Ivy and Chrome PbP Forums

OOC: Actually, just post over there. Wont hurt to drop a post there.

After bidding his friends farewell, Dane runs back through the blowing snow, up the Justice Center steps and to his dad and the sheriff. They lean against the wall, which offers a mild break from the wind. Sheriff Ericson grins, "You look cold!" poking fun at him.

He heads inside, "Come on guys, let's take a minute to warm up. I'll explain a few things before we head out." He walks over to where a radiator keeps the foyer mostly warm. He turns and glances between George and Dane, "So... Smith Falls Police Department was hacked last night. Whoever it was stole their entire database, then deleted it." He clears his throat while gauging their response, "What they want is to know is how it happened. Who did it. And to see if the files can be recovered. They aren't sure if it was an inside job or if someone skilled actually busted through their stuff, whatever you call it. I'm not a computer nerd."

"Hey!" George laughs, "Don't call em nerds. Dane hates that. It's Geek."

"Riiight..." the sheriff smirks as he sets his gloves on the radiator. He looks to Dane, "Any ideas or we still need to drive there? It's worth a hefty bonus... unless your dad went against my orders and told you how much it's worth."

Dane goes quiet for a moment, running through possibilities so quickly that a few of them slip out under his breath as he thinks. “Could be just a simple file system wipe and the data's still there in unallocated memory. Depending on how recent it was, there might still be something useful in memory buffers or swap cache. If they had viable backups, they probably wouldn’t be asking for me, so either the backups were compromised too or they don’t trust them. Need the access logs... file system snapshots if they exist... network logs for back tracing if it came in remotely...I'll have to watch out for any deadman traps they may have left behind.” He finally lifts his eyes from the floor, surfacing from the mental exercise. “I’ll need to be on the machine where the database lived. I can’t do this remotely. Tell them not to touch anything until we get there.”

He pauses, then continues more steadily. “If it was an inside job, there’s a decent chance I can recover at least part of the data. If it was done by someone experienced, they may have left traps, malware, or routines meant to destroy whatever was left once someone starts looking. They also may have removed any realistic chance of recovering the files locally. But if they came in from outside and left me enough to trace, I might be able to follow them back and recover what they took.”

Another thought clicks into place and he keeps going. “They also need to think about motive. Deleting the whole database may have just been cover. Whoever did it might not care about everything. They may have been after one person, one case file, one witness location, one piece of evidence... and wiping the rest just hides the target in the noise. I’ll know more once I see how sophisticated the intrusion actually was.”

Dane goes quiet for a moment, running through possibilities so quickly that a few of them slip out under his breath as he thinks. “Could be just a simple file system wipe and the data's still there in unallocated memory. Depending on how recent it was, there might still be something useful in memory buffers or swap cache. If they had viable backups, they probably wouldn’t be asking for me, so either the backups were compromised too or they don’t trust them. Need the access logs... file system snapshots if they exist... network logs for back tracing if it came in remotely... I'll have to watch out for any deadman traps they may have left behind.” He finally lifts his eyes from the floor, surfacing from the mental exercise. “I’ll need to be on the machine where the database lived. I can’t do this remotely. Tell them not to touch anything until we get there.”

Both George and Joe stand slack jawed, listening to him ramble...

"I understood only a tiny bit of that..." George admits.

He pauses, then continues more steadily. “If it was an inside job, there’s a decent chance I can recover at least part of the data. If it was done by someone experienced, they may have left traps, malware, or routines meant to destroy whatever was left once someone starts looking. They also may have removed any realistic chance of recovering the files locally. But if they came in from outside and left me enough to trace, I might be able to follow them back and recover what they took.”

"Uh huh, sure," the sheriff pretends to understand.

Another thought clicks into place and he keeps going. “They also need to think about motive. Deleting the whole database may have just been cover. Whoever did it might not care about everything. They may have been after one person, one case file, one witness location, one piece of evidence... and wiping the rest just hides the target in the noise. I’ll know more once I see how sophisticated the intrusion actually was.”

They both perk with Dane's final comments, "That actually makes sense," the sheriff says first. George thinking the same thing. "Well, Dane, I think you're definitely the guy for the job. Ready?" He smiles, then looks at George, "How are you so goofy with a genius of a kid?"

George scowls, smirking simultaneously, "Hey! I resemble that remark."

“I take after my mom, obviously,” Dane deadpans, though a slight lift at the corner of his mouth gives him away.

He does one more check of his gear to make sure he has everything, then adds, “Ready when you are.”

“I take after my mom, obviously,” Dane deadpans, though a slight lift at the corner of his mouth gives him away. He does one more check of his gear to make sure he has everything, then adds, “Ready when you are.”

The trio tromp out to the old, battle‑scarred pickup. Joe yanks the door open and it answers with a rusty shriek as a gust of snow barges in like it owns the place. The sheriff claims the driver’s seat. George gestures grandly at Dane. “After you. I always ride shotgun.”

Joe, meanwhile, begins his sacred ritual of starting the truck: crank, sputter, cough, almost, sputter, then finally a triumphant roar. He lets it idle like a dragon waking up. No one speaks. They simply marinate in the ambiance of cold vinyl seats and questionable engine noises.

At last, Joe slams it into gear, pops the clutch, and launches them toward Smith Falls. Dane spots Meg waving from the library window as they pass, her silhouette framed in warm light. Joe, feeling theatrical, uses the snowpack to drift the corner onto the south road. For the next thirty minutes, he treats the pickup less like a vehicle and more like a carnival ride; at one point executing a full 360‑degree spin that somehow ends with them still pointed straight up the road.

