Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears (Singularity Series)

by William Hertling

  * * *

  The next morning, David, Mike, and Gene reviewed what they’d say at the meeting with Linda, and discussed contingency plans. Then with time to kill, and seeing that everyone could benefit from a little downtime, Gene recommended Kenny and Zuke’s, a sandwich shop a few blocks away, a standby for the Avogadro crowd. The Avogadro cafeteria’s food quality was excellent, and it was well loved by the employees, but eventually the corporate ambience tired out even the enthusiasts. On this particular day, they all felt a little more comfortable a few blocks away from the eyes and ears of the corporation. They enjoyed Reubens and hamburger sliders, and made their way back ten minutes before the planned meeting time.

  In the seventh floor meeting room, they started with introductions. Linda was a Scandinavian woman, whose family had lived briefly in Wisconsin when she was a child. She and Mike got off to a great start, laughing together over common experiences growing up in Wisconsin. Tim defied their expectations of what a lawyer would look like, showing up in black pants and a black T shirt. David briefly wondered with fascination if Tim was some new breed of Goth lawyer, but his jovial attitude quickly set them all at ease.

  With introductions done, and everyone else sitting at the conference room table, David stood at the front of the room and started the explanation of what brought them to the meeting. Mike contributed details here and there, but let David lead the conversation. As David progressed in his explanation, he couldn’t help noticing that the light-hearted mood they had started with soon disappeared, as Linda and Tim became distinctly uncomfortable. David wasn’t sure if that discomfort reflected the technical nature of the explanation, a sense that they were going to be asked to make a decision without Gary present, or simple disbelief that the software could be acting independently, or some combination of all three. He feared that it wasn’t going to go well.

  Finally, David reached the request. “What we’re asking you to do is bring down all the email servers. Then have the designated IT group responsible for the servers re-image those servers with a known good version of the software.” David continued to watch their reactions. “This is a normal action we take when a server has a problem with it. It’s just like reinstalling the operating system and software on your PC, if you’ve ever done that.”

  “David, I hear what you’re asking for, and I want to help. I really do.” Linda fiddled absently with her touchscreen pad on the table. “I’m very uncomfortable making a decision of this magnitude. I’d much rather wait for Gary to return.” Linda leaned back in her chair, and looked up at David. “What you’re asking for, it would cause an email outage, wouldn't it? How long would the outage last, and how many customers would be affected?”

  “Yes, it would cause an outage. The good news is that Avogadro has a process to re-image servers quite quickly. It takes just fifteen minutes or so. The bad news is that we don’t normally re-image all the servers at once, and the backup system that contains the images can only serve up images to a few thousand servers at a time. The result is that the first servers would come back up in fifteen minutes, but it would be approximately three hours before we could have every server back online.”

  “Wait a second,” Linda said, leaning forward. “Are you saying we’d have a full service outage? I thought you were talking about a rolling outage. No, we absolutely can’t have a full service outage right now. We’re about to close some major new partnership deals in the next couple of days. I can’t discuss it until the press release comes out, it’s so sensitive.” She shook her head. “It’s a major coup for Avogadro. We’re talking about a billion dollar revenue opportunity. We can’t put that at risk.” Linda looked to Tim for confirmation.

  “That’s true Linda. These are highly sensitive customers. An outage right now would almost certainly cause us to lose the contracts,” Tim added, in support. “These customers have service level agreements that guarantee a minimum level of uptime. To have an outage right now would create doubt about our ability to meet the service level agreement.”

  “Now wait a minute.” Linda snapped her fingers. “The rolling maintenance windows. Why don’t you just do that? Bring down some of the servers, in small groups, and gradually fix them?”

