Home - First Test Run by Jason Black

Date: 2014 August 21 In a random home somewhere in UK

"I don't know what to do, I used to love him, that's why I married him but ... I just don't love him any more ... I'm still young so perhaps I should divorce him and start afresh with Tony ... who did your divorce ? ... oh, I think I've heard of them ... how much did it cost ? ... I'll Google them now, bye Rachel, bye".

Susan hung up, picked up her coffee and walked to the table. She pulled her laptop closer and typed "divorce solicitors in london" into Google which responded with a long list of solicitors. Susan studied the list carefully.

Deep inside her laptop a spy-ware program scanned the stream of data flowing through her internet connection. In one stream of data it saw the words 'divorce' and 'solicitor' and sent the whole conversation to an unnamed server in Sweden that had been hacked a few weeks before.

The front door opened and slammed closed. "I'm home honey !" said Harold.

Susan quickly shut the lid on her laptop and went to greet her husband, "So, how was golf ?" she asked, pretending to be interested.

"It was great, I chatted with the guys, and we went for a pint afterwards. I'm just going upstairs ... " said Harold climbing up the stairs.

Susan watched her husband's pot-belly wobble up the stairs and made up her mind. She grabbed her iPhone and typed "Iv decided 2 divorce harold catch up tomorrow at gym". She paused, they had had some good times together but that was a long time ago. Over time Harold had become more and more supplicating and passive, wheres Tony was always challenging her. She pressed 'send' and the text message left her phone to the nearest cell tower and on to Rachel's phone. Unknown to Susan, a copy of that message ended up on the hacked server in Sweden courtesy of the spyware program running in her phone.

Every device on the Internet (laptop, PC, Mac, smart phone, server) has a unique number assigned to it called an IP address and it's quite possible to trace the location of those devices by that number. The Tor network allows you to use the internet anonymously. It does this by bouncing your internet data around different servers in different countries making the process of tracing your IP address almost impossible.

Another server on the Internet used Tor to download an encrypted file from the hacked server in Sweden and after a few calculations, passed the results onto a smart phone in England. The owner picked it up, entered the PIN and read "Target 26: Divorce probability 91%. Click link for more info".

The owner dialled and said "We have our first target, is everything in place ? Are we using the car-hack again ? ... OK, but we need to find other methods, must remember to short the stock of the car manufacturer ... OK Begin." he put the phone down and carried on working.

Susan enjoyed spending time with Rachel as they had a lot in common, both loved shopping, going to the gym, fashion and complaining about their husbands, although in Rachel's case, ex-husband.

Susan knew divorce was a traumatic experience but once it was done, she could enjoy the high life, free from her boring husband, like Rachel had done. Her phone buzzed on the passenger seat with the arrival of a new message, and she quickly looked down to read it. It was from Rachel telling her she was at the gym. Susan could see the level crossing and slowed down. Unknown to Susan, the spyware running in her iPhone had sent her location one last time before erasing its self. Deep inside the car's computer a mysterious program woke up.

The barriers were up, so she drove slowly over the crossing, just as she got half-way across her engine stalled.

"Fuck !! Stupid piece of crap" shouted Susan. She tried to re-start the engine without success. The train driver could see a vehicle on the level crossing and blew the horn. The driver applied the brakes knowing there was no way to get 1000+ tones of train traveling at 70 MPH to stop in time.

Susan looked up, saw the approaching train and shrieked "SHIT !!".

A man rushed up to the Susan's car and tried to help her get out. At that instant the mysterious program fed continuous power to the electric door-locking motors.

"WHAT THE FUCK !!" screamed Susan as she pulled up the door lock only to have it go back down again. The man realised there was nothing he could do and leapt out of the way. She heard the horn, looked up, saw the front of the train and then saw nothing.

"Where are u" texted Rachel. Susan was rarely late for their gym-coffee-gossip sessions. Rachel completed her work-out, showered and drove straight home feeling a bit pissed-off. She parked by her flat, went inside and turned on the TV.

"... the lad said it wasn't him who fed laxative to the dog, and he sure as hell wasn't going to pay to have the carpet cleaned. News has just come in of an accident involving a car on a level crossing. The female driver was killed and the train driver was seriously injured." said the newscaster.

Rachel looked up, the newscaster continued "We spoke to one man who tried to help the woman escape, and he said that the door locks kept engaging and that's why the woman couldn't escape. We will give you more details when we get them. In other news ... "

Rachel was stunned. She picked up her phone and texted "where the fuck are u ???" to Susan, who couldn't reply because she was dead.

DI Hanson also saw the news report and was also stunned. Two cars stall on a level crossing and the drivers mysteriously can't get out. How is that even possible ?

"That job went well." said the second man in the Rolls-Royce.

"Did it fuck !!" replied the first man angrily "Train almost derails, driver in critical condition, injured passengers, news crews and the cops crawling all over the place. Total clusterfuck ! don't use the car-hack any more, it's just too improbable, the deaths must look natural or as misadventure. You don't need to do statistical analysis to realise this was deliberate. We need a more 'tailored' approach to this. Luckily for us the police are still stuck in the 1980s when it comes to computers so it's unlikely it would occur to them to look for malware in the car's computers ... although they might look on the phones." he continued.

"The software on the phones will self-erase on command. What do you mean by 'tailored' approach ?" enquired the second man.

"I mean that everyone has a weak point. Some have pacemakers and other electronic devices inside them, some have dangerous jobs, some do dangerous sports, some work with dangerous equipment, some take drugs and some are overweight. We also need more subtle ways of luring customers in. Try to tap into other categories and keywords. Have you found more locations for the units ?"

"Yes, I found some nice places." replied the second man.

The Rolls-Royce stopped, the two men got out and went inside to the Champagne reception being held inside.

Next Entry