Eventually, they rumble into Smith Falls and slip behind the police station, parking in the narrow back alley. Joe hops out and pounds on the rear door three times with his fist. A moment later, it swings open. Inside, Dane is ushered to a small waiting room with his dad while the sheriff disappears to find the chief.

George leans in, voice low and warm. “You nervous.”

“I wasn’t.” When he wasn’t wondering if he was going to die in a fiery truck wreck in the snow, Dane had spent most of the ride thinking through different scenarios and working out what he was going to do first. “I mean, when I’m focused, I don’t get nervous, because I get lost in my world. Sometimes it’s like I can see the electrons flowing, and the computer just talks to me.” His brow furrows and his eyes grow intense before he continues. “I know that sounds silly, but I feel like this is what I was meant to do. Lord Stein would probably call it God's plan or something.”

“I wasn’t.” When he wasn’t wondering if he was going to die in a fiery truck wreck in the snow, Dane had spent most of the ride thinking through different scenarios and working out what he was going to do first. “I mean, when I’m focused, I don’t get nervous, because I get lost in my world. Sometimes it’s like I can see the electrons flowing, and the computer just talks to me.” His brow furrows and his eyes grow intense before he continues. “I know that sounds silly, but I feel like this is what I was meant to do. Lord Stein would probably call it God's plan or something.”

"Yeah," his dad distantly replies, as though reliving a memory, "He would..."

Sheriff Ericson pops his head in, "Alright Dane, he's ready for you. Follow me." He leads Dane and George through a series of hallways. Dane notices cameras watching each hallway and door. Eventually, he's led into a server room where a tall skinny policeman, dressed in classic dark blue, wearing thick black glasses, stands at a dumb terminal accessing CJIS and the server it rests on. As the three enter, he turns and shakes the sheriff's hand.

Joe turns and introduces George, "This is deputy Stryker." allowing the policeman to shake his hand and answers, "Pleased, I'm Mosley."

Joe then introduces Dane, "And this is our expert, Dane," while leaving out Dane's last name.

After pleasantries, Mosley begins to describe the situation, "Last night, our network alarms triggered, prompting me and my partner to investigate. By the time we got here, all of our case files, as far back as we've digitally kept records, were accessed, then deleted. Whoever it was also wiped out all event logs for the past six months. Whoever it was, ceased their attack at about midnight, which is when our alarms triggered. There was no evidence of anyone entering or leaving the server room in the past twenty four hours.

"Our initial analysis showed, other than the data being accessed and deleted, nothing else seems amiss. The software is fully intact and nothing else was disturbed," he sees Dane's eyes scanning the terminal, understanding that it's not the main storage and processor, just an I/O device. "As you understand, we don't even trust our officers and technicians near the physical server without written authorization. We were hoping you could investigate and determine how they broke in and exfiltrated decades of data; determine who they are and maybe recover the data." Mosley moves out of the way for Dane, "Is there anything that you require from us?"

“I do have a couple of questions before I get started,” Dane begins. “Are there other terminals besides this one, and has anyone physically inspected the server to confirm there isn’t any unauthorized hardware attached?”

As they answer, Dane slides into the seat and starts his analysis. He drops out of the interface and goes straight to command-line access, but keeps everything as passive as possible. Just a light looking around to see what may have been recently added. He sweeps for persistence hooks, trigger scripts, and dormant malware before touching anything that could execute a trap. If he finds intrusive software, he will map its behavior and isolate it only after he is sure he understands what it is by bypassing any active analysis and doing a sector analysis at the system level. Especially if it's custom, the way it's written and execution style might still reveal something about the creator.

“I do have a couple of questions before I get started,” Dane begins. “Are there other terminals besides this one, and has anyone physically inspected the server to confirm there isn’t any unauthorized hardware attached?”

"Not yet, cameras on the room show that no-ones been in there in nearly a week." Mosley frowns, "We haven't even gone in there after. We're still waiting on the chief to sign the authorization."

Dane slides into the seat and starts his analysis. He tries to drop out of the CJIS interface, yet, it refuses. (Computer Operations Roll = 17%) He dives deeper, realizing that the terminal is only designed to access the software from the server, nothing else. As he described to both Joe and George, he tries to visualize it all. Eventually closing his eyes and seeing the neutral, positive and negative charges flowing along the conductors into the server, where he feels himself in a sea of information and processes. He eventually traverses into the server, like a trap door that's seemingly near impossible to approach by any other means.

In his mind's eye, his eyes still lightly closed, he feels the energy through the keyboard. He sweeps for persistence hooks, trigger scripts, and dormant malware before touching anything that could execute a trap. He finds nothing. He finds no intrusive software or evidence suggesting any. Whoever did this has some serious talent. He searches at the system level, hoping to identify rogue processes or even system level permissions on random files, alternate data streams or even... then he finds it.

Dane opens his eyes. While Mosley is explaining that there are only four dumb terminals that the officers and detective can access, Dane identifies one more point of access. There are communications sourcing from unidentified hardware connected physically to a serial port. The server itself is broadcasting an encrypted message. Dane's seen this before. RF SSID broadcast on a 6 GHz frequency; Wi-Fi...

Dane looks around, realizing that Mosley, Joe and his father are just staring at him.

"Well?" his dad asks.