Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: The Rubber Chicken Agenda - The Probe
From: danmcd@cs.arizona.edu
Date: 6 Apr 92 13:34:32 MST
Followup-To: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Distribution: world,local
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Keywords: Ski Max trouble
Summary: Watch out for that ole' black ICE


Greetings Chatsubo patrons,

It's time for another installment in Mark's and my Ski/Max storyline.  To put
you back into the flow of the story...

	* Ski and Max are at Ski's apartment trying out new modifications to
	  Ski's deck that Max just installed.
	* Ski decides to skirt SenseNet's ICE, and finds out he used the wrong
	  disk.
	* Ski wants to try again, but only after Max's suggestion of, "Let's
	  get some more pizza first...."

Send all flames/praise/death threats/money/flowers to either:

	danmcd@cs.arizona.edu (Dan McDonald)

	-- OR --

	friedman@cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark "Crimson" Friedman)

If you do!  Mark will send you an official PostScript certificate of some
sort.  Enjoy!

==============

 	"Fine," said Ski as he punched in 082069, DeliveryNet's grid sector.

	"Display windows," he instructed to the Hosaka, as one window on it
indicated, "dialing..."  He waited for the connection.  He didn't want to
bother with dialing Mario's.  He waited for the menu, and punched up a large
pepperoni and mushroom pizza from Mario's.  When the "Transaction Complete"
window appeared, he turned to Max.

	"I can get at least as far as the first three levels of protection.  I
might be able to do more, but only if their I/S people are idiots, which I
doubt highly.  If I can get at least a clue as to what's going on past level
three, I know what kind of ICEbreaker to start looking for."

	"Where would you buy one from?  Bockris?  Cybergenics?"

	"Bullshit!"  Ski wrinkled his face over Max's naivete.  "You aren't
gonna find jack through a real software house.  I knew THAT in college.  We're
gonna have to start asking some very subtle questions at the Loser, see what
the regulars know.  Looks like it's time to brush up on jive."

	"Jive?"  Max made the effort not to repeat the same naivete he
demonstrated earlier.

	"JIVE, y'know,"  Ski moved his hands at this point to clarify the
mix of hand motions and gestures that went into street jive.

	"Oh, you mean Sign Language.  I know ISL."

	"Not really," Ski seemed more forgiving, "I mean, did you see how
many people in the Loser were mixing words with gestures?  You remember when
a million microphones kicked in on the word 'Turing'?  Think about what the
word 'ICEbreaker' will do!"

	Max stroked his chin while digesting what Ski had said.  "This is
true.  Do you know where I can read up on it?"

	Ski lost his patience again.  He rolled his eyes as he said, "Good
luck!  The closest thing I can think of is to either watch, or use that 
little neural jack set-up you have."

	"Oh, so you want me to bring the suit again?!"  Max perked up thinking
about using his creature suit again.

	"No.  Not in the Loser."  Ski was now exasperated.  "Do you know how
much pussy ran off last time?"  Ski was thinking how he wouldn't really need
Max's help to scare off women, but he didn't want to add yet another piece of
bad luck.

	Max shrugged his shoulders.  "Okay.  I'll detach the Broca tap from
the unit and carry it along."

	"If you have that debugging gear, that would be nice too."

	"Sure!  I have even more at home.  We could swing by and get it..."

	Ski interrupted, "Not tonight.  We were just at the Loser.  Besides,
it should all be able to fit in your coat."

	Max smiled, as if he was parodying himself.  "I could get a bigger
coat, too!"

	Ski's train of thought switched back to the track of snooping through
SenseNet.  He started rummaging through various disk boxes near his computer.
He pulled one disk carefully out of its disk box.  The way he pulled it out
and put it into his computer reminded Max of a soldier handling a grenade
with the pin pulled out.

	"This is a little thing I wrote to simulate entrance from GLACIER
Electric Power.  All I have to do is change it to, umm, what is it?  BAMA
Fission Authority?"

	Max responded authoritatively, "Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority.
You're going to pretend you're from the electric company?"

	"Yeah.  I figure I can get a peek past a few levels, and see what
is keeping SenseNet locked up tight."

	Ski jacked in, and started manipulating the information on the disk.
He shouted a series of commands to the Hosaka, most of them involving the
substitution of data relating to the GLACIER Electric Power Company with
data relating to the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority.  Ski had a child-like
grin on his face as he was punching different keystroke sequences to adapt
his intruder program for the Sprawl.  Max knew that Ski was in a groove, the
same way he would get once he understood a problem and how to solve it.  He
subsequently kept quiet, because a groove was very hard to get back into.

	Ski turned around, "Max, watch the monitor for my EEG levels, and for
any strange activity in c-space.  The last thing I need is to get in a jam and
wind up busted for data larceny."

	Max jumped up and said, "Sure thing."

	Ski turned back, still jacked in, to pay full attention to his task.
The SenseNet pyramid filled the entire window on the monitor, and Ski's view
through the deck was overwhelmed by the smooth blue cyberspatial structure.
He now pressed the same key that he had unsuccessfully pressed before.  This
time, Ski saw a small window open in the pyramid.  He shouted, "YES," and
punched forward through the window.

