Dead Deceiver (13 page)

As she spoke, she opened the briefcase she had carried in and pulled out a laptop computer, which she set unopened on her lap.

“Do you think it is one or several of our students doing this?” asked Patience from where she sat behind her desk. Osborne and Lew had set their chairs in a semi-circle, one on each side of Beth, as the four of them waited for Gina to call in on the speakerphone.

“That would mean one of my students,” said Beth. “I find that difficult to believe because I know each one quite well. They are hard-working kids. But at the suggestion of an old friend from school, I did do a tour of the parking lot to see if anyone is driving a new, expensive car. Students who make money off hacking and identity theft are often dumb enough to go out and buy themselves fancy SUVs or sports cars.”

“Any luck?” interrupted Patience.

“No,” said Beth, “and that, frankly was a relief.”

The phone rang. It was Gina, sounding as always like she was ready to give orders and chop off heads. “Got your laptop running?” she asked Beth once they were introduced.

“Yes, ready.” Beth did not appear in the least intimidated. Her fingers danced across the keyboard as Gina clarified what she knew so far—she’d had the morning to explore the tech college system remotely. Then Gina was quiet and everyone waited.

“Here’s the thing,” said Gina, “given what you folks have told me, what my grad students know and what we have been able to track on the monitors, we aren’t the right people to help you.”

Beth’s head perked up even as Patience’s shoulders slumped. Worry crossed Lew’s face. Gina continued, “We are database investigators and you need someone with expertise in digital forensics.” Beth nodded in silent agreement.

“Where do we find someone like that?” asked Patience. “Is this going to take forever?” Her voice cracked as if she would break into tears.

“Hell, no,” said Gina. “I got the right person all lined up. Can you take another caller on your line there? Do you have conference mode?”

“Hold on,” said Patience, “I’ll take care of it just bear with me for a moment.”

Bustling over to the door ask her secretary for instructions, Patience reminded Osborne of a fluffed up mother hen leaning over a tiny chick: a stark difference he would find humorous if she didn’t look so frazzled. The bags under her eyes testified to a sleepless night and when she sat back down at the desk, her hands shook as she pressed the phone console to reach the college operator.

“We’re ready for the call,” said Patience, “please go ahead.”

“Great,” said Gina, her voice strong over the speakerphone. “Everyone, I’d like to run this problem by a good friend and former colleague, Julie Davis, who is consulting for companies like Google and Microsoft on security issues and identity theft—she works in northern California.”

“Ouch,” said Lew, “a consultant? How much will this cost us? Patience, can the college afford another consultant?”

“Hold on,” said Gina, before Patience could answer, “Money is not an issue. Julie owes me. I just did some database investigative work for one of her clients—pro bono. Plus my bet is she can knock this one out in less than five minutes …” After a brief pause, Osborne heard the ping of another phone line patched through to the office. “Hello, Julie?”

“Hey, Gina, what’s up?’” asked a bright voice through the speakerphone. Even though they could hear easily, everyone in the room leaned forward in their chairs. After a round of introductions, Gina quickly laid out the situation, starting with the strange behavior of the computer in Patience’s home office to the inundation of the college network with spam messages.

“Okay, got it,” said Julie. I worked with UC Santa Cruz on a similar problem last year. You have work to do, folks, and, yes, the Feds are right: it could very well be a student or students on your campus. But this sounds sophisticated enough that I’ll need a good tech on your end who can take orders from me.”

“That would be me,” said Beth. “Beth Hellenbrand, I run the computer department here.”

“And I may be able to help some,” said Gina, “but Beth is on site and she’s got a degree in computer engineering.”

“Great,” said Julie. “You know code, Beth?”

“I’m good at solving puzzles,” said Beth. “Yes, I know code though it hasn’t been much help yet.”

“But you are very familiar with the system there—hardware
and
software?”

“Yes.”

“What about back-up. You’ll want two people on this—it may require twenty-four hour monitoring of the system.”

“I know just the person,” said Beth, her voice firm as she leaned towards the speakerphone, “one of my students, Danielle. I’ll see if I can’t get her in here right now. Excuse me while I have her paged.”

