Counting from Zero (25 page)

Mick was still going through the messages when he received an anonymous
message which
read:

Mick O’Malley,

I have heard that you are working on the Zed.Kicker botnet.
 
I also happen to know that you are good at what you do, but that won’t be enough.
 
You need my help and I am willing to give it, but I’ll only communicate in person.
 
Let’s just say I have *personal* experience with Zed.Kicker.
 
To get you started, here’s a link you might find useful: http://svn.softsource.org/p2pmsg

I’ll be at the EuroSecurity conference next month – I presume you’ll be there too?
 
I’ll introduce myself and share the information I have.

Good luck!
 
You’re going to need it!

Turing

------BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

3wCcTs5TyFY1OKRAVs/s3VRT3mltmp

FFX+qhy/v9iQPDsPWKVWndBr7lseGH

T046PMOPcqbs12nViuhjL2ICgDsoHu

o82uuLrwCz5N2oq1hENnh783VB7kEw

qYD8H5KEdNyFyVeBoSig9L4zz7TTQn

------END PGP SIGNATURE-------

Mick couldn’t believe his luck: both good and bad.
 
He was being followed by the government, who had frozen all his assets and put his name on the No-Fly list
.
 
And on the same day he was able to look at actual decrypts of the Zed.Kicker network,
he was contacted by an insider, someone who could be key to him bringing down this network
.
 
But to meet up in London!
 
Not likely for him.

Mick liked the alias of his correspondent; obviously it was a reference to Alan Turing, the British code breaker and computer pioneer.
 
He followed the
link which
led to an apparently abandoned open source project on peer-to-peer message routing.
 
He noticed Turing had checked in lots of code on the project – very interesting…

He analyzed the P2PMSG source code, and excitedly set to work reading the decrypted messages.
 
He quickly figured out the syntax or structure of the messages, a simple TLV, short for “Tag Length Value” encoding.
 
With further analysis, he confirmed the messages were indeed botnet control messages, used to coordinate the activity of the individual computers.
 
And as he suspected, the botnet was very, very large.
 
One of the messages seemed to contain an order of magnitude estimate for the size of the peer-to-peer botnet network, which he deduced was a power of 2.
 
In this case, it was 2 to the power of 24 or over sixteen million hosts!
 
Mick took a deep breath, realizing this was the biggest botnet ever documented on the Internet!
 
It was no longer surprising to Mick that these messages accounted for such a large percentage of spam traffic.

Unable to focus on anything else, Mick went back to the garage to the motorcycle.
 
He hated leaving a job undone, and needed some time to think.
 
Mick needed a plan, and a good one.
 
By the time he was torquing up the last few bolts the cylinder head
,
he had a plan
.
 
He had decided to tell no one.
 
It would mean some lying to his family, friends, and even Kateryna, but he was determined.

The next day, Mick made his preparations.

He got out a prepaid mobile phone with a data plan that he had purchased with cash and activated a few months ago.
 
He removed the SIM card and noted the serial number of the phone.
 
He then removed the existing SIM card in his mobile, reprogrammed the serial number to match to the other phone, then put in the new SIM card.
 
He carefully destroyed the other phone to be sure that the serial number could not be retrieved from it.
 
Anyone trying to track his phone would be out of luck now!

He wondered whether he was going rogue, or just being overly careful...

As darkness fell, Mick packed a few things in a backpack and rechecked the 9ØØss.
 
He had run the engine on the dyno the previous day to ensure the rings were properly seated.
 
He made a voice call to his sister and talked for quite a while.
 
He told her he would be busy on a new project for the next few weeks.
 
He ended by saying he was going to bed.
 
Instead, he dressed warmly and went out to his workshop.
 
With the lights out, he opened the door silently, wheeled the 9ØØss outside, and put on his helmet.
 
Closing the door and locking it behind him, he looked out into the drizzling skies, which glowed brightly in the city lights.
 
The wet streets would make this a little more difficult, but he would manage.

Mick fired up the engine and roared off down the street.
 
In his mirrors he saw a dark sedan start up and pull out behind him.
 
He accelerated up to fourth gear, running two stop signs before turning right and heading uptown.
 
The sound of squealing tires told him his pursuers were not far behind.

A car pulled out from a parking space in front of him, forcing Mick to swerve the Ducati, but he kept upright.
 
A garbage truck ahead was blocking the road as it was loaded.
 
As he approached, he spotted a side street and turned left sharply down what turned out to be an alleyway.
 
