Sleeper's Run

CHAPTER TEN

Information security in the office is decent, which in my profession translates to practically non-existent. So I spend the first month just strengthening it. It's a workaholic's wet dream; when I'm not in the office, I'm working from my apartment. I even eat at my desk. But I welcome the escape from a city that I find so familiar, yet so strange.

The country seems to be sharply divided by two political ideologies, something I find similar to the current situation in the US. This is a weird dynamic for me, since the Venezuela I remember wasn't as politicized or nationalistic. A lot of things haven't changed-like crime, corruption, an unfathomably high cost of living, lack of infrastructure development, and the legion of slums around the capital, among other things. Conversely, the national statistics say that in the last ten years, production has doubled, poverty has been reduced by half, extreme poverty by 70%, inflation by about 5%, and unemployment has been almost halved. Medicine and education have reached sectors of the country that have been abandoned by past administrations.

I honestly don't know what to make of all this. I'm considered an "escuálido," a member of the so-called oligarchy, the predominantly white upper class and supposed enemy of the poorer, dark-skinned revolutionaries. My reservations derive from the fact that my parents and I never took anything from anyone. We studied, worked hard and lived decent lives gregariously and selflessly, enriched by different cultures. I was never a political person to begin with-probably not until my latter years in the Air Force-and I'm not about to change that in a country I barely understand anymore.

As friendships go, I have most contact with my fellow nerds at the IT and Information Security departments. Good people, to say the least, but I don't care much about who's the biggest badass in Call of Duty. Needless to say, we have almost nothing in common outside of the office.

My only breaks come in the form of sleep or a rigorous workout. I try to seek out my old martial arts sensei, but sadly Master Takahashi has moved back to Japan and my old dojo is now a daycare and preschool. I manage to find a self-defense center, a combination gym, martial arts studio, and shooting range. If anything, we Venezuelans like to cover all our bases.

And after that subway incident, I've also taken extra precautions by purchasing a kubotan, a cylindrical metal key chain you can use as a weapon, and a .40 Sig Sauer P229 that I carry with me at all times. Any second thoughts I had about getting a gun disappeared when two weeks ago, I noticed two guys in a parked car staking out my building. Crime, in all its shapes and forms, is taking this place to hell in a hand basket. To top it off, I've already had two hacking attempts on my computer since I've been here.

Of course, that's easier said than done; hacking a hacker-white hat or otherwise-is like taking a stroll through a minefield. Case in point, I routed my laptop to an unused server I took home from work. The server acts as a gatekeeper between my laptop and the Internet. Anyone trying to hack into my computer would have to go through the decoy first, which I turned into a virtual maze that would make Indiana Jones curl up into a ball and cry. I named it "The Temple of Doom" in his honor. Not only will intruders be left holding their binary dicks in their hand, but I'll also be able to track them.

Unlike what Hollywood would have us believe, hacking is as exciting as listening to a chess game on the radio. All you do is perform tedious repetitive tasks while looking at long pages written in code. In other words, it's not a spectator sport.

Corso's hacks look pretty garden variety for the most part. They seem to be teenage kids breaking into a multinational company for bragging rights in some chat room. I should know; I was one of them. My saving grace was living in Venezuela at a time when cyber-crime was largely unknown. If I had grown up in the US, I could have been one of those kids who got a house call from the FBI. Some kids tag, others steal their parents' car or raid the liquor cabinet; I was the boy who liked to break into computers.

With Corso's security improved, I now sit at home reviewing the past security breaches to assess their threat level. One particular hacker catches my attention. The cyber intruder used a worm to get in, and installed a backdoor for future access. Then he uploaded a Trojan horse to start logging keystrokes looking for passwords to gain root, which is getting the highest level of access in the machine. Once inside, he used a sniffer to collect information passing from one computer to another.

This hacker has talent; he went through painful lengths tohide his presence and cover his tracks, hopping through proxy servers andlogging in, using existing accounts. The only reason he was caught was becausethe company IT guy happened to be connected to the system during one of hisvisits. Usually hackers break in to spy, steal or sabotage. What set thisintrusion apart was the files this guy was browsing.