Part 66 (1/2)

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These were a the skills that Miles wanted his people to have

He needed them to be fluent in not only DOS, but Unix, Xenix, VMS, Mac and a host of other Operating Systeths and weaknesses of every major O/S to fulfill his mission They needed to be able to identify and exploit the trap doors and holes in all operating and security syste standpoint, Miles found it terrifi- cally exciting Over the three years he had been working for honed software techniques and hardware tools that he didn't believe were even contemplated by his former employer, the NSA

The qualifications he sent to ho Miles wasn't convinced that anyone but he could find the proper people The interview process alone was crucial to deterrammer could easily fool a non-technical person While Miles and horammers should be isolated from each other, Miles felt he should know them more than by a coded name over modem lines Miles lost that battle with one sord from homosoto No

To Miles' surprise, within a few days of providing ho him on his com- puter To call Miles, a computer needed his number, and the proper security codes To a man, or woman, they all did And, as he spoke to them over the public phone lines, in encrypted form of course, he was amazed at their quality and level of technical sophistication Whoever Alex was, he kne to do his job

Over a period of a few rae about most of those hom he spoke They see the assigned tasks When a progran a data base, or word processor or other application prograrae coest virus software team in the world, and none of them questioned the nature or ethics of the work Miles would have thought that while there is considerable technical talent around the world, finding people ould be willing to work on projects to facilitate the interruption of communications and proper computer operations would have been the , although he did not knohy Technical mercenaries perhaps? He had never seen an ad with that as a job title, but, what the hell Money can buy anything Weapons designers since Oppen- heiner have had to face sis American, recruitment couldn't have been all that difficult

As he sat in his apartns frorammers who lived in the suburbs of Paris, France While there was soe barrier when they spoke, the coe was a common denominator, and they all spoke that fluently It broke down communications errors Either it was in the code, or it wasn't

Miles knew this designer only as Claude Claude's virus was small, less than 2K, or 2000 characters, but quite deadly Miles went over it and sahat it was designed to do Ooh, clever, thought Miles As many viruses do, this one attached itself to the Co System Rather than wait for a specific future date, the next time the computer was booted, or turned on, Claude's virus in the O/S would play havoc with the chips that permit a printer to be connected to the co, the user would hear a snizable odor of electronic burn During the time the user poked his nose around the coinary, the virus would destroy the contents of the hard disk

According to Claude, whose English was better than e to this type of double- duty virus The victim would realize that his computer needed repair and take it be fixed at his local computer shop But, alas! Upon its return, the oould find his hard disk trashed and attempt to blame the repairman Deviously clever Of course this type of virus would be discovered before too long After a few thousand coet around and the virus would be identified But, mean- while, oh what fun

As Miles prepared to send Claude's latest and greatest to another of his staff for analysis and debugging, the co to holanced over at Nip- Com He labeled all his computers with abbreviations In this case, Nippon Communications seemed appropriate

<connection>>>>>>

MR FOSTER

Miles scooted his chair over to NipCom and entered his PRG re- sponse

Here Boss-san What's up

YOU TELL ME

Huh?

I READ THE PAPERS AGAIN YOU MOVE PRECIPITOUSLY

What are you talking about?

FIRST STATE BANK YOUR INFECTORS ARE WITHOUT DISCIPLINE

I still don't knohat you mean

THE PAPERS HAVE SAID THAT FIRST STATE BANK WAS INVADED BY HACKERS AND THEIR STOCK DROPPED VERY MUCH IT IS STILL NOT TIME

Oh, that Good bit of work

NO SO MR FOSTER I AM NOT PLEASED WITH YOU

Me, why? I didn't have anything to do with it

EXPLAIN

Nothing to explain My group doesn't do that, and even if they did, so what