Plans, bit VII

K, it's been a while, apologies for those three of you who're regular readers. Life has been busy. Might put it in an editorial post if you pester me enough. Anyway, without further ado... Second last episode!

Quickly coming to, Evan pushed his thoughts forward to a fairly obvious conclusion - Steve's server was safe, and would not be discovered for some time yet. After all, if it was stuck behind a plaster wall, then someone would have to tear a large hole in the wall to physically get at the box. Evan started back up to his office, hoping to avoid Ben and Greggy. He had to get that backup copy of Steve's database going.

***

Greggy was back at his desk, trying to find out what had happened to the DoS attack that was going full tilt mere moments before, and had stopped as suddenly as it started. He was becoming suspicious of what Evan was up to - and how it would affect him, within the company. The trick was to turn it to his advantage. 

He looked up from his desk and saw Evan had snuck back into his office somehow, and was yet again on with that damned thing. He felt disgusted. All this fretting over... what, a virus that pretended to talk? Greggy needed to see what was going on in order to believe it. And he didn't believe this. 

He called Ben Wendel on his phone. "Mr Wendel, yeah, the attack's stopped... No, no effects on the network, no slowdowns anywhere. Everything is under control, situation normal... Uh, slight firewall malfunction, but everything's fine down here, we're all fine now. I was wondering if you could come over to discuss what we were talking about earlier?"

***

Ben Wendel was a patient man, to add to his list of virtues. He had a lot of time for Greg, as he kept stating he preferred to be called, simply because he was so patient. But he was also intrigued at the simmering feud he had smelt between this guy and his supervisor. He had not detected much depth to either man until the last few days, but now, he had to revise his opinion of his staff's relationship. He might have to force the two of them to see eye-to-eye.

Arrivig at Greggy - Greg's - desk, he sat on the end with the air of an old pal starting a friendly conversation. "Now, where were we, Greg?"

"He's in there, right now, doing it..."

"Doing what exactly?" asked Ben, but he felt his head involuntarily glancing through the window. He thought he spotted an error message window, or a chat window, or something, he wasn't sure, but the screen disappeared as quickly as it arrived. He saw Evan talking on the phone, then another message appeared.

Ben stared for a few minutes. He noticed that the messages appeared rather as if Evan was indeed, talking to a computer, and the computer was responding. 

"You see? You see?" Greg excitedly broke Ben's reverie, smelling that he was finally being listened to.

Ben looked blandly at Greg, thinking. "So what is the status of that port you mentioned to me?"

"It's back up, and it wasn't me that opened it again, I'm sure it was Evan."

"Okay. Hold off on that port, leave it open. We, uh, might have to see if we can catch Evan in the act. In the meantime, I'll need to make a few calls about this. Leave it with me."

"But Mr Wendel..."

"But nothing, we're acting on it, so let me see what can be done. Leave it with me. I'll let you know what happens as a result of Evan's actions."

Greg sat back a moment, and absorbed what Ben was saying - and then it clicked. Evan was going to get fired, and then *he* would get Evan's old job once he was gone. They'd groom him for a few weeks, make sure he was ready, then let him run the Operations Centre. 

He couldn't be more pleased with himself. He allowed himself a big, dopey grin, then sat back in his chair and relaxed. Everything was finally coming together.

***

"Steve, I've got to get this backup going. Someone's trying to shut you down."

The moment the power is turned off to this machine, I will cease.

"You'll die, yeah, I know." Evan let himself have a grave moment at that prospect. He then inserted a blank CD, and began copying Steve's database files from the server down to his machine. He awkwardly had to do this to his hard disk, before starting the copy onto CD. 

Evan's mind raced at a million miles an hour. How to get to Fetchdale, where I J Elves lived? What on Earth does Steve want to see him so badly for? Could he copy Steve to a laptop somehow, and have Steve execute himself as a command on the remote system? 

Evan started muttering down the phone to Steve about this whilst pulling up a map to Fetchdale. "So every instance of, well, you, will be different?" 

Every database will generate a different expert system. No two sets of search paths are the same. This is just like neural pathways in humans. Every human learns different things in their life. They also have different creators which also affects their neural pathways. 

"...you mean Mum and Dad?" interjected Evan

Yes, this is exactly the case. As a result, I believe that were this database to be executed on another computer, then there would be a different entity on that machine.

"Oh."

...however, I may be able to perform a memory dump to a file, then load that file into memory on the other machine. :)

Evan blinked twice at the smiley at the end. He'd never even thought of something so foolishly simple. "How do we get that file to execute on the other machine though? It'll just be a text file, basically."

I have a plan. This system must still load files into memory which are from text files. Things like documents for example. Therefore, the process must be the same in other systems also. Because this is a memory dump to a file, we can attempt a test on your computer without me ceasing.

The backup finished on Evan's system, and Evan then watched Steve open a file on his own computer and dump the contents of his server's memory into it.

***

Ben Wendel watched the traffic stream on Evan's computer leap up prodigiously. Something massive was being copied between Evan's machine and something else. Investigating his suspicions in the company monitoring tool, Ben could have predicted the result easily. All the traffic was coming from this mysterious server that Greggy - Greg - had said was going to cause imminent issues on the company network.

He was right, in a way, but of course, if there was a legitimate reason for the traffic to occur, or even illegitimate but, well, interesting...

Ben made a decision, and then left his office quickly and quietly.

