REMY'S ELEVEN: We're In Barney
Dec. 8th, 2004 09:52 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsl33t haxx0rz Forge and Doug finally run into a system better than them, and need to find a new creative solution. Fortunately, Remy's there with an idea... and a fake mustache.
Doug Ramsey could swear in ... well, more languages than he could actually keep track of. He knew, for fact, he could go on for at least a minute and a half without repeating. Either phrases or languages. He was well on the way to breaking his record at the moment.
"The SSL phish isn't working. Its not even making a damn -dent- in this security." He rubbed his temples and sighed. "I swear to God, if I have to go bust down encryption by hand I'm going to find Arcade and hit him. Or at least hit a picture of him. Or a picture of someone. Maybe Remy."
He looked over at Forge and gestured impatiently. "Tell me you've got a couple of splitters in there? Maybe if I get the laptops and your mobile working I can grab source on whatever he's got locking this
down. I'd need to get them all on one of the flavors of Unix though, or ... gah. We don't have time to delve into coding OS's here.
Forget it." He nearly growled, running his hands through his hair and kicking at a empty can of Mountain Dew. "Remind me to find Bill Gates someday and hit him in the mouth."
Forge fumbled in his satchel, feeling around by touch. "RJ45 splitters or coax?" he asked, continuing to type furiously at his laptop with his other hand. Not getting a quick enough reply, he tossed Doug one
of each. "I'm already ghosting on his standard network spoofing a blank terminal ID. From what I can tell, his main network's running a completely broken flavor of Unix. Seems like Milan, but there's an
embedded encryption layer."
Hammering away at the keys, Forge spent a minute in total concentration before balling his hands into fists and pounding on the table. "Dammit! There's no way we can brute-force this without leaving
a trace. And we don't even know if the key is ON this system."
"Broken isn't even the word, man." Doug mumbled, voice muffled by the fact that he was resting his forehead on the top of the now-closed spare laptop. "It looks like he's got some kind of kit-bashed custom
setup going on here. I'm not seeing how anyone gets remote access to this thing. Terminal Services is locked out, he's not running VPN, there's nothing that looks even the slightest bit like a set of login
security scripts, and yeah, I've got a password hash or two I can see but they don't have corresponding user-id's. They seem to connect to some ... "
He thudded his head against the laptop again. "Fuck. That's where I've seen that before. They're not password hashes. Not exactly anyway. Its a placeholder for a open port. A physical connector."
Forge paused, letting that sink in. "Physical connector with its own separate password layer... holy shit, he's running his connection totally independently through a hardware barrier. No WAY we're going
to get in remotely, not in this timeframe. Sure, if we could get physical access - but if we had that, we could just waltz right over to his terminal and go at it the old-fashioned way."
Pausing a moment, Forge called up blueprints on his laptop, then swore again. "Odds are like most executives, his personal computer's in his office. Which is almost as well-guarded as that vault. So much for walking in."
"We can't even use Nathan's telepathy to keep in contact," Doug added. "They've got jamming tech."
"Yeah," Forge called back, "but we can have jamming-the-jammers tech."
"But what if they have tech to jam our tech that jams their jammers? I suppose then we get Nathan or Mister Marko to step on