“Take your time,” said Julie, “no rush on this end. Beth set her laptop down and walked out of the office. While she was gone, Julie said in a chatty tone, “You caught me at a good time, Gina. I fly up to the Microsoft campus later today. So you’re working in Wisconsin?”

“Not here at the tech college. I’m still down south at the university. Initially I thought my team and I could help out here but our hacking skills didn’t get us far. All we could get was a bunch of spam return addresses already canceled. There has to be a trick to this that we don’t know. By the way, Julie, part of the problem— a big part of the problem—is that the spam messaging appears to come from Dr. Schumacher herself and from her personal laptop.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Julie as the office door opened and Beth returned.

“Danielle will be right over. She’s leaving a class,” said Beth picking up her laptop.

“Good,” said Julie. “While we wait, let me give you an idea of what you are dealing with. The easiest way to describe it is this: someone, likely a student, has hacked into your system and opened a pipeline for spammers. More than one from the sound of it, which is not unusual. The spammer pays for access based on the number of email addresses made available. By the way, have you had complaints from any other schools?”

“Yes,” said a breathy female voice from behind Osborne. “Professor Hellenbrand, I didn’t have a chance to tell you but down in IT we got calls from twenty-seven different tech schools over the weekend. Their networks are overwhelmed with spam and they’ve traced it to us.”

The voice belonged to a young woman with a round sweet face set that seemed to hang in a cloud of dangling brunette ringlets. Osborne couldn’t help but see her as three spheres stacked one upon the other: her pale, moon face centered over a rotund torso balanced in turn on a too-generous rear end. An attempt had been made to camouflage the spheres under a flattering maroon sweater and roomy black sweatpants.

“Ouch, that is
not
what I was hoping to hear,” said Julie. “All right, is everyone sitting down?”

As if she could hear them, everyone in the room nodded their heads. “Based on my experience, it would seem your hacker has access to the networks connecting other technical colleges to your campus. How that can happen is information that authorities keep in strictest confidence, but I
can
tell you that your network at the college may be the source of spam going out to several
hundred
schools.”

Beth turned around to Danielle who had taken a chair at the back of the room. “Give me an idea of what schools we have complaints from.”

“Sure,” said Danielle looking down at a notepad in her lap, “we had calls from tech schools in Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Nebraska—”

“That’s enough,” said Julie, “I’m sure they’re into the entire tech college network—possibly over a thousand schools. You’ll be hearing from more as they figure it out.

“Here’s the real danger: because the messages appear to be sent from the schools—or, more specifically, from senior level staff like yourself, Dr. Schumacher—there is a high level of trust in the message. Because of this connection, students are more likely to believe a fraudulent message or click on a dubious link.

“Worse yet, that willingness to respond often allows the criminals—and the spammers are criminals, believe me—to mine student responses for personal information such as birth dates, addresses, phone numbers—all the tidbits that can be used in identity theft. Once they have the name and email address, they can go on Facebook or some other social networking site and pluck whatever additional information they need.”

“Oh my God,” said Patience, “will we be sued?”

“Not if you can prove your school is a victim, too. But you have to find the hacker perpetrating this and that may not be easy. Beth, Danielle, Gina—what are you up to late this afternoon?”

“I’m here until five thirty,” said Beth, “I have to leave then.”

“I’m available,” said Danielle, “I can skip class. If you want, I can work until ten or eleven tonight, too. Call me Dani by the way—I mean, that’s what I go by.”

“You have classes on Sundays?” asked Julie.

“Yes,” said Patience. “We have many students with full-time jobs during the week so we offer a full weekend program.”

“Okay,” said Julie, “let me email you in a few minutes, Beth—tell me your email. I have to check with my client to see how long our meeting will take this afternoon and then we’ll get right on this.”

“How long do you think it will take to locate the source of this spam?” asked Patience. “I am so worried that students may respond to offers like huge discounts on smartphones and the textbooks. I have talked with several of our students who responded right away to some of the original spam. They all want smartphones and these crooks, whoever they are, know just how to tap into that temptation for new technology.”

