Bounty

by Michael Byrnes

  Cyberattacks that target power grids and infrastructure are overhyped, but threats to bank and government databases are woefully understated. The computers at a power plant or dam can be manually overridden to eventually get things back up and running, and the same is true of mass transit and air traffic control. It’s believed that the United States nuclear arsenal’s multiple security redundancies would be nearly impossible for even the best hacker to fully compromise—though it’s anyone’s guess as to how vulnerable some of the world’s lesser nuclear powers may be. But the financial systems of the world are mere “clouds” of ones and zeros inside hard drives, susceptible to all sorts of crafty code worms, with virtually zero resilience against a coordinated cyberstrike.

  Encryption has been around since kings and pharaohs; Knights Templar used ciphers and wax seals to authenticate and strengthen the integrity of communications. The privacy game continues today, with the sophistication of modern encryption constantly evolving to try and outrun both the logarithmic growth curve of computing power and governments’ wholesale abandonment of civil liberties. Robust, unmolested encryption is critical to our future security and online privacy.

  NcryptoCash is a fictional cryptocurrency based on Bitcoin, and I allow it to similarly transmit peer-to-peer with near-perfect anonymity, absent taxation or regulatory oversight. In an era when the world’s central banks have no qualms about engaging in currency wars, demand will almost certainly explode for a truly global, market-based medium of value and exchange…but not without serious growing pains and some very sobering perils. Case in point: in 2014 the Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox was shuttered after roughly $480 million (estimates of the actual figure vary widely) of depositors’ entrusted Bitcoin certificates were hacked from its cybervaults.

  Chatbots like Apple’s Siri, or Bounty4Justice’s virtual assistant, are tiny examples of a much grander push toward artificial intelligence. But no matter how sophisticated AI may become, it’s far more constructive to worry about the malicious commands of its human programmers, rather than sweat an autonomous binary machine gaining the emotional capacity to plot our destruction.

  Lots of repugnant characters connect through the darknet, but so do plenty of good guys. Today, one can download an encrypted browser from TorProject.​org to cleanly bypass the Orwellian commercial Web. Bounty4Justice’s network bridge between the anonymous peer-to-peer “hidden services” of the darknet and the policed realm of the dot-com commercial Internet is currently fiction—though I imagine we’ll be seeing these enhancements to standard Web browsers in the very near future, much to the chagrin of intelligence agencies.

  Malicious websites similar to Bounty4Justice abound in much smaller scale on the darknet. The FBI’s 2013 takedown of Silk Road was the closest real-world case study of an anonymous criminal marketplace that thrived with impunity, nearly indefinitely. Silk Road’s mastermind, Ross William Ulbricht, scarily demonstrated how these enterprises can be conceived and built by a lone wolf, using turnkey software widely available on the darknet.

  The Atlas-5 message board used by Jam and Pike is my spin on a virtual private network.

  Nexus is a fictional hacktivist collective based loosely on Anonymous.

  The run-down building adjacent to Ground Zero that Jonathan Farrell used as his sniper’s roost does not exist, nor does the railroad-side church in Tallinn that Rhea converts into a data bunker. And don’t try to find the Windsor Arms in upscale London, because it doesn’t exist. In the Bermudian parish of St. George’s—indeed a pirate haven of yore—one will find harborfront pubs whose outdoor tables are a sniper’s shot from Hen Island. I’ve renamed one of them Seadog Pub.

  Novak’s dossier on Estonia’s David-vs.-Goliath cyberwar in 2007 is factually accurate, though NATO cyberterrorism analysts found no definitive evidence of Russia’s role in the attacks. Estonia has since become a test lab for national cyber defense, with the FBI and the Secret Service stationing full-time cyber experts there to aid in the fight.

  As the Internet evolves and mutates like an organic virus, determinedly challenging states’ sovereignty, only time will tell if it will gravitate toward a more uniform democracy or autocracy. As it stands today, it can swing either way, depending on what country you reside in.

  The race to a zero marginal cost, fully transparent society—not just in manufacturing and retailing, but in the arts and sciences, too—will continue to force humanity to rethink labor and production, as well as our liberty and context in the world. Without doubt, the Internet is the most potent propaganda tool ever conceived. It’s also humanity’s least understood, most relied-upon machine. And if that’s not the ultimate recipe for chaos, I’m not sure what is.

  For more info, visit micha​elbyr​nesau​thor.​com.

  In loving memory of John T. Xenis

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my agent, Doug Grad, for sharing my vision of a different kind of story when I was facing some serious questions about the path forward. Without him, Bounty would have never seen the light of day.

