Hacker School Trilogy

by Allan R. Wallace

  “We want a Hacker School because I don’t even trust myself. Think of thousands of people like yourself that are hacking for human rights. You can stop me, or anyone else that seeks personal power to abuse. You can protect the abused.”

  “How?”

  Jake puts his hand to his forehead and rubs slowly. “We don’t know yet. I’m hoping you, Jane, and a few dozen others will start looking for answers in that computer room. If you can find a starting point for eliminating any of the man made evils that afflict our planet your efforts will be worthwhile. I hope for more,”

  “I’m ready; I don’t trust anyone with power. Let’s fight for human rights. I’m sick of people like my parents being treated worse than property.”

  “Amen. Let’s go eat dinner.”

  Chapter 7

  Jake, Jane, and I are walking along the edge of the lake. We need some down time for discussing our ongoing work. Penetrating the hidden computer is a fun challenge. So much time has been spent cracking in we haven’t taken time to analyze what we’ve learned.

  We’re doing okay; we now know it was called a massively parallel system. Tens of thousands of computers like we are familiar with hold hands to run one huge program. The programs we’ve found are not pleasant. It’s not nice to contemplate a society that needs to quickly decide *which cities to nuclear bomb second if our first attempts at annihilation of another society fail.* No wonder they hid in caves.

  Even after talking with Jake I'll never accept humans believed the slogan frequently printed on these cave walls; “I'm a proud slave of the United Collectives of America.”

  After talking it over with the Admins, we’ve killed the control systems for thousands of long range rockets. We even burned most “delivery systems” in their silos where they sat. But what they called a payload may still be there. We can’t even be sure some did not ignite their nuclear warheads when destroyed. Our bits of science say no, but what do we know? The complexity of such systems led to the errors of the dieoff. We do know if an army or weapon exists, eventually it will be used.

  We, as simple humans, decide it’s best to risk atomics on an isolated military outpost while the world is still un-crowded. There are sure to be stockpiles and delivery systems of this and other powers we have not destroyed. We can only do what we know to do.

  We don’t even know if the information we found is a lie. Who needs thousands of nuclear rockets? Jane thinks maybe one in ten is armed, the others decoys and bragging rights. If someone wants to take out an enemy’s nuclear capability, give them a lot of empties to shoot at and hide the few needed to destroy a society. If you want to make people happy, tell them you're disarming, and then occasionally destroy a few empties. We don’t know, they didn't tell their human drones.

  Our access to the parallel system is through what was called the gate keeper. It’s a single computer of massive power, which Jane and I can program. We have no need for a massively parallel system; our basic questions aren’t that monstrous. What we need is information. Our next step is to release the parallel system from its controls so we can give discreet computer access to each Hacker School student.

  Jake turns toward us, touching his ear. “Don’t act alarmed, but one of our sentries has spotted a small group heading toward us from the woods between us and Condor. Bill has them in his sights, but we will have to greet and deal with them. To get the most of our advantage in having a sniper we can’t keep walking away from him.”

  Jake looks at me. “Char, we'll follow your lead. Bill has called for help. Backup will be here in about ten minutes, let’s delay action if we can.”

  We turn around and slowly walk back the way we came. Jane and I look at each other. Jake answers our unasked questions. “Jane is like me, well trained in combat sports; in fact she was a champion in her area. Char studied books and videos, and has fought many dozens of serious real world fights, often against multiple opponents. Jane, in our training we put in long hours learning how to defend against, or not seriously injure, our fellow dojo students. Char has been attacked where she had no choice but to kill, defense is not her strength. She is the most dangerous of us three. For all of us, our minds are our greatest weapons. We are better armed than our enemies no matter what ordinance they carry.”

  They come out of the woods toward us. Five men, four with hand held blasters, and one at the front with a laser rifle slung over his shoulder. Behind them are maybe fourteen women, their bruises and sores covering more of their bodies than their rags. There is one boy, maybe fourteen or so, hanging back with the women, he’s unarmed. One women, obviously better fed than the others and with fresher but torn clothing is weeping and being comforted by another. The others just shuffle along with their heads hung down.

