Idea for the pre-SOScon days

[Norgarth]

Fen refer to the events jokingly as Operations Digital Sheild and Digital Storm.

In the early days of Fenspace, a group of scriptkiddies decided to have a contest to see who could be the first to 'hack' Fenspace. Unfortunately for
them, they thought the rumored Fen AIs were no better than the stuff being developed on Earth. The first few days (Digital Sheild) consisted of the Fen AIs
stonewalling all hacking attempts while subtly tracing the sources. As more and more hackers joined the 'contest' to show off their 'leet
skillz', the AIs kept adding to their target list and cooking up surprises. Finally the decided to go on the offensive (Digital Storm). This was a much
quicker 'operation'. In a few short hours each of the hackers were given a lesson on cybercombat.

Of course, the anti-wave crowd immediately jumped on this 'unprovoked attack on today's youth' as yet another example of the evils of handwavium.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[Black Aeronaut]

... Yeah, I think I know now where the Yggdrasil virus grew infamous. *Evil Grin*

[robkelk]

That's similar to something that's been kicking around in the back of my head for a while...

---

"Agatha?" Aki looked up from her computer.

"What's wrong?"

"Somebody spammed the Helium Police Department again."

"You mean, somebody spammed you again."

"It's the same thing."

"Yeah, sure. Let me see." Agatha sat down and plugged a USB cable into the PC, plugging the other end into a connector behind her ear. "I see... and there's the zombie the spam came from... oh, that's sloppy... and there's its command server... which now belongs to me... and there's the server the command server was getting its orders from." With an evil grin, Agatha unplugged herself from the system.

"What did you do?"

"If I tell you, you might have to arrest me. But you won't be getting any spam from them for a while."

%%%%%%

Noah looked up from the morning paper. "Heh. That's the third suspected spam outfit that's had its server farm burn down this week. And it's because of a highly-overloaded power supply again. That can't be a coincidence..."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Black Aeronaut]

BWA-HA-HA--HA-HA-HAAAAA!

[Ebony]

Nezumi peered at her monitor as if something on it had just said something vaguely insulting about her daughter*. "Buckaroo?"

There was a pause of about ten seconds. I stopped checking the project reports from Fenris and looked over at Nezumi. Buckaroo never pauses when we ask for
him. It never happens. Something was going on.

"Yes, Nez? What's up?"

"You tell me, Chief. Things seem a little sluggish. You, in particular."

"Oh, nothing to worry about. Just a little distracted, that's all."

"Buckaroo," Nezumi said, "you've got approximately five teraflops of processing power at any one time, given your network. What's
slowing you down?"

Another pause. This was a bit worrying.

"A couple of folks down on Earth are being a little rude, that's all. They're trying to hack the Institute...."

"Is that all?" I asked. "They've tried that before. Is it the RIAA again? Silly deadboys don't know when to quit."

What I thought was an end to his sentence turned out to be another pause, when Buckaroo continued, "..., Kandor, Stellvia, the Jason, aaaaaand probably
most of the Fenspace. Blackstone, I'm going to take the project database offline for a bit. Lebia needs to borrow the resources."

I watched as the database closed out and the computer locked itself. "Nezumi?"

Nezumi was watching some process diagnostics play out on her system, entranced. "Yeah?"

"Does this scare you as much as it does me?"

"Don't talk to me, Blackstone. I'm terrified beyond the point of rational thought."

* It is a not-quite secret that Nezumi has little love for her parents, but pours a great deal of affection on her only child, a precocious child named
Allegra.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[robkelk]

If Lebia's alive, then this isn't pre-SOSCon... but it could be the incident that formalizes the Hacker Underspace.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Cobalt Greywalker]

With a lead up like that...

---

The second Digital Storm, also known as SPAMarok and by the ‘Danes as The Great Hack, occurred in late Autumn after SerenityCon.

Unlike before, this attack was far more organised and far more widespread. Boskonian influence is suspected.

Also unlike before, the Fenspace AI were not in the mood to play around.

The core of what would become known as the Hacker Underspace went on the offensive, blowing through the defences of the bot-net control servers and opening them to the remaining Fen AIs. The AIs in turn completely subverted the bot-nets, and used them to purge themselves. The Underspace however ripped through the control servers’ control servers and tracked down the controllers. The police services of nearly thirty countries receive detailed dossiers on nearly five thousand people.

At the end of it, almost 200 million systems had been counter-hacked, $7,000,000 dollars of equipment were seized, $1.2 billion dollars in funds were located, and Spam email dropped from a ratio of 100 Spam messages for every one non-Spam message to a ratio of one Spam message for every three non-Spam messages.

[Norgarth]

At the end of it, almost 200 million systems had been counter-hacked, $7,000,000 dollars of equipment were seized, $1.2 billion dollars in funds were located, and Spam email dropped from a ratio of 100 Spam messages for every one non-Spam message to a ratio of one Spam message for every three non-Spam messages.

At least for a few weeks. 8P
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[Bob Schroeck]

Gotta do a few reps before the lesson sticks...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[LynnInDenver]

Nene, I do believe, would have been all over that. Between her and Geo, we're pretty protective of Starbug 1's mail servers.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor