Counting from Zero (14 page)

Mick spotted the men checking in.
 
He ducked inside a souvenir store and purchased a baseball hat and a bulky sweatshirt that had some joke about cow tipping printed on it.
 
He put them both on, pulling the cap over his eyes.
 
He positioned himself near where they would walk to get to the security checkpoint.
 
The two men walked away from the counter with their boarding passes in hand and their bags slung over their shoulder.
 
He made for the taller of the two, keeping his eyes on the ground.
 
As he bumped shoulders, he made sure he knocked the papers from the man’s grip.

“Blin!” the man shouted.

“So sorry, y’all!” Mick mumbled in an awful southern accent, picking up the papers.
 
The man ripped them out of his hands and caught up with his friend.
 
When Mick looked up a moment later he had a grin on his face, and a name to go with a face.

So Pavel Michalovic, you are on your way to Atlanta today…

Back in the parking garage, he made two calls.

“Hello, yes, I’m considering making a change to my reservation…
 
My first leg is Albuquerque to Atlanta on flight 829…
 
Pavel Michalovic…
 
Yes, the second leg…
 
Right, Frankfurt.
 
I was wondering if there are any flights to Amsterdam…
 
I see, that’s OK.
 
I can take a train I guess.
 
Thank you.
 
Oh, and could you look up my frequent flier number for me?
 
Yes… got it.
 
Thanks, you’ve been most helpful.”

Mick hung up the phone.
 
He searched another number and dialed again.

“Ah, yes.
 
I’m hoping you can help me.
 
I just dropped off my rental car and I think I left my car charger…
Albuquerque… about twenty minutes ago.
 
Yes… yes.
 
Pavel Michalovic…
 
I don’t have my agreement number – can you look it up?
 
Great thanks…
 
OK, you’ll let me know?
 
And could I get the agreement number from you?
 
Wait!
 
I just found the charger – never mind.
 
Thanks.”

More good information about his pursuer…
 
He circled back to the rental car lot and retrieved the tracker from the car.
 
When disengaged from the metal car body, the GPS tracker went dormant again to save battery.

All the way
back
to Los Alamos, he thought about the men.

Who were they?
 
Did they think that threats would make me back off?

The mention of his private keys confirmed the link between Zed.Kicker and the forged email.

How did they steal my private key?

He wondered whether he should mention it to Vince and decided against it; he didn't want to complicate his investigation.
 
By the time he went to bed, he almost felt he had imagined the whole thing, although his ruined pants and soreness of his leg contradicted this.

The next day he awoke with an extreme soreness in his thigh.
 
Mick rode back to Albuquerque to catch his flight.
 
Despite his mood, Mick was determined to stop for a few hours to explore Petroglyph National Monument, on the western side of the city.
 
It took him a few minutes to learn to recognize the petroglyphs, but once he did, he could spot them everywhere on the trails.
 
He also spotted a few rattlesnakes sunning themselves in the late morning air.
 
Many of the petroglyphs were recognizable as animals or geometric shapes, but others looked a lot like aliens, which made Mick wish he had time for a side trip to Roswell.
 
He looked forward to sharing his impressions and photos with Kateryna.

Back at the motorcycle store, Mick saw the pained look on the face of the mechanic as he parked the bike.
 
Considering what it had been through, the Scrambler was in pretty good condition, but it did have dents and scrapes, and both the front and rear fenders were deranged.
 
The owner offered to do a little bodywork and painting on the frame before crating and shipping the bike back to New York, which Mick agreed to.

Mick mainly slept on the flight back to the city.

Chapter D.

From the
Security and Other Lies
Blog:

What is the difference between a keylogger and a Trojan? Can I protect my computer against them?
 
BohemianRaptorD

This is a great question, BohemianRaptorD.
 
Although often associated with each other, keyloggers and Trojans are different things.
 
A keylogger or keystroke logger is a piece of software or hardware that records and logs the keys typed on a computer.
 
Think of it as a keyboard ‘bug’ if you like.
 
They are a great way to spy on someone, as you can find out everything he or she types, from emails, web site addresses, to credit card numbers, passwords, etc.

A Trojan is a piece of software that hides another piece of software.
 
Usually, a Trojan appears to be something useful or benign, while the hidden software is some kind of malware.
 
For example, you could download a piece of software that installs without your knowledge a keylogger on your computer.
 
There was a famous case of fake virus scanning software that actually installed viruses on the unsuspecting computer!
 
The Trojan is named after the Trojan horse of Homer’s Iliad - the wooden horse used to sneak soldiers inside the walls of Troy, resulting in the destruction of the city by the Greeks.

The best way to protect against both is to be careful what software you install.
 
I never install binaries, which could contain anything.
 
Instead, I download the source code, inspect it and check the signature, then compile it myself.
 
