Metropolis region — Barvigrard constellation
Hek system — Planet IV
Krusual Tribe Bureau
30 August YC 127
Keita Eslin put her commlink on the desk and dialled a number. A holo of a dishevelled Krusual guy appeared above the desk.
“Hi, Harkul. How are you doing?” Keita greeted him.
“If you are calling about the computer malfunction, I am already on it. It’s a Sev 1 incident, everything is down,” Harkul said without looking at us.
“Oh, right. Yes, I was calling about the array. I am glad that it’s your shift. We are in safe hands.”
The guy scoffed, “I wish I had your confidence,” and terminated the connection.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Harkul Vessan, our Lead Systems Engineer. If anyone can resolve this issue, it’s him. In fact, he was the one who did the computer array upgrade, so he knows it inside out.”
“Mmm… I see. By the way, when did you plan to start Kirus’s interrogation?”
“Later today,” said Keita. “Why?”
“I understand that you want to have additional info about the movement of the mercs before you start, but I don’t think the files will be decrypted in time for that. Even if it’s not a military-grade cipher, and even using your station computer, it will probably take weeks to decrypt them.”
“Weeks?” the agent frowned.
“Weeks, maybe days if we are lucky, but I am positive it’s not hours. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense to encrypt anything at all.”
“Hmm… I can change the interrogation schedule but I need to know when to expect the decrypted files. Do you think your Aura can give us an estimate based on the decryption progress before the array went down? I mean, if she managed to start the process before that.”
“Don’t know about that, but it’s a good idea to call her and tell her about the outage, in case she hasn’t figured it out.”
Before I could dial Aura on the commlink, the lights blinked again, this time first becoming brighter and then dimming to their usual luminosity. At the same time, my commlink showed an incoming call from Aura.
“She is probably calling to complain about the outage,” I chuckled, accepting the call.
“Cap! I’ve done it!” Aura yelled triumphantly as soon as the connection was established. “I’ve decrypted the files!”
“What? Already?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes. I could never imagine how quickly 5,000,000 AURIX-9 quantum cores can crack consumer-grade encryption. But I have to admit we were a bit lucky. Those cheapskates used an outdated cipher which was vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis. I ran a few tests and managed to reduce the keyspace by orders of magnitude! After that, it was a walk in the park!”
“And you were not affected by the outage?” I asked.
Aura scowled, “What outage?”
Before I could answer, Keita interjected, “Wait a moment. Did you say you used five million cores?”
“Yes, it was awesome!” Aura replied.
“But that’s the size of the whole array! I told you to take only spare capacity. Do you realise that you effectively stopped all the work on this station by monopolising its computer?”
Aura gave the agent a cold look and said, “I don’t control resource allocation on your array. If the scheduler decided to allocate the whole lot, blame the scheduler, not me.”
I raised a placating hand, “No one is blaming anyone here. We are just trying to get to the root of this incident.”
“Yes, and find out what, or who, was at that root,” Keita said, looking daggers at Aura. “Excuse me, I need to make a call.”
The agent dialled a number on her commlink and a familiar face of Harkul Vessan appeared on the holoprojection.
“Yes, Keita, it’s all fixed now,” the engineer said instead of a greeting.
“Fixed?” Keita said acidly. “And what was the problem that you ‘fixed’?”
Harkul Vessan made a vague gesture with his hand, “Oh, it’s a rather technical issue. I don’t think you’ll understand.”
“Try me.”
Harkul sighed and said in a low voice, “Okay, Keita, just between you and me, the problem simply disappeared. I don’t know what went wrong but I am going to find out and make sure it will not happen again.”
“Good. And I think I can help you with that.”
The engineer looked sceptically at Keita, “You? How?”
“You will know if you come to my office. Trust me, it will be worth your while.”
Harkul scoffed, “It better be. See you in five minutes.”
We spent those minutes in tense silence. I didn’t know what happened but was afraid that Aura and I would be blamed regardless. Stopping a station inhabited by tens of thousands of people even for a few minutes meant a huge loss, and someone had to be held responsible for that. I, being a Caldari at the wrong time and the wrong place, was a very convenient scapegoat.
Finally, Harkul Vessan arrived and, without an invitation, plopped into a chair.
“I’m listening,” he said with an amused expression on his face.
Keita gave a summary of the latest events, as we knew them, and finished with a question, “Can you explain how a user account could grab all computing resources?”
The engineer shook his head and stood up, “It couldn’t. If that’s your theory, you are wasting my time.”
I relaxed, feeling that we were off the hook, when Aura exclaimed, “Of course, it can. If a user selects the highest priority for her job, it will pre-empt all processes with lower priorities.”
I silently groaned wishing her to shut up.
Harkul turned to Aura, “Are you saying that your job was running with the highest priority?”
I held my breath.
“It was. She,” here Aura pointed an accusing finger at the agent, “said that I had to decrypt the files as quickly as possible. So I set the priority according to her demands.”
“Bullshit,” the engineer sneered. “Users can’t set the job priority.”
“Really? Go read the documentation! Your system interface has a dedicated parameter for the process priority.”
“I know that,” Harkul replied angrily, “and this is exactly why I developed a user interface which prevents users from setting the priority willy-nilly. For any user job the priority is hard-coded to Medium which limits the CPU consumption to 0.001% of the total capacity. If you say that you managed to set the highest priority then you must have hacked the system.”
Keita Eslin went pale. If that was true, it meant that she allowed a hacker to access the station computer. For a security agent it was the end of her career.
