Deception Dossier // VOL. 2 // The Spinnacker Report

establishing securelink connection 13.30.32.602854 . . .

DS >> hey

you there?

It’s 4:20 fuckin am, like we agreed. set my alarm special for this.

Kid?

Goddamit.

I swear u little punk. I got a short fuse and can play this game way different.

had to choose 4:20 too. A comedian, ladies and germs.

I’m out. There’s 30k you can say cheers to.

YM >> bb, y u so stress3d?

DS >> knew the money make you come runnin. I’ve been waiting 20 minutes. where u bin?

YM >> i accounted for snooze button time

DS >> i’ll keep that in mind for next time, which btw won’t be at this godforsaken hour.

YM >> not a morning person?

DS >> i know u think this is all a joke, but remember unless you produce the goods, you’re my next main suspect.

YM >> sheesh, jump a guy’s pathetic firewall one time…

DS >> enough banter, what you got for me kid?

YM >> aw, not one for 4play? K, brass tacks then.

it started with a pretty standard DDoS on the security server ol man Johnstone set up, which opened a nice temp backdoor for easy entry.

DS >> seems like a lot of effort to steal a couple pics off a hard drive?

YM >> that’s what i thought too. Which is why i decided to look into his other system?

DS >> huh?

YM >> you think a guy like hank keeps all his eggs in one ip? Fat chance. These sorta creeps always keep the real stuff backed up on like some old hewlett packard running windows.

DS >> that’s what i use.

YM >> my point exactly.

DS >> k, so what did that turn up?

YM >> well, this is where it gets intere$ting. seems the photo phish was the tip of the iceberg. the real haul came off the hp. over hunny gigs

DS >> that’s a shitonne of data. Any clue what sort of files they take?

YM >> ¯_(ツ)_/¯

DS >> fuck. who know what a guy like that keeps stored away.

YM >> whatever it was hank didn’t want it found. I needed to turn some serious tricks to get access to that hard drive.

DS >> yeh, that’s what worries me. any way u can track the source of the hack?

YM >> if u squeeze hard enough, i’ll produce tha juice.

DS >> we gotta work on your phrasing, kid. also, it was bad enough i had to reach u through facebook, i can’t with this dos chat app too.

YM >> well, its either this or i become a regular hank.

DS >> i have another suggestion. tina’s, an old diner on flushing, meet after school’s out next monday?

YM >> not worried what ppl will think seeing an ol coot like u hanging out w a yungun like me?

DS >> nothing those truckers ain’t seen before. bring something worth my while.

YM >> you a real charmer, Doc. ya know that? xoxo

Joe Pulaski, Tina’s Diner, June 2022. ‘Course I think it’s a bit funny. But ya know, what of it? Ain’t the strangest thing I’ve ever seen here in the light of day. All sorts of folk come wandering into this place off the street. I remember one time, a whole troupe of clowns—you heard that right, clowns—came marching in, parading around, however it is clowns get from point a to point b. You’d think that was weird enough by itself, right? Well, then they go and sit, the lot of them, right there at the breakfast bar. What’d they order? Fucking Chico the Clown ice creams. I couldn’t make this shit up. A bunch of fully-grown men, kitted out in all manner of sparkly colors and crap, eating upside down sugar cones decorated in their likeness. At ten in the goddamn morning, on a monday no less. So yeah, seeing that detective, emphasized air quotes, seated across from some young punk that was too old to be his son, and just young enough to be sucking his dick didn’t surprise me one iota. As I said, it’s Tinas.

I’ll tell you what did weird me out, some of what I overhear them chatting about. Mr Rich done got proper fucked, I hear the kid start saying. Something to do with “bots” and a group calls itself “the cause.” Shit, after that our friend mr mystery maven, begins shooting off questions like its nobody’s business; you’d a thought he just caught a jilted lover having an affair the way he was going on. I couldn’t really make out what they done speaking about at this point as it got pretty technical. With that information they could bypass the SocialSynch™ protocols for e-dem, the kid says at some point. I only remember ‘cos Doc (likes it in the) Brown gets quiet all of a sudden. The conversation sort of died after that.

---

A shit-covered fan

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Have I got a real doozy for you today, D. Remember the kid I mentioned before? Well, I’ll tell you one thing for free: he’s as good as everyone and their fucking aunt says he is.

Turns out the rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than I had thought. So, I tells the kid, ‘Find out what got taken, and if you can who took it.’ Here I was thinking he was gonna come back to me with a couple crumbs, and maybe a recovered nudie or two. Oh no, not our boy Yung Malthus (he insists on going by that despite my protestations that his 18th century namesake promoted a policy of homeless euthanasia.) Anyways, what was I saying, oh yes, the arrival of the shitstorm of the century.

Remember how all those years back I predicted SocialSynch™ would eventually bring an end to independent thought? If I recall, I said that once someone worked out how to break through the “foolproof encrypted protocol” all we’d be left with is a highest bidder takes all social media-surveillance-clusterfuck. Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for.

How did it happen, you presumably ask? This is where the kid really proved his worth. Turns out, Hank the slimy prick was running what he thought was a secure intranet server containing, and here’s where you might want to take a big sip of water, a database containing the keychains belonging to citizens of the entire metro area. Who knows why or how the bastard got hold of all those digits and what he planned to do with them. All I do know—thanks to the kid—is that a simple DDoS distraction and some ingenious hacking made short work of Hank’s pathetic attempt at hiding his dirty laundry on an old PC and some firewalls.

(Sidenote: I visited the pharmacy today and stocked up on hernia medication.)

I asked the Kid to look into who might have been behind the attack. It could be ‘The Cause’ but they’re more about anarchy than mass voter manipulation. Either way, looks like all bets are off.

It’s not like I ever really had much faith in the promises of a fluid democracy, but it sucks to be proven right. I fear this could be the start of something more sinister than the kid is ready for. Unfortunately, he’s the only one who has brains enough to keep leading us down this shady road.

Stay shooting,
D

end transmission 2

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