by H. L. Wegley
Crashing noises and the clatter of rolling rocks erupted below.
From down there the goons couldn’t possibly peek.
Jennifer grabbed his hand, squeezing tightly. “That sounds close. Are we still OK? They aren’t—”
“We’re doing fine,” he whispered. “They’re not tracking us very well. In fact, it sounds like they’re moving away from us, to our right.”
Soon it would become much harder to see any tracks. Eventually their trail would disappear.
They would hide, and the goons would seek in vain.
At least that’s what he planned.
Lee hadn’t planned the events of the previous twenty-four hours. Accidentally wandering onto the turf of terrorists, evil could envelop one before one was even aware of its presence.
Though it seemed like everything happened in the last day, in reality, the roots of this deadly drama went back more than four months. From the roots, a story grew. It was a story he would never forget. But he had two questions.
How long would the story last?
And how would it end?
2
November 15, four months earlier
“It’s insane!”
Lee pounded the desk with his fist, knocking his outstanding-performance award to the floor. When he swiveled his chair to pick it up, his gaze caught the brass nameplate on his cubicle wall, Lee Brandt, DEDS System Architect.
It sounded impressive. He thought so, too, until his boss at National Aerospace, Barry Lafferty, had made the announcement a few minutes ago. The Digital Engineering Data System, DEDS, was about to become the Digital Engineering Data outsourced System.
As Lee grabbed his award, Dave Rothermel, a fellow worker on the DEDS project, stepped into his cubicle. “Did I just hear the word, insane?”
Lee studied him.
Dave’s pursed lips replaced his usual smile.
“Yes, it’s insane.” He used what he intended to make the catchphrase of his evangelistic campaign to save the soul of the project.
“If it’s any consolation, I agree with you, Lee. That’s partly why I intend to move on.”
Of course, Dave would bail. Like all hard-core programmers, Dave’s work philosophy was simple, write code, or shrivel up and die. Writing specifications and doing acceptance testing—that was not Dave.
It wasn’t Lee, either.
“Other than being insane, what’s your take on the outsourcing of our system, and what do you intend to do?”
“For now, I’m going to stay and try to prevent the management of National Aerospace from selling national security down the drain.”
Dave frowned. “Isn’t that a bit melodramatic? I’m leaving because I want to write code, not functional specifications. Why all the gloom and doom about national security?”
“We have everything from publicly available data, to proprietary data, and even classified data. Of course, we maintain separate commercial and military environments for the system, but we can’t give Bangalore Business Technologies access to all that data.”
“No, we can’t. But we’ll define all of it for them in the functional specs.”
“My point is…that’s not enough.” Lee’s voice sounded harsh, even to himself. “You can’t develop a working system—one that is so data-driven—from only a specification. To test their code, the BBT developers will need the actual data—all the data anomalies for all categories: National Aerospace proprietary, NOFORN, ITAR, and some of the classified data.”
Dave shook his head. “We won’t put that data in the development and test environment. We might dummy it up, but we’ll never give them the real stuff.”
Lee clenched his teeth. “Not until all heck breaks loose, like it’s sure to do when the new DEDS fails acceptance testing. Do you know where the system is going to break, Dave?”
“Probably while trying to process some of our weird proprietary data on the commercial side, or the classified-data anomalies when we host the system on the defense side of the house in their environment.”
“You got that right.” Lee shook his head and stared at the floor. “When the pressure is on to fix the problems”—he looked up into Dave’s face—”what do you think will happen?”
“What else, the CEO will get involved—you know…to rescue the contract—the insane contract that was his idea, as was his misguided outsourcing initiative.”
Lee stood. “And that’s when security will take a backseat to expediency.” Lee stepped towards Dave, and his voice increased in volume to somewhere between forte and fortissimo. “There will be security breaches…mark my words!”
Dave stepped back. “Lee, I know you’re frustrated. But you need to be careful, or you could lose your job.” He paused. “But you’re right about security. Two of our competitors were hit with fines and penalties last year for security infringements on outsourced systems, ones that went to offshore firms.”
“See what I mean.” Lee’s voice dropped a few decibels. “It’s insane.”
****
Lee started preaching the gospel of insanity to anyone who would listen. A few days later, when he verbalized his catchphrase to a reporter in the parking lot, it appeared on the front page of the area’s biggest newspaper.
Barry stormed into Lee’s cubicle and threatened to remove “System Architect” from his nameplate.
After Barry left his cubicle, Dave stepped in. “Don’t forget what I said. You could actually lose your job. Barry’s the kind of guy who would fire his best friend if he thought it would get him to the next rung on the corporate ladder. But…I found a job.”
Lee sighed. “Don’t mind me. It’s been a bad morning. But about the job—that’s great. Where will you be working?”
“Over at plant three…with the Laser Technology Team. Are you still planning to stay on the project?”
“I think so, at least for now. I’ll stay, write specifications, and watch the BBT contractors like a hawk.”