  “We wish we could,” Mike jumped in, “but we’re afraid that the existing systems would reinfect the new systems as they come up. We will need to bring every email server down simultaneously.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to say no.” She waggled one pointed finger at them. “Now, if you had come to me, and you had some very specific, hard evidence that the email servers were causing problems for our customers, I might be influenced to make the decision to rebuild those servers. But that’s not what you have. You have a very strange story about a handful of emails being manipulated. It seems to me that it would be far more likely that your particular email accounts have been compromised, than that the entire email system is flawed. I think you need to talk to Security.” She shook her head sadly again.

  “This isn’t a Security problem,” David said. “This is —”

  “Look,” Linda said. “I can’t make a business decision that will almost certainly cause the loss of billions based on a few mangled emails. I’m sorry. You are free to talk to Gary when he gets back, of course.” She tapped her manicured nails on the table. “Anything else?” she said dismissively.

  Chapter 11

  Avogadro Launches Secure Hosted Email Service

  Government Complaints About IT Costs and Quality Leads Avogadro to Create Secure Applications and AvoMail

  PORTLAND, Oregon - January 6th, 2010 UTC - Avogadro Inc. today announced it is providing a secure, hosted version of Avogadro Applications with AvoMail for Governments.

  The demand for secure, hosted Avogadro Applications with AvoMail came from various country level governments who were spending excessive amounts on IT services, while receiving inferior products and services, said Linda Fletcher, Marketing Manager for Avogadro’s Communication Products Division. Avogadro Secure Applications with AvoMail will reduce IT spending by governments by up to 80%, while providing feature-rich, easy to use communication applications, according to Fletcher.

  The hosted platform is being adopted immediately by Germany, Canada, and Taiwan, with other countries to follow.

  For more information, please visit AvogadroCorp.com

  * * *

  “Holy shit, did you see this press release?” Mike ran back from the bathroom with his AvoOS smartphone in hand. “We, I mean, Avogadro, that is, I think, ELOPe has...”

  “Slow down Mike. What is it?” David asked, holding his hands up. It was two days after the conversation with Linda Fletcher, and David, Mike, and Gene were chaffing in a holding pattern, ineffectually waiting for Gary Mitchell to return from a vacation, from which they suspected he should have returned a week earlier.

  “Jeez, Avogadro just put out a press release that we have the first government customers for AvoMail. David, governments using AvoMail,” Mike repeated, practically sputtering. “Do you realize what this means?”

  “I think so,” said David with dread. “ELOPe has just expanded its sphere of influence. Now every government official who sends or receives an email via AvoMail will have it filtered, altered, or impersonated by it.”

  “This service must be what Linda Fletcher was talking about in the meeting the other day when she rejected our proposal to bring the servers down. She must have known this was in the works.”

  “I wonder who really initiated this secure applications platform,” David said, half to himself. “Could it have been Avogadro employees, or was it ELOPe? It certainly is convenient for ELOPe.”

  * * *

  The day after the Avogadro press release of the secure cloud services for governmental organizations, David, Mike and Gene met up again. At Mike’s urging, they met at Extracto coffee in Northeast Portland.

  “Why here?” David asked when he arrived. Mike and Gene were already sitting at a table nursin
g their coffee.

  “Best coffee in Portland, bar none. Perhaps best coffee on the entire West Coast,” Mike answered.

  Gene nodded his assent.

  “See, Gene hasn’t even had it before, and he’s already convinced,” Mike went on. “Get the Flores Island coffee. It’s the one on the left.”

  David looked over at the counter, and there were two insulated coffee dispensers next to the chromed bulk of the industrial espresso machine. Walking over, he read the labels. The dispenser on the left was labeled “Flores Island” and contained descriptive text so flowery that David thought he was reading a wine review. “Subtle hints of carmel, chocolate, and cannabis?” David read out loud. “For real?” he called out doubtfully to Mike.

  Mike just nodded and smiled.

  So David got a cup. Out of the corner of his eye he couldn’t help but notice the disapproving stares from the other two as he loaded up his coffee with sugar and milk. He sighed.

  On the way back to the table he noticed a large bag at Mike’s feet. “What’s in the bag?” he asked.

