by Adam Smith
After the lunch, I went to Steimatzky's shop and browsed through numerous titles. My eye stopped at "Moriarty" by Anthony Horowitz. I read the description on the other side of the cover. It was a sequel to Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. I tried to purchase it but to my surprise, even the bookstore, to be able to purchase anything you have been appointed to a flight. So, I put the book back and decided that I will download it into my Kindle app when I get my first salary, goddamn it Adi! How are you going to save money if you plan so many expenses upon your first salary? And, I was absolutely sure that it wouldn't be as half decent as they have promised. I asked around veteran employees and they said that, in order, to make as much as they promise at the interview you have to move to live here.
When I returned to my cash box, the system was up and running. I made up my mind and decided not to give the fact of potential vulnerability any attention.
You will forget about in a day or two, Adi, keep working and keep doing what has the lowest amount of risk. Lowest possibility to get fucked up. The rest of the day went relatively easy and I could say, I wasn't as squeezed out when I got home as I would be at days I would do a night shift. And yet, I couldn't fall asleep as I had to browse the Deep Web to find out what secrets it hides. What the general public can't access. How deep is the actual rabbit hole? Cliché but why do we live in the form of Matrix?
I crawled to my laptop and Googled in what now I knew is called clear web the next query "How to browse the deep web securely?"
As it was expected, the best search engine in the world wasn't failing even with such a gray area query. The first result was about downloading Tor browser and trying to browse the Deep Web through the encrypted network, which was readily provided. So, I did just that. I downloaded it and bid farewell to my well-beloved Chrome and went into an unknown area of Tor and it's utilization to find out the dark side of the beloved invention we learned to worship through the last three decades.
I doubled click on the icon, I had a deep breath, sipped off a fuze tea and behold my first of Tor appeared on the screen. It was a little known to me, a search engine called Duckduckgo that claimed not to track my search. I followed the instruction, I read previously on the clear web about browsing the dark web. It stated that the first page worth checking was the hidden wiki. I went on there, clicked on a few random links, Anarchic library, the biggest free eBook collection on deep web and for the heck of it, African porn provider. Only the second one loaded successfully.
I went to the hidden wiki and clicked on a few more random links. There was something about child porn, which I found very disturbing and would never want to see that. I actually realized while going through the hidden wiki that many of this site creators were very fucked up people. Scam of the earth. I clicked some hacking services provider and encrypted email box provider. None of it loaded.
I realized that there was something wrong with my settings.
I closed that browser and rebooted my computer, just for the sake of it. I went online through my phone while the system was booting and Googled "Is dark web dead?" one of the links that popped out as a result on my mobile browser was Reddit thread addressing exactly that question. They disclosed that some links won't open unless you install UNIX bases OS which is called Tails. Even the former American whistle blower Edward Snowden recommended it for anonymity, one of the users at the thread said.
I did not know much about the topic, so I decided I will continue my research for half an hour more. Another sip of my pear Fuze tea, slow breath and search on Google of "How to install Tails" query. The result gave me some distinctive instructions on how to accomplish this task. However, it required two flash drives of at least 4GB each, which I did not have at the moment but I had a plan to get them as I will get my salary in nine days from today via a direct transfer to my bank account from there I could experiment further with my knowledge. As my grandpa used to say knowledge is power, I had to agree and in some hands, it was such a dark power that could bend wills and corrupt even the purest of minds.
I lay down on my bed and tried to fall asleep. But my eyes wouldn't close and I probably did develop some kind of sleeping disorder. However, one thing I knew for certain was that if want this keep rolling I have to stay at this job as long as I possibly could. I stood up, walked to the kitchen, drunk a cup of water, opened the drawer and pulled out the last sleeping pill that I had left. Well, I used it on very rare occasions, I did not feel clean whenever I had to take any sort of pills to modify my state of mind. It was different with antibiotics and such because it would be for the body.
But the mind is a holy temple, it should be clean. However, I decided sometimes, you have to compromise. I swallowed the pill with a sip of water, opened my laptop once again, went to YouTube and put some peaceful meditative tracks. That combination would totally get me a good sleep. One last thing I did was put an alarm at the evening shift time, so I would have enough time to get myself ready without a need to rush.
"I just want to die, " I said to my friend Shahar when we were getting up on the moving stares, and I saw the number of people going through the passport control. Shahar laughed at me and said, "Well, more money for me then." I punched him with my elbow and said "You arrogant bastard, how do you manage to be so good at sales?" "I don't know, it just comes to me naturally." "I guess, I will have to find what I'm good at because it's surely not sales"
"Well, I heard that lawyers are good at busting themselves out." "I'm not a lawyer" "You are going to be" I smiled and said "You are good friend Shahar" "Doing my best. Anyhow, did you get any dates here already? There are some very pretty ladies working here..." Shahar started to work just a week ago. We meet here and talked on every occasion. He also was living in Holon. He turned to be a good fellow with a huge weakness to Red Label whiskey. And the firm had plenty of it. He was staring at the rows of Whisky and admiring Red Label of every possible size, every time he got the chance. I told him all about the cameras and that he rather not try his luck because if he gets caught, his career here is Kaput.