	"I just cleared the entrance level.  This is great!"

	Max merely nodded his head in agreement.  He had never been adventurous
enough to even try breaking his own computer's ICE.  Now he was watching this
kid, fresh out of school, slip his way into one of the world's major
corporations.  He found it exhilarating.

	Ski now saw an infinite space construct, with each grid point being a
window identical to the one that he entered through the SenseNet pyramid.
Ski now punched quickly ahead ten grid points, down five, and one to the left.
He now entered a complex key sequence on his deck.  The window he was in front
of flashed red.

	"Shit.  That's one bad try, two more, and I'm busted."

	He punched over to another window.  Again he entered the entry
sequence, and this time he was rewarded with the window changing to blue, like
the color of the pyramid outside.  He punched through the window, and found
himself surrounded by five yellow walls.

	"I must be in some kind of access area.  I DID tell them I was a
utility.  So this must be where they go.  Either that, or they've modified
how their entry protocol works."

	Max again remained silent as he watched the yellow walls on the monitor
screen.  He occasionally glanced to the EEG, which hadn't changed drastically
over the entire time.  He chose not to look at it again.

	One of the walls had a small door-like indentation.  Ski punched
through this indentation, and found himself back in the infinite space
construct.  He looked around the construct, and saw the exit out to normal
cyberspace.

	"Max, I'm stumped after this.  I'm gonna try screwing around in their
third level, and see if any of those walls have anything hiding behind them.
Watch the matrix window.  I don't want these guys tagging me if I fuck up."

	"I'll keep my eyes open."

	Ski, now confident he had a quick way out, punched back into the
pentagonal room.  He started slowly traversing the walls, seeing if he could
find a small hole, anything, to get further into SenseNet.  He groped around
his desk, and grabbed a disk.

	"Max, is this labelled '489-Bore'?"

	Max turned the disk so he could see the label.  "Yes, you've got the
right one."

	"Uh-huh," Ski said as he removed the Fission Authority disk and put
in this new disk.  Ski picked a bore-and-inject routine he had written for his
ICE class.  He didn't think it would work, but he expected to see what kind of
resistance SenseNet's ICE would put up.  He shouted to the Hosaka to run the
routine on the wall he was currently facing.

	A small green hole appeared in that wall.  It started to grow, which
was what the ICEbreaker routine was supposed to do.  Just as the hole grew to
four times its original size, the wall flashed through the rainbow, and the
hole disappeared.  In its place a small black sphere materialized, and started
growing at twice the rate Ski's hole had.

	Max barely noticed the "Fuck" coming from Ski's mouth.  He was too 
fascinated with the events of the matrix to notice some wild fluctuations in
Ski's EEG.  Max's view of the matrix quickly rotated to the pentagon's exit,
and even quicker to the infinte space's exit, which was quickly becoming a
sea of black swirl, like an oil spill.  Max barely heard Ski quickly punching
MAX FORWARD on his deck to the exit window, which was not yet engulfed by
black.  Suddenly, the matrix appeared in the window, and it went blank as Ski
jacked out.

	"SHIT!  That ICE was fuckin' LETHAL!"  He breathed heavily.  "I
could've been killed.  They let corporations USE that shit?!"  Ski looked over
at his EEG window, and noticed the fluctuations.  He shouted at the Hosaka.
"If the my ICE isn't up already, turn it up full.  And record all accesses."

	Max looked mildly disturbed and excited simultaneously.  "Doesn't
RFC 128432 prohibit non-military systems from introducing lethal ICE?"

	"Yeah.  But you knew it was only gonna be a matter of time."  Ski
looked at the Hosaka again.  "Any accesses?"

	"No accesses recorded," chirped the Hosaka, with the calmest voice
in the room.

	Max shook his head.  "It's still not nice in any event.  Are you
alright?"

	Ski smiled.  "I'm here, aren't I?  And I ought to thank you.  I needed
every ounce of speed to pull my ass out of there.  I guess your modifcations
worked!"

	"No problem," Max said as his pride rose considerably.  "What did you
find in there?"

	"Lot's of black ICE.  They must have something SWEET in there if they
are going to risk running black ICE.  I want to go in there now.  Really bad.
We're gonna have to go find a real ICEbreaker."

	"Back to the Loser, then?"

	"Not tonight.  I'm tired.  I also need to get settled in, go find a
place to work out, and just relax for a few days."

	"That's fine.  I have a project to work on at the lab anyway.  This
was," Max paused, "interesting, to say the least.  I had a lot of fun, except
for the black ICE thing, of course."

	"Great.  Ummm, I know we ordered food, but they seem to be a little
slow now.  I'll cancel it.  I'll meet you next week at the Loser?"

	"What time?" Max said as he was packing his equipment.

	"Happy hour.  And don't bring the suit this time!"  Ski smiled again,
and helped Max pack his equipment.
--
Dan McDonald    |Internet: danmcd@cs.arizona.edu, UUCP: ..!uunet!arizona!danmcd
U. of Arizona   |BITNET: danmcd%cs.arizona.edu@arizona.BITNET
Computer Science|     "rising falling at force ten
1st year Grad.  |      we twist the world and ride the wind." - Rush (N. Peart)