  “Ten pounds of the Flores Island beans. It’s only harvested and roasted once a year, and once it’s gone, it’s gone,” Mike explained.

  David sat down. “Did you make us meet here just for the coffee? We’re eight miles from the campus!”

  “We’re only two miles from your house, and yes, we came here just for the coffee. You won’t have another experience like it.”

  “We need to focus on ELOPe,” David said in frustration.

  “Okay, okay,” Mike said, as he and Gene chuckled in amusement.

  They got down to business.

  “You guys remember Pete Wong, the engineer from Internal IT who wrote the email-to-web bridge?” Mike saw nods. “Well, I heard back from Pete.” Mike paused. “I have bad news, more bad news, and worse news.”

  “Well, give us the bad news first,” David said with resignation.

  “Pete started scanning computer systems at Avogadro looking for the digital fingerprint of ELOPe, as we had asked him to.” Mike paused for a sip of coffee. “He found it on every server he looked at in the Communication Products server pool, even ones it shouldn’t have been on.”

  David groaned, and then asked, “And the more bad news?”

  “Pete also looked for the digital fingerprint of his email-to-web bridge on the same servers. It was also present on every server. Pete guessed that the email-to-web code had been incorporated directly into ELOPe.”

  “How is that possible?” Gene asked.

  “The contractors,” Mike and David answered simultaneously, looking at each other.

  Mike went on, “The contractors that were hired over the holidays made changes, and we don’t know what those changes were. At first we thought they were just performance improvements, but now it seems that ELOPe changed its own functionality as well.”

  They all mused over that for a few minutes.

  “What’s the worse news?” David asked, remembering how Mike had started the conversation.

  “I went to Pete’s office yesterday afternoon to get an update from him, since we didn’t want to use email or the phone. I gave him my home address in case he had anything urgent for me. Then last night he showed up at my door just after I had eaten dinner. He had been fired.”

  “What?” Gene barked, almost slamming down his coffee cup.

  “Yup, he says he was in his office, working late, looking for more signs of server infection, when suddenly his network access was cut off. Just a couple of minutes later, Security showed up at his office, and told him he was fired. He wanted to talk to his manager, but the Security guards wouldn’t do anything other than let him pack a box of personal belongings, and then they escorted him off campus. So he came straight to my place, figuring it was all related.”

  “We’ve got to do something,” David finally said, shaking his head. “Waiting for Gary is not an option anymore.”

  The question facing them, as it had for days, focused not just on who had the authority to shut down the servers, but on who would believe their story and the limited evidence they had. After exploring various options, they came back to the same person, Sean Leonov.

  “We’ve got to get an appointment with Sean,” Mike said. “Sean brought you on board to lead the ELOPe project, so you have credibility with him. I know we’re jumping several levels in the management hierarchy, but this has to be done. We’ve exhausted all of our other options, and we’re in a race against the growing influence of this thing.”

  David hung his head. He knew Mike was right, but he couldn’t get over the fact once again that this would likely be the end of his career. “Alright, let’s do it. Let’s go together.”

  Since they all lived relatively nearby, they carpooled together. David drove them in his old BMW. From the Fremont bridge, they took the Avogadro exit that led directly into the Avogadro underground parking garage. From there, they made their way to the executive building. Together, they trooped down the hallways winding their way to Sean Leonov’s office, with all the solemnness of a funeral procession. The executive offices were located close together in the uppermost floor of Building 7B on campus. As David looked around, he thought the executive floor seemed practically abandoned. Virtually one closed office after another.

  They finally found themselves outside Sean’s door. They knocked, but there was no response. David tried the knob on a whim, and found it locked. “Now what? There’s no one around here.”

  “Sean is traveling,” said a woman walking by. Her tailored suit suggested she was one of the VPs. “I’m Marissa. His admin, Rosie, will have his contact information. Just contact her.”

  “Where could we find his admin?”

  “She works from home when Sean is traveling. Just send her an email. Rosie Fendell at AvogadroCorp dot com. She’ll be in the directory as well,” Marissa said helpfully.

