Black Hat Blues (5 page)

to themselves. Then they turn around and say to their corporate cus-

tomers, ‘Hey, we have leet hackers working for us finding the newest

vulnerabilities so we can protect you from them better than anyone else

can.’ Now the exploits usually do get released, but maybe it’s a month or

two later than it would have been. Or maybe it never gets released until

some hacker not working for a company like BountySploit discloses it.

Or hell, for all I know maybe some of them never get released at all.”

“So what’s the problem exactly?” the writer asked. “It seems like by

paying hackers to find these exploits you’re both encouraging them to

find these vulnerabilities more than they otherwise might have, and

you’re channeling their energies into legal ways of taking advantage of

their hacking.”

“That’s the company line, sure,” Chris said his lips curling up in what

he thought of as a world-wise smirk. “It’s probably even true, I guess. As

far as it goes anyway. But it’s totally against the hacker spirit and a lot of

people—especially those people,” Chris pointed down the hall towards

the open doorway where the sounds of heated debate continued, “think

that companies like BountySploit are destroying the scene. The whole

point is that we share knowledge. It used to be that the reason we’d find

exploits was as much so we could brag about being the ones that found

them as anything else. To show how smart we were. That was one part.

The other was to tweak the annoying, arrogant software makers who

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Geek Mafia: Black Hat Blues

have the gall to both charge a bunch of money for their crapware and

release it full of security holes.”

“And now it’s all getting closed up,” the writer said, glancing back at

the open door to the counter-con. “There’s less information being shared

and so it’s eroding the hacker scene’s influence as a whole. Dividing you

up and sort of neutering you.”

“Yeah, that’s one way of looking at it anyway.”

“And that seems to really piss you off,” the writer said, looking back

at Chris with what he took to be sympathy in his eyes.

“Yeah, I guess it does.” And it did piss Chris off. He didn’t like to

think it or say it out loud much though, because then he might be

forced to address some other questions he preferred to avoid.

“So why aren’t you in that room with them instead of downstairs?” the

writer said, asking exactly the question Chris didn’t want to answer.

He didn’t answer. He needed to take a dump. He needed to get back

downstairs. He really didn’t want Lor3n or anyone else from the con

seeing him hanging out here. “Sorry, I gotta go,” he said, turning his

back on the writer.

“OK, well, I’ll see you later then?” the writer asked him as he beat his

retreat towards his room.

“Uh-uh,” Chris replied, trying to be as noncommittal as possible.

The keynote went as predicted. Well not quite as predicted. There were

fewer people there than Chris would have expected—maybe only a

quarter of the registered attendees at most. The speech seemed pretty

boiler-plate, a combination of BountySploit crowing about its successes

and the good it was doing and pitching the assembled hackers about

how much money they could make working for them. There were defi-

nitely some people in the audience, including friends of his, who were

eating it all up. Chris tried to let it all just flow over him. He wasn’t

going to start selling exploits, even if he needed the money (which he

kind of really did). There just wasn’t any way he could see that as being

a good idea. And normally he wouldn’t have wanted to tell other people

what they should or shouldn’t do. Hacking was about freedom as much

as anything else, and Chris always preferred things that maximized

individual freedom. But the whole thing left him feeling a little sick to

his stomach, and he couldn’t for sure say why.

He went out to dinner with dmap and some of the other volunteers,

going for pizza and beer at the Mellow Mushroom across the street, as

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21

was their tradition. No one talked much about the BountySploit key-

note, since their crowd was evenly divided on the issue and everyone was

too tired for a big in-person debate. There was however a lot of drink-

ing and a lot of bitching about those guys who’d started UnSECZone.

Even if they had a point about BountySploit and whatever personal shit

they had with Lor3n, most of his friends agreed that having a counter

convention was a cheap-ass, bullshit move. Chris wasn’t sure he agreed

anymore, but he kept his mouth shut and kept pouring more beer into

his glass.

By the time they got back to the hotel, he hoped that the rest of them

weren’t as drunk as he was. Someone on con-staff needed to have their

shit together when the inevitable idiocy broke out in the middle of the

night and some attendee tried to do something stupid in the hotel. As

he slowly levered himself out of dmap’s back seat, he heard the sound

of yelling from across the parking lot. Maybe the stupid wouldn’t wait

for the middle of the night. The commotion seemed to be centered

around the rear entrance to the hotel, an area that had been a haven for

smokers all day long as well as offering the easiest access to most of the

parking spaces. As he approached the knot of people by the doorway,

he saw that a few of them were standing around and smoking, but that

most were clustered around a pair of large, angry, shouting men. Chris

knew them both. Tall, lanky Lor3n and large, barrel-chested Intr00d.

Since Intr00d was one of the guys behind UnSECZone (even though

he hadn’t been in the room when Chris was there), he knew what the

shouting had to be about.

“It’s got nothing to do with you, man,” Intr00d boomed. “We’re

doing our own thing, our own way.”

“Nothing to do with me?” Lor3n’s face was bright red. “You may

think I’m an idiot, but even you can’t believe I’m that much of an idiot.

Nothing to do with me? Bullshit!”

“Believe what you want. We’re just doing our own thing.”

“There’s doing your own thing, and there’s screwing up SECZone

just because you’re pissed at me.”

“We’re not the ones screwing up SECZone, man. You did that all

on your own.”

“That’s your opinion.”

“That’s a fact!”

“Fuck you, Intr00d. You’re such an asshole…”

“No, fuck you!”

