Rick Dakan - Geek Mafia: Black Hat Blues

GEEK MAFIA:
Black Hat Blues

GEEK MAFIA:
Black Hat Blues

Rick Dakan

Geek Mafia: Black Hat Blues
By Rick Dakan

ISBN: 978-1-60486-088-7
LCN: 2009901383

Copyright 2009 Rick Dakan
This edition copyright 2009 PM Press
All Rights Reserved

PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org

Layout: Karl Kersplebedeb
Cover: John Yates

Printed in the USA, on recycled paper.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Atrribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

This is a work of fiction. All characters in this book are fictional and events portrayed in this book are either products of the authors imagination or used fictitiously.

Contents

Thanks to All The Hackers

This is a work of fiction, so lets keep that in mind, but it wouldnthave been possible to write this book without the welcoming, friendly,helpful, and sometimes intimidating assistance of numerous real livenon-fictional hackers from all over the United States and Germany.I spent the better part of a year traveling to hacker cons, interviewingparticipants, attending talks, and taking copious notes. Almost withoutexception the organizers, speakers, and attendees I talked to welcomedme into the fold and helped me to, I think, really understand the worldof hacking. Its a community Ive come to love and now consider myselfa part of. So some of you out there might recognize yourselves in thisbook, some of you are even mentioned by real name. In the latter case,real names are used entirely fictitiously and shouldnt be taken as real-worldreportage. Many other incidents herein might seem familiar tothose knowing few who were there for the real world events that inspiredthem, and I hope you ll get a smile or a thrill from my fictitious versions.

For everyone else, welcome to the world of hacker conventions. Ifyouve never heard of such a thing before (I certainly hadnt until acouple months before I attended my first), I encourage you to get onlineand find out more. Watch some videos of some talks, check out somewebsites, and if it looks interesting to you, try it out. Whats the worstthat could happen? Well, I guess this book is one version of the worstthat can happen, but really, you wouldnt be this crazy, would you?

Paul

I was going to, but even at this one I never log on using the wireless at a hacker con, its like suicide, except your porn collection gets stolen too. Paul Reynolds smiled at the overheard bit of conversation as he balanced three pizza boxes and two six-packs of Coke in front of him and wove his way through the cluster of shivering smokers huddled outside the hotel entrance. It was a relief to take the awkward twirl through the revolving door and come in from the cold. No one seemed to pay him or his pizzas any attention. This crowd had seen a lot of pizza delivered in its collective lifetime. He picked up more snatches of overheard data as he moved through the mostly male conversation clusters that milled about the spacious and surprisingly elegant hotel lobby with no purpose other than to meet, greet, and discuss the topics of the day. They have Jason Scott speaking opposite Dan Kaminsky again How many Shmoo balls are you going to buy? I actually kind of hate room parties You have to try the Ethiopian place this year Im thinking of not sleeping at all and seeing if I actually start hallucinating in code.

It was certainly the nicest hotel Paul had ever attended a hacker convention inusually they inhabited rundown economy chains out by the local interstatebut the newly remodeled Wardman Park Marriott in Washington D.C. catered to businessmen, politicians, and lobbyists more often than hackers, and Paul imagined the cons organizers probably sold it to the hotel staff as a computer security conference instead of a hacker con. But looking around the crowd, he recognized the quintessential types well enough after a year of moving among them. They were hackers: mostly male, casually dressed, lots of black t-shirts, interesting hairstyle choices. Fewer had laptops than hed first anticipated, but there were still more of them per capita than even a hotel lobby catering to traveling business execs was used to. And a lot more of those machines had stickers advocating various flavors of Linux or BSD or proclaiming the owners allegiance in the great pirates vs. ninjas debate. Paul came down firmly on the side of the pirates of course.

The con hadnt even started yet, and Paul knew that there would be hundreds more hackers arriving over the course of the evening, and tomorrow morning the large ballrooms up the escalators would fill with over a thousand people interested in hacking, hackers, or hacker culture. There would be parties, and arguments, and debates, and games, and wildly entertaining rants mixed with droning, mind-sappingly dull presentations. And unlike the previous cons hed been to, this time he would miss almost all of it. He wasnt even registered to attend. In his polo shirt, cardigan sweater and khakis he looked more like a vacationing yuppie father of two toddlers than your typical con attendee, but that was just his cover. Just like the con itself was providing cover for why he was really in DC and what he and the Crew were planning.

Paul bypassed the throng waiting in front of the bank of elevators and cut down the wide, carpeted hall past the Starbucks and the bar, headed towards an unmarked door tucked into one corner. He balanced one of the pizzas against his hip long enough to open the door to the fire stairs and slipped inside with a last glance around to see if anyone noticed him. No one he could see did. Inside and up five flights and out again, an exertion that would have left him breathless a year or two earlier. Down the hall to the right, and three quiet knocks on the door. He saw someones head block the thin trickle of light through the peephole and he shook his head slowly to the left and then the right. Latches unlocked on the other side and the door opened. Chloe smiled and ushered him and the pizzas inside.

He scanned the suite for some empty, pizza-box sized surface, but found no likely candidates, so he placed them on top of the stacked luggage in the corner to his right. The others didnt look up from their various pressing tasks, and Paul didnt want to distract them. The food would be there for them when they remembered they needed to eat.

Whatd I miss? he asked Chloe, who apparently needed to eat right now judging by the way she scooted past him and flipped open a box. She was wearing a smartly tailored gray skirt-suit combo that showed a little more thigh than might be considered strictly professional. Then again, the bright pink, short cropped hair clashed with the jackets stylish cut in an even less business-like manner. But Paul knew there was a brown wig in a conservative cut lying on their bed that completed the disguise.

Which ones mushroom? Chloe asked.

On the bottom I think.

Not much. Things are finally up and running downstairs so weve got c1sman back with us. Their networks up. Ours is up. The outside connection is, and I quote, mostly up, whatever that means.