(Also available in Greek)
> Now you’ll see.
I woke up abruptly from the annoying, increasing sound of my mobile phone. I should have bought one of those that play music, but I was so fed up with new technologies that I’d probably end up picking it up in pieces from the floor.
Ten new messages. My colleagues had been busy all night. I felt like I had the worst job in the world. Responsible for combating electronic crime in a country where relevant laws were absent, leaving us exposed most of the time.
I should never have volunteered for this position, but I preferred to shoot with my mouse rather than my gun. All the kids we picked up had such a wronged expression when we took them to the station with a police escort that I often thought they didn’t need handcuffs, but rather a good beating.
Twenty-three attacks within an hour with no trace. Most were related to government services. The start of a nice week. I had to get to work promptly to find out what had happened before the phones started ringing.
Upon arrival, I found my office filled with printouts, separated into folders, indicating where and when the attacks occurred. My colleagues had done good work, but now it was up to me to find out who had caused all this.
The door to my office opened, and one of my team members walked in holding a bulging rubbish bag.
– Good morning, Mr. Georgiou.
– Good morning to you too, Michalis. Will it be a good one? What are you holding?
– These are the folders of the attacks from the past weekend.
– Alright, and how many are there?
– A total of thirty-nine.
– All this in two days?
– Yes, that’s why I’m bringing them to you. We’ve had a sudden increase in intrusions over the last few days, it started around last Thursday.
– I’ll look into it, thank you.
Great, more than sixty cases on my desk, and it’s not even ten o’clock. I made some coffee, hoping to find within the caffeine the courage to begin. I organized the cases by day and opened the first folder.
Typical website defacement. The intruder was very laconic. “Onar, I miss you. Plasma”. They had actually coded it in such a way that, within a few seconds, it would automatically redirect you to the real page without causing any further issues. Particularly polite on their part, but still illegal nonetheless.
I looked at the other folders, they all had similar messages. “Onar, I feel lonely. Plasma”, “Onar, come back to me. Plasma”, this pseudonym was everywhere except in three cases by different offenders. I made a list of targets that Plasma had signed and asked Michalis to find out if there were any other similar cases.
The first calls started coming in. I tried to calm the journalists down by saying that arrests would be made soon and that we were very close to dismantling this sudden whirlwind of digital destruction. They always liked to hear grandiose words, it fits with the climate of fear they want to create around new technologies, and keeps me in my job.
My printer started working, displaying a multi-page list of case numbers for the current month. The phone rang.
– Did you get them?
– Hello Michalis, yes, I see them now. Are all these from our guy?
– Yes, they started on the first of the month and continue until today.
– Great, I’m waiting for their folders.
– I’m on my way.
Forty more cases laid patiently on my desk, waiting for me to compare them and make sense of it all. I had to move my mug to the floor, as I felt the first dose of caffeine starting to wane.
The intruder struck between midnight and one in the morning, and preferred computers with open-source operating systems. They only distorted the home pages without leaving a trace, never damaging the remaining files. Their messages were always of the same type. They addressed someone named Onar, expressing how much they wanted [[her]] and nothing else.
What impressed me was the speed at which they worked. On Monday, in less than an hour, they managed to change twenty-three pages, while the day before, nineteen. If it wasn’t a team of multiple people, then we were certainly dealing with a particularly dedicated individual.
I tried to find some relationship between the websites. Some had similar themes, others did not. It was getting towards noon when I realized that most of the pages had links to one another. Actually, if you observed them chronologically, you could see an imaginary chain leading you from the beginning to the end.
Many new questions arose. How did they decide how many computers to infiltrate each day? Where did they start? I went back to the first attack and found it was against a government research institute. Why start there? Were we missing something?
My superiors were pressuring me to find a solution quickly, but I was so drowned in letters and numbers that everyone around me started to look suspicious. Even that cleaner who was giving me sideways glances as he mopped the parquet.
