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Joel By FirmWarez
5 August 2011. 03:16 in the morning. It is still 102 degrees in Las
Vegas. Vs ~ 331.3 + 0.6Tc. That gives a speed of sound of
approximately 355 m/s, or 1165 ft/s. The 158gr 9mm projectiles
impacting around me have a muzzle velocity of about 940 ft/s. Quite
subsonic; and fired through the suppressor on the other end of this
business the shooter is effectively stealthy. On my side however, those
slugs still make a serious sound punching through the air, not to
mention a frankly terrifying noise as they hammer and splatter on the
concrete of the parking structure I use for cover.
It started with a simple hypertext link; one of those �a friend of a
friend� things on a mundane social networking site. Mundane was the
word of the day -- so mundane I didn�t notice it at first. What I did
notice was that this person�s posts, pictures, likes, actions � all dull
and mundane � we�re too dull�and directly coincided with major events
unfolding. Joel, the friend of a friend, seeming �friends� with half
the planet, also seemed to be the world�s least interesting man. �I
went shopping today. I spent $17.45�. Pictures of meaningless
landscapes. A bland profile picture in a white button up shirt, an
unremarkable face. No doting on kids, no drama with frenemies, just
pictures of suburbs, trees in the park, clouds in the sky. A million
friends but no girlfriend -- or boyfriend for that matter. �The weather
was nice today, I went for a walk at 6:30�.
It was a spring of change as obvious as that vernal analogy seems.
Peoples of many nations once under the harsh thumb of mindless tyrants
were rising up and making their voices known. As an self proclaimed
�min-archist� I cheered from the sidelines for freedom, watching tweets
and buzzes and vids propagate as freedom spilled across the dry lands,
more welcome than the rare rains.
Maybe I watched too deeply, too interested, too investigative. I don�t
know why I did a simple C(r) = NSXY - (SX)(SY) / Sqrt([NSX2 -
(SX)2][NSY2 - (SY)2]). But I did, and I became convinced. It couldn�t
be coincidence.
Every post, every check-in, everything about Joel�s page was temporally
connected to the events unfolding on the world wide stage. He would
post, and the state department made an announcement. Joel announced
that he went to the store for coffee, and NATO fighter planes would run
a sortie. At times I felt half mad; but it was repeatable beyond
expectation. If this was a paranoid delusion it was the best I had, my
own personal Nash equilibrium. Joel posted, tweeted, and I tuned to the
world�s media to see what would happen next. The patterns were
indisputable.
I became obsessed with seeing what deeper information lay hidden in
Joel�s personal page.
Every spare moment was devoted to Joel�s info. My late nights became
illuminated by glowing monitors, digging through old collected philes on
every form of spook-dom I could recall. I think all those of my
profession of electronics and software had some interest in the
technology of espionage, and I for years I had stuffed away books,
stories, presentations from technical conferences, and now I was
convinced that somewhere in all those philes-because-its-cool I could
find a way to see more into Joel.
I obsessed over Joel. Is there a real �Joel�, or is this personal page
merely an electronic dead drop? I combed his posts for additional
information, I looked for anything that carry additional meaning. His
posts. His friends. Anything and everything. I added his friends. I
scanned them for activity. I told no one of my discovery.
The spring turned to summer. Some of the international games seemed
stale mated; others came to a conclusion. When there was a spike in
activity in the world, there was a spike in Joel�s activity. My
obsession waxed and waned as well.
By late summer the situation in one country, long considered a friend of
those I would call enemies, had drastically deteriorated. Tales of
violence and torture as daily tools of the �police� were coming to
light. Joel�s social life blossomed. New friends. New pictures. New
posts.
I�m not sure why it took my so long to make the critical connection that
changed my life. Perhaps the associated technology was so old,
something long forgotten tucked away on a shelf, exciting in its day,
but now merely old. But still useful�through the haze of memory it
popped out.
Joel routinely talked about the buying items, and going for walks. Each
of those included a dollar amount he spent, or a time he left for his
walk. All dollar amounts were greater than $10, and less than $20.
During these days of intensified resistant in that far off land, Joel�s
walks and shopping trips became almost routine. In anticipation I dug
through my old gear; my pulse rate went up as I connected equipment and
the time grew nearer. GMT � 5. Joel had spent $14.55. I connected the
audio out to the line input on my PC, ready to record whatever sounds
came out. The minutes ticked down, and I tuned my old shortwave
receiver to 14.55 MHz. My room was filled with the sounds of AM static.
Crackles and swooshes. Pops and hisses. Then the non-silence of an
unmodulated carrier signal, and�the ping-pong of two notes! My palms
were sweating as I started to record to my hard drive. A second after
the tones played a female voice repeated �Attention!� Three times. Did
she have a French accent? It was hard tell.
�15. 37. 18. 22. 33�� The female voice slowly and purposefully spoke a
series of two digit numbers. After a short time the numbers topped, and
there was the sound of digitally modulated signal. Not musical like a
fax machine, but the harsh squawk of a modem. After the data burst
there were two seconds of dead carrier, then the initial two tones again
and the whole message was repeated. The carrier dropped away, and once
again the radio interpreted only the background hum of the universe.
I sat there flabbergasted. I replayed the recording over and over. I
knew of course what this was. Back in the cold war they were called
�number stations�. We used them. They used them. No one talked about
them; everyone knew what they were. Instructions to operatives, sent
with one time pads. The connection between the old tech and new was
haunting.
I couldn�t sleep. I had to find more. I analyzed the modem squawk and
found it to be very simple old fashioned FSK, at only 4800 baud. This
message, over a radio medium now more common in the third world than the
first, was designed to reach out to people who had to make do.
I focused on the data stream: I knew the numbers themselves were
secure. The nature of a one-time-pad. I was no crypto specialist, but
I have read a couple of books �applied� and �privacy� books over the
years. As with the audio itself, the modem data revealed nothing but a
string of numbers.
I played the audio over and over while digging through old paper files.
A manila folder marked 2006 held what I was looking for: some notes from
a talk on steganography. I began to review the concept, when
simultaneously I had a new message online and a phone call. I stopped
the recording of the �numbers�, multi-tasked and answered the phone
while clicking on the new message.
I heard and read the same thing: �You are following Joel too closely.�
A bit shocking yes, but not too surprising. Of course someone with
access to the right logs knows exactly who is following Joel. I was just
a �friend of a friend�. My interest in the mundane had caught someone�s
attention.
At this point I was supposed to be scared off, to let go of Joel and
return to my normal life. It just wasn�t that simple for me anymore.
People like me dream of connecting their technological prowess to
�something bigger�. Add on top of that pure obsession, coupled with not
an insignificant amount of sleep deprivation, resulted in a compulsive
resolve to continue. From early on I wanted to know what was hidden
from me. It resulted in a life of engineering and technology, listening
to airwaves, snooping for open wireless access points, snarfing video
feeds. Rational or not I decided at that point to keep going, even to
step over the lines I dare not cross before.
I quickly downloaded all of Joel�s pictures. My short reconnection with
the steganography I attended years ago, the folder still in my hands,
told me that there was something more to be seen in those images besides
the dull suburban landscape around Joel�s daily activities.
In addition to the analyzing these images, I had another priority. I
needed to know who else was following Joel. This would require
returning to the more seedy side of my net friends, some people I hadn�t
really interacted with since college. I mean, afterwards I �went
legit�, got a good job with a well known firm, and pretended like I
didn�t know the meaning of xploit. But now I needed to know, more than
anything I had wanted to know before.
So there�s the background. That was the spark that led to someone
shooting at me at no-o-clock in the morning in Las Vegas. Those early
days of this adventure were nothing but the fun of discovery; the days
leading up to Las Vegas were a blur.
I dug through a number of steganography options. I reviewed open source
options, played with some source code.
unsigned int Q = 0; Q += (Pixel01.RedChan%2); Q += (2*
(Pixel01.GreenChan%2)); Q += (4* (Pixel01.BlueChan%2)); Q += (8*
(Pixel01.AlphaChan%2));
I let my code crunch the pictures. While hacking on this, some free
beer for my old friends reopened doors. Database exploits were never of
much interest to me, but now they were the tool I needed to get what I
wanted. My beer soaked friends would be happy to drink and black hat
their way in to the inner workings of a popular social networking site,
while I worked on finding what was hidden in those images.
I was close, and I knew it. After digging through everything I could
find on steganography it was obvious these images were being used to
convey information. I had to believe that it was a matter of time
before I knew what that was. I was about to compile, and an IM window
bleeped to life. �W00t!� It was my questionable friends. �d00d u gotta
see this. Aint� talking here; only IRL. Now.�
I pushed my project on to a laptop, along with all of my �Joel� philes,
and drove across town. The city at night seemed like a glowing movie
prop; not real, an imagined bit of scenery just to make things seem more
real. The stillness of the sleeping buildings was at odds with my
anxiety. I got to my friend�s downtown apartment and nearly ran up the
stairs with excitement. The door opened and I was met with music that
sounded like a missile strike, throbbing and synthesizing layers of
moody electronica.
�Word! Come check this out. This hax0r is good�. My friends talked
like they typed. One sat a system with three monitors. So they were
able to get the information I wanted � the answer to the simple question
�who is really following Joel?�. From Joel�s tons of �friends�, there
were a handful of true �followers� � people like me who read everything.
�Ok, so these are the followers� said one of my buddies. �Look at their
IP addresses � from all over the world. See this guy? He always logs on
from a cyber caf� in Lebanon. But that�s nothing � you gotta see what
Doc found�.
All these years later and my friends still referred to each other with
by their handles. I hardly remembered the sobriquet I used; I had
tossed it away like so many other college pranks. These guys were still
PeN1f, DrNex, and Proto-c4ll. The good doctor opened a beer bottle.
�Yeah, we�re lucky to have captured this part. This guy is good.�
DrNex proceeded to replay a session where he could see someone reading
all of Joel�s posts, but then cracking in and removing his tracks. �If
we hadn�t seen that happen real time we never would�ve known this guy
was watching your friend�.
My friends knew nothing about why I wanted to know about Joel. They
were happy to be in the hunt, for any reason. If they hadn�t had found
they weren�t the only ones sneaking around inside that system, they
would�ve got my info and then played around with the site for their own
nefarious reason. But nothing gets these �d00ds� going like
competition, and it was on.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew this wasn�t a game anymore. We
were playing with something that could have real world impacts. I knew
it, but I ignored it. We�re talking guys with guns, feds or worse,
after me. After my friends. I honestly knew it, but I chose to ignore
the risks and side with the buzzing rush of electronic breaking and
entering.
�So Doc,� I said, �what have you found out about this uber guy?�
Doc laughed. �Not much, but maybe enough. Lamer was good enough to
hide that he had been there� but when we caught him, not good enough to
hide where he came from.�
�What�s that mean?�
Proto-c4ll turned a laptop around. �Check this.� They had a trail.
Cover-his-tracks ninja-boy was connected to a system that hosted a
forum. A private, not public, hidden forum��that fell victim to the
same xploit we used to hit that social site. What a noob.� Proto-c4ll
laughed.
�But, check it out. And people think we�re crazy� said Doc.
The boys had extracted the info from the database of the private forum
and reconstructed it in readable format. It was almost as lame as
Joel�s tweets and updates. �Listened to the radio. Do not enter blue
zone.� �Joel is online.� �Joel�s friends know about Marcus.�
I looked at the postings, knowing the deeper meanings my friends hadn�t
yet imagined. �Give me a copy of that.� �Sure thing.� �You guys rock.
Do me a favor and forget about this, ok?� I hoped the old debt they
owed me, the legit one who helped them through some legal difficulties,
was enough. �Yeah, whatever.� �Don�t be an asshat, ok?�
I took a copy of their data, and left.
By now the sun was coming up, it was time for some coffee. I finally
did what I hoped was the last compile on my steganography code. I ran
it on Joel�s picture gallery. The pieces were all coming together. The
images contained one-time pads. I used that to decode the audio message
I had recorded from the number station. �Friends: avoid structure 35,
Jabadeen. Joel�. A date was included. The modem squawk looked like
grid coordinates. I still didn�t know whether Joel was a real
individual or a complete fabrication, but I did know now what Joel was
doing.
I suddenly felt very small; as though the world around me had grown
bigger and beyond my comprehension. There was a physical sense of
shrinking. I worked to clear my head, and looked over the messages from
the hidden forum. It became obvious that those on the hidden forum were
not friends of Joel. Not only were they following him, but they were
actively engaged in working against the forces of Joel.