  The one with the rifle appears to be the leader. “You folks look well dressed; this will be a good week. Don’t any of you men shoot anyone. You know why we want the girls whole. We may have to use some fire to get that big guy to tell us where he hides his gold, but we want him alive to talk.”

  Jake starts to step forward, and the brute king shouts at him. “Don’t move unless I tell you to, or we’ll blast your legs, you won’t need them again anyway. You girls come from behind him. Nice. After me and the men are done with you maybe we’ll give you to the boy. Walk up to me nice and slow, I want to enjoy this.”

  Jane and I don’t need to look at each other; there is no way we can delay until backup arrives. I hope Bill can get one for us, he may not know Jane, but he knows what I’m about to do. We walk forward slowly. “Leave my sister alone,” I say drawing his attention “I’m the one you want.”

  “I’m getting both of you” he says and reaches toward Jane. I kick the side of his knee in passing and Jane uses his reaction to the pain to break his wrist, by then Jake has him and we are past into the other guys. One goes down before we reach them, good for Bill. They still want us girls uninjured for their play time. My two get broken enough to not function, and I jerk my head toward the others to break the tunnel vision of combat. It’s over; the boy held back with the women, he just stares.

  Folks from my city of birth wouldn’t understand what follows. Maybe they do by now, my parent’s city was conquered. It’s not a civilized world we live in.

  Jake calls the boy off to the side. It looks like Jake has a small blaster burn on his leg from a near miss. He leaves Jane and me with the huddled women. One of the brutes is obviously dead; Bill’s shot was well aimed; the blast hit right in the snipers triangle between eyes and belly button. I pull a belt knife from one of the pirates and hand it to the lady in the torn clothes that was being comforted. Probably a farmer’s wife, and maybe recently widowed by these men, she knows what to do. Soon all five men are gelded by their victims, even the dead one. There may be a sloppy knife thrust or two, I don’t notice. Jane quickly left to join Jake. I help the ladies gather anything of value from the battle scene. We leave the dying men there and head toward the woods where the ladies say there are more stolen goods. Our backup arrives, they got here fast.

  After Jake has talked to the boy and gotten his story he comes to me and gets the women’s story. They confirm the boy was a ranch hand. The boy is not real clever so the thugs brought him along to do the grunt work the starving women couldn’t handle, like chopping down trees for a road block. The ranch is three days behind them, at a slow pace. It wasn’t burned as the pirate chief thought they might go back. A big place, with bunkhouse and a large country home; he pictured it becoming a king’s headquarters -- a new country’s capitol.

  I imagine since we broke his country’s laws we’re evil; and since he was going to claim us as subjects we’re condemned revolutionaries. I don’t bother going back to ask him. Political philosophy doesn’t really interest me.

  Bill will arrange to get the women quickly back to the ranch, along with a wagon of goods left in the forest. After medical treatments and lunch, Bill’s first order of business is showing the women how to use their newly acq
uired blasters and rifle. They know how to use a knife. He doesn’t have to argue about the need to be armed. Unless you carry a soldier in your purse, you need to personally stay ready. Evil does not engage in protracted pushing matches, it goes immediately for the victory. As they just saw, violence usually happens in less than a minute.

  We will send regular help until they get settled; they’ll take the boy. They want us to send them any stranded women or children we come across.

  Having seen what girls can do the women are suddenly aware of their own power. To help restore their self image, Jane and I volunteer to spend a week teaching them offensive defense. Human rights can be supported by more than code alone.

  Chapter 8

  Jake laughs painfully as he points at his now treated blaster burn. He'll be hurting for weeks. “The guy snapped a shot at me even as you two were ripping into their ranks. Once his chief went down he was worried about my size from a distance instead of your greater threat close by. You girls did well.”