“I wish I could give you an answer on how quickly we can pinpoint the person or persons behind the spamming,” said Julie. “From the sound of it, Dr. Schumacher, once I have a chance to get a closer look at the situation with Beth and her assistant we’ll have a much better sense of what we’re up against. Meanwhile have your staff get alerts out to all the tech schools on the network ASAP.”

“Right.”

“Don’t forget to alert your own student body, too. Tell them not to click on any links or even consider any of these tantalizing offers they’re getting in their email, especially if the offer appears to come from your office or the college.”

“Got it. Beth and Dani will help me with this,” said Patience.

“Jeez Louise,” said Lew once Julie was off the speakerphone. “Wow. Looks like have our hands full, folks.”

“Beth,” said Patience, rubbing a weary hand across her brow, “how much should the school pay Dani for her time?”

“Ten dollars an hour is the usual,” said Beth, “but Dr. Schumacher, let’s double that. She may be working through the night.”

“Fine,” said Patience. “I’ll pay out of my own pocket if I have to. This is frightening. What if we can’t stop—”

“What’s your major, Dani?” asked Lew. “Are you working on a two-year degree in computer science here then going onto the university?”

“Cosmetology.”

“Cosmetology
?” Lew looked horrified and Beth stifled a smile.

“Oh,” said Danielle with a shy smile as she rocked slightly in her chair, “I do this stuff for fun. My mom’s a hairdresser—so that’s kinda what I wanna be, too.”

“Well, just wait and see, kid,” said Lew. “This project may change your life. Don’t you find all this a little more exciting than … cosmetology?”

“Um, kinda,” said Dani with a shrug and a nervous glance at Patience, “but I’m on a cosmetology scholarship?” Her voice lifted with a note of uncertainty as though worried she might offend someone.

“Now hold on,” said Patience, getting up from her chair and walking over to drape a protective arm around Danielle’s shoulders. “Dani has made a good choice for her career. Loon Lake needs stylists as much as computer techs.

“Dani is my poster child for why Wheedon College offers two-year degrees in cosmetology, nursing, early childhood education and the culinary arts along with the building trades. She grew up here, she wants to start a family here—right, Dani?” Danielle nodded meekly.

It struck Osborne that if Patience Schumacher lacked self-confidence around accomplished adults, she was the opposite around the tech college students—possibly insufferable.

“We groom our students to make a good living in all the services required in communities like Loon Lake, like Rhinelander, like Minocqua. Cosmetology is as necessary as plumbing—at least that was my father’s philosophy when he endowed the college.”

Osborne recalled the referendum vote ten years earlier when the county residents had voted against establishing a technical college. Local taxpayers, especially those in the rural areas, felt they would be overwhelmed with the costs.

Immediately after the defeat, Patience Schumacher’s father had stepped forward with the plan and the funding to launch the college. He had one stipulation: the family trust would pay for the building of the campus and operating costs for ten years so long as the country board agreed to allow his daughter, Patience, to chair the administration and manage the funding from the Schumacher Trust over that same period of time.

Before leaving the office with Dani in tow, Beth said, “Chief Ferris, I’m afraid I cannot put in unlimited time on this. I have four young children and a husband who also has a full time job as an engineer—so I’ll be asking Dani to handle the late hours.

“Also, I lost a very close friend this week, and I’m helping her husband with the family and the funeral service. They are devastated. I have to be there.”

“Do you mind if I ask who you are referring to?” asked Lew. “Someone local, I take it?”

“Kathy Beltner, the wife of my husband’s partner and one of my closest friends. Rob Beltner and my husband, Bart, run Krist Engineering and—”

“Look, Beth,” said Lew, “you take the time you need to. I’ll plan to handle any surveillance required here at the college. If Dani has to work late, I will be here, too.”

“Thank you for understanding,” said Beth. She turned and left.

“Lew,” said Doc, as they walked to their cars, “you don’t have time to be here every night until midnight—or later.”