  Big thanks to my editor, Tracy Devine, for her saintly counseling and guidance through the multiple revisions that raised Bounty to its full potential. To assistant editor Sarah Murphy for the tough-love critiques that helped fine-tune the storyline’s many gears and give nuance to a rather sizable cast of characters. My deep gratitude to Bonnie Thompson for her masterful assist with Bounty’s final grammatical and fact-checking nip-tuck, and to Loren Noveck, production editor extraordinaire, for guiding Bounty so superbly through every stage of the process toward print and digital publication. Kudos and thanks to Sarah Feightner, Simon Sullivan, and everyone on Random House’s production team, who worked their magic in designing and packaging Bounty beautifully for the marketplace. Thank you, Scott Biel, for your super cool cyberpunk cover art. To Allison Schuster and the marketing team for their wizardly promotional efforts that helped my story connect with readers in stores and online. And props to Matt Schwartz for cultivating Bounty’s knockout digital strategy.

  To my loving wife and children, who support my passion to tell stories, and patiently share me with the many crazy characters who inhabit my head 24/7 while I’m in project mode. There’s no greater love than living with a novelist.

  Thanks to Greg Meunier for helping me brainstorm Bounty during our five-mile runs, and for introducing me to Jack D’Orio—the guru of Internet architecture and offsite backups. My gratitude goes out to Michael Fregeau for helping me to demystify the complexities of federal law enforcement. To Mike Androlewicz—the most prodigious reader I’ve ever met—for his smart book recommendations and astute insights into what makes for great stories. My deep-thinking conversations with Jim Byrne are duly noted. And thanks to all my friends and family who’ve endured my rants about economics and politics and social injustice, and all the other things that I cannot control but love to fixate on.

  The FBI’s Office of Public Affairs was helpful, yet understandably opaque. The agency’s website, however, offered an essential window into how FBI task forces mobilize to address all kinds of cyber threats. I learned a lot about logistics, reporting structure, and a special agent’s day-to-day routines from speaking with an FBI agent and a CIA intelligence officer, both of whom will remain nameless.

  My MBA concentration in computers and information systems provided a useful baseline for constructing the technological aspects of Bounty4Justice. But I had to scour countless articles, websites, TED talks, documentaries, and videos to brush up on what’s happened over the fifteen years since I earned my graduate degree. As for books, Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground, by Kevin Poulsen, stood out as most instructive about the FBI’s online honeypot operations and trolling techniques. And cybersecurity activist/journalist Jacob Applebaum’s YouTube lectures concerning the invasiveness of NSA and GCHQ surveillance are nightmarishly fantastic.

  Thanks to Twitter for its unique blurb format that allowed me to tell ood
les of micro-stories that would otherwise crowd Bounty’s main narrative.

  Google Earth is one of this writer’s favorite tools.

  The 2007–2008 financial crisis was a $64 trillion heist engineered by a relative handful of investment bankers who exploited grossly unregulated markets, yet were held harmless after unleashing worldwide havoc; they are credited here for enraging me enough to think up a modern-day vigilante tale like Bounty.

  To the immovable Robert Prechter and his emerging study of socionomics—those fractal patterns of fear and euphoria that sway human herds through economic booms and busts, social trends, and war. His pioneering approach to mining big data for behavioral trends and shifting moods helped me to formulate Bounty4Justice’s sentient functionality.

  In special remembrance of John T. Xenis—mentor, confidant, business partner—for inspiring me to think big, to be independent, to take vacations and enjoy great meals, to take pride in everything I do, and to never take opportunities or liberty for granted. His positive thoughts will always be with me, particularly his regular reminder, “Live life, this is not a dress rehearsal.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MICHAEL BYRNES grew up in West Orange, New Jersey, and attended Montclair State University as an undergrad business major and Rutgers University for his MBA. He currently lives in Orlando, Florida, with his wife, Caroline, and their three children, Vivian, Camille, and Theodore. He’s a career insurance broker who also writes high-concept thrillers that delve into his lifelong fascinations with mythology, economics, and human behavior. He cherishes his family and friends and makes time to play guitar and go for long runs and bike rides. His first novel, The Sacred Bones (2007), was an international bestseller, published in more than thirty countries; it was followed by a sequel, The Sacred Blood (2009), and The Genesis Plague (2010). Bounty is his fourth novel.

  micha​elbyr​nesau​thor.​com

  @​MByrn​esAuthor

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