents were polite but non-committal until Nolan replayed the intruder’s penetration of Chrysler’s computer network.

‘Do you have any questions?’ Nolan asked as the computer screen went blank.

‘Can we have a copy of that disk?’ Special Agent Ullrich replied. ‘I’m sure our computer lab techs would love to watch this guy in action.’

‘Already done, Agent Ullrich,’ Grin said as he handed over a duplicate diskette.

Ullrich slipped the diskette into her briefcase with her notes. ‘Thank you.’

‘I appreciate your coming out here,’ Sean told the agents, ‘but what should we do about this situation?’

‘There’s not much that can be done, sir,’ Ullrich replied.Her answer wasn’t a dismissal of their complaint, simply a matter of fact. ‘Our only hope is to catch this individual in the act. Special Agent Harbke and I are experienced in dealing with these types of criminals, and, believe me, it takes time to build a case against them.’

‘Most of our successful prosecutions are the result of turning a hacker against his own ring,’ added Harbke. ‘Unless there is some physical evidence of the crime, we’re stuck. Your disk is a start, but it doesn’t mean a thing until we can tie it to somebody. I think you handled this situation correctly. This hacker is using the university’s network to cover his tracks. Since he doesn’t know you spotted him, odds are he’ll be back.What I’m going to suggest to my superiors is that we obtain the necessary warrants to trace your network lines during one of these intrusions.’

‘I don’t think that you’ll have any problem with MARC or the university with regard to the line taps, Agent Harbke,’ Sean assured her.

‘We usually don’t in situations like this.’ Harbke smiled. She knew from experience that high-profile victims of this type of crime were normally very helpful. ‘In the meantime, please keep monitoring the network for any further intrusions. The more information we have about this hacker’s methods, the better chance we have of catching him. Thank you for your time today, gentlemen. I’ll contact you as soon as we get the warrants.’

After escorting the FBI agents out, Sean Kilkenny returned to the lab with Grin and his son. ‘When I got up this morning, I had no idea that I would spend the better part of my afternoon with the FBI. I still can’t believe that somebody just waltzed through our network so easily. If this hacker is behind the anomalous signal you’ve been chasing for the past month, I don’t even want to think about what he’s gotten away with already.’

‘At least we’re onto him, Dad.’

‘Actually, we’d still be in the dark if you and Kelsey weren’t studying every little burp that processor of hers makes,’ Grin admitted frankly. ‘If it was just little old me in here, I very much doubt I would have spotted this guy. Our hacker’s got a real nice touch.’

‘Grin’s right — we were lucky to have discovered this guy at all. Whoever it is doesn’t know that we’re onto him yet, and that’s the only advantage we have right now.’

Sean moved to the next item on his mental list of concerns. ‘Is Kelsey’s processor secure from tampering by this hacker?’

Nolan thought about his father’s question for a minute, going over in his head the optical processor’s linkages to the MARC network. ‘The processor itself is well insulated from the network, so this guy can’t get a direct feed into it, but all of our project data is stored on the mainframe. Good thing Grin is religious about backing up the system. I don’t know what I fear more, though — having this guy steal our work or vandalizing it.’

‘So much for a victimless crime.’ Sean sighed. ‘Boys, I want you to cooperate with the FBI fully on this matter. Stopping this hacker is now your number-one priority. We are an information-based concern, so we can’t afford to have some criminal punching holes in our security. Do what it takes to nail this person.’