The Kite
by Blair Renaud © 2010
Photo source: Lucan Coutts
Kids get a bum rap sometimes. It’s like racism in chameleons. We were that colour once... Maybe just not as bright.
They call me the kite. It’s a derogatory intelligence term that basically means I’m expendable. The premise being that you can fly the kite out there to collect whatever information you need and If a storm comes on the horizon, in the form of, say a lawsuit, or some sort of criminal justice prosecution, then you can just cut the string and walk away. Plausible deniability; the kite was out there flying on its own. You had no knowledge of what it was doing. It must have been someone else’s. I’ve posed as investment bankers, recruiters for large corporations, C.E.O.s, you name it. Some might call me a con man. I prefer the term social engineer.
My latest client goes by the name of J-Zeus; an odd fellow. I know less about him than the usual suits I deal with. Payments are made in cash, usually left with a new thirty five dollar cellphone in a drop specified via cryptic text messages. Needless to say, this is not my usual modus operandi. I’m used to dealing with stuffy old white men in expensive suits climbing over each other to get some secrets: corporate espionage. Might sound like strange work, but that’s me... Well, that was me. Not much seems to be normal these days.
It’s been about two years since the law was passed making I.S.P.’s responsible for monitoring net usage for illegal activity. It didn’t seem like a big deal in the beginning. A few software pirates would have to buy the new Photoshop, a few kids would have to save up for that new DVD or the odd Video Game. Turns out to be worse than that, a lot worse... Combined with increased use of digital rights management, what we’ve ended up with is something that would make George Orwell squirm. Or maybe just say “I told ya so”, either way, that’s where J-Zeus comes in. I don’t know how he found me, but I’m glad he did, I needed the cash. He’s part of a group that call themselves the Information Liberation Front. Couldn’t google it... too risky. I never heard of them... but who knows what the I.S.P.s have flagged. I asked a few of the Japanese guys down at the arcade. They had a feel for this kind of thing and you’d be surprised what you can learn over a good game of Street Fighter.
“Ah... Leality Haka” one particularly slick looking player said, tipping his head up slightly as he jumped my fireball and kicked me in the head. I’d played him before, he always chose Chun Li. Always wore a dust mask.
“Reality Hacker?” I landed an uppercut as he stepped into me.
He winced a little. “Yeah... You know. Hacksu Leality.”
I glanced at him for what felt like half a blink, trying to read his lips through the dust mask that covered his mouth. No, I didn’t know... but I couldn’t ask more. When my eyes had focused back on the screen I was being tossed through the air like a bag of digital laundry. A shrill 8-bit laugh crackled from the speaker.
“You lose this time kyuuha. Thanks for game.” He slapped a hand over the two fives on the game cabinet and slipped the bills into his pocket before disappearing through the crowd. The phone hummed in my pocket. It was a text from J-Zeus.
go home. grab a snack. long day 2morrow. say hi to dan for me. Jz
Dan was the concierge at my condo. When I walked in he was smiling from behind the security desk.
“Hi Dan.” I smiled back.
“Good evening Mr. Harvey. Got a package for you.” He pulled a small box out from under the counter and set it on top.
“Thanks Dan.” I said, picking up the package and tucking it under my arm.
“Oh, and I got those tickets you wanted.” He slid an envelope across the counter.
“You’re the best Dan.”
“I know it Mr. H.”
I walked down the hall towards the elevators, stuffing the envelope into my coat pocket. “Tickets” was code. What he meant was warez. Besides being a top notch concierge, Dan was also one of the best dealers in the city. Apps, games, music, you name it. He could even get you real tickets if you needed them. This is the way things were done now. There was no napster, no limewire, no mininova or pirate bay. If you wanted warez you had to find a dealer, and Dan really was the best. It’s not that I couldn’t afford this stuff. It just wasn’t worth the risk in my line of business. You couldn’t just walk into a store and buy software anymore. I would have to go through an I.S.P. Listening to a certain band and preferring a certain photo editing software probably wouldn’t get me flagged, but you could never be sure. If they wanted to put you in jail for the rest of your life, it would be as easy as editing a few usage logs. A little kiddie porn here, a DRM cracker there and nobody would be the wiser. No thanks. I’ll stick with Dan. I had no connection in my condo anyway.
As I swiped the key card through the lock on my condo door, I kept thinking about the message from J-Zeus. A snack... Long day tomorrow? I miss the obvious innuendo of my old clients. I even miss their tired faces. I used to feel like James Bond. Now it was more like David Hasselhoff.
Slumping down into the nearest chair I opened the envelope from Dan and dumped the contents onto the glass table; two USB key drives and half quarter of weed. The other box said it was from Amazon, though I knew it wasn’t. I’m sure Dan knew as well. Inside it was a new prepaid phone and a single silver pouch with the words “Pop-Tarts Snack Pack” printed in bold blue block letters. go home and grab a snack. long day 2morrow...
I started to tear the metallic coating away from its equally synthetic but much more delicious center. Like a backless silk dress I slid it away from the treat beneath. The pink frosting was a dead giveaway; Strawberry. This however was no ordinary Strawberry Pop-Tart. This Pop-Tart had something to say. Etched into the pink frosting in what looked like Helvetica:
“gg. $ at the garden. Waiter will tip you at 3:03, stay 4 teh show. jz”
“gg” as I understand means “good game”. That was his way of saying thanks for a job well done. He was referring to the last job I did for him. Pretty basic work for what he was paying. A call to an ad agency fishing for a name, a call to their digital signage company using that name, a third call to a second ad agency posing as the signage company account manager and it was all done. Long story short: I got user name and password for a server at the second ad agency... social engineering. I ate the Pop-Tart and went to bed.
The Garden was a small Chinese place just off the main city square. As I finished the last bite of my Crispy Ginger Chicken and sipped my Wonton soup, I looked out the window overlooking the square. It was the last Saturday before Christmas and the streets were covered with busy consumers. The huge LCD billboards towered over them lighting the square like a disco for ants. In contrast: the Garden was almost completely deserted. Aside from myself –as far as I could tell, the only other people inside were my waiter and the lady at the take out desk. I looked at my watch: 2:59. That’s an odd feeling. Something was wrong -I looked back out onto the square. The screens had all gone black. The ants in the disco continued their dance, as if nothing had changed. But it had. This must be the show J-Zeus spoke of. There was a loud digital chirp, like the sound of an error in an MP3 file. The screens jumped back to life.
“Hello world.” spoke the voice of a child, reverberating through the streets giving it an ominous depth. On the screens the words hello world appeared followed by what I can only assume to be the translation in six other languages. The voice continued, as did the translations. “We are the Information Liberation Front. Do not fear us; for we are not terrorists, nor do we have a list of demands. We ask only to be heard. This is not a declaration of war, though a war has been declared on us. We seek only the free flow of information. This is not a demand. This is something that we already possess. We are your children. You call us Pirates. We are curious. Yet you call us criminals. We exist without skin colour, nationality or religious bias. Yet you wage war on us. This is our message: We will defend ourselves. We seek knowledge. We share information. We are the I.L.F., we are your future.”
The screens jumped back to black as the waiter returned with my change: fifteen hundred in cash. I looked up at the waiter. It was the boy from the arcade. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Come kyuuha, we have work to do”.