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drewkittyI was betting everything – all the marbles, not just my own life but any contribution I could make towards beating the Mastermind – on a complex system. People, facilities, processes, programs, ideas, financing … named, in long form, “University of California at Stanford Palo Alto Hospital and Clinic System.”
When my heart stopped (I found out later – I was unconscious for all this part) – all hell broke loose. Immediate cardiac massage followed. Neural waveform analysis determined that the stoppage had been the result of an internal biofeedback command. This threw up tons of red flags. The internal chatter of my brain preceding this unfortunate event – recorded but not looked at – was swiftly analyzed. Everything I had said to the Mastermind was read back, from my own nerve impulses as I tried to get them from my brain to my (blocked) lungs.
This included the phrase, “ The prosthetic feline gambols skywards,” which I had said to the Mastermind. He had let it through, even though the normal VR “Help!” commands had been suppressed.
Not knowing what that phrase meant, the UC Stanford monitoring network searched that phrase on the public Net. It found http://chevenga.com/node/730 and accessed it.
My Net-based security ware – continuously monitoring for any search of that phrase, or any related hit on that site – found that UC Stanford Hospital had accessed that page from the Emergency Department and my lawyer was on the phone to UC Stanford Police in seconds.
“Is Mr. Anderson under duress? We have received evidence that he is and we have dispatched police and security to his physical location.”
In the event, it was not just a CHP rapid-reaction team or UC Stanford Police (the whole department!) or a platoon of the contract company I use for minor private matters – but also a full battlesuited squad of ferocious FSP Marines led by the two I had brought with me to the campus earlier that day, fangs out and hair on fire, who arrived less than ten minutes later to encamp around my bed. Metaphorically, of course – that much hardware would have collapsed the floor.
They were of course far too late. The real action was cybersecurity, not physical security, and the hint to the UC Stanford team that their patient had used a duress command was enough for them to figure out that they had been hacked. Once they knew that, it took less than three seconds of realtime to isolate the network controlling my bed, dump it to secure ROM backups with a human team standing by, let the former network think it was still controlling my medical care, and page the IT wizards UC Stanford kept on call. A few seconds later they logged yet another attempt to murder me by remote.
A gaudy death it was meant to be. All connections extended to maximum length – would have ripped me apart from within and without.
Adding insult to injury, there had been TWO hits on the duress phrase. An obscure server in Malaysia had hit the phrase through an encrypted satcom link to LEO, then the Moon, then Monrovia (in San San, not Africa).
We now had a trace – a faint tenuous electronic trace – on the Mastermind himself.
When my heart stopped (I found out later – I was unconscious for all this part) – all hell broke loose. Immediate cardiac massage followed. Neural waveform analysis determined that the stoppage had been the result of an internal biofeedback command. This threw up tons of red flags. The internal chatter of my brain preceding this unfortunate event – recorded but not looked at – was swiftly analyzed. Everything I had said to the Mastermind was read back, from my own nerve impulses as I tried to get them from my brain to my (blocked) lungs.
This included the phrase, “ The prosthetic feline gambols skywards,” which I had said to the Mastermind. He had let it through, even though the normal VR “Help!” commands had been suppressed.
Not knowing what that phrase meant, the UC Stanford monitoring network searched that phrase on the public Net. It found http://chevenga.com/node/730 and accessed it.
My Net-based security ware – continuously monitoring for any search of that phrase, or any related hit on that site – found that UC Stanford Hospital had accessed that page from the Emergency Department and my lawyer was on the phone to UC Stanford Police in seconds.
“Is Mr. Anderson under duress? We have received evidence that he is and we have dispatched police and security to his physical location.”
In the event, it was not just a CHP rapid-reaction team or UC Stanford Police (the whole department!) or a platoon of the contract company I use for minor private matters – but also a full battlesuited squad of ferocious FSP Marines led by the two I had brought with me to the campus earlier that day, fangs out and hair on fire, who arrived less than ten minutes later to encamp around my bed. Metaphorically, of course – that much hardware would have collapsed the floor.
They were of course far too late. The real action was cybersecurity, not physical security, and the hint to the UC Stanford team that their patient had used a duress command was enough for them to figure out that they had been hacked. Once they knew that, it took less than three seconds of realtime to isolate the network controlling my bed, dump it to secure ROM backups with a human team standing by, let the former network think it was still controlling my medical care, and page the IT wizards UC Stanford kept on call. A few seconds later they logged yet another attempt to murder me by remote.
A gaudy death it was meant to be. All connections extended to maximum length – would have ripped me apart from within and without.
Adding insult to injury, there had been TWO hits on the duress phrase. An obscure server in Malaysia had hit the phrase through an encrypted satcom link to LEO, then the Moon, then Monrovia (in San San, not Africa).
We now had a trace – a faint tenuous electronic trace – on the Mastermind himself.
http://chevenga.com/node/730
Date: 2024-11-22 02:09 am (UTC)