It was getting dark when it hit me. On the first day of the month, we had recorded an attack on only one page, but on the second day, three, and on the third, five. Looking at the sequence of numbers on paper, I managed to see the set of prime numbers within them. 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, and finally 23. The only thing missing to complete the puzzle was one more attack on the first of the month, and then we would have a complete series of prime numbers.
Suddenly, I looked the cleaner in the eyes with the horrified expression a pilot has when he sees a missile approaching him on the radar. I started calling my colleagues, who were already asleep, tired from all the work last night.
I had them all come to the office before eleven in the evening. Nobody was in the mood for work, but I made sure to emphasize the importance of the situation, and, for some, I had to remind them that I was their superior and “no” wasn’t an option.
– Listen up. We have a maniac who’s altering websites in the name of love. I’ve concluded that in about an hour, he will attack twenty-nine more targets, different from the previous ninety-nine we know of.
– That’s terrible! Most of Monday’s computers are government-owned!
– I know, but the only computer we’re interested in is his last target. That’s where he’ll start. I want you to make me a list of all the links contained on that page that lead to machines with open-source operating systems. You have thirty minutes.
Indeed, in half an hour, I had the list with four potential targets of Plasma. I had to wake up three network administrators, invoking my rank and the seriousness of the matter, and by midnight we had managed to gain full oversight of these machines.
The minutes were ticking away. Adrenaline made me tremble, while thoughts of sleep were merely forgotten hopes in my subconscious. Nothing. All we heard were the keyboards issuing system control commands.
– We have an entry!
The voice pierced my ears like the gunshot that signals athletes to start a race. I sat at the computer that was connected as an administrator, while two others logged in with high-privilege accounts.
We couldn’t let him slip away. We issued commands incessantly, trying to locate his point of entry. He was well-hidden, but I couldn’t let that stop me.
– He’s changed it!
The love messages to Onar filled my screen once again. He was fast, but I didn’t let my morale drop. He would try to erase the logs that had recorded his entry, so I made sure to copy them somewhere locally that he couldn’t access. I don’t know if he realized we were there, but after doing what he wanted, he disconnected.
– Quickly, find out where he’s going next!
I started tracing the path of the address he had left behind, bypassing the firewalls he used. I ended up on a computer abroad, where he had obviously gained illegal access.
– Michalis, I want to speak to the techs at Mel-Tel in Melbourne.
– Right away.
In five minutes, I had them on the phone. It was a bit past eight in the morning there, and things were just starting to move, but I managed to convince them they had a “hole” that someone had exploited.
– We’ve lost him, Mr. Georgiou, we don’t know where he went.
– How many targets had he completed?
– About twenty.
– He’ll disconnect soon then..
The only thing that could be heard now were the desperate clicks of my colleagues and the hold music from Mel-Tel’s call center. The music stopped. They spoke to me, and I hung up the phone.
– We’ve got him, guys!
In a short while, we received an email from the Australian company expressing their sorrow for this unexpected event, and they had attached the perpetrator’s details.
– Find out everything you can about the “FutureLife” address.
Time was passing, the adrenaline was starting to calm down, but my stress over catching the perpetrator was increasing. I had already started filling out the necessary paperwork for a warrant when the door knocked.
– Mr. Georgiou, we found that the FutureLife page has also been changed.
– What exactly does it say?
– It only reads: “Onar, where are you? Plasma”.
– I think we’ve found the page that was missing from the first day! Did you identify the owner?
– Yes, his name is Dennis Kostopoulos, and we have his address and phone number.
– I want to speak to him.
They gave me the number. I didn’t expect anyone to answer at two in the morning, but someone picked up. A deep male voice said: “You’ve called FutureLife Technologies. The company is temporarily closed. For more information, you can call..”. I noted down a mobile number, but when I called, it was switched off. I couldn’t take this stress anymore.
– Michalis, wake up Papathanasiou.
In a few hours and after some harsh words with my groggy superiors, I managed to prepare an arrest warrant. We soon arrived at his front door. I took the lead.
– Mr. Kostopoulos, we’re from the police, open up.
Nothing.
– Mr. Kostopoulos?