  Jane is pale and shaking lightly. I tell her “I still remember my first fight where someone died, it was awful. Close death is seldom pretty, and always so final. Some soldier was attacking my mom at the bottom of the stairs. I jumped off the balcony and was lucky to break his neck instead of mine. I helped my mom to secretly carry his body into the woods and bury it. I cried for days. When I was cried out my Mom told me what Jake just said. ‘You did well, that’s the most we can ever do. Do what you think is right, and do it well.’ Then she prayed with me.”

  “I know Jake believes and prays, will you pray with us Jane?”

  Jane is now crying, but she nods. We stop right there and pray. It’s at least ten minutes later when we resume our walk home.

  Jane saw what happened. Her face is pale but her voice is strong. “Jake, if Char and Bill hadn’t been there you would’ve been tortured to death and I would be dead or wishing I was.”

  Jake nods agreement, and starts ticking off points on his fingers. “We need to be more careful, hide ourselves better, have better surveillance, and not wander around unarmed. Do you have anything else? I’m sure we can add to the list later.”

  Jane’s voice is insistent even if it’s still shaky. “We need to offer all the older kids in hacker school combat training.”

  Jake’s forehead creases with concern. “You and I have had that, it wouldn’t have been enough.”

  My turn “Not combat sports training Jake, Jane means real fight training suitable to lone hackers or small teams. The guys that abused those women were not playing for points. Sometimes it’s going to seem like hackers against an angry world. Self-defense against someone that won’t play fair means you’ll lose. To lose against evil is to die. Self-offense or escape is necessary for survival against evil.”

  Jane explodes with a single word; “Right!” She gets rigid after her outburst, then continues quietly. “Start the small kids on tactics, strategy, and avoiding conflict. Once we are confident of a student’s self control we can show them how to buy time to run. Our technical advantage may let us give ourselves cover fire as we escape. Like Char did to the pirate leader, a quick disable then move on.”

  Jake frames what we've said. “We are not an army, ethical hackers will always be outnumbered and out gunned. When I say ethical hackers, I mean hacktivists on the side of human rights.”

  I explain my rule one, making it general. “There will come times hacktivists can’t escape or win a physical battle. Ethical hackers should know how to make taking their lives or liberty as expensive as possible. If we are to die; let’s try to take a despotism with us.”

  Jake looks at me “Where do we start?”

  “We seem prepared for the average nut marching his excited followers toward us. We need to be trained for people that watch in anger, observe our patterns, and find the best place for lurking in the shadows with a blunt object. These people won’t strike until they are confident enough to have decided where or if we will be buried. If we hesitate we die or are captured. We need to be ready to act if they surprise us. Better, we need to discover them as they plot. We need information.”

  Jake starts calling Jane and me his junior admins. Hacker School is filling up; we now have over three hundred student hackers using our monitors in the Great Room. We’ve found out these work stations were called dumb terminals because they don’t have their own computing power. We’ve made them all initially hook up to Mister Gatekeeper, and he shunts them to an assigned computer ripped from the parallel system. Jane and I have set up dozens of gatekeepers using smaller computers. With three hundred hackers playing with code, we need lots of access points and backups.

  It started as a joke. We started attacking top student’s computers while they worked. Wow. Talk about screams. Soon everyone is doing their homework, or attacking us or others. Student time on computers doubles. Admin Jake calls us into the office. Condor now has five admins and a dean, only the dean isn’t present. They are all frowning. “Jake leads off. Young ladies we need to have a serious talk.”

  Jane and I glance at each other, she swallows big time, and I probably do something just as noticeable to her.

  Admin Peter looks like he’s been eating prunes, “You have disrupted our entire plans for this school.” He gets a little grin, and then starts laughing. All the other admins, including Jake, break down too. “I can’t keep this up. In fact I’m having trouble speaking it’s so funny.”

  Looking at Jane I see her smile by reflex to other’s laughter, but her forehead is wrinkled trying to figure out what’s happening. Me, I’m frowning, I can feel it on my face.