There was a huge rush today. I'm really not sure what it was all about. But the shop made a heck lot of money. By the end of the day, I had such a huge stack of cash I thought if I would take it home and get fired while managing to keep it I could easily live without working for a half of a year, as long as I don't end up in jail. Anyhow, I packed all of the cash into the envelope e and went to the station with my transport back home.
It was hot outside. The summer was coming. I took out my phone and started to browse for some news. I was bored and tired.
And then, I stumbled on some sponsored ad about a book in the Computer Science field. It is a recent book, published this year and it appeared to be Computer Science in plain words for those who don't want to go to Uni to spend their money and years studying the topic. Also, it has promised your coding skills would increase incredibly upon completion of it. I decided I'd give it a try, so I went to my Kindle app, and into the store, filled out my address and made a purchase. It should arrive in a month or so. There was no Kindle version, unfortunately.
At home, I went through my routine and figured out that I had to jump into the grocery store to pick a pack of rice or two and purchase a Fuze tea bottle. All the people in the world allocate themselves to a service, nowadays, the new big business model is SaaS. Software as a service. When machines and code delivered the service while the people only install and supported it.
Time will come and all the traditional business will evolve or banish from the earth, yet it might be that some museums for such businesses would be created or they would get memorialized by history books. For now, I only had to pull out enough change to pay for my items. I loved this store. There never was a queue. I also picked some canned beans. When I was a kid, I loved to dress up as a cowboy on Purim, the Israeli mascaraed holiday.
Also, I had an American Cowboy's Encyclopedia back then. It's where I learned the Cowboy's favored be
ans. Seeing them at the store triggered all that in my mind and it was a quick decision to make. Besides, they are cheap and in tomato souse. "I want some cocaine" I thought to myself. And thus, I went online to turn up the song by Eric Clapton. It was a good evening and the beans were good too.
Monday was a day off. I slept most of the day and the main thing that was, in fact, important, put a reminder on my phone to purchase those goddamn flash drives.
Tuesday, though was more productive. When we got to the airport, I went straight to the musical albums store, they had accessories for PCs and phones, as well. I asked the sales rep if they had any cheap flash drives. He pointed to the wall on the right, I walked straight to it and the cheapest one was 16GB for 50 shekels. I picked two. To my surprise, I paid 20% less because I'm working at the airport. Hurray to minuscule benefits! The sales rep swapped my card and I went on my way to do the same around a hundred of times today.
For god’s sake! How are these people paying for all this shit?! And they are not even there yet! This remained a mystery to most of us, low lives doing an ant job. Some guys and girls with whom I talked even stopped to care about that. They thought it would be healthier if they did not because envy, anger or even misunderstanding cause you stress, you start to do stupid things and then die. I couldn't agree more. And yet, I tried to talk to some clients about what they were doing for life. There is a tiny game I used to play with myself during the shifts.
I would try and guess by the act of the customer, what their profession was. Wouldn't try it with the old people because they are probably retired, neither with the young ones as many of them are mostly students or don't have any fancy kind of job at the moment. So, I asked a guy who spoke Hebrew and had a British passport, if he was an Internet Marketer, he turned out to be a real estate agent in Manchester.
Other time, I've asked a lady from Poland if she was a writer, she said "Close, I'm a History teacher." Dismissing my thoughts about failure at guessing who is who. I simply enjoyed the brief conversations with them. It was little to ask for and yet it seems they enjoyed some interaction outside the scope of the people known to them too. I was craving for water and for a use of the water closet. I've lit the red light and asked for 5 minutes break.
The deputy manager that approached me was a fellow named Kobi, he was a serious fellow in his late thirties. I'm not sure how long exactly he has filled this position, however, of what I'm sure is that it was for quite some time, as he always acted with expertise and confidence.
"Yes?" he asked. "I need to pee." "Okay, hold on, I will give you five minutes but hold a little longer." "Okay". It took about three more clients which were about ten to fifteen minutes in total before I got dismissed to my five minutes. I was on the verge of peeing in my pants. But who cares? I got the five minutes eventually at the peak time, so I rushed into the gentlemen room for my relief.
When I was done, I moved without a haste towards the Pizza Hut franchisee store, which was not so far from the gentleman’s room. It might take me a minute and a half to get there but the cheap lemon juice they've offered was very much worth it. After drinking it in complete delight and yet checking the watch every 2 minutes or so, I decided not to be too arrogant taking the fact that I do bend the rules from time to time but I also have limits and dignity. I rushed back to my cash box, so it would appear natural that I did not waste too much time on misconceptions. No deputy was there, they all were spread out and acting their duty as they should in a peak hour. Only the directors noticed my comeback and started yet again to send clients my way.
After the day was over, I only wished I could make it home without falling asleep while the driver spread all the fellows around Holon. I did not make it without the help of Tool popping my ears out, however, I made it. I decided I will just brush the teeth and fall on my bed to surrender to that overwhelming need to sleep, and sleep as many hours as my body needs, even though, it was 11:00 AM.