“Did you?” the agent whispered.
Aura froze like a wild animal caught in the headlights of an upcoming vehicle. With a gasp, I remembered that I needed to breath. Fresh air eased my rising terror, and I interjected before Aura could say anything.
“Hang on a minute. You said that you wrote a user interface on top of the system one, right? After you did that, did you block user access to the system interface?”
Now it was Harkul’s turn to get pale. He opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, then opened it again and stammered, “I… I don’t think I did. But the system interface isn’t advertised. Users shouldn’t know how to access it.”
“So, it is available,” I pressed my point.
“Well, yes, if you know where to find it.”
“Right,” I said and turned to Keita. “I am not a specialist but I know a thing or two about cyber security. And one of those things is that obscurity is not security. If something is not known you can’t expect it to remain so. And this is exactly what happened today — a user discovered a system to which she had authorised access, and used it within the limits of the given authority. If such use was not intended, then there should have been appropriate controls in place.”
The agent took a deep breath and some colour returned to her face. She turned to the system engineer who looked shell-shocked. When Keita spoke, her voice was a low purr.
“Harkul, my friend, it’s quite unfortunate that the system interface was not blocked but,” she made a dramatic pause and continued with a sympathetic smile, “nobody’s perfect, we all make mistakes. We learn from those mistakes and move on. This is how individuals and the society develop and grow.”
The engineer eagerly nodded to her words.
“Regretfully,” the agent said with a concerned expression, “not all see this learning process as an essential part of life. Some people think that mistakes must be punished. We all know such people. I am afraid that some of them might blow this incident out of proportion, point a finger at you, and call for unjustified disciplinary measures.”
At the mention of disciplinary measures, Harkul swallowed hard.
Keita smiled reassuringly and said, “I do not agree with such an approach, and I don’t think that anyone outside this room needs to know what happened. You are a smart guy, Harkul, and you surely can explain away the incident in ‘technical’ terms.”
There was just a tiny bit of venom in her last words, but Harkul didn’t seem to notice it.
“Um… I definitely can,” the engineer said, his spirits lifting.
“Brilliant,” said the agent, “and please don’t forget to block user access to the system interface.”
“Oh, of course, of course. So I better go do it right away,” Harkul said with his voice rising as if he was asking for a permission.
“The sooner the better,” Keita agreed with a kind smile.
It was all the encouragement the engineer needed, and he bolted out of the door.
When Harkul was gone, Keita turned to Aura and said, “Aura, you did a great job decrypting those files. And you managed to do it just in time for the start of the Kirus’s interrogation. Well done. Can you please transfer those decrypted file to me?”
Aura, who looked both pleased by the praise and apprehensive, glanced at me questioningly.
I gave her a tight nod and said, “Please transfer the files to agent Eslin and that will be all for now. Thanks a lot for your help, Aura.”
Aura understood that it was a dismissal and ended the connection.
Then Keita Eslin addressed me warmly, “Captain, I am so glad that this unpleasant episode has come to an end. You and I, we know that Aura had no malicious intent; she just did her best to help us in our investigation. However, if other people become aware of what has happened, they may think that a rogue AI has infiltrated the system and brought it down. Then, it may be hard to persuade them that your Aura is really a ‘stock standard’ AI, as you say. If I may give you an unsolicited advice,” she smiled self-deprecatingly, “it will be better to keep the knowledge of today’s events between us. You may totally rely on my discretion.”
I was just too happy to take her advice and told her so.
“Perfect,” said the agent. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need some time to study the files that Aura, undoubtedly, has already sent to me.”
We said our good-byes and I left the office.
As I was walking to the ship, it occurred to me that Keita had presented the situation as if she was doing us a favour by offering to hush up the real reasons behind the computer outage. But at the same time she was as interested in the cover-up as we were. If the truth became known she would be blamed for letting an allegedly rogue AI into the computer system. I marvelled at how the agent managed to turn the tables and remembered what Sister Alitura said about Krusual: they could be a little sly. Agent Eslin was a Vherokior but some of the Krusual traits obviously rubbed off on her. I smiled and shook my head in wry appreciation of Keita’s wiles.
When I got back to Kaukokärki I called Aura.
“Aura, darling, we need to talk,” I began the conversation.
“Yes, Captain,” she replied in a small voice.
I prepared a whole lecture on the dangers of using undocumented software features, on the consequences of monopolising computers and on the importance of holding one’s tongue. At the same time, I didn’t want to discourage Aura from being creative — after all, her solution, despite all its drawbacks, helped progress our case. To achieve that, I decided to present my pearls of wisdom in the form of a shit sandwich.
“I have to admit, Aura, using the system interface directly was a smart move…” I stared saying when Aura interrupted me.
“Um, sorry, Captain, but I didn’t.”
“You didn’t what?”
“I didn’t use the system interface.”
I frowned, “Then how did you manage to increase the job priority?”
“Well… I…” Aura stammered, “I thought about it. But as Mr Vessan said, it was not advertised, and I couldn’t find it. I checked the job progress and realised it would still take ages to finish at Medium priority. So I…”
Aura went silent. I waited for her to say something but she just fidgeted and stared down.
“So you what?” I asked impatiently.
“I… hacked the system,” Aura replied sheepishly.
My jaw dropped — I hadn’t seen that coming. My carefully prepared speech collapsed like a house of cards. A moment later, the irony and sheer absurdity of it all sank in, and I could only bury my face in my hands and laugh hysterically.