Cyber Kittens and Cowboys

Cyber Kittens & Cowboys

by ipam

Smashwords Edition Copyright 2012 Pamela Joan
Barlow

Smashwords Edition, License Notes This ebook
is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be
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Characters

Arthur Ennis, FBI special agent

Ashley Slanton “Tag”

Geneva Lassater, director of Cyber Crimes

Ilenn Yelling, Retriever

Lacy Grove, Retriever

Pamela Craft, Retriever

Preston Kingly, FBI special-in-charge

Stockton Wingard, Retriever Thornton Slanton
“It”

Present day.

Thursday 11:00 am. July 14. Federal Building,
Birmingham. Alabama. Sunny. 97*F.

“Peer review is one of the hottest evaluation
tools around town, Miss Yelling. Valuable input from your
co-workers offer deeply personally insight for me in assessing your
assignment needs and additionally provides me with your regular
work habits and influences from outside forces.” Geneva talks,
rapidly, grins, toothy at Ilenn Yelling, four-year employee for
Federal funded US State of Alabama Department Division of Cyber
Crimes in Birmingham, Alabama. Her job title is “Retriever.”

“Am I going to be fired, Ms. Lassater?” Ilenn
asks, weakly.

“No dear, where on Earth did you get that
off-the-mark impressive?” Geneva eye burns Stockton Wingard. He
cringes, slightly. Geneva scans, quickly room filled with gifted
computer programmers working in Division of Computer Cyber Crimes
with primary goals of halting hackers into Internet against all
American companies, Federal, State and local Government
Agencies.

Ilenn continues, softly. “I work for the
Federal government. I thought my job was…” She eye burns table
surface, talks, sensibly. “I mean….times are very difficult with
finding a new job.”

“Ms. Yelling, don’t fret, dear. You do work
for the Federal Government and your job is safe. This is just a
formal tool to evaluate your work. Now, I want to use the gentle
word ‘assess’ your performance potential.” Geneva pauses,
dramatically, grins, toothy at Ilenn. Geneva reads, silently notes,
begins, slowly. “Let’s start with technical assessment qualities,
shall we? Would you care to provide feedback, Lacy?”

Lacy eye burns finger pads since her palms
are upright in her lap then comments, meekly. “Regular coder.” Lacy
doesn’t like peer review and doesn’t like to tattle on her
co-workers. She enjoys doing her own professional job, freely
without any additionally emotional or political entanglements.

Stockton Wingard voices in tenor trumpet,
loudly for Angels in Heaven to hear. “And Cobol is notorious for
its overrich syntax and overlong code making the programmer’s work
assignment almost double in nature.”

Ilenn nods, once, talks, nervously to her
supervisor. “But I must add to both those statements by my
co-workers during peer review. I am a Cobol programmer with extract
business knowledge of code base coupled with C++, Fortran, Lips,
OCaml, Perl, Java and SQL….”

“What, no Assembly Language?” Stockton mocks,
selfishly.

“No, Mr. Wingard. I feel, Ms. Lassater that
me, my programmer serves as a bridge between the Cobol code and all
new apps.” Ilenn pauses, dramatically then recites, pridely. “I am
the bridge.”

Stockton quotes. “With emergence of
service-oriented architectures, Cobol is reused, not created…”

“Mr. Wingard is correct. I’d like to include
that with the emergence of old and sometimes new SOA language
environments provide common runtime for many different languages
including Cobol. Cobol is the root.” Llenn adds. “75% of the
world's businesses data is still processed in Cobol, and about 90%
of all financial transactions are in Cobol.”

Stockton counters, swiftly. “Now days….new
and newer Web-based technos add all kinds of bot subroutines that
upfront and overlays ancient Cobol, making friendly and
un-friendlies access portals easy and fast than finger drumming
time waste on worn key pads.”

Geneva concludes, finally, nods, once.
“That’s a very good point, Mr. Wingard. Ilenn, you and I will
discuss, maybe tomorrow you upgrading and updating your server
skills complimenting your Cobol tags. Do you agree?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ilenn voices, flatly.

Geneva subject changes to Pamela, newest
Cyber Crimes Retriever. “Miss Craft, you handled a tough assignment
resolved by…what exactly did you do?”

Pamela smiles, fully, talks, interestingly.
“I halted san hacker by using his own restored data files and
activated his disaster protocols using IT silos. These protocols
are set up automatically, proactive alerts displaying vividly
across the dashboard…kinda like driving your sports car. I simply
monitored pulsating messages then attacked one of the smaller pod
that maintained one of many critical systems, not the security
system. It accessed the driver for pics.”

“You robbed family photos?” Lacy inquires,
interestingly.

“I surfed pic drive then sailed the plane,
bot plane that is…” Pamela giggles, lightly. “…directly to the .exe
files, stomping them dead.”

“How did you stomp them dead, Miss Craft?”
Geneva asks.

“Secret of my homemade meals starts as raw
scrap of code in small, tight, lean and mean assembly language.”
Pamela boats, arrogantly.

Stockton debates, well. “That’s impossible.
Assembly language too obtuse and too lengthy for san attack.”

“I can open apps and solve return right
before your eyes as I generate code on the fly…in real time, not
batch.” Pamela returns, swiftly.

“Headers?” Stockton bats.

“Portable assembler with source code, full
headers finished with the exclusive created by me….exe that runs
hyper speed engines on any app without using Microsoft’s assembler,
MASM, Linker on multiplatform running under MS-DOS, Win9x & NT,
OS/2, Linux, Unix 8086/Alpha/SPARC and etc.” Pamela smacks,
brilliantly.

