Endgame: Chapter 1 - My name is... - Article

With the screen resolution set to 1600 × 1200 he scours a packet dump as it displaces streams of raw data blasted from the CRT at 75Hz and then is magnified by the reflection from his glasses. He breathes a gentle mantra to himself exclaiming his superiority. “I am in control,” he states simply as he fires up his toolkit and parsing any useful data that streams past. Calmly, quietly he sniffs the ether, capturing the data from his specified target. His handle is t0rm3nt, and this is how he refers to himself in his own inner world as well as online. Off the net he is referred to by several aliases and identities; however, his real name Isaiah Johnson. Isaiah is a hacker. His current project is a NSA system, a favored target for hackers as a bragging right. He had discovered earlier in the week that one of the computers that he’d compromised earlier resided on a subnet which actually hosted an employee of the NSA who connected from his home to the internal network using a measly PPTP tunnel. Since PPTP tunnels are known for their weak security he pulled up his utilities and started to perform a Man in the Middle, or MiTM, attack against his intended target the data from which is currently scrolling across his screen. The problem is that a lot of ISPs don’t really pay attention to who is on their networks and make no attempts to protect themselves from certain attacks. In this instance the PPTP client machine is making an inquiry to the host for a connection via a DNS request to the server. With a certain program all Isaiah has to do is establish that his computer is the host by sending the client the address location in the DNS request response as his own address and then forward the data to the real host to make the PPTP hijack transparent. PPTP uses GRE for tunneling which requires no authentication and uses no encryption. The negotiation scheme for PPTP is not authenticated and MS-CHAPv2 mutual authentication cannot prevent a MiTM attack. This doesn’t really matter for Isaiah since he is in the middle and can forge the packet requests to force MS-CHAPv1 requests which are easier to crack, or he can force a password change to obtain the password hashes. Once he gets the requisite information all he needs to do is connect to the server and he’s in. With his work complete and his hack successful he goes to bed that night dreaming of the accolades he’ll receive from his peers.

Tepid streams of water course across his only outlet to the exterior world, a small window on a passenger aircraft. A quiet man in his late-twenties sits in an isle by himself. Paranoia is only a precursor to describing the inner torment that claws at his mind. “I am in control,” he mutters to himself as he waits for the stewardess to approach him for his drink order. He asks for one of the small bottles of hard liquor, which the stewardess happily produces for him and then continues about her business. Prison has been a hard experience for Isaiah to take his mind off of. Seven years in a federal penitentiary changes a man. He tries to take it as a learning experience, but his time spent there only haunts him as he contemplates his altered perceptions of reality. Today is his first chance for a new life. Getting out means freedom for Isaiah, but what can a man do after being captive for so long? He braces himself in nervous panic as the plane descends and the tires hit the tarmac. He sits and waits instead of gathering his belongings in haste to be one the first people off the plane. As he leaves the airport his first instinct is to seek out a library and hop online, but an overwhelming fear of falling into his old pattern prevents him from doing so. Instead he looks up the address for the halfway house and calls for a cab. The halfway house is a slight upgrade from living in cell, but not by much. Isaiah ponders whether the builders considered the compact living quarters to feel more comfortable after residing jail for so long. The only feature that can hold his attention though is the bed.
p(. The alarm clock blares out an incessant stream of noise begging for Isaiah to wake up. In a harsh gesture he kills off the annoyance and turns over to find the sun streaming down on his face from the window with its blinds pulled back. Slowly he gets up to shut the blinds but as he returns to the bed he realizes that he can’t go back to sleep now. For some reason his mind picks this time to let off all of his suppressed thoughts on his current situation and he has nothing to do but give into them. The stream of delirium is interrupted by the phone. He walks over to pick it up but as he does he realizes that not only has he not given out his phone number to anyone but the service has yet to be activated.
p(. “Mr. Johnson. We have a proposition for you.”

“The fucking idiots shouldn’t be using computers in the first place. The fact that they let these people on the internet is just proof that they are nothing more than a tool for us to exploit. I have no regard for their privacy, their money, nor their identities. Their inability to protect themselves leads to their own demise and no one else is to blame for their ignorance,” Jeremiah shouts at the suit sitting two inches from his face. “Survival of the fittest dictates that in order for evolution to occur there must be the hunter and the prey. Don’t hate me because I’m at the top of the fucking food chain. Just be content that in the future there just won’t be as many stupid people like you and that people like me will die away because we have nothing more to prey on.” Earlier today Jeremiah was sitting in front of his machine with the speakers pounding out a sequence of complex algorithms of pseudo-random noise that can only be appreciated by two types of people, mathematicians and punks. Jeremiah happens to be both. A normal day usually entails sitting at busy intersections and streets and using his PDA to hijack Bluetooth phones and then directing the targets to make phone calls to a private toll number at about $1.50 a minute. After accomplishing this he can collect the money to a prepaid debit card. This is Jeremiah’s idea of work. Today has been particularly bad for him as someone finally caught onto his scam ending in a significant number of men in riot gear clawing at his door. On a typical day the case is usually a solitary figure in a blue uniform approaching his door for the common noise complaints that arise from the general bludgeoning Jeremiah inflicts onto his neighbor’s eardrums via his stereo. Needless to say, a number of expletives decided to abandon ship via his mouth as he was carried away. His current place is a hard chair behind a heavy table in a concrete room with one of those nifty one way mirrors. The suit in front of him is currently preparing to hit him with the book, in the literal sense, and his partner is pretending to hold him back.
p(. “So this is the good cop bad cop routine, eh? I think its a rather poor performance on your part. I know the rules, I want my lawyer.”
p(. The door opens and two more guys in suits walk in. The first man looks like a cheap representation of an executive. As he enters the room he points two beefy fingers at the good cop bad cop team and then waggles them back at the door. As the interrogation team departs the shabby exec scowls at the remaining suit before exiting himself.
p(. “Quite a mess you’ve made of yourself Jeremiah,” says the remaining suit as he shuts the door.
p(. “Who the fuck are you?”
p(. “I’m your way out of this.”