Ten
The notion of being “on time” is a myth propagated by the perpetually late. In reality, it’s impossible to hit the absolute perfect moment to be on time. One is either early or late.
I prefer early, so at 7:55 the next morning I knocked on Adriana’s door, travel mug in hand and backpack on my back. Adriana opened the door wearing an unbuttoned blouse and a skirt turned a quarter around from the front.
“I thought I said eight,” she said.
“This is almost eight.”
“Just come in.”
I came in and set up shop in the kitchen while frantic last-
minute commuter activity happened around me, with Catherine and Adriana making lunches, putting the finishing touches on their looks, and getting ready to run out the door.
“Where’s Maria?” I asked.
“She’s sleeping late. Make yourself at home,” said Adriana. “And no television for her. She’s being punished.”
“What?”
“Gotta go!”
She and Catherine bolted out the front door, leaving me in a quiet house. I made a cup of coffee, found one of Catherine’s scones in a tin, and sat down to do some online sleuthing. Much as he didn’t want to help me dox Peter, Huey had given me a clue to start looking. I began searching for the hacking group PwnSec.
We think of hackers as loners, guys (or mostly guys) who sit in front of their computers all day engaging in mischief or learning how to engage in more mischief. If you don’t count the times that the hacker collective Anonymous has inspired real-world protests, the generalization is often true. Hackers don’t see much of each other, but they chat a lot.
When hackers meet on the Internet and love each other very much, they go to a chat room and create a hacker club with a clever name. PwnSec was such a club, combining the word for beating someone in a contest (pwning them) with an abbreviation for security. Apparently PwnSec thought they would pwn a lot of sec.
“Tucker, what are you doing?” Maria was up.
“I’m looking for people on the Internet.”
“Like with dating?”
“No. Not like with dating. What do you want for breakfast?”
It turned out that Maria wanted pancakes. I fished through the unfamiliar kitchen, found the ingredients, and whipped up some pancakes with chocolate chips as a favor to Maria. I’m not a fan of candy for breakfast, but then again I’m in my thirties.
As Maria ate her breakfast, I started searching Twitter for signs of PwnSec. They were easy to find; in fact, they screamed for attention. The @PwnSec account spewed links to manifestos, plans, and—
“I’m going to watch TV,” said Maria.
“Your mom said no TV,” I said, looking at my computer screen.
“What?”
I turned to Maria. “No TV.”
“Why?”
“It seems you’re being consequenced for letting your Facebook account get hacked.”
“What?”
“You are being punished.”
“This is bullshit!”
“Hey! Language.”
“You say it.”
“I’m an adult with a potty mouth.”
“I’m a kid with a potty mouth.”
“Kids aren’t allowed to have potty mouths.”
Maria slid out of her chair and headed for her room.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Use my computer. If that’s okay.”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
Maria stomped down the hallway to her room. Just before her bedroom door closed she got in one last “Bullshit!”
Well, that was a bad start.
I went back to Googling PwnSec. They had a pathetic track record. While they were good at recruiting others to take part in denial-
of-service attacks, team efforts that overwhelmed websites, they rarely initiated an activity. They were vocal about the #GamerGate battle on Twitter, which mixed a call for ethical standards in video-game journalism with a heavy dose of misogyny. But they didn’t—
“I’m bored.” Maria stood by my side.
A tweak of irritation rippled through my stomach.
“Don’t say you’re bored. Only boring people get bored.”
Maria climbed in my lap. “But I am bored.”
“You must be able to find something to do. You have all those toys in your room.”
“They’re boring.”
“Please, honey. I’m trying to do something.”
“You’re supposed to be watching me.”
“I am watching you.”
“I’m bored!”
“We’ll go out for lunch, okay?”
“What about until then? You said I can’t watch TV.”
“No, no TV.”
Maria jumped off my lap. “This is such bullshit!”
“Hey!”
She stomped back down to her room. Slammed the door.
I went over to Twitter and looked at PwnSec’s account. They had ten followers, which was pathetic. A group of any—
I started wondering what Maria was doing in her room. Got up, walked down, knocked on the door, opened it.
Maria sat in front of her computer, transfixed.
“Whatcha doin’?”
“Computer,” said Maria.
I walked around her computer and looked at the screen. A cartoon llama was having a bad day.
“I thought your mom said no TV.”
“I’m not watching TV.”
“Netflix is TV.”
“No, it isn’t TV. You said I could use my computer.”
Screw Adriana and her arbitrary rules.
“You’re right. It’s not. Enjoy.”
I went back to my computer, back to the PwnSec Twitter page. With only ten followers, anything in the feed had to be useful. I wrote a little script that listed the followers in the order they’d joined. Got a list of names: Eliza, Runway, Tron, Metalhead, etc. Some of these had to be on PwnSec. Now I had to—
“Tucker, I’m hungry,” said Maria.
I looked up at the wall clock. It was 1:30. I had coded through lunch.
“Let’s get lunch,” I said.
We walked over to Neptune Oyster, where Maria devoured a lobster roll while I chowed down on fried clams and tartar sauce. Comfort food di mare.
We finished lunch and walked back to the apartment, where I coded while Maria continue to watch the adventurous llama’s hijinks. By the time Catherine showed up to relieve me, I had a pretty good handle on PwnSec.
Let the doxing commence.