The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella (7 page)

"You think some random person has come along
and found me, identified me, and knows I have the files? Does this
person monitor surveillance cameras too? Because otherwise how
would she know the drive was found at Infrared and given to me by
Frez Tyler. Why are you so sure that could be possible? What is
this really all about Marco, what exactly was I handed?"

"Did I not warn you about discussing
this—"

"You said don't discuss the content in the
files. But now I'm being threatened, and a personal attack is
another story."

"You're okay. I'm sure she was playing out
some kind of prank."

"Marco, are you really going to leave me
vulnerable to someone who had the technology to track me down so
specifically?"

"I don't think you are under threat from
any—" Marco stopped to stare at his computer screen. Prior to
Dallas's arrival, he had activated his laptop to emerge onto the
top of the desk, and the screen had been statically on during their
conversation. But as Dallas was speaking, the background image on
Marco's monitor suddenly became overlain with a message he had not
entered. "What the—"

"What is it?" Dallas asked as she stood to
walk towards him.

"No!" Marco shouted stretching out his hand
to stop her from advancing and seeing the screen. He hit a button
on his desk phone and summoned security. When two men appeared, he
said, "Escort Miss Winter home." The men nodded but Dallas did not
move. "You're leaving now," Marco said, noting her reluctance.

"What happened? Tell me?"

"Go voluntarily or we'll force you out."

Dallas glanced at the guards and back at
Marco. "Just tell me."

"Take her out," he ordered the two men. The
guards grabbed Dallas's arms and dragged her out while her voice
pleaded with Marco to explain.

When Dallas was clear of the door, Marco
instituted a security alert for his office and summoned his deputy
at Horizon. "Has anyone reported an issue with our systems?" he
demanded when the deputy entered.

"No, nothing," the deputy insisted. "With
our firewall? No one can get in here."

At his words, Marco looked again at his
laptop and glimpsed the USB drive Dallas had given him laying in a
tray inside his desk cover. He picked up the plastic device. 'No
one has managed to get in unless brought in,' he silently cursed.
Marco's computer had an automatic scan for viruses on external
storage devices, but a clever tech could overcome the standard
process if the files on the drive were made to display, inside and
out, internal FedSec protocols. "Okay thanks, out," he said to the
deputy, who immediately left. "Shit," he exclaimed as he contacted
his personal tech support to come and collect his laptop.
Immediately afterwards he phoned the Secretary of State to confess
that evidence of the 2100 policy files were now likely in the hands
of an unknown cyber enemy. While he waited for Julia to connect, he
stared at the glow emanating from his laptop monitor where the
sight now displayed before him on the screen was quite decisively
the words, 'Thank you.'

*

CHAPTER TWO - THE
EDUCATION FILE

In a Washington, D.C. cafe where interior noise was
overwhelmed by water flowing through a monument on a nearby plaza,
Apex scrolled through FedSec's detailed blueprint for a domestic
cyber security interlocking surveillance system, nicknamed COSA for
Complete Online and Surveillance Aggregation. COSA, as far as she
could tell, would connect all of the ground surveillance cameras in
the country with overhead satellite coverage from outer space, and
strategically placed material and body sensors, to track everyone
operating in public spaces. To bolster law enforcement's
opportunities to catch terrorists on domestic soil before they
acted, the Commission was implementing an extensive research
initiative to determine how to co-opt every camera already
recording on street corners, at intersections and inside public
buildings. The next phase would ensure dedicated law enforcement
satellites and an army of security drones ready to be directed at
any time to focus on specific locations where terrorists, criminals
and suspects may be operating. But the ability to view people in
the open had to be aligned with a protocol to separately determine
the identity of each individual. To achieve that goal, the system
would need advanced facial recognition software capable of scanning
across databases to match features to known records. But since
appearances could be precisely altered, the system also
necessitated functions to understand physical body size and shape,
movements and gestures, and the capability to decipher clothing and
accessories a person was wearing or carrying by cross-referencing
personal items to individual shopping records. In the future, the
report read, if the system was unable to make a facial or body
match, the software would advance to analyzing the person's
clothes, determine the color and brand, cross-reference across all
purchases of the same product and find a consumer match to the
suspect in retail website databases. The idea, claimed FedSec, was
to prevent an individual from completely evading the system's
ability to utilize surveillance footage for identification and
apprehension by wearing hats or dark glasses, or continuously
keeping his head down to prevent his face from appearing on
camera.

After finishing with the detailed plan, Apex
began reading a series of documents from various federal government
departments indirectly supporting the project. The Attorney
General's office had added an analysis of the legal implications of
the functionality, which according to Justice Department
researchers, were limited. The country's lawmakers declared the
Constitution did not protect an individual operating in a public
space from being observed and recorded because there was no
expectation of privacy. Law enforcement was not prevented from
using surveillance in a non-invasive fashion against the populace,
and later using the evidence of the activities to make a case
against an individual who had committed a crime. The only issue
would be the advanced science and technology aimed at confirming
identity without a facial match. Could the system really determine
a person's distinct form of walking down the street? How would the
courts interpret a computer's analysis of swagger? Supporters
argued the research would address those issues. But detractors
noted civil liberties groups would find holes in the entire
process. What if someone was ill on the surveillance day or on
crutches or had a sore arm? How could the system know every oddity
in a person's movements? With the conflicting opinions, DOJ
declined to speculate on all of the arguments, but was prepared to
begin research immediately.