  Jake looks at the other admins, shrugs his shoulders, and turns to us. “Congratulations. You’ve turned a bunch of insecure children, brilliant as all children are I might add, into a single tribe of hackers. They are consumed with learning more so they can get an advantage in their data stealing sneak attacks or cyber warfare defenses. We will keep giving classes, but now they know why they want to learn. They want to beat you at your game.”

  We stay quiet as other admins jump in with praise for our sneakiness and nasty tricks.

  Admin Peter has his breath back. “Jake has called you his junior admins, now its official. You’ve been getting the same 1/20 oz of gold per week as the other students for incidentals and treats. You both save most of it. Now you are getting an additional ounce a week, and another ounce will be available for hacking expenses. If you need more, ask. You work for Condor, but only if you accept this offer. Of course you will have to keep up your work as students too.”

  Admin Shelly gets to the point. “We’ve established both an outside pipe and a connection to a satellite that still works and others are using. We want you to create segregated systems that each month’s winners of your cyberbattles can use to steal real information. You two can use it anytime. Our students are now ahead of any hackers we know of; let’s get them to confirm it. You want information, go get it.”

  Our first order of business is something Jane and I have talked about, hardware. A cute guy named David is teaching kids how to hack equipment. We recruit him and his students to make custom hidden units like my tronics. I wouldn't have believed it. He improves my personal tronics when I help him disassemble it to show its secrets. Hacker School hacktivists will soon build their own cool tronics. Hardware hacking is important too.

  Hacker School teachers and the admins enter the hack attack and defense game. It’s the only way to stay up with the students. This starts to get wild; Jane and I are close to being overwhelmed. We talk to Jake and add a “benefit” to winning the monthly cyberwar: Winners get to help us attack and defend against the other players.

  Jake has dug up some pre-chaos games that dealt with empire building and are strategy based. Some students get hooked on those, or develop their own games. We discover there are many types of hackers; sometimes they make good teams for reaching toward a goal. Different games help students learn their strengths, weaknesses, and where th
ey fit best in the hacking world. Our libraries grow quickly as we harvest knowledge from around the world. We now have over 800 students, from orphans at four or five up to me, about to graduate when I turn twelve. I’ll stay at Condor, but now I’ll get to choose my realms of study for myself. I guess I've learned basic reading, reasoning, and rhetoric.

  I fall into a trap. I think admin set it for me, it’s too perfect.

  One of our professors starts a class by teaching about e-proms, electronically programmable chips. A temporary program that remains alive when the computer is turned off. It’s storage that works with a computer’s operation. E-proms can be easily programmed, erased, and have a new program loaded. He’s talking firmware, my specialty. I can’t help but correct him, or amplify a point. I will probably confuse you by my simplifications; I could talk about this for days. It’s easy for me to state this wrong if I make it too short. Sorry for any errors. Firmware is fun.

  Anyway, the professor asks me to be quiet for a moment; maybe I’ve confused him too. He gets on a private device and calls someone. He argues. He’s interrupted by an all call. “All students, faculty, and computer related personnel report to the assembly area.” Happy to escape the professor leads us out the door.

  It’s a beautiful day outside. The assembly area is a man made amphitheater, built into a hill, that faces the lake. We exit the tunnels right by the seats, never to be seen except from the water or sky. Sitting on grass covered terraces while listening to music or a speaker is a pleasure, unless the event lasts too long. The mind can’t absorb more than the seat can endure. Jake signals me to join him at the front of the theater; I shrug to my class mates and join him. “I understand you were lecturing your professor on firmware.”

  “He doesn’t understand how versatile it can be, but I couldn’t explain that in a short time.”

  “That’s what he said. So take your time, as much time as you want” Then he signals me to be quiet just as I’m ready to question him. “shh”

  Admin Shelley Stands at a podium and marks a note with her stylus that appears on large screens set up to the sides of the stage.