Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station
2 December YC 126
While I was waiting for a new assignment from Purkkoken Honuken, I opened Neocom and wondered how to check my AIR career progress and rewards.
As if reading my thoughts, Aura asked, “Are you looking for AIR Career Program? I’ve found it – it’s just below the Skills menu.”
Indeed, there was a new icon which brought up a screen titled ‘AIR Career Program’ with four career paths – Enforcer, Explorer, Industrialist and Soldier of Fortune.
Aura continued, “By the way, do you know that they can also give you career points retrospectively if you provide them with flight logs for the last 30 days? Shall I?”
I shrugged, “Why not?”
After a few moments the screen refreshed and showed that I had earned 760 career points. At the same time, Neocom started spewing out notifications about various rewards. Apparently, the delivery of my flight history triggered a lot of back-payments.
While I was trying to make sense of the new information, Aura said, “Hey, Cap, you’ve got a call from Paragon corp. Do you know anyone there?”
“No,” I said absentmindedly, “just take it and ask them what they want.”
Aura opened the connection and… a nightmare began.
The holoscreen showed a woman in a black-trimmed white dress.
“Captain, Aura,” she greeted us, “it is a pleasure to meet you. I am IRIS, Paragon’s capsuleer liaison. We at Paragon were impressed with your AIR career progress and wanted to express our appreciation with a gift.”
My jaw dropped. I started lifting it in order to formulate a question but Aura beat me to it.
“Thank you IRIS, but how do you know about Captain’s progress?”
I swallowed the very same question and eagerly waited for a reply.
“You see,” IRIS explained, “Paragon has been partnering with AIR. I help process data streams sent by capsuleers, and yours caught my eye.”
I couldn’t believe my ears and felt like my jaw was in dire need of suspenders.
Meanwhile, Aura took control of the conversation and led it in a totally wrong direction, asking IRIS, “How can one human process all that data?”
“Of course they can’t. But I am an AI, just like you, only all dressed up in this fancy organic body,” IRIS smiled and then change the topic, “But that’s enough about me. Captain, why don’t you unwrap your present?”
“Present?” I croaked, bewildered, trying to figure out what kind of scam it was.
“Look, Cap,” exclaimed Aura brightly, “a crate from Paragon has just been delivered to your hangar. Shall we open it?” And without waiting for my answer she sent a request to unpack the crate.
Inside was a packed Cormorant and a single PLEX.
“We thought you might like to give your new ship some style,” IRIS said, “and we offer you an opportunity to purchase a Cormorant skin for one PLEX. If you just open New Eden Store…”
“IRIS,” Aura interrupted, “how did you make that icon blink? Are you inside my display functions?”
I looked at Neocom and saw that NES icon was indeed blinking.
“Just helping out, dear,” IRIS replied sweetly.
I felt cold paralysing dread spreading through my clone. It couldn’t be real.
“How strange,” Aura prattled in the meantime, “no one has ever helped me with something before. I think I might like it.”
With that, she opened New Eden Store window where the first three items were Cormorant SKINs, costing one PLEX each: Aspirant Enforcer, Glittering Dream and Semiotique Sports. Aura was immediately attracted to the offensively garish Sports skin.
“Cap, look at this one! Do you like it?”
At that point my face was frozen in a terrified rictus which Aura simply interpreted as a disapproval of her choice.
“Alright, alright. If you don’t like Semiotique Sports, how about Glittering Dream?”
My expression didn’t change.
Aura sighed, “Okay, then we’ll have to take the remaining one, although it looks a bit bland to me.”
She clicked on the Aspirant Enforcer SKIN image and turned to me, “Captain, you need to close the transaction.”
I wanted to close the NES screen but in my state of stupor I focused on the wrong screen element and… authorised the payment. My hangar icon blinked as a SKIN licence was delivered to it.
“Well, Captain, AURA, that was all I wanted to share with you today. It was a pleasure meeting you both,” said IRIS and ended the call.
Aura activated the SKIN licence and switched to a self-view from camera drones.
“It wouldn’t be my first choice,” she said adoring the new SKIN, “but it’s definitely an improvement in comparison with the factory paint, don’t you think?” Then, realising that my expression had not changed in the last 5 minutes, she asked with concern, “Hey, Vlad, are you okay?”
I swallowed hard and whispered, “This is all wrong on so many levels.”
I got out of the capsule feeling agitated and drained at the same time, and I couldn’t afford to be either. On my way to the apartment I popped into a bottle shop and bought a remedy – a bottle of the cheapest whisky. When I was home I poured myself two fingers of that moonshine and shot it. The effect was immediate – the alcohol calmed my nerves while the rough taste of the swill jerked me into action, even if that action was to get a glass of water to wash it down. Then I called Aura.
“Cap,” Aura started, “if you don’t like that SKIN…”
“Forget the SKIN,” I interrupted her. “Don’t you see what’s going on?”
“No,” she said, confused.
“To be honest, I am not sure either, but it’s not right. Think about it: the very first time we shared our flight logs with AIR, we immediately received a call from the third party which was obviously familiar with those logs. And not just familiar, they knew that the logs were mine. AIR assured us that our info would be used only for their research and that it would be anonymised!”
“Oh, I didn’t think about it,” Aura said apologetically.
“Besides, can you explain how that IRIS woman managed to control our Neocom interface?”
Aura shook her head silently.
I sighed, “We need to get to the bottom of this. Can you investigate the Neocom anomaly while I try to ruffle AIR’s feathers?”
“Shall I call pod manufacturer support line?”
My eyes bulged, “No! They’ll start running tests and discover your modification!”
“Oh, sorry, a silly idea,” mumbled Aura, “Okay, I am on it.”