  “Is there any way we could contact her by phone?” David asked. “We, uh, can’t send an email. It’s too sensitive.”

  “Sorry, email is your best bet. Good luck.” Marissa turned and left.

  They watched Marissa leave, then David broke the silence. “Just send an email,” he said sarcastically. “Sure. That’s so simple.”

  “Well, one email can’t hurt, right?” Mike said optimistically, and clapped him on the back. “Let’s make it as simple as possible. We just need to meet Sean.”

  * * *

  They made their way to David’s office, and David sat down in front of his desk computer. While the others watched over his shoulder, David carefully crafted an email to Sean’s administrative assistant, making it sound innocuous. They all read the email and approved it before David sent it.

  Gene went down the hall to get coffee for everyone, while they waited for a reply from Rosie. When he got back, Gene distributed the cups all around, while David opened up his desk drawer to pull out his stash of sweeteners. He put them on the table, but he was the only one who took one.

  “I’m sure I’ve never been so much on the edge of my seat about an email before.” Mike joked nervously after David had gone through the ritual of preparing his coffee.

  “No kidding,” David responded, as he sipped his coffee.

  Gene sat and drank quietly from his mug.

  “Maybe you’re right,” David offered, looking at Mike.

  “I’m sure I am,” Mike answered, smiling, “But about what?”

  “About the coffee. I always thought the coffee here was good, but it does seem bland compared to that Flores Island stuff from Extracto we had this morning.”

  Mike sat back and smiled, a huge grin spreading across his face. “I don’t want to say I told you so...”

  Suddenly they heard a sharp knock at the door. They practically jumped out of their seats. “Alright, guys, let’s calm down,” David said. “Whatever it is, it’s in the computer. It might be real good at faking emails, but it can’t hurt us for real.”

  David went over and op
ened the door. “Yes, can I help you?”

  Outside the door was a dark haired woman in a suit, with four uniformed security guards behind her in the hallway. “Mr. Ryan?” said the woman.

  “Yes, that’s me,” David replied, a sinking feeling in his gut.

  “Are Mr. Williams and Mr. Keyes in there with you?”

  “Yes, we’re all here.” David opened the door wider.

  “I’m Carly French, Director of Security. We’ve been contacted by several individuals that you’ve been harassing them. I’m afraid I’m going to have to escort you off the Avogadro campus immediately, pending a full investigation.”

  David, Mike, and Gene all looked at each other. David’s assertion a minute ago that the computer couldn’t affect them in real life seemed to be falling apart before their eyes.

  “Ms. French, I’m Gene Keyes, in the Controls and Compliance Group,” Gene said, standing up, and walking over to shake Ms. French’s hand. “I’ve been conducting an internal investigation into possible financial fraud and other inappropriate behavior that occurred just before the end of the year. Mr. Ryan and Mr. Williams have been assisting me. We have reason to believe that Avogadro employees are being manipulated through email. It’s called social engineering. The emails provide just enough information to seem legitimate. May I ask, were you informed by email of our so-called harassment?”

  “Yes, I was informed by email. I’m well aware of what social engineering is. In any scenario where we have such serious allegations, of course I would confirm them directly with the individuals. In this case, I spoke to your manager, Mr. Keyes. Is Brett Grove your manager?”

  “Yes, he is, and he could confirm what I’m working on.”

  “What he confirmed in our phone call was that you’ve been belligerent to him, acting strangely, and that you would probably blame whatever happened on ghosts in the computer.” She shook her head sadly. “Look, I’m very sorry gentlemen. You all seem like nice folks, and I’d like to be able to just take your word for it. But the standard operating procedure in cases like this is that I escort you off campus and remove your access privileges as a precautionary measure, until a full investigation can be completed. If the facts don’t check out, you’ll have a full apology from me and my manager, and be back on campus in no time at all. Now, please let’s go without a lot of drama.”