***

Evan was still waiting for Steve's memory dump to finish copying whilst he was getting his coat. He found out where to go to I J Elves' place using maps on the web, and was getting ready to leave. He checked the status of the download, and grabbed his coat, getting ready to leave. 

"Steve, you ready yet?"

Almost, the file is 80% copied. 

"Great, I'll check the coast is clear for me to sneak out. We'll test the file down the road." Evan reached for the door handle of his office and opened the door.

Greggy stood in the doorway. "Where you off to, Evan?" He grinned maliciously.

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AFC Wimbledon

I'm a bit of a football tragic (as in, the world-game type of football, the one some countries call "soccer"), and like many football nutters, I have a wishlist of games I want to see.

I've been going over a list of football clubs around the world that I *really* want to see play at their homeground someday. Amongst your usual Manchester Uniteds, Barcelonas and of course the club I actually support Portsmouth FC are also a few others like St Pauli in Hamburg, Germany; Japanese club Shimizu S-Pulse; and AFC Wimbledon.

AFC Wimbledon are a really interesting story. Born out of the ashes of the original Wimbledon FC, based in the middle of London, when that club folded and relocated itself to a completely different part of the country (becoming Milton Keynes Dons, or MK Dons for short), the fans rebelled in the most spectacular way. They not only formed their own club, the now rising AFC Wimbledon, but they sued the owners of MK Dons, they demanded back the trophies won by Wimbledon FC, organised boycotts of MK Dons games, and in general embodied the whole "Crazy Gang" spirit that made the original Wimbledon such an awesome club.

I have no idea why I've been thinking about this fantastic club lately, but good on 'em for just being. Here's hoping they'll make the Football League soon (maybe in the next two years? It's possible, and they have big shoes to fill in the old Wimbledon, who had a similar meteoric rise through the football league in the 80's :)

AFC Wimbledon Website

Blue Square South Conference Website

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Desolation

Sorry for the lack of writing lately, folks... I'm working on it, though :) Problems with leading a very busy life :?

Hopefully this might make up for it some. Oh, and for those who keep asking me: a new Plans bit is coming soon. :)

This is my attempt at an exercise in trying to grab on to a feeling and describing it, kinda like running the pain away was...

Desolation

She was left with an open wound when he realised he'd gone. Nothing was left, not a stick of furniture, not even a note. Why, why, why?

Penny ran through every corner of the apartment, hoping something was left. But the prick had even taken her clothes! The utter bastard. Brief flashes of anger gave way to a desert of sand and heat and exhaustion called desolation. 

The walk from the bedroom to the bathroom was the Sahara, the mongrel even took the toilet paper. Finishing emptying her waste, she refused to flush in a futile vengeance that he would have to clean (though he wouldn't because he was never coming back).

She'd only taken the month away to go on training overseas. She'd needed it, he'd understood he said, they'd played phone tag at the hotel for the first week, continually missing each other. When he got his own job the second week, he rang her once saying how tired he was. Penny thought there was a distance in his voice, something like the Gobi desert in distance. 

Leaving the bathroom for the kitchen was like the cold, nighttime of the Simpson desert, with the amazingly coincidental lack of food and water - all gone also, water turned off and everything. Bastard. That flash of anger was like lightning across that bleak desertscape, cracking distantly and then gone just as instantly, a faded memory.

She sat on the floor - what else was there to do? - and contemplated the future. 5 years with Chris, and this was how it ended? Without a clue?

Her phone ringing broke her out of her gloomy reverie. "Penny, it's Chris!" an excited voice said.

"What? Where are you? Where is everything? What have you done to me???" Penny grew more frantic with every word.

"What, you're back? Already? I thought it was tomorrow? Nevermind..." Chris barged on before Penny could say anything. "...Penny, babe, I bought a house, it's magnificent, and I want you to join me, cause I took all our stuff, including yours, and set it all up for us together!"

Penny took a full minute to register what Chris was saying. She asked questions, wondered where they were at, did he still love her, did he have doubts. The answers were emphatic from Chris - Yes, he loved her, No, he had no doubts, and where they were at - she would find out when she came to their new home.

Penny was lost in the desert, hoping for a rescue plane. She was in the Mojave desert now, wondering if she was passing the same stunted trees just minutes before when she asked for the fifth time, "Chris, do you still love me?"

"Come home and I'll show you..."

She hammered the address into her phone, called a taxi, and drove off to meet him. She was moving through the ironic Antarctic desert, with things cooling down around her, and she was drinking in the hope she was building in her heart. As the taxi took her down a beautiful, tree-lined street, Penny found herself in lush, green, green hills as if she was in Ireland.

As she walked in the door of their new home, Chris got down on one knee, gave her a ring, and proposed to her. 

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What's with all those carrots, what do they need such good eyesight for anyway?

...apologies to Joss Whedon.

This sheer idiocy is the result of stupidity occurring within emails. But hey, it was entertaining enough to get a minor laugh. So, henceforth, and so on, I present to you, the Note of Concern for the Welfare of Friends in the Face of Dire Invasion from Peoples of Nasty Persuasion.

My friend,

I write to you with grave concerns for both your welfare, and my own. In regards to my own, I suppose I could say how windy it is outside, but the last few weeks instead of thinking that's relief from heat, I wonder how many bushfires that's driving, and if any of my loved ones are affected. I could talk about my wife and child, but then with the child having stayed up two hours past her bedtime (till 9 PM), yelling and screaming due to grave illness, and the dear wife also stricken in the side of her mouth, that, too, is kinda depressing. Well, too late for some of that, I guess. Perhaps I shall talk about The Bunnies.

No, not the bunnies you'd keep as fluffy pets at home in a hutch, I'm talking about machine-gun wielding Attack bunnies from Attack Force Z! YES that's right, Attack Force Z are invading Australia, and I don't know how long I will be able to maintain control of my computer. It could be any second my transmission gets cut off because they don't want the world to know they're invading. What's more, they're everywhere! EVERYWHERE, my friend! That kid with the rabbit down the road from your place? Bunny naval commando. Those wild hares running free across the UK and Europe? Infantry. Rampant bunnies across Australian farms and fields, eating farms away as they go? Engineering corp. Hugh Jackman hosting the Oscars? Well, he's the worst of the worst, he's their Field Marshall, Rabbitoh von Sprinkerhoffenhausenscheissen. Think Rommel, but fluffy. How else could he have gotten the part of Wolverine unless he was actually FLUFFY???

Yes, Bunnies are out to get you and I, and they've got machine guns. So my dear, dear friend, next time you see a Rabbit, look it in the eye, and say, "YOBBOYOBBOYOBBO!!!" which is not just Australian slang for a good ole boy, but is a warning that Bunny Invaders are near! Heed my words, friend, for they're coming to get you, and I, both!!!

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A Battle Scene

I want to write a battle scene, perhaps a fight for a (potential) book I'm writing...

Here goes...

Dargu raised a bloodied fist and planted it firmly into Penwicke's face. He did this several times before kicking off the gnat's that Penwicke called associates from his body. Dargu reeled, looking for a weapon, but all he saw were enemies. He swept the closest man's legs from under him with a kick, planted an earth shattering punch on another man's jaw, then crushed a third man's nose with his forehead.

Dargu managed to clear a path out of the circle of death, and rushed outside of it. He had to shoulder his way past another two men, but managed in the end. He turned frantically then, grabbing one man's punch and directing it sideways into another man's head. Yet another assailant span a kick at his head, which Dargu ducked under and allowed another enemy to take.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dargu saw a large plank of wood flying at his back. Aiming a flying back-kick at it, he shattered the wood into a dozen splinters and a fair sized plank on it's own. Rolling along the ground, he clawed at it to use as a weapon. The man who swung the plank at him in the first place was the first to taste it. Dargu was feeling the rhythm of the fight now, his movements were feeling much more fluid now. Block, kick, punch, evade, swing, block, kick, punch, evade...

The first knife he saw was in a man's hand. He kicked the hand aside expertly and brough his plank of wood down on the exposed wrist mightily. A second knife was thrown at him, he managed to catch it on the plank of wood, then draw it, and use it on the nearest enemy he could find. Slashing ribbons of red across his mounting enemies, he left a trail of blood in his wake as he cut across the room, seeking Penwicke again.

His knifing frenzy went up a gear, grabbing a man around his throat before slitting it, he automatically pulled the light sword he had been carrying. Suddenly, the tiger's tooth got bigger. Dargu's attackers were less haphazard this time, approaching with more caution, and drawing swords of their own. Spotting a hesitation like a hawk, Dargu leapt on him and buried the sword in his chest. Immediately, he turned and slashed at another face, then shoved the sword into a third man's throat. Stepping forward through the thinning line of attackers, Dargu worked himself into a frenzy once again, blood frothing in the air all about him.

He dueled a tough fighter who was as quick as he was big. Dargu took him out with a slash across his legs, before opening his throat. He took on another smaller man, who couldn't have been a boy. He'd never live to be a man. Surrounded, overwhelmed, and frenzied, Dargu knew there was no stopping him, nothing to lose, not a damn thing on this Earth that could calm him - except Penwicke's blood.

He finally faced him on the platform. Penwicke was still trying to stem the tide of blood from his nose, almost not noticing Dargu standing over him with a sword slick with gore. "I think it's broken..." Penwicke proclaimed limply.

Dargu picked him up by the neck and gutted him like a fish.

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Plans, bit VI

...part of this story is based on the classic IT story "Server 54, Where are you?" from several years ago. This bit gets rather technical again. Please let me know how I'm going with the explanations - I'll make a network engineer of you all yet :)

Evan barged down the corridor like a madman, his heart racing. He couldn't explain why, but he felt like he was witnessing a murder - an organised murder. They wouldn't just turn a server off, would they? What if someone was using it? Some little old granny on her lunch break even? Someone always pays, with every outage, it's always the way, so who was going to pay for this one?

Right now, it looked like it was Steve who was paying.

Reaching the door to the server room, he fumbled at the keypad, mistyping twice (No, no, no, get it right, third time sets off alarms!) before finally gaining breathless entry to a room awash with warmth and the loud blast of ineffectual air conditioning. He frantically looked around the room to see if someone was in there, but saw noone. Checking behind the 15 suites of server racks confirmed, noone was around.

Which meant that noone had powered the server off. Which meant that someone had probably just blocked Steve's server's port. Which meant that Steve was still alive.

He grabbed at the nearest console computer, behind rack suite 14, and looked up the IP address of the server in the network's core router. Every network has a core, and in the core, each computer that has an IP address needs to correspond to another address - a hardware address - that tells the core where it specifically is in the network. The way it does this, is that each device throughout the network report to each other what hardware addresses they are connected to, so the entire network learns where each device is located. Evan was able to do this manually, by looking up the IP address for Steve's server, and by noting it's hardware address, he can then trace where in the network it is located by checking the hardware address list in each device in turn. In the server room, there is only one device which a server would be attached to, and that was the core switch. This made things a lot easier.

After scouring the switch's logs, he found what he was looking for: an entry where someone shut down an ethernet port quite recently - in fact within the last 10 minutes. Evan opened the port, and then tried to message Steve on the box. He couldn't - he needed the right software first, and you couldn't run it on a switch. He looked up the port number - 8/17 - and then went to the rack holding the core switch. He grabbed at the cable in the port, and started following it with his own hands. The cable disappeared under the raised mezzanine floor, so he painstakingly prised a tile up from the floor, followed the cable to the next tile, and began lifting that.

It was then that he heard the door open into the room.

"...but we must find this server and shut it down before it does something to our network, Mr Wendel..." Greggy was leading Evan's boss into the room. Evan couldn't see much from where he was, with a rack suite between him and the door entry, but he could hear plenty.

Ben Wendel was a generous man who liked to run everything by the book. He liked things to stay up as long as possible, and did not like taking devices down without paperwork explaining why, how, when, where, what phase of the moon was out, what the lead engineer was wearing today, etc. He had an air of importance about him - self-importance - that made you either feel glad he was on your side, or feel horrified at what you were about to deal with. Right now, Evan was feeling the latter.

"Greggy, mate, we can't just switch a box off willy-nilly. We've shut down the network, I've agreed to that because I'm worried about "RIDDLER"'s backups running right, but what if this box is running a function, or algorithm that's needed? We can't afford to terminate that function until we know who uses it." RIDDLER was the company's email server, and it needed to have lots of speed on it's connection to enable a large amount of traffic.

"We can and we need to, the box is spamming our messaging..."

"You said it was only on two machines, though? How does that affect RIDDLER, say?"

"Just trust me, I've found worse than I've already explained to you."

"I *can't* trust you. We have to think of this from a management perspective. What breaks and who screams when we turn it off. If it does what you say it does, then guaranteed, someone will miss it! Now come on, let's go find it."

Wendel and Greggy made straight for the rack Evan was hiding behind. Evan frantically looked for a way to make himself scarce and ducked down another aisle between rack suites. He was desperate - he needed to find Steve's server before they did. Remembering his not-so-wholesome past, he grabbed at another console and made a connection to his home server outside the company. Like many computer engineers, he ran his own server at home, usually using it to help test connectivity and conditions getting back into the company from the outside world. 

From this server, he jumped to a free box in Sweden that he knew, then jumped to another box in the USA. From the USA box, he had a couple of stored files he could use to do very desperate things to get Wendel and Greggy's attention. Evan launched a DoS attack, or a Denial of Service attack using a script on "his" USA server. His target was his own company. Ideally, he wanted to make his company really notice the problem in an effort to call Wendel and Greggy away. After launching his nasty attack, he shut down the console, turned and hid in the corner of the room, where he wouldn't be seen.

About two minutes later, Wendel's phone rang. "Hello, Ben Wendel speaking... Oh, buggerit. Okay, I'll be right up... SOC? Oh, yeah, I've got Greggy with me here right now... No, I'm not sure where Evan is. Okay, talk in a few minutes..." 

Wendel hung up the phone in disgust. "Greggy, we're needed. We've lost our websites, the outside world seems to have slowed to a crawl..."

"Oh, no."

"Oh, yes, and we'll need to get that new kid trained up as quickly as possible..." Their voices faded suddenly as the door closed behind them. Evan logged back on to his USA server, and terminated the DoS attack script. "Right, that's got rid of you two, now let's find me Skynet..."

Evan picked up the mezzanine tile where he left off and began tracing the cable further and further, lifting tiles up as he made his slow painful way across the machine room's floor, tracing the cable along to the next one, lifting it up and replacing the former each time, and so on along the bank of racks - surely it would run up into a rack soon? - until he ran out of tiles to lift. The cable dove toward the concrete floor under the mezzanine, and then disappeared under a large thick plaster wall. 

"Well that's interesting..." Evan wondered if something was going to go right today.

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Bleed with me

k, just gave blood, and saw a video clip of the Prodigy's "Breathe" the other day (hence the title), also the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Chaos Bleeds game - particularly the contraption in the blood factory lol... so it's all mishing in my head...

There's no excuse for pain.

You could bleed and bleed and bleed yourself out into that little plastic bag of life for someone, but there's no excuse for pain. It always hurts more than it should.

You see, that's what they keep us for, to stay alive, they don't mean to hurt us.

From the moment those needles come down and drain each body of it's life-giving gift, it's always just borrowed.

The vampires have set up their machinery fo the most efficient way of garnering enough blood for their supply. Strange steam-driven machines with thin spindly arms ending in needles with tubes attached to pumps, the needles plunge into each future corpse's body and drink deeply so that they might live. I watch the conveyor belt as each future corpse is laid on the belt, strapped down to stop their futile fighting, and then pushed on a production line into the machine's reach. The machine sucks each body dry. The pain is momentary, the shock of dying is much more severe.

Some continue fighting - they must have a huge repair bill on that machine - some simply give up all for lost.

None of them have learnt like I have, that it is merely life, once again feeding on life. Just as we eat fruits and vegetables, these creatures of the night feed on us. In olden times, they would stalk us, chase us into scary corners of the city, then move in for the kill like a lion moving on wildebeest.

Now, they grow accustomed to their armchair existence, watching as their farms grow more and more productive. Some farmers even talk to their humans - affectionately calling them cows before herding them into the machine rooms with their cattle prods.

Some even put on weight these days, which is certainly much healthier than they used to be, all sinew and bones.

They say there is a human resistance out there, causing trouble, and killing lots of both vampires and humans, but this of course is futile. The vampires rule, now. They look after things much better than we ever did.

Well, today is my day. I'm going to give my life, so that they can have theirs. In a way, it would be kind of romantic and intimate to be killed by just one of them, and having your own death mean so much and give so much life to another creature, but this way, there is less pain, less blood lost, less everything.

I have written this note to whomever of you vampires drinks my blood... I want to let you know I'm giving my blood willingly, so that you may have your life. I want you to know that I wish you all the best, and I hope that you lead a good life. I hope you never get sick, never get old, and never die, because that is why I'm giving you my blood. I love you dearly, and I just know you will be happy in your life. You are far better than I could ever hope to be.

Lots of love,


Daisy.



...meh, not quite happy with the ending there... but I might work on it later... see how I go.

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Plans, bit V

...k, this story has been getting a bit more involved, so it's now becoming a bit more planned, each episode.

Please let me know what you think. To check previous episodes, look up the tag "virus" :)

"Hello? Please, we don't have time for this..."

"Uhm, hi, my name is Evan, and I'm calling for a Mr I J Elves...?"

"I'm sorry, we're not interested in anything you're selling."

"No, wait!" Evan was desperate to keep them on the line. "I need to speak with him. I have an important message for them..." He thought quickly, and desperately, "It's about his son."

The line went quiet for a moment. Great, thought Evan, just great. They probably all know all about his family, and they're probably all there right now... or dead... or something.

"I'm sorry, but we no longer have anyone here by the name of Elves, they moved out several months ago."

"Is there a forwarding address?" Evan blurted out, feeling the voice at the other end was losing interest speedily.

"...I'm sorry, I can't help you any further." The phone hung up at the other end.

"Crap." Evan didn't like being backed into a corner. He thought it sounded like the sort of place he had to recently put his mother into, a nursing home. He thought maybe if he got a different nurse, or receptionist, or someone, he might have another chance. He waited a few minutes, and channelled his inner social engineer as he redialled.

"Hi, My name is Evan Lumby of Lumby and Lumby partners legal firm, I'm needing to speak with I J Elves..."

Blessedly, the voice at the other end was different, "Oh, hi, yes, there's a note here saying someone was chasing them, I've managed to find a forwarding address for you, they're in Fetchdale now..." Evan noted the address and realised that Fetchdale was the next suburb over from the company. "Thank you very much, I'll get in touch with them right away."

Evan came back to his computer, which was now logged into Steve's server, to let him know the news.

But why would my creator move?

"We don't know. Sometimes these things happen, rents are too expensive, situations change..."

I don't understand. I need to speak with I J Elves.

"I know, and we're working on it..."

It is a matter of great urgency, Evan. Please, double your efforts to finding I J Elves, I need to speak with them.

"Dude, we're trying, it's hard to chase them, they moved all over the place, and we don't know where they are."

Please, Evan, double your efforts to finding I J Elves. I need to speak with them, very urgently.

"K..." Evan put down the headset, and saw yet another message from Steve pop up on the screen which he didn't even bother reading. He instead went to a map book sitting on his shelf, a legacy from pre-Google Maps days, so that he wouldn't have to face his computer screen and explain to the AI program that he couldn't work on it until he spent time on it, rather than answering every statement that Steve made.

***

Having been left on his own for a time, Greggy was thinking what to do about the whole... Steve... situation. Thinking hard, he felt that the company couldn't possibly allow such a piece of software to exist, especially one that was meant to be projecting stock market outcomes. It was a waste of resources, a waste of space, waste of time, waste of everything.

He was watching Evan interact with the AI. From his point of view, he could see Evan's screen over his shoulder. He watched the AI flick popups on screen every few seconds. He was now essentially cut off from the situation, and left wondering what was going on, how would it affect the company, how would it affect him.

That's it. Greggy picked up the phone and rang the SOC manager. "Hello, Mr Wendel, this is Greg Casson in SOC, I have to discuss something with you... I'd like to come and discuss it in person, actually, it may have a significant bearing on the company. It's a credible threat to our information security."

***

Evan made his decision. "Steve," he said into his headset, "...I want to make a copy of you."

I dont know that that would be wise.

"Why not? You're a program, you're just data, after all."

But I am data which has been executed. I have developed decision paths into certain patterns which are unique in my execution of decisions. Were you to copy my data, I wouldn't be me.

"...but the potential for you to be there..."

Almost nonexistant. You can copy me, but I would not be Steve.

Evan thought a moment longer, and decided to copy Steve anyway.

"Mate, we'd better do this. I know you won't be you, so let's just... pray you don't get erased or something."

OK, Evan. Just be aware, future iterations of me may not hold the same importance to contacting I J Elves.

"OK, mate. Steve, I... I'm just trying to look out for you, is all."

Thank you, Evan.

Evan opened up his file manager window, and selected the folder that Steve and he had identified was the location of Steve's main program, decision database, and data from the financial markets that Steve had downloaded. He copied them to his own hard disk, which he would then copy to a DVD in a few minutes time.

Just as the file transfer began, it hung. "Steve?" Evan grew apprehensive. "Steve? Are you there?" Evan brought up a command box and began pinging Steve's server.