“Good day, Mr Korff. How can I help you?” asked a young man in AIR corporate uniform when I called their ‘general enquiries’ number.
“I would like to talk to your CEO, Elida Balashirian, about a breach of a contract,” I replied.
In fact, I didn’t really hope that I could get through to the CEO but, as I always said, if you want to achieve something, aim higher. As expected, the young man made an apologetic face and explained that the CEO’s diary was full for the next 3 months. To expedite the resolution of my complaint he suggested to connect me to their legal department who were totally qualified to discuss contractual matters. I graciously accepted his proposal.
After a short wait I was talking to a lawyer called Taaren Yalun, a middle-aged Deteis man with a professionally polite demeanor.
“Mr Yalun, how can you explain that my data, which you promised to use only for the stated purpose of research within your company, was sent to a third party, namely, Paragon Corporation?”
Yalun smiled and opened a copy of my contract, “If you look at the clause 39.14.5(c) of your contract, Mr Korff, you will see that we reserved the right to engage contractors, individual or body corporate, to carry out tasks that would otherwise be performed by AIR personnel. Paragon possesses a superior AI capability and we partnered with them to improve our operational efficiency.”
I frowned. Using contractors was a normal business practice and the contract indeed had such a condition, but that was not my only concern.
“I understand, Mr Yalun, but the data that you sent to Paragon had to be anonymised according to the clause… to some other clause in the contract. I don’t know the number but it’s certainly there.”
“Yes, there is such clause, and I can assure you, Mr Korff, that the data was anonymised.”
“If it was, then how did they know that it was my data?”
Yalun smiled wanly, “There are ways of identifying a person behind the data by combining it with other data sets. Take, for example, local chat channels. Every capsuleer in the system will appear in such a channel. It is public information which may be freely collected. Then you can cross-check that info with the flight logs and get a list of capsuleers who were in the system when an event was logged. If you intersect such lists for a large number of events, chances are you will be left with only one name which was present in every system when the events in the flight logs occurred. That will be the capsuleer who recorded those events.”
It was indeed an ingenious and simple way of revealing the capsuleer’s identity. However…
“Tell me, Mr Yalun,” I said, smiling ominously in return, “does AIR perform such data set matching to infer capsuleers’ names?”
“Of course, not. As per the contract, that data remains anonymous.”
“Then why did you instruct your contractor, Paragon, to de-anonymise it? As per your previous statement, contractors may be engaged ‘to carry out tasks that would otherwise be performed by AIR personnel’,” I asked triumphantly.
It was the first time during our conversation that the lawyer’s professional smile faltered. He chewed his lip nervously and said, “We did not instruct Paragon to identify the capsuleers, Mr Korff. If this is truly the case, then they have breached the conditions of our agreement with them.”
“And what are you going to do about it?”
“We can exercise our right to audit to ensure that Paragon complies with the agreement.”
“And when will that happen?”
“If it is approved by the CEO, then the audit will take 6 to 12 months.”
I snorted, “And all that time Paragon will do what they want with my data? That won’t do, Mr Yalun. Is there anything that can be done in the meantime?”
Yalun drummed his fingers on the table, thinking, and then said, “I am a corporate lawyer, and I am under no obligation to provide a personal advice to our clients, but in your case, Mr Korff, I think I can make an exception. Your best course of action will be to send your protestation directly to Paragon, and ask them to delete all your personally identifiable information and not collect it in future. Such right is enshrined in Caldari Privacy Law. To ensure that the wording is unambiguous and does not leave any loopholes, I suggest you engage the services of an experienced attorney to write this letter.”
Wonderful, I thought grimly, they have stuffed up and I have to spend money on lawyers.
“It’s a great idea, Mr Yalun, thank you. But I would be much more comfortable if you wrote such a letter for me.”
The lawyer spread his arms apologetically, “I am afraid, Mr Korff, this is outside my remit.”
“Well, maybe not you personally, but any experienced legal practitioner employed by AIR will do.”
“As this is a private matter between you and Paragon, I do not see why AIR should provide such a service to you, Mr Korff.”
“Because it is an agreement between AIR and me that was breached. Surely, you are interested in settling this matter amicably rather than in court. After all, you are accountable for the privacy of my data whether you engage contractors or not.”
Yalun’s expression stiffened, “Mr Korff, I do not recommend bringing this matter to a court for your own sake. Although we are indeed accountable for your data privacy, there are certain legally recognised limits of our liability. We had done our due diligence before engaging Paragon and thus carried out our duty of care. No court would convict us of negligence in this respect.”
For all I knew, he could be bullshitting me and I was not in a position to call his bluff, as I was no lawyer. However, I wanted to resolve that issue there and then.
“Okay, Mr Yalun, I’ll take your advice,” I said and saw Yalun’s expression relax a bit, “I won’t go to court. Instead, I’ll go to a capsuleer bar and tell every pilot who would listen to me
a) what happens to the information sent to AIR,
b) how the promised anonymisation is only a smokescreen,
c) how all their secrets may be exposed to Paragon or any other contractor, and
d) what we can do about it, which is absolutely nothing.
And I know a lot of bars, Mr Yalun. And I enjoy visiting them. On the other hand, if AIR could help me with that letter to Paragon, I would be quite disinclined to discuss this matter with my fellow capsuleers.”
I made a pause and stared into Yalun’s face. His eyes went glassy for a moment after which he smiled sourly and said, “I’ll see what I can do, Mr Korff.”
I smiled back, “Thank you, Mr Yalun. Just for your information, my friends and I usually get together in the bar around 19:00.”
Then I hung up.
At 18:57 my inbox received a text of a letter to Paragon written in fine legalese.