Invasion of Privacy: A Deep Web Thriller #1 (Deep Web Thriller Series)

by Ian Sutherland

  “Thought you had that job in Birmingham today.”

  “I finished it, but I’ve got stuck with another one already.”

  “Since when do you get stuck with anything, Brody? We both know you don’t have to work.”

  That riled Brody. Leroy knew full well that it hadn’t always been that way for Brody, not like Leroy whose parents had been rich enough to fund his university course, his ever growing collection of video games and his expensive social life. Brody had come from a working class family in Hertford, his father a civil servant in the county council and his mother a hairdresser. He had always been deeply into computers and the hobby became a necessary source of income during university. Initially, he did what other capable programmers did and built websites for local businesses. But it was time-consuming and mundane, it didn’t challenge his skills and the income was minimal.

  Then Brody stumbled across online poker and spotted an opportunity. He created poker bots, programs that automated playing poker hands to a standard set of scenarios that he programmed in from books he loaned from the library on poker strategies. The bots would impersonate humans in the online poker rooms, their human opponents having no idea they were playing Texas Hold’Em against a computer. Individually, the bots held their own against inexperienced players, but stronger players who bluffed more effectively, would beat his bots consistently. It was while watching a rerun of an old Star Trek: The Next Generation episode with the ‘Borg’, a collection of species that functioned as drones of a collective hive mind, that gave him the money-making idea of having his bots gang up as one. He would partially fill an online poker room with the artificial bots, leaving one or two seats free for gullible humans. He upgraded their programming so that the bots secretly shared with each other which two cards they had each been dealt, massively enhancing their odds as a group. Five bots in a poker room meant that between them they knew ten of the cards dealt from the pack, whereas the human opponents only knew the two in their own hand. Humans in these bot-filled online poker rooms had no idea what they were up against and only ever won with an outrageously lucky hand. To avoid drawing attention, Brody only let them play until they had amassed enough winnings to cover his personal outgoings for the next night. In order to fool the poker site administrators, who actively traced Internet addresses to ensure there was no collusion amongst players, Brody logged in each bot via Internet proxies located all around the world, giving the impression that the players, his bots, could not possibly know each other.

  Only Leroy had known about Brody’s secret source of funds that got him through university. He decided to ignore Leroy’s comment about not having to work.

  “This job’s different.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He clearly didn’t believe Brody. “So that means you’ll be head down and boring all afternoon and night, just like usual.”

  “Depends. I might be able to crack this in a couple of hours – if I had some peace . . .” Maybe he would take the hint.

  “It’s my day off, darling.”

  “Come on Leroy, you know I can’t work with you distracting me. And I’ve got to get this done straight away.”

  “I’m not your only distraction today, or have you forgotten?” He took a large bite of toast. “You’ve got that date later.”

  “Oh fuck. Yeah, I nearly forgot. What was her name again?”

  “I should be asking you that. Come on, bring up her profile.”

  Brody opened the dating website he’d been using for the last two years and logged in. He found the long list of matched dates and scrolled to the bottom. Leroy looked over his shoulder. Brody clicked on the bottom entry.

  “Harriet, eh? She’s nice,” said Leroy. “Well, nice for a girl I suppose. What’s that? A property lawyer. Ha! She’ll rip you apart.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a big boy now.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He pulled a doubtful expression and pointed at a framed poster on the wall. “So you’re going to introduce yourself as Brody, computer hacker, wanted in fifteen different countries!”

  Brody didn’t really like the term computer hacker. He had certainly never intended to become one, deliberately taking a Film Studies degree instead of Computer Science in order to offer him an alternative career path. And anyway, the level of technical proficiency he had gained programming computers from such a young age meant there was little he was likely to learn by formally studying computing. It was this technical prowess that gave him the taste of the financial fruits of what he could achieve with computers during his degree course. And, after graduating, he’d never really found a good use for his Film Studies degree. So, his first job was working in the IT security department of a major high street bank chain. After a few years he gave it up, having found corporate life too monotonous and the job unchallenging. He set up as an independent security consultant, completely separate from his online persona as Fingal. At one time he flipped to poacher-turned-gamekeeper and advised some of the online poker sites on how to redesign their systems to make it harder for automated bots to work effectively. As part of the assignment, he had tracked down some of the people running similar scams to his own and the poker companies had brought the police in, arresting them for fraud.

  By then, he had discovered a new completely legal source of income: Internet-based betting exchanges, where gamblers competed against each other rather than against bookmakers, backing or laying the outcomes of sports events. He developed statistical betting and laying systems for horse races and tennis tournaments, which he then automated with bots so that they ran themselves. He felt much better about them as there was no ganging up on unsuspecting opponents. It was simply his statistical betting strategy versus lots of other anonymous gamblers willing to accept his proffered odds to test whether their own betting strategy or, more often, their hunch was a better prediction of the event’s outcome. While his system didn’t win every bet, it won more often than it lost. Within a few years, the regular tax-free winnings had amassed into a fund so large that it freed him from the necessity of working for a regular salary.