I called DrNex. �Word.� �Doc, I need to see real time what�s happening
on that forum. Can you do that?� �Yeah, no prob.�
We set up a scheme to feed the forum to my laptop. I don�t know why I
wanted to keep watching this, but I just had to, even though the more I
watched the more I felt as though I were being watched.
Traffic was picking up on the secret forum. It became apparent that
�Joel� was indeed an individual, as well as a network based method of
disseminating information.
�Joel will be in Las Vegas soon. 1st w/e August.�
�We will meet him this time.�
Las Vegas. I hadn�t even thought about it this year. When I had time
there�s an annual convention I would hit in Vegas, something of interest
to tech guys like me. The whole Joel affair had taken over all my
thoughts, and I hadn�t even considered it this year. I was going to
Vegas.
I did something I hadn�t done in years. I logged on to IRC,
irc.PeN1f.org. #3amigas. Why those three �tards who always seemed to
be in the same room maintained an IRC channel to talk to each other is
completely beyond my understanding. But they did keep it running, and
there they were.
==I2R has now joined #3amigas *DrNex slaps I2R around with a trilobot
<DrNex> l4mer. Can�t believe you�re here. <I2R> goin on roadtrip
re: this wknd. u b there? <DrNex> yeah, me and Proto-c4ll.
peewee�s staying here to finish a job for a client. <PeN1f>
somebody�s gotta pay the beer bills <I2R> kew. Got a room? <DrNex>
sure, for you. Not at the con hotel, Proto was too slow
<Proto-c4all> at least I remembered this year! <DrNex> we�re flying
out tomorrow. How about you? <I2R> Not sure. Bus maybe?
<Proto-c4ll> Bus? That�s leet. Not. <I2R> Whatever. I�ll see you
guys there. I�ll msg when I get on site.
I did decide to go bus. Cheap. Less overhead. The ride to Vegas was
uneventful. I showed up late the night before the con started. Doc and
Proto would be there already, probably at a pre-con party, drinking
beer, whatever. They had left a key for me at the front desk. I
settled in to the room, and did something I hadn�t since the warning
call: I checked up on Joel.
�Joel�s status: Joel is on vacation.�
That�s what I need. I had been running for days, trying to solve all
this. I couldn�t sleep on the bus. I went down to the casino, drank a
couple of beers, and then headed back to the room and crashed.
The next morning Doc and Proto-c4all got me up to hit the con. I told
them most of the story. I didn�t tell them about the connections to
world events, the military strikes, the real politicking. They
interpreted the Joel vs. Ninja thing as a game � �Like the lost dude�s
thing� as Proto-c4ll put it.
I spent most of the day with those two, listening to talks, drinking
beer, taking in the sights, all the while keeping up with the secret
forum.
�Joel is here.� �Do you know his location?�
We hit a party that night � DrNex always got invites to the parties. I
was almost completely disconnected from my reason for being here. Then
Proto-c4ll pulled me across the room. �Dude, PeN1f is flipping out.
Talk to him.� Proto pushed a phone into my hands. I stepped out of the
party room.
�What�s going on?� �This game isn�t; and they�re on to you. That
uber-dude who covered his tracks? He�s after you. And us too�� I
didn�t hear PeN1f on the phone, only what sounded like someone beating
on a door, and then nothing.
I looked for Doc and Proto back in the party, but they were nowhere to
be seen. My current mental state was not the best for making a
decision. I felt like I was floating. I turned to leave. I realized I
had two guys walking me out. �Come on, it�s time to bring this to an
end.� My escorts were pushing me towards an elevator. Each had a grasp
on my arm. I weighed my opportunities for escape. The elevator dinged,
and as the doors opened some pranksters moving hotel furniture burst
out. My attempted captors momentarily lost their grip on me, and I
bolted.
I ran down a stairwell, and out an emergency exit, tripping an alarm. I
sprinted across the street to a parking deck, hoping to find
concealment, cover, and evasion in its concrete corridors.
So a simple accident and hacker like curiosity led me to quickly
calculating the speed of sound on a parking deck in the middle of Las
Vegas. The muffled whumps of the suppressed weapon being fired at me
came to a stop. I was frozen, hiding behind a barrier.
A voice yelled out �Come on Joel, give it up. You know we�re on to you,
you have no place to hide.