The Ghost
Meanwhile in an average neighborhood in and average suburb west of Columbus Ohio, the Ghost was penetrating a firewall like ether in the optic fibers of the network. He loved being the Ghost. His daily routine was being Al Manning an employee at Electronics Superstore. He sells pcs during the day, but just to cover his real occupation. Stealing credit information.
His conscience is clear. Little old ladies that respond to his phishing scams deserve to be ripped off. Spamming just wasn’t paying off. At least he found it to be too much actual work. He needed to find greener pastures.
Now that he hit the big time, he was considering expanding his operation. Perhaps he could acquire a partner’s franchise. Perhaps merge or get bought out himself. But a final breakthrough was needed. A firewall breach and a list of numbers would be his ticket to the next level of appropriation that would prove his worth among the new age racketeers. He knew that most network admins where like sleeping giants, pulling down a paycheck that was driven by fear. Fear of him. He was responsible for what they were making, and he wanted to make them pay.
Problem was, his sneak in algorithms were about to be analyzed by perhaps the world’s most talented internet sleuth, Ranger Ed. Ed happened across something unusual one afternoon while looking through his reports. Ed was good at smelling trouble. His partner would validate his concern. Kid Digg was brought in. The perl scripts on his Linux box would soon be employed to listen to and report on some activity down at Technical State University. Apparently, somebody was probing each and every port on the forward facing website. Which was strange. There wasn't any compromising information there. Or was there? Digg could find out.