This way, unless there is some very, very clever programming going on, I know everything that is happening on my computer.

A hardware keylogger is a device that is attached to a keyboard of a computer.
 
To install one requires physical access to your computer.
 
An attacker could open up your computer and install the device in minutes.
 
You need to keep control of your computer to prevent this.
 
Periodic inspection also helps, as long as the device is identifiable.
 
For example, I’ve read about keyloggers built into firmware chips.
 
The attacker just replaces an existing chip with one that looks identical on the outside but has the keylogger built in.
 
I suppose you could mark or put a seal on your chips so you could notice if one has been swapped out.
 
Another option is to weld or seal your computer case closed so that an attacker cannot easily open it up.

Keyloggers and Trojans also tend to go hand-in-hand with rootkits.
 
A rootkit is software that hides the fact that your computer has been compromised.
 
Otherwise, you might discover right away that your computer was compromised, and you would get the malware removed or cleaned, and the compromise would fail.
 
Rootkits are particularly insidious pieces of software.
 
Thinking about them sometimes keeps me up at night...

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Chapter E.

Mick O'Malley
– is having a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction.
 
(12 comments)

Mick was back on an airliner just over a week later, but this time no shipped motorcycle was waiting for him.
 
Instead, he stood in what appeared to be the world’s longest taxi stand line, which was, fortunately, also seemed to be the world’s fastest moving taxi line.

He had spent the week back in Manhattan healing from his adventures in New Mexico.
 
He ate healthy food, exercised, rode his motorcycles, and felt life returning to normal.
 
Still, in the back of his mind, he was on the lookout for what would happen next.

He hadn’t found out very much more about Michalovic.
 
He had discovered he was a Serbian national, here on a tourist visa.
 
Michalovic’s destination beyond Frankfurt, Germany was unknown.
 
Otherwise, Michalovic didn’t seem to exist.

From his window on the plane, Mick had watched Las Vegas appear out of nowhere in the bleak desert.
 
His flight circled to the north and west of the city, in the direction of the Nevada Test Site, used for atmospheric nuclear testing during most of the cold war.

Mick was only out of the jet way for a few seconds before he saw and heard the airport terminal slot machines – strategically placed for those just stopping over or those who didn't get quite enough gambling done on their visit.
 
Despite multiple visits, Mick was always freshly amazed at the efficiency of Las Vegas – the efficiency of separating people from their money.

Much faster than he would have believed, Mick was in a taxi speeding towards his hotel on the strip.
 
Mick was in Vegas for another Internet security conference.
 
This conference was not his favorite, but it always had the best turnout since it was held in Vegas.

Mick was giving a tutorial at the CIO (Chief Information Officer) Expo that was co-located with Mick’s security conference.
 
He was lecturing on botnets, a topic that was becoming increasingly of interest to Mick.
 
Up on a small stage in front of a crowd, Mick spoke with his slides projected on an enormous screen behind him.
 
He finished his lecture with a summary:

“… So having covered the history and evolution of botnets, I want to leave you with a few sobering thoughts about their future.

“Botnet code is not written by amateurs, so-called ‘script kiddies’ – the stereotypical fourteen-year-olds who copy script source code from the Internet and launch attacks.
 
Professionals write botnet code.
 
There is an industry built around botnets: from the generation of new exploits and attacks, managing, or ‘herding’ of the compromised computers, known as ‘zombies’, to the collection and transfer of revenue.
 
These companies often have the support and protection of foreign governments.

“The threat of botnets is like nothing else we have ever experienced on the Internet or on our corporate networks.
 
Sophisticated botnets are harnessing the computational power of potentially millions of computers, effectively operating as a supercomputer.
 
Their ability to wreak havoc on the global Internet should not be underestimated.
 
Here are some of the things they could do:

“Denial of service attacks to take out entire networks, countries, or even the root servers of the Internet.

“Surveillance and espionage.
 
Zombie computers organized in a botnet, operating
inside a corporate firewall
or
inside a government office
spying on you… your own computers turned against you without your knowledge.
 
And it is not just about documents and files.
 
Built-in microphones and cameras can be activated and made to stream information covertly to any part of the globe.

“Weapon of war.
 
We already have documented cases of botnet cyber attacks being used as part of conventional warfare.

“Economic gain.
 
Botnets can be used to manipulate markets, influence trading, and disrupt global supply chain management.
 
They could be used to cause recessions or even depressions.

“A tool of organized crime.
 
Botnets can allow criminals to extend their extortion, racketeering, and judicial influence schemes to a global scale, while completely covering their tracks.

“This might sound alarmist to you, but I assure you that each of these is already happening today, albeit on a limited scale.
 
With sophisticated botnets, the power and destructiveness of these threats is greatly magnified.
 
It is not a question of if these attacks will happen, but when.