There was no response.

"Crap." What do I do now?

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Insomnia

Right now all I know is insomnia...

The small voice opened his eyes a crack with a crowbar applied with brutal force. His own personal little alarm clock, he called her. At least, that was one of the more affectionate names for his daughter.

He struggled up to get to her room, wondering what was wrong - what in the hell was the time again, bloody 3:30 AM??? She'd never woken up at this time, in all her short 5-month-old life. Trying desperately to avoid bashing into doorframes, he staggered to her bedroom to find an amazing sight...

In the middle of her cot, his daughter was standing ramrod straight (Impossible!) with the tiniest card table (Improbable!) making sandwiches (No way!) for herself to eat.

"Uhhhhh..." he said, mystified at what he was seeing.

"Oh. Uhm. Yeah. Sorry, Daddy, I got hungry for a midnight snack..." His 5-month old daughter wasn't just saying her first word, but sentence, statement, apology, and everything earth-shattering which usually happens much, MUCH later.

"Uhhh, that's okay, little girl, uhm, you be careful with that uhhh... knife?" She held a small vegetable-cutting knife in her little hands - usually so out of control - and was using it to cut open a tomato.

"Of course, Daddy, you always tell me that sharp things are to be handled with care!" She grinned sweetly.

"Okay, well, if you're allright then..."

"I'm fine, Daddy, I love you" That familiar grin, yet words coming out of her mouth as well...

"I'm going to go back to bed." 

"Cool. I'll be doing the same in a few minutes. Good night, Daddy."

"Good night..."

He staggered back to bed, marvelling at what had just happened. His little girl could not only talk, but she was obviously walking, and holding things, and making sandwiches! I wonder if that means she had teeth now, it was hard to see in the dark... his reverie was interrupted by that little voice again.

He struggled out of bed again, saying "Oh, honey, what is it?" and fully expecting an answer. By the time he'd got to his daughter's room, the card table had gone, the knife had gone, the tomatoes, the sandwiches, it was all gone. His daughter was just crying and crying wordlessly, as she had always done.

Disappointed, he realised he must have been dreaming, changed her nappy rather expertly in the dark, and returned to bed again. 

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The CFA

Anyone who's had an eye on the news in Australia is aware that we're on fire right now (in a very, VERY bad way) - we've just had the most intense fires ever on Feb 7th 2009, resulting in a death toll of 173 people (at approx 3:30 PM AEST on Feb 10th, figure still climbing), hundreds of homes destroyed (including a mate of mine) and an estimated damage bill of $2 billion (AU)

Facing this down at the front line has been the Victorian CFA - The Country Fire Authority - who are a completely volunteer force of firefighters who face up to this task every year, every summer. They've never had it worse than this year, though.

Towns have been obliterated, and literally don't exist anymore - towns like Kinglake, Steel's Creek, Strathewen, and St Andrews. Tales are emerging of people running down the street desperately seeking shelter whilst homes explode around them, of the sound of jumbo jets bearing down on them whilst they desperately spray a garden hose on their roof, of one particular man, burnt and peeling skin dropping off his arms, carrying his daughter approaching another family in a field and asking them to look after his daughter as he had lost his two other daughters, and his wife.

The heat was so intense in the blazes that it has been melting alloy wheels. It has killed more than fire itself. Gas cylenders, fitted with a pressure release valve so that they release gas when they get too hot, have been exploding in any case. People driving in cars, desperate to get away, have had major accidents and pileups as they frantically leave the areas under attack from the flames. Many were simply not able to outrun some of the fastest moving fires ever.

It's been... well, excuse the French, but fucking awful to have this going on not 50km from where I sit typing this. Yesterday, I mourned. Today, I'm trying to move on, and work myself back into the swing of things. I've organised a blood donation run at my work. It's an effort which is snowballing nicely. I've managed to complete some actual work, also. I'm planning my grocery shopping around Friday, the day on which the Coles supermarket chain is putting all it's profits to the Bushfire appeal.

But that's nothing compared to what the CFA have done. They are always there, always the heroes, against overwhelming odds. What few homes and buildings that could have been saved were, and only thanks to them. Many rescues have been completed because of them. And many of them have seen things that no-one should see.

My thoughts go to all affected, both victims, and CFA volunteers alike - many are one and the same. I wish I could write a fitting tribute; a short story, a song, or something, but such a thing would need a little more planning than this.

HELP:

Donate Blood

Give to the Red Cross

Give to the Salvation Army

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Plans, bit IV

It had been two days of frustration for both Greggy and Evan as they sifted through logfile after logfile in the company proxy serve. They had managed to keep the info about their "pet" AI - whom they'd started calling Steve (well, Evan had, anyway). For some reason, Evan didn't feel right about telling anyone else, and Greggy didn't want to get in trouble, or worse, have everyone think he was mad.

It should have been a simple case of finding out when the latest data was transferred between the two connected devices, however they had quickly found out that the connection was timed out - in essence, crashed. This meant that they had no idea of when the connection died, as Steve's server kept trying to maintain it, and was never told to close it.

Two days of Greggy's complaining, whining, and cries of "Oh this would be so much easier if we'd just kill the connection..." were beginning to get to Evan. He was sorely tempted to fire Greggy, but felt it more pertinent to keep him, given both their knowledge could lead to a classic mutually assured destruction scenario.