Ahead he saw a stack of wooden pallets that had collapsed blocking the alley.
 
He made a split second decision not to stop, but instead picked a spot where the pallets were piled in a rough ramp.
 
As he approached, he lifted the front wheel off the ground in a wheelie, and braced for impact.
 
His front wheel cleared the pile but his rear wheel made contact, throwing the bike into the air.
 
He absorbed most of the impact with his knees, and pulled up on the handlebars to keep the front wheel up.
 
He landed on his rear wheel and stuck the landing.
 
He slowed to a stop just in time to see the following car plow into the pallets and come to a halt.
 
Mick smiled,
then
took off again, spinning the rear wheel on the wet pavement.

Mick took an unusual route to the Lincoln tunnel, keeping his speed down to avoid attracting attention.
 
But once he entered the tunnel towards New Jersey, he let loose the ninety-degree L-twin engine and opened the throttle, mostly riding along the line dividing the two lanes as he passed cars left and right.
 
He prayed he would make it out before the far end could be closed.
 
He approached the motorcycle’s top speed of 204 km/h as he exited the tunnel, the engine screaming just below
the redline
.
 
He could see police moving into position, but he was already past!

Making a sharp left turn, he was soon on the back streets of Hoboken.
 
He pulled up outside his storage unit, unlocked the padlock, and rolled the bike inside.

Glancing up and down the street, he closed the door and set to work.
 
First, he removed the gas tank and the side pods.
 
From another bike won in a recent auction still in a shipping crate, he removed the same components and put them on the 9ØØss.
 
The silver paint scheme was not as nice as the original bright red, but that was, after all, the idea.
 
The replacement parts mounted with just a few minor modifications.
 
He transferred the fuel from the old tank to the new.
 
The final step was transferring the Arizona license plate from the other bike.

Next was a short walk to a nearby outdoor outfitter to buy a complete set of warm clothes.
 
Back at the storage unit, Mick took off all his clothes and put on the new outfit.
 
While the risk from RFID trackers in the clothing was minimal, Mick wasn’t willing to leave anything to chance.
 
He strapped two heavy panniers to the bike, put on the backpack, and set off riding south.

I’ve definitely gone rogue…

Part II

Chapter 18.

Board Members:

I understand from your reports that the plan is moving forward.
 
I have a few issues that I will address.
 
I expect immediate action on these items.

Timeline.
 
We will need to move up our timeline since UBK has involved the U.S. Government.
 
Our insiders inform us that an inter-department task force has been created to deal with the threats.
 
I need a review of possible scenarios with potential outcomes by next week’s meeting.

P2PMSG.
 
Not unexpectedly, Turing has shut down the P2PMSG open source project when the reason for our interest in it was discovered.
 
My opinion is that Turing does not represent a significant threat.
 
We have made many changes to the source code, and it is protected by layers of encryption, and hidden under volumes of spam email.

O’Malley.
 
It appears that he continues to investigate.
 
In fact, our attempts to marginalize him may have motivated him further.
 
In addition, we have word of a meeting between him and the U.S. Government.
 
It is possible that he is now working for them.
 
It is unlikely that he poses an immediate threat to our operation, but he is dangerous because he seems very adept at putting together the pieces of the puzzle.
 
It is a priority to find him and take him out.

In summary, we need to continue to execute.

The Chairman.

Chapter 19.

Mick O'Malley
– loves fresh fish.
 
(Ø comments)

Halfway between Charleston and Antigua, Mick took a break from coding and stretched his arms and legs.
 
He glanced down at his GPS, noting the speed with satisfaction – 11.6 knots – pretty good considering the light breeze.
 
Mick made an exception in this case for archaic units, as knots, or nautical miles per hour, are used the world over for water speed.

It was a clear and sunny day on the Atlantic Ocean.
 
The catamaran, a twin-hulled, single-masted yacht, was making excellent progress sailing to London, England.

Mick had told everyone that he wasn’t attending the EuroSecurity conference, saying he was just too busy.
 
Only Kateryna knew the real reason he had cancelled.
 
Mick was worried that Turing might hear that he wasn’t coming and give up on making contact, but he tried not to think about that, and instead chose to believe that Turing would still expect Mick to show up somehow.
 
He looked forward to a surprise appearance at the conference, and no one would be more surprised than Kateryna.

Four days had passed since he first read the mails from Mathison and Turing.
 
Two of those days had been on land, while the other two had been spent at sea.