In a response memo, COSA's sponsors already
had an answer for those concerns. Since every aspect of an
individual's life would eventually be linked to COSA. If a suspect
identified through body movements were on crutches, the data would
cross-reference the suspect's medical records and determine if the
excuse was valid or advise of the possibility of an incorrect match
in the analysis. Apex indignantly shook her head at the depth of
the planned invasion into people's personal records and switched to
reading the State Department's report.

State had been asked to assess the
international receptivity for a global system rollout. Who among
the U.S.'s allies would be most willing to finance and construct
the same surveillance protocol and link their visual coverage to
the U.S.? The system will be at its zenith, FedSec proclaimed, when
every inch of the earth was under surveillance and every human had
a profile in the system. The global view would isolate any
suspect's whereabouts worldwide.

The document laid out several hypothetical
case studies for combatting home grown terrorism, including one
scenario about a child born in Minnesota who upon the issuance of
his birth certificate, would be immediately registered in COSA.
Throughout the child's life the system updates when he gets his
inoculations, begins school, signs up to play football, takes his
first job making burgers, buys his first car, submits a college
application, and hands in an employment application to an operating
business. His online access by phone, laptop and other devices
would create the overall picture of his friends, habits and even
word use preferences. Specific access numbers tied to his credit
cards, health insurance, college debt, public transit use, travel
and shopping habits would be aggregated into his record. The system
would continuously scan for activity and ignore those law-abiding
citizens who were also functioning as predicted through a standard
life plan. But if after the first year of college, the now grown
man's activities ceased appearing in the data records, the system
could send law enforcement an alert. COSA's algorithms would have
to account for out-of-country vacations and use additional tools to
cross-reference credit card purchases for airline tickets or hotels
stays and restaurant dining in other locations with the same
timeframe as the missing activity. But if the search indicated the
man had no results for thirty days, a warning could be distributed
worldwide. Law enforcement could interpret a missing individual to
be a victim, or a suspect who may have disappeared into a
clandestine life. If he suddenly re-appeared without explanation,
his actions would almost certainly be considered suspicious.

On these scenarios, the Justice Department
had more to say. All consumer-facing services would have to rewrite
their disclaimers to provide transparency about third party uses of
the consumer's data. Supporters warned such revelations would
undoubtedly lead to a proliferation of service providers who would
guarantee privacy for a premium price. Here the government would
have a class war challenge. If wealthy individuals were able to buy
their way out of COSA, not only would law enforcement miss
potential suspects, but also the middle class and below could
launch a revolt. Many cautions were required to make the system
palpable to the widest range of people. The government would need
to ensure everyone had a profile, regardless of wealth. But to
achieve maximum utilization, the government would have to implement
standard opt-in protocols before the wealthy could determine how to
avoid being covered.

Apex laughed at their naivety. Little did
the official researchers know how far behind the government had
already fallen on this point. People with money were the primary
backers of independent technologists with plans to counteract
government initiatives aimed at monitoring online activity. But
reading on, she understood how COSA intended to involucrate
everyone through the Internet and mobile phones. Utilizing a
publically available service would automatically create a profile
for anyone not already registered in COSA. The data collected
through random use would be transformed into permanent files about
the individual user. 'To avoid this outcome, the rich will have to
create their own internet too,' Apex thought. 'More work for
me.'

Continuing to read the blueprint for a
multi-year research and development strategy, Apex realized COSA
would be slowly created by interlocking existing hardware into one
controlled system. The server farms currently established in
isolated corners near rushing rivers or in hidden valleys in quiet
towns would be brought together under COSA's control. The Commerce
department's contribution to the report warned the government would
need to provide an incentive to businesses to integrate with the
system, but not legislation, which would be too public and viewed
as draconian. Instead, the department suggested the output of the
dedicated research required to create the system should be shared
with businesses from the beginning. The government could allow
citizen profiles to be accessible by public companies to use for
advertising and tailoring products directly to people based on the
details collected about their actual habits. The incentive to
business would be the ability to know the exact products and
services the populace is purchasing, how much they are spending,
and the analysis of trends to predict future consumer activity
based on searches and queries. The government would ensure the
research included extensive inquiry protocols for consumer-facing
industries. In exchange, industry would be expected to cooperate by
attaching their server infrastructure to the domestic, and
eventually international system. Law enforcement predicted that as
the system proved its value by catching terrorists and reducing
crime at home, more businesses would be incentivized to voluntarily
link to the process.

'What a beautiful plan,' Apex sarcastically
concluded as she nearly slammed down her computer screen. 'Too bad,
it's doomed.' In the near past, when governments sought to mobilize
against their own citizens, the rulers would call up a physical
army and order the soldiers to attack the people in the name of the
particular stand being taken. But for this mobilization, the people
would be able to fight back with their own army, one they did not
recruit nor see, but one standing up for their rights and fighting
around their powerlessness. As the government began its movement
towards solidifying COSA, Apex and independent technologists like
her would arise from the public and private ranks to enforce a
rational accounting through their technical capabilities. Her
colleagues were having their own meetings and making independent
plans to stop COSA before the system could be implemented. Their
number one weapon would be advanced technology, including the
brainpower to 'outcode' government operatives. The only question
was when, and where should they start to deploy.

*

"An errant flash drive?" Julia questioned
Marco in a gray-walled windowless room. "The whole incident was a
set-up from the beginning?"