Dave extended his hand to Lee. “Well, goodbye.”
Lee shook it. “You’ll do well over there. Write some code for me.”
3
March 17
Lee sat at his desk drumming his fingers and shaking his head. When the work started last November, he’d predicted security breaches. Did he really want security to be compromised just so he could say, ‘I told you so?’ He would plead the fifth to that question.
Barry’s head appeared over the cubicle partition. “Lee, the contractors don’t understand this spec. You need to make it a little more…user friendly. I’ve got to run. Have a meeting in a few minutes.”
Barry dropped some stapled papers onto Lee’s desk and disappeared.
Lee picked up the functional specification and began to read. He was soon deep into the process of revising the spec to reflect the underlying system requirements while using a restricted subset of the English language for the contractors’ benefit.
This is insane. I’m a computer scientist, not a linguist.
Lee’s phone rang, shattering his already impaired concentration. “Hello, Lee Brandt here.”
“Lee, this is Joe at Computing Security. I need you to come to my office as soon as possible. Barry’s here, too. We have a problem.”
“I’m on my way over.”
If Joe was concerned, there must be bad news for somebody. He closed the session on his server, locked his desktop, and walked downstairs to Joe’s office. The door was open, so he stepped in.
“Before you say I told you so, just listen to Joe for a minute. OK?” Barry said, his expression grim.
“Yeah, sure.” Lee’s conscience winced at the tone of his voice. He knew he should treat Barry with more respect, even if his boss didn’t always deserve it. “So what’s the problem?”
Joe motioned for Lee to sit down. “This is the scenario we’re dealing with. We believe one of our foreign contractors got into some data they shouldn’t have been able to see. At this point, we’re not sure whose fault i
t—”
“I told you—”
“I know very well what you told me.” Joe’s voice grew loud, out of character for him.
“It’s insane—pure insanity.”
Barry glared at him. “That’s enough, Lee. Will you please shut up, and listen to Joe?”
Though he’d lost his composure, Lee knew when to back off. He folded his hands on the table and waited to hear the bad news.
Joe let out a long sigh. “One of your co-workers, Ron Hemsworth, left his cell at work. When he came in late last evening, he walked by the B-size printer and saw a restricted drawing in the output bin, the printer that the contractors use in development.
“We think there may have been a paper jam and when someone cleared it, the drawing printed a second time—that print server’s a bit flaky. When Hemsworth—”
“Leaving a print behind—that sounds pretty sloppy if someone here is actually involved in industrial espionage or ripping off restricted data. Whoever it was could have checked the print queue to make sure they left nothing behind, and then we would have never known about the breach.” Lee began running other scenarios through his mind.
Joe continued. “As I was saying, Hemsworth found an ITAR-restricted drawing in the output bin of that printer, military-related data we have to protect from access by all foreign nationals. Before you say anything, I know that particular drawing should not have been in the insecure development environment, and I was assured there would be no ITAR data in development. It was a stipulation of the contract with BBT. But that’s a separate issue which I’m currently working on.”
Joe paused and met Lee’s gaze. “What Barry and I need to know is if any other unauthorized data have been accessed, ITAR or, heaven forbid, classified data. Lee, we need you to find out who accessed what on the development system between February 21 and March 15. Now…how long is it going to take you to do that?”
On the surface this seemed the fulfillment of Lee’s data-breach prophecy. Or were they being snookered? He would reserve judgment until he analyzed the logs. “I can have the initial analysis to you by tomorrow evening. But have you considered there may be a lot more to this than just one of our Indian contractors looking at one ITAR drawing?”
“We’d rather not think about that eventuality.” Joe paused. “Yes, we’ve considered it. We’ll cross that bridge if, and when, we come to it.”
“Lee, I don’t want to hear any more disrespectful talk about the contractors. Understood?” Barry spoke, his expression grim.
“Yes, I understand.” Lee knew there were some very talented people among the contractors, but he couldn’t help resenting their presence. They were doing work that was rightfully his. Perhaps they were taking things not rightfully theirs in the process.
“Now, do you have everything you need to do this analysis? Equipment, people, and—”
“I have all the resources I need.” Lee cut in. “I have my own server and my repository of reusable scripts, so I’ll get started now. If I need any help, you’ll be the first to know.” Lee’s conscience prodded him sharply upon uttering his last statement. He would go to nearly anyone for help before he would turn to Barry.
He stood, hoping that would end the meeting. He wanted to get started. If he could just come up with some hard facts that said, “I told you so,” that might provide some job satisfaction.
“Then why don’t we plan on meeting in my office again on Monday morning at 9:00 a.m.?” Joe stood up. “You’ll have the entire weekend if you need it.”
Just take my entire weekend and then pretend you’ve done me a favor.
“How nice of you, Joe. I’ll see you guys Monday morning.” He felt another twinge of conscience. As a Christian, he must show respect for the positions of authority Joe and Barry held. It was a fine line, a line Lee sometimes wobbled off like a drunk taking a sobriety test.
