As he reviewed the rest of the code he was trying to remove, he realized it was part of an algorithm that was too sophisticated for Buzz to do on his own. Though he racked his brain, Jacob knew there was nothing else that he had provided to Buzz that could enable the characteristic behavior that he was seeing. He started to test his tracking fixes on the safe system, and by all appearances it seemed to be working. After he finished his notes, he closed down the safe system, loaded up his PC, thanked the tech that had shadowed him and headed home.
JAM: Hey man are you there? Need some help?
Quip: Hey JAM sure missed seeing you at DEFCON after day 1. Work called you back huh?
JAM: That is a story requiring beer and time man. Have another issue though that I could use some advice. Got time?
Quip: Sure, what’s up?
JAM: Working for a customer and think I have rootkit at work. Some of the code I follow, but it vanishes.
Quip: Yeah, those things can be a bear. But that is not me man, Petra maybe. Reach out to her.
JAM: Yeah well, don’t know how and she left me fairly peeved in Las Vegas.
Quip: Really, last I saw you were in a cozy discussion by yourselves. I figured you had hooked up.
JAM: Nope, not so much. How can I find her?
Quip: Don’t have a number, but you might reach her at this chat room with a different persona securecyrptographerroom.net Just supply some fresh blood problem and the sharks will whirl into a frenzy, then she’ll show. Use my alter ego, Brutus if you want. She has responded to me sometimes.
Once home he quickly connected one of his machines to the Internet. He recognized that this was really not the usual type of program within his sphere of expertise. Perhaps Quip could assist, at least with a good approach to take. Checking, he located Quip online.
Jacob went to the chat room. He used the non-standard persona Brutus. He began to supply a crazy problem that was not related to his issue. A few of the visitors exchanged with him, and he kept growing the fictional problem. Quip was on target with the frenzied sharks. After an hour plus of rapid fire comments exchanged, and about when he thought Petra must be sleeping, his cell phone rang. As he connected the call, he heard clicking which he recognized as a layer of encryption on the call.
“Hello?” he questioned, with all senses on alert.
“Hello, Jacob,” she quietly said. “You seem to have one very wild problem that everyone is now focused on. Would you prefer to speak about it live or do it in the chat room?”
Jacob was speechless for a few seconds, trying to figure out how she had his number, and had known it was him on line, even when he was using Quip’s Brutus persona.
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