I woke up in the evening. Wednesday was supposed to be a night shift, but until then, I had 23 hours, so I decided I will proceed with the Tails installation, now that I have the flash drives. Sometimes, it seems like this life is a dream, everything is just a running software performing its algorithms while we gasp at the results. I took the drives and set by the computer, connecting it to the network, which took about a minute. Then, Google was friendly enough to show the results for "Installing Tails" query.
I followed one of the instructions and took the first step to the successful installation of the OS. One flash drive was enough, as they had four times more space than the minimum required amount.
I had to download a program called Rufus to mount upon it the Tails ISO. So, I did download the latest Tails ISO and that Rufus program. Next steps required from me was to reboot the system. First, I opened the very same instructions on my phone and then reboot the computer, booting it and pressing F12 simultaneously, so that I would be able to boot the system installed on the flash drive. When I managed, the Tails OS booted very quickly, I was almost surprised that this operation went smoothly. Once in the system, I set a user password and proceeded to check out the System I was using for the first time in my life.
There wasn't much to it, to be honest, or at least, it did not seem like anything special at first glance. I just decided I will go ahead and connect it to the internet, afterward I started the Tor browser and duckduckgo loaded fine. I went to type in "Hidden Wiki" in the browser and tried few of the links. Now, most of them did open now. There were notions about possible scams and downtime. I did not care much for those because I wasn't going to order any kind of assassination services, speculate on Bitcoin or buy drugs.
All I wanted is to explore books and guides you wouldn't find on the clear net. Maybe, the communities of free speaking people too. I browsed through few book dumps and did not find much of tutorials or guides that would be up to date. I decided I'd go to the markets and check it out there.
The first link that I clicked was Hansa Market. Now, there were plenty of things for sale for your Bitcoins. Anything a dark or curious soul would want. I clicked the Guides & Tutorials section, there were plenty of deals at affordable prices. I looked at the reviews and the date they were added. I was fascinated by how easy it was. So, I've made a swift calculation of how much it would cost to purchase a hacking tutorials bundle from 2016 by converting the bitcoins required into shekels. It came up very cheap. So, I decided I'll just go ahead and dump around 360 shekels into my dollar Payoneer card at the postal bank, then purchase enough bitcoins to make the deal possible.
Will it work? No one can tell, but I had hope and besides you rather have hope and faith than walk around desperate and not knowing what to do.
I checked the working schedule and it turned out that I've had a day off just after receiving my salary. Nice!
After all that revelation, I decided I'll squabble my remaining shekels and go out to celebrate with a bottle of beer. I walked out to visit my favorite grocery store and purchased a can of Guinness, my favorite beer type. It costs 18 shekels. It's such a fine price when you compare it to the pubs and bars in Israel that offer it.
Now, the outside of the grocery store has some tables with high stools around them, and some low stools around them, they all were taken by regular customers. I decided I will go home and if there is a free bench on the way, I might have myself a couple of minutes to sit and enjoy my stout. And there was, in fact, that bench that was close to my home and it was clean enough to have myself a couple of minutes to indulge in the celebration of this mini victory.
I observed all the passing cars and it has reminded me of my favorite children's book, "Little Prince". There was a part of that boy seeing all the people rush around in search of happiness when it could be found right here in your own heart or in a scent of a rose.
Anyhow, I finished my stout and went back home to sleep before work, so I could be effective and keep on my plan. Some cash to be made, some computing has to
be learned. I might even get a girl on the way!
I woke up a couple of times during my sleeping session, I forced myself back to resting. The first time I woke up, it was the music from the neighbor, second time I woke up, it was some construction work outside... Anyhow, I forced myself back to sleep and woke up 3 hours before the time I had to be on the pickup station.
And so, I read a book on Kindle I found for free. It was Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, one of the classics. Actually, we have a pub here in Holon named in his honor, however, I haven't read any of his works before, and I found the novel somewhat boring but yet good enough to keep reading.
After an hour or so, I began to get myself ready for the shift. At 8 PM, I was already at the Airport and felt not so good about the numbers I had to process today because they were huge. Everybody was excited because soon enough, we all would get paid for our labor. We would get paid in pennies on the dollar, in comparison to what the company makes, but nobody had even an idea to have a protest or to say anything, so we just worked our asses off. Some Israeli millionaire I followed on Facebook once posted "If my employee doesn't make me 10 times more than what I pay her, I fire her".
All the people are, in fact, divided into two groups, sheep and wolves. The sheep follow the orders and produce more sheep, while wolves prey on poor bastards and produce more wolves. I knew I had to be a wolf in my area of expertise or otherwise it would be a miserable way to end. Of course, wolves tend to fight each other for the thickest piece of meat but the sheep never even get a say.
The day has ended pretty quickly, which was good and I even did not get too tired. Simple ride home with all the fellows doing their usual stuff, while I try to read the latest tech news. There were some interesting things, in fact, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon gave an interview in which he stated that we live in the Golden age of AI.