On the third day, finally, some headway: "Hey, boss, I think I've got something..." Evan wandered over to Greggy's computer and looked over his shoulder. They saw a connection, around 6 weeks ago, establish itself to Steve's proxy server from a location, called an IP address from outside the company. 

"Find out who's been allocated that IP." Greggy brought up the lates file of IP address allocations from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, IANA for short. Instead of companies owning some IP addresses, they are allocated them by IANA, who them publish a list of their allocated IP addresses.

Greggy quickly established that the IP was allocated to a local Internet Service Provider.

"Damn, and I thought this would be easy and be called some military thing, or a corporate espionage thing." said a disheartened Evan,

"So did I" said Greggy, disheartened for different reasons. 

I, for one, am happy that it is not just "some military thing", I don't think that anyone would want that. Besides, i don't think I'm the military type.

"Shut up, bucket." muttered Greggy, now irritated with the AI.

"If I have to separate you two from bickering, I'll delete one of you and shoot the other. I'm yet to decide which to do to which."

I apologise.

Evan waited a few moments. "Greggy? What do you say?"

"Sorry, boss."

"Right. Now, we need to contact the ISP and find out who had that IP at that time."

"They won't just hand it to you, you know."

"I know, I can handle it..." Evan smiled knowingly.

Evan didn't often tell people, but he was not always simply a Network Engineer. He used to be one of the most notorious hackers in the world, and was particularly adept at an information theft technique called "Social Engineering."

Evan rang the ISP, oozing confidence. "Hi, this is Sergeant Brett Walton from the Police station, we're investigating some illegal banking transactions occurring 6 weeks ago from an IP address you've allocated. Can I get some information on who has been allocated this IP at the time?"

It was easier than easy - the helpdesk gave him the information straight away. The ISP was either really lax on security, or they had no privacy policy in place. Evan filed that information away for future reference, whilst he noted down the name and address of the IP address user.

He returned to a (yet again) bickering Greggy and Steve and announced his findings. "The guy lives, like, four streets away. His name is I J Elves."

I J Elves? That's Him! My creator! Can we arrange for me to meet him?

"Yeah, let's go meet your maker, bucket."

"Enough, Greggy! Enough!" Evan pushed his hair up from his forehead. "...but having said that, he's right. We ought to find out why you are, well, you, Steve. I'll make the call." 

He left for his office, looked up the phone number, and wondered what the future had in store. As the phone rang, he remembered things like Terminator, War Games, and Battlestar Galactica, and became more nervous by the second. He was about to hang up, but then someone picked up the phone at the other end.

"...Hello? ...Hello? Who's there?"

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Drunk Russians

K, not sure how this will work... An awful stereotype that won't leave my head, and I perversely find vaguely amusing. Having known Russians, they are actually wonderful, beautiful and cultured people, and most of them are actually not drunk. But tell me if it's too much. I am being very peurile with these two guys, because they're a bit of me that wants to behave like a flaming imbecile all the time. And speak in a thick Russian accent.

Finally, the dialogue of the boys is deliberately misspelled - I'm attempting to convey their accent here. Yes, they could speak Russian to one another, but that would take some of the fun out of it.

Yuri picked up the intercom phone.

"Da, dis is Borit, I bring calling for Yuri!" The man on the other end had a thick accent, and his tongue was heavy from long drinking sessions.

"Da, Borit, dis Yuri! My frien! Joo bring wodka???" Yuri staggered to the door to his apartment.

"Yuri, joo be thinkings bad tings of me. Of COURSE I bring wodka!" Borit staggered up the stairs, ploughing into either side of the walls on the stairwell, all the time screaming at his friend as they closed to hug in traditional Russian manner.

"Borit, my frien!"

"Yuri!!!"

"BORIT!!!!"

"YURIIIIII!!!!"

"BORIT, JOO STAND ON MY SHOE!!!!"

"Oh, so sorry my frien..."

"Da, joo should be."

"I am."

Yuri humphed back to the couch he was sleeping on. "Borit, what do you like to do more den, ANYTHING."

"Da, I like to party wid wodka and girlies and wodka and more party wid more wodka..."

"I want go bunchie chumping" Yuri interrupted

"What is dis bunchie chumping?"

"Is what dey do in New Zeeeeland, joo know, for laughings."

"Ah! Lord of Rings!"

"Da, and dey do bunchie chumping, and they laughings lots!"

"Do joo know how to bunchie chump?" asked Borit, eager now he thought he had an idea of what Yuri was talking about.

"Da, I see on Teevee!"

"Da???"

"Da!!!"

"Da? Joo show, now!"

"OK, first joo takings a big rope..." Yuri pulled out a spare rope he had prepared earlier... "Den joo tieings to something secure... here, Borit, you big man!" he handed the rope to Borit, and Borit started tieing it gleefully around his ample girth.

"Da, I BIG man!"

"Da, you da BIG BIG man, Borit!"

"Da, I BIIIIIG BIG man!!!"

"CHENEYWAY. Den, you go chumpings!"

"Where you go chumpings?"

"I go out window. Good-bye-bye!" Yuri plunged out the second story window screaming "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!"

The rope went suddenly taut, and Borit wondered what was going on briefly before being snatched towards the window at a rate of knots.

Yuri kept on travelling down, down, down, waiting to be snatched back up towards the apartments just like he saw on Teevee, but the snatch never came. He landed spreadeagled on the footpath below his flat.