  To keep him busy and current with technology, Brody branched into white-hat hacking and penetration testing services. He enjoyed the work and would gladly have done it for free but, as a matter of principle, he always charged very high rates to substantiate the value the multinational corporations gained from his work.

  In his early hacking days, he particularly relished the intellectual challenge of identifying zero-day exploits — coming up with a brand new attack vector that exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in a vendor’s operating system or application — and then publishing them so that the vendor could block the hole. More recently, Brody had found himself exposing unknown Advanced Persistent Threats — cyber attacks that employ advanced stealth techniques to remain undetected for long periods of time while they replicate themselves and carry out their work of sending compromised data back to their authors. In most of the cases large corporations, usually banks or utility companies, had hired him. Unknown APTs have no signature because they have not been discovered, and so remain invisible to traditional countermeasures. Brody usually uncovered their existence by analysing network activity to identify anomalous traffic, especially heading in the direction of known Command and Control servers. Once installed on a target system, APTs needed to ‘phone home’ to a CnC in order to receive instructions or to send back compromised data. Once he detected the existence of an APT, he then narrowed down on the infected computer and analysed the APT. Under his Fingal handle, he always posted full details on the Internet, where the anti-virus vendors would pick them up and write new signatures to detect them, foiling the malicious aims of the APT authors, all of which served to increase his credibility and infamy in the online hacking communities.

  But hunting zero-days and chasing APTs was nothing compared to the rush he got from carrying out social engineering based pentests. The buzz was like nothing else, especially when he physically conned his way into a
secure facility like he’d done with Atlas Brands that morning. He supposed that his proclivity to trick and deceive must be rooted in his nights out with Leroy all those years ago. And the combination of the two sets of skills, computer hacking and impersonation, made social engineering his true vocation in life.

  And while Leroy’s passing comment about being wanted in fifteen different countries was said in jest, there was, unfortunately, some truth to it.

  Over the years, Brody had enraged a lot of black hats around the world, many of whom were members of organised crime rings. These cyber-criminals applied their hacking skills to steal or launder money, facilitate sex trafficking of women and children, aid the smuggling of drugs and a number of other illegal activities. Brody had interrupted many of their schemes — sometimes deliberately but mostly inadvertently — by exposing many of their lucrative APTs, enabling their targets to defend themselves, anti-virus vendors to create signatures that detected their existence and software vendors to block the exposed vulnerability completely. Halted in their tracks, the black hats were then forced to devise alternative techniques.

  In the online forums, Fingal had received numerous death threats. Secure in the stealth tactics he employed to protect himself online, Brody flagrantly laughed them off, frustrating them further. All of which fed Fingal’s online infamy and strengthened his status in the global hacking community. If any of the cyber-criminals somehow found a way to track him down in the physical world, where his defences were weakest, they would exact a terrible revenge.

  Vorovskoy Mir, one of the leading Russian cyber-gangs, had become so enraged at him that they had added him to their infamous ‘most wanted’ list. They were parodying the American FBI’s ‘cyber most wanted’ website, which published the names of suspected cyber-criminals. On the FBI site, headshots and real names were provided, along with a description of their alleged crimes, aliases and reward amounts in exchange for information that could lead to their arrest (usually upwards of $100,000). On the Vorovskoy Mir list, the online handles of eight well-known hackers in the cyber-community were listed beneath blacked-out head silhouettes. At the bottom of the page were four others, but this time displaying real faces. Only they each had the word ‘ELIMINATED’ in red splashed diagonally across them. The third silhouette in the list of eight was labelled ‘Fingal’. The reward for information leading to his capture was $1 million in bitcoins, no questions asked.

  As a very visible reminder to always be careful online and mask his identity and IP address, Brody had printed off the Russian cyber-gang’s ‘most wanted’ website, blown it up into a massive poster, had it framed and mounted it on the living room wall.

  “I’m not wanted anywhere, you fool.” Brody always made light of the death-threats against him. As long as he maintained his anonymity online, he was completely safe. And so was anyone associated with him. “Anyway, Harriet the lawyer thinks she’s meeting Brody Taylor the cinema photographer, just back from shooting a Bourne Identity movie sequel in Morocco. In the UK for one night and then flying out to Rome tomorrow.”

  “Brilliant! I especially like the time limit.” Leroy laughed and then shook his head sadly. “You know something, darling. One day you’re going to repeat what happened with Mel and you’ll be completely screwed, caught in your usual web of lies, broken, lonely and miserable all over again. Why can’t you just be yourself?”

  Mel had been Brody’s last serious girlfriend, a relationship that had ended just over a six months ago. They had met via the dating site, but for once a one-night-stand wasn’t enough, not that they’d had sex on that first night. She was zany and funny. She spoke with a French accent that he could listen to all night. But the clincher was her altruistic nature. She wanted to fix the world, joining any good cause that caught her attention. She fitted them in around her shifts as a nurse in a care home. She stood outside pharmaceutical offices protesting about animal cruelty. She fed London’s homeless in a soup kitchen. She took disadvantaged children to the countryside on her spare weekends. And she helped out in her local Oxfam shop. Her relationship with Brody was the only thing in her life that was about her.