– Yes?
– Open the door, we’re from the police.
– What do you want at 5:30 in the morning?
– Open the door, we have a warrant.
– Alright, alright, calm down, wait.
A tired man in his thirties, with balding hair and a beer belly, opened the door.
– Are you Dennis Kostopoulos, the owner of FutureLife?
– Yes, look, if this is about those loans, I plan to pay them back, they didn’t have to call the police.
– We’re not from the Financial Crimes Unit, sir, we’re from the Cybercrime Division.
– The what?
– You’ll need to accompany us for some questions at the station.
– What is this about?
– We’ll discuss that at the station, please follow us.
He put something on over his pajamas and came with us. I preferred to interrogate suspects at the station to make them more nervous. I called two of my assistants into the room and started recording.
– Tell us, what does the alias “Plasma” mean to you?
– What do you mean?
– I want a direct answer, not a question.
– Can you explain what has happened?
– What exactly is going on with your business, Mr. Kostopoulos? Why is it closed?
– It’s temporarily closed due to financial reasons.
– In other words, you didn’t have the revenue to cover the expenses, correct?
– Correct..
– And why did you resort to website defacement?
– I don’t know what you’re talking about.
– So the alias “Onar” also means nothing to you?
– Where are you getting this information from?
– I wonder why you continue to play ignorant, having destroyed one hundred twenty-nine websites in ten days!
I pushed some case files towards him. He quickly skimmed through them and got startled.
– I can’t believe it..
– What can’t you believe?
– If I tell you what has happened, you won’t believe it either.
– Try me.
– You have to see this, we must go to my company at once.
– I can’t allow that, you are currently being interrogated.
– I can explain what happened if you let me take you to my office.
It was dawn, I hadn’t slept for over 24 hours, and I wanted to get to the bottom of this case before the phones started ringing about the 29 new attacks by the infamous Plasma.
We arrived at the offices of FutureLife, the environment was dusty, and the space was particularly empty. Some folders had piled up under the door, mostly advertisements and magazines.
– I haven’t been in here since last month.
– I want to see where you’re going with all of this.
– Follow me.
He led me to a room at the back. It could easily be called a closet, but outside it said “Computer Room”. The atmosphere was stifling from the smell of the power supplies, which apparently kept running day and night.
– Mr. Georgiou, meet Plasma.
He showed me a tall black computer box leaning against one corner of the room. The lights on its frame were flashing incessantly, while countless cables extended messily from behind it.
– What are you saying?
– Plasma is an informatics experiment I started a few years ago with government grants. It’s a computer that learns to collect information and uses it in combination until it achieves the expected result.
– You mean all this was done by a thinking machine?
– You could also put it that way.
I felt a multitude of questions finding answers, like a series of dominos falling one on top of each other.
– Well.. what about Onar, what’s the connection?
– Onar is another computer I had connected to the same network as Plasma. They were doing exactly the same job. I wanted to see if the same AI program could yield different results, and as it turned out, the possibilities are endless. They managed to locate each other, decide who would be male and who would be female, and often collaborated in data retrieval.
– And where is she now?
– I had to disconnect it at the end of last month because I didn’t have enough resources to maintain it, but I couldn’t bring myself to shut down Plasma as well.
– So, Plasma felt the absence of Onar and has been trying to get your attention all this time?
– I’m afraid so, but I was too overwhelmed to realize it.
Silence followed. I didn’t know what to say. Of all the things I had thought, this was last on the imagination list.
– You understand you’ll have to disconnect him now?
– Yes, I understand.. but I’ll do something better.
I saw him remove some cables from behind the black box and bring another, white one, into the room.
– This here is the victim of his love!
I almost laughed, I didn’t know what he was doing. He powered Onar and placed her next to Plasma. He took a small flat wire like a phone cable from the closet.
– What exactly are you doing?
– I’m connecting them together. I’ve cut off their Internet access so they can only see each other.
– Won’t they realize?
– I don’t think they care. Now they can be together forever.. Isn’t that what matters?
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