Walking back from the meeting, Lee wondered if he should start looking for a job in meteorology. He held a BS in meteorology and worked as a weather officer in the Air Force. Two of his friends, Dale and Jerry, were wooing him to join their start-up weather-consulting firm, but they…
He needed to quit daydreaming and get focused on the task at hand.
He had built a research-oriented, logging system and used it to archive detailed, system-usage records. Since he ran the same data-logging software in the development environment, he would use the data collected there to finger the rat who’d accessed unauthorized data through a hole probably created when populating the development environment with test data. It was a rat hole the CEO and his henchmen made possible by outsourcing a critical system. It was a rat hole that should never…
He needed to stop his internal ranting. He needed to do a lot of things. Leaving this project was probably one of them.
Back at his desk, Lee unlocked his desktop, opened a session on his server, along with his favorite programmer’s editor. In the editor, he began cobbling together a script he named Ratfinger.
Don’t worry, little guy. I’ll make sure you know how to finger a rat.
Two hours later, Lee closed the editor, saving the program in the process. After a short, successful test run, he was satisfied with his work. At the command-line prompt, he told Ratfinger to go fulfill its destiny.
Lee glanced at the clock. 5:15 p.m. Knowing the script might run for a couple of hours, he reviewed everything he knew about the twelve contractors from BBT. He wasn’t in management, so he couldn’t peruse BBT’s Human Resources records. Résumés and chat time with the contractors were his only resources.
All twelve were most recently from Bangalore. He knew that four were Muslim and eight were Hindu. He had talked a little religion with them.
All twelve had several years experience in information technology and at least a BS in Computer Science. There was nothing in those facts that pointed towards anyone committing espionage. For now, that job would remain delegated to Ratfinger.
As his script sorted through gigabytes of data, Lee sorted out the sources of discontent with his current job. The events of the last several months caused him to regret jumping ship from his career as a meteorologist to pursue mainstream computer-science work.
Forecasting power for an array of wind turbines or issuing warnings for a blizzard in North Dakota seemed more rewarding to him than writing systems code for a Fortune 500 aerospace company under their continually severe time and funding constraints.
The atmosphere could be a fickle and unfaithful paramour, often turning against a forecaster when they least expected it. But taming commercial systems development was worse than any words Lee voluntarily allowed into his vocabulary.
Much sooner than he expected, a window popped up on his monitor, interrupting his musings. The script had finished. Simultaneously, the big laser printer in the corner started spitting out paper. He walked towards the printer, praying it would prove to be a rat trap.
The report he pulled from the printer was a bit crude, but it contained all the required information. Since he was the only one who would have to read it, it would suffice. The million-dollar question. Did Ratfinger live up to its name?
Lee spread the printed report across his desk, lining up the data columns on each adjacent page. He started scanning down the column for ITAR-restricted drawings, one category of military information not authorized for disclosure to foreigners. Four drawings were accessed, all by contract employee number five.
So there is some dirty work going on. I’d bet money all of it was done by one person.
The classified-data category was next. There should have been no classified data on the insecure development system, but he couldn’t make that assumption. Consequently, he’d programmed the script to verify the security category by performing a cross-check, using another company database. With that check, the program would never cry wolf. Mindful of Ratfinger’s veracity, he ran his finger down the classified-data column. His finger stopped near the bottom. Someone accessed one classified dr
awing. Once again, it was contractor number five, Ramesh Nath. He’d found his rat.
Lee quickly logged in to his database manager’s account and put a Band-Aid on the problem. He removed all access to the classified drawing.
How classified data ended up in the development environment was another question for another time. Joe only asked Lee to determine who’d accessed what. But Joe hadn’t explicitly forbidden him from delving further. He wanted the goods on this person.
Should I probe deeper?
Stupid question.
If things went awry, he might have to beg for forgiveness later, but right now, he wanted to contact Ram without disclosing what he knew and to see how Ram reacted to a few pointed questions sprinkled randomly throughout their conversation.
The contact list for project employees was posted on the DEDS project website. But when he checked there, Lee found Ram wasn’t listed. Since it was after hours, he looked up the home phone for the Indian contractor’s program manager and keyed the number into his personal cell phone.
“Hi, Ash, this is Lee Brandt. Sorry to bother you after work hours, but do you have the phone number for Ram? It’s not on the project website.”
“I took it off because Ramesh flew back to Bangalore two days ago. We do not expect him to return to the project.”
Lee put his index finger on his desk calendar. “So he left on the fifteenth?”
Got out of Dodge the day after the classified drawing was accessed.
“That’s right. Do you want me to call my supervisor and put you in touch with him?”
He shook his head. “No, no, that’s OK. You don’t need to call anyone else.”
“I hope that his departure causes no problems.”
“No, no problems. Thanks.”
It did cause one problem. The rat ran before he could finger him.