  After two months, Brody decided that he couldn’t continue the charade he’d caught himself within. He finally revealed the truth, explaining that he wasn’t a location scout, and his parents and siblings hadn’t died in a car crash. He told her about his life as a computer hacker and how he made his income from pentest consultancy assignments. She’d left before he’d even had a chance to explain that he’d concocted it all to protect her from the real world dangers of his hacking life. How he had made many enemies within the organised crime syndicates littering the underworld of the Internet, any of whom would absolutely love five minutes with him if they could somehow track him down in the real world. He had been trying to protect her; that was all.

  But the truth had come too late. Wounded, Mel had accused him of being a manipulating cheat and a compulsive lier. She declared that she’d never been so betrayed. And with that, she turned and walked out of his life.

  Brody answered Leroy’s question, “I choose to live my life this way. It’s a price I have to pay.”

  “No strings. Yes, I know. It’s just a shame . . .” Leroy faltered when he saw Brody’s glare and changed tack, “ . . . Are you going to dazzle this lawyer lady with a visit to Bromptons?”

  He was referring to the private members’ club in South Kensington, a well-hidden destination for those in the know. Brody had become a member three years previously, although he mostly frequented when trying to impress his dates.

  “Probably, but we’ll have dinner somewhere else first.”

  “Good. I’ll probably be there later with Danny.”

  In two days time, Leroy and Danny would be celebrating their fifth anniversary, which Brody still found incredible. At university, Brody had watched Leroy have fling after fling right up until the last few months, when he’d finally fallen deeply in love with a fellow student actor called Jed. Leroy had followed his new partner out to Hollywood where they both attempted to break into the movie business. Leroy’s father even cut his allowance in an attempt to bring him back to the UK to ‘find a proper job’. Leroy and Jed waited tables and eventually Leroy made a few television pilots, but none got picked up as a series. He blamed his Welsh accent and so cultivated an English one instead, which ultimately became his day-to-day speaking voice. After eighteen months, their relationship ended when Leroy found out Jed had secretly made a few porn movies. Jed’s on-camera sexual infidelities bothered Leroy, but nowhere near as much as his lowering his standards to work in the porn industry.

  Eventually a more grown-up version of Leroy returned to London, and Brody and Leroy carried on where they’d left off, but happily without the chaos of their university days. Leroy won occasional bit parts in TV soaps and stage productions, but rarely anything with a regular income. He frequently turned up on Brody’s doorstep, desperate and penniless, and Brody would put him up in the guest room for a while, before some new acting role swept him off to the latest glamorous destination.

  Five years ago Leroy met Danny while on holiday in the Florida Keys. Danny was a fellow Welshman and ran his own modest recruitment business in Cardiff, which was not quite the centre of the professional acting universe for Leroy, otherwise they’d have got a place together years ago. As it was, they managed to spend most weekends with each other, either in Cardiff or London. This time, Leroy had been staying at Brody’s for three months, but a few weeks ago Leroy had landed a part in a new stage production. It had a limited West End run and in a few more weeks it would begin a nationwide tour. And Leroy with it.

  Brody was looking forward to the peace and quiet.

  Leroy said, “Don’t worry, I’ll remind Danny you’re a big shot Hollywood cameraman. He’ll play along and we’ll make your cover story even more credible.”

  “Yeah, well make sure —”

  “Bloody hell, you pervert. What kind of weird shit are you wo
rking on?”

  Brody followed Leroy’s pointing finger to the left hand screen still displaying thumbnail video feeds from the SWY website. He recognised the dark haired girl from the Au Pair Affair feed. Only now it looked as though she was naked in the bath. Brody clicked the image and it enlarged to fill the screen. He pressed un-mute. The camera looked down from ceiling height, a wide-angle lens positioned to take in the shower, bath and even the toilet.

  The young woman arched her back, her pelvis rising above the water revealing a neat strip of black pubic hair. Hungrily, she rubbed herself between her legs, deep panting breaths coming faster and faster. The noise was tinny, echoing from the tiled bathroom walls. She lifted one leg over the side to spread herself more widely. Frothy water spilled on the floor.

  “So that’s how girls do it, then,” said Leroy through a mouthful of toast, “Seems much more complicated.”

  Brody gaped at the image, completely mesmerised.

  She reached a crescendo, panting giving way to a hoarse, guttural scream. Then a deep, contented sigh. Slowly, her lithe body retreated back under the water.

  “So this is your next job, is it darling?” Suspicion punctuated Leroy’s clarification. “Do you want me to leave you two alone?”

  Brody ignored him. SWY really was full of surprises. Pleasant ones as well. He’d already proved the site was fed from real locations. Which meant somewhere in the world right this minute, this particular girl lay in a bath having just finished pleasuring herself.

  “What is this site then?” asked Leroy.

  “It’s called SecretlyWatchingYou. Hundreds of private webcam feeds from all over the world.”

  “Secret, eh? So you’re saying she has no idea she’s got an audience?”

  Almost as if she heard Leroy, the young woman opened her eyes, tilted her head, looked straight at the camera and smiled.