Chris had reached the circle of people around the two screaming-

mad hackers. They continued on in the same vein, exchanging slurs

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and curses without really saying anything. Everyone else just watched

and, Chris assumed, enjoyed the nasty show. He on the other hand

was sick of it. Another petty argument turned into real live douche-

baggery. “They’ve been going at it for almost half an hour,” said a voice

from behind Chris. He turned to see the writer standing there, looking

concerned. “Isn’t anyone going to try and calm them down?”

“Probably not,” Chris said, turning back towards the

ridiculousness.

“They’re about to boil over,” the writer said. “Someone’s going to hit

someone.”

“Nah.” But Chris wasn’t so sure. Hell, he wanted to hit both of them

for being so stupid and not just letting everybody do their own thing.

And it wasn’t like either Lor3n or Intr00d were known for their calm,

reasonable personalities. Intr00d was inching closer and closer to Lor3n

with each spittle-laced epithet. It was getting as ugly as anything he’d

ever seen.

“Should we call hotel security or something?” the writer asked. Boy,

he sure was worried about shit for a writer. But security would be a bad

idea, because there was no hotel security—just whoever was on duty at

the front desk. So they’d call the cops. Cops would be jerks. Something

might go real wrong and it could make the papers or whatever. That was

another black eye the hacker image didn’t need. Oh hell…

Lor3n was inching forward now, too. There weren’t more than five

inches between the screaming mouths, and some jerks in the crowd

start egging them on, yelling “Fight!” and “Get him!” Idiots. Chris

looked around. No one seemed about to jump in. The writer motioned

with his chin and eyebrow in such a way as to suggest Chris should be

the one to go in. Fine. Whatever. He was tired of this shit anyway.

He pushed his way through the crowd and inserted himself right

between the two men, saying “Hey now, c’mon guys, let’s just cool it off,

OK?” But no one heard him over the yelling. Instead of calming them

down, his intercession seemed to ignite their respective fuses. Lor3n

started pushing his chest against Chris from one side and Intr00d

grabbed his upper arm from the other to try and pull him out of the

way. Jesus, what the fuck? They were both bigger than him, but they’d

been screaming for a while and he had a fresh, beer infused set of lungs

at his disposal.

“SHUT UP!” he shouted. No one did. In fact, some other people

started yelling as well, although he wasn’t sure if they were support-

ing him or shouting back. “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” he

repeated, loud enough and long enough that, try as they might, no one

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23

seemed able to ignore him anymore. Things grew quiet, aside from the

low murmurs he ignored. “Come on guys! Cut it out. Chill out.”

“Did you hear what they’re saying about me, c1sman?” Lor3n said to

him. “They’re calling me all kinda of…”

“Nothing that’s not true!” Intr00d interjected. “You’re a

goddamned…”

“SHUT UP! OK? Just shut the hell up. I’m stopping this. You hate

each other OK. Let’s all agree on that. And so you’re never gonna con-

vince the other of anything and you should just walk away.”

“We’re not stopping our con just because you tell us to,” Intr00d

said.

“What con?” Lor3n sneered. “You people are a fucking joke.”

Chris gave up. He thought about shouting them down again. No,

they wouldn’t listen. They didn’t care. Why should he? They weren’t

even fighting about the issues that were actually worth fighting about.

No one was talking about whether or not BountySploit was good for

the hacker community or how to best handle ethical disclosure. They

were just calling each other “faggot.”

“Faggot!” Intr00d hurled.

“Poser!” Lore3n retorted.

“Me a poser? That’s rich coming from you, you fucking faggot ass

poser.”

“When was the last time you wrote any code at all you bloated, cock-

sucking over-hyped tech support lackey?”

“You’re both such fucking IDIOTS!” Chris screamed, much to his

surprise. “You know what? You’re both posers. You’re both fucking

lame-ass script kiddie scene whores. You couldn’t hack your way into

your own pants. You know people and you talk big on IRC and you

make a lot of goddamned noise but I’ve never seen either of you do

anything worth talking about. So screw it all. Screw you both. I hope

this goddamned fucking hotel falls down on both of you.”

Now they both started yelling at him. The crowd started yelling

too. “You fat little fuck… right on c1sman!… you’ve got some fucking

nerve… who is that guy?… turn in your badge… you have no idea

who the fuck I am!… this is lame… hit him!… what’s going on?…”

Chris just passed through it, forcing his way out of the circle and back

towards the parking lot. Except his car keys were in his hotel room.

Along with his stuff. Rather than go back through the crowd, which

had now turned back in on itself, he decided to circle around the out-

side of the hotel to the front entrance. He couldn’t believe these idiots

could get so caught up in their own idiotic idiocy that they’d screw up

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everything so badly. All the work he’d done, and now… now… now he

was going to throw up.

He vomited into an empty parking space next to a dumpster. Then

a few steps later he threw up again, this time into an occupied parking

space. He had had a lot of beer, but now a lot of it was in the back of

someone’s pickup truck. He leaned over, hands on his knees, breathing

deep and trying not to think about throwing up again.

“Are you OK? Do you need some coffee or water or something?”

someone asked. He looked up. It was the writer.

“No, I’m OK. I just need a second.”

“Come on,” the writer said, putting an arm around his shoulder and

helping him as he tried to stand up. “Let’s get you some water, all

right?”

Water sounded good. “OK, fine. Thanks.”

“And then maybe we can talk some. I’ve got something I want to

run by you.”

Surprisingly, talking sounded good too. The only intelligent conver-

sation he’d had lately had been with this writer dude. “OK,” he said.

“Sure. But I don’t want to talk about those two jerks.”

“Neither do I. I want to talk about hacking.”

“Oh thank God, finally,” Chris said with a sigh, and leaned into the

writer’s shoulder as he led him away.