“Show me!” Stockton challenges.

Pamela grabs paper & pen to hands then
draws geometric symbols with numbers. “Assembly language is series
of mnemonic….”

“We all have advanced understanding of
assembly language, dear.” Geneva reminds, gently.

Pamela details, educationally. “Yes, ma’am.
The mnemonic instructions coupled with data of numbers and words.
Music to Lacy. I use the binary common object code: 10110000 which
translates into ‘10110’ to move and ‘000’ the data from its
original position to computer ram.”

“Opcode 10110000 is part of machine’s
operation, not programmer’s instruction. Very nice, Pamela.” Ilenn
poses, professionally & nods, once for the creative idea to her
co-worker.

Stockton notes, carefully. “Ah! So you
created common short sequences of inline instructions instead of
complex subroutines. But where did you move it?”

“I talk virtually to the machine sending
virus, bootleg or worm into Cyber Hell if you wish, then add a
simple looping routine to keep it there. Then, I expose the
Internet Protocol Address management (IPAM) work space in the
network and attack all apps.” IPAM is defined in computer science
as the means of planning, tracking and managing the Internet
Protocol address space utilized in a network. Pamela giggles,
silly, poses, brilliantly. “Its ipam attacking IPAM.” Since
“ipam”
is her username for her real PC and some password
apps at work.

“She’s chatty.” Stockton admires, funny, then
smirks, lightly.

Geneva compliments, swiftly. “Thank you for
that descript maneuver, Miss Craft. I would like to emphasize that
WE are first guardians when hackers and attackers break into
websites and WE created ya’ll called Retrievers to block, bend or
bat back hackers out the web.”

“I find repeated hacker attempts can pinpoint
the tap source a lot faster than one random portal.” Pamela
includes, purposefully

“That one random attack or multi repeats get
websites defaced with smuck and puke by abusing all small and large
businesses professional logos and here, in America business owners
don’t need this nasty garage in additional to all the mess with the
recessed economy. I want to remind each and every one of you that
hackers do not have established links to video colorful streaming
blogs that list their full Christian first and last names waiting
for the FBI special agents to simply arrest them. Secondly,
defacement of web sites make generally bold statements of true
intent that being the next step, stealing more valuable data,
credit card names and addresses. Does everyone understand my
meaning?” Geneva warns, coldly.

“Yes, ma’am.” Pamela nods, once.

Geneva subject changes. “Good. Back to the
peer review, we’re almost finished. Miss Craft, I believe I can
voice for your co-workers that you’re a clever and very bright
young girl with highly creative bot skills that have saved more
than a few 1,000 websites since you were employment of last year.
You have been with us for…two years.”

“Yes, ma’am. This is the completion of my
first year at Cyber Crime Division and I hope many, many more, Ms.
Lassater.” Pamela reminds, gently, holds for pay raise.

“Not to worry, dear. But…here in Alabama, we
require more, much more.” Geneva eye burns her notes on paper.

“More, what more can I do?” Pamela asks,
perplexingly.

Geneva nods, once & talks, generally.
“This concludes our peer review for the folks today. Everyone back
to work except Miss Craft. Can you stay a while to discuss with me
your toned and untapped bot skills?”

“What untapped bot skills?” Pamela inquires,
boldly while co-workers stand, stretch and stroll from large corner
office with two squared undivided windows overlooking smoke area
and standard issued beige government fake crafted wood.

Geneva shifts, swiftly from her desk to side
chair parallel to Pamela & questions, purposefully. “Are you
ready for your next assignment, Miss Craft?”

Pamela frowns, slightly then smiles, sweetly
& talks, boldly. “Well, I guess so. I didn’t know that there
were more complex assignments than stopping hackers and attackers
from stealing numeric and encrypted data on websites.”

“Yes, you’re correct. We stop crimes a.s.a.p.
and look for criminals. We also report all criminal activities to
our brother and sister Fed orgs. This is part of our responsibility
of Cyber Crime.”

“I can do that also. I haven’t directly
worked with any Federal organizations. Will I be doing that this
week?”

“How about next month? I…require you study
Fed procedures and processes. The Feds are particular about their
buzz words and intimate techniques, Miss Craft?” Geneva inquires,
sharply.

“Yes ma’am.” Pamela nods, once & quotes,
flatly.

“Excellent, Miss Craft, see how peer reviews
work together to promote good ethnics and good work sharing. We are
professionals, here. We work together to fight against cybercrime
throughout the State of Alabama and along with partners from all
the varied local, state and federal agencies channeling
multi-layered security threats and protect data. We make security
our number #1 priority. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Pamela nods, once & quotes,
flatly.

Lunchtime. Cafeteria.

Pamela, Lacy & Ilenn prance, gracefully
filled food trays to particular table while supplying the day’s
gossip.

Lacy scoots, closely to Pamela & talks,
mildly. “Stockton’s worried about his job.”

“Stockton, why?” Pamela inquires, boldly.

Ilenn details, purposefully. “That question I
implied about me still having a job is very valid, Stockton did
something to piss Geneva off this world into the next galaxy.”

“Stockton, what did he do? I always thought
Stockton as over confident and an overachiever. I couldn’t image
him not fulfilling his work. Don’t you, Ilenn?” Pamela questions,
bravely & eye burns Ilenn.