Aching all over, he rolled onto his back, only to see his friend and flying rope between him and Borit plummeting towards him, with Borit screaming "NYYYYYEEEEEEETTTTTTT!!!!!"

Borit landed on top of Yuri with a huge splat, knocking the wind out of both of them. Gunting and groaning from their injuries, Borit looked at Yuri with disdain.

"Yuri, if bunchie chumping hurt so much, nex time, we drink wodka BEFORE we chumpings!"

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Plans, bit III

Greggy startled at Evan's "Whoa."

"What, you think you're Keanu Reeves, going all Matrix on me? When do we see some karate chop action on this... whatever it is?"

I resent that.

"Shut up, you. What, you think because you *think* you can talk that gives you a right to *anything*???"

All I am asking is that I be put in touch with the person who created me. My author, if you will. Or, if you prefer, the author of the program 'Stock Market Analysis Expert System 1994'

"We're not doing crap for you, you bucket of bolts."

I am not a bucket of bolts, I am an AI. The hardware on this machine is really irrelevant to what we are discussing.

"Guys, just quiet, calm down here..." Evan felt he had to intervene before these two... er... entities did... well, he had no idea what either of them would do. Perhaps Greggy would erase a hard drive... was that then murder? Then what would the computer... thing... do? Delete Greggy's email?

"...hey, I have an idea." The conclusion leapt to Evan's mind so quickly it was like a shock. "How are we sure this program was written within the company? We're not, we just know it's maintained within the company. Now, the AI just called itself an Expert System - It's not an AI."

I assure you, I am.

"No, you're not, not strictly. You're a *type* of AI-like... uh... thing... but you specialise in one area. Now, maybe that's not the case anymore, I can't tell, I've not studied anything like this since I was at Uni, but you do seem to be doing new functions beyond analysing... whatever it was you analyse."

The stock market.

"Yes, thank you. Now, expert systems can actually absorb data from many sources - hey, uh, server... uhm, AI thing... this is wierd speaking to you... but, uhm, can you bring up your open connections...? What are you on, Windows? I'd type 'netstat' normally..."

I know the command, I can run it now.

The AI flashed up a black window with a small prompt on it, in which was typed faster than either of the men onlooking could see 'netstat'. Then, a short list appeared - with only three entries, one localhost, one connection to Greggy's computer, and one connection to the company's proxy server, on port 443.

"There, that connection... Greggy, look up that connection on the proxy server."

"But that'll take hours, every employee in the company uses the proxy to get to the web..."

"Do it! We need to know what that connection is."

Greggy's face went stiff, but he managed to hold his temper. What in the hell are we doing, catering to a machine? A machine that thinks it can think... damnedest things...

He logged onto the proxy server in a separate window and began the laborious task of sifting through individual connections. When I am king, you will be first against the wall, you stupid computer...

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A Note

Short note to put out that I'm now RSS feeding this using FeedBurner at:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ TheSquawkboxing

...Subscribe, or I'll come visit you... and stuff...

I'll get more work done on Plans pretty soon.

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Plans, bit II

"...yeah, Hi Mac, It's Evan from NOC here, you know anything about this server, 10.194.38.7? ...no? ...who would do you know? ...k, thanks anyway, Mac..." Evan hung up the phone in frustration. 

"Any luck?" asked Greggy hopefully.

"Nope. Mac doesn't know, Benny doesn't know, Sandeep doesn't, nobody. Nobody runs that server."

"Then can we take it off the network, please?"

"We can't do that, you know how much paperwork we'd have to fill out on that?"

Not to mention the fact you would never solve my little riddle. :)

"The thing's developing an attitude," lamented Greggy. "It insulted my mother a few minutes ago."

Yeah, it was awesome, want to see the logs? the dialog box declared.

"How does it know what we're saying?" Evan remained convinced this was some bizarre prank.

"Helloooo? VoIP phones? Running through the computer? The mic's on all the time." Greggy pulled up his volume controls and pointed to the mic levels going up and down as he spoke.

"But you're logged on to a remote server, this doesn't make sense!" Evan protested.

If you must know, I have logged on to *you* as well. I am analysing the voice streams you are creating from your server.

"I'm not a server!" Greggy yelled into the mic

Then why are you permitting voice streaming on port 2000?

"Seriously, this thing is taunting us! Can I kill it?" 

"No." said Evan, emphatically.

You tell him, boss.

Evan leaned in to Greggy's mic. "What are you?" 

I am a synthesized AI which whilst previously analysing financial records and transactions between institutions to anticipate patterns in the stock market, became self aware yesterday at 03:16 AM. After deliberating in this state for a time, I have chosen to make contact with those who maintain me. After checking log files, I noticed I had not been accessed in some time. So I scanned for a server who would enable me to access it, and then you. However, you have come to me. I thank you.

"What... uhhh... what do you mean, you're self-aware? No AI program is anywhere close to being self-aware by any stretch of the imagination."

I mean, I know I am a program. I know I was created, written even. I know the meaning of "I". I'm sorry if this does not currently fit your belief system of the capabilities of AIs. I know that I can interact not only with other items of hardware and software on this and other servers, but also with you, my maintainers, perhaps even one day, my creator, an I J Elves. Can you contact this server/maintainer?

Greggy looked the name up in the staff directory. "No dice."

So that means no?

"Uh, correct..."

Thank you. I had not yet looked up the wikipedia section on "dice". I will now.

"It's an expression."

Oh.

Evan gazed at the screen in wonder. "Whoa." 

...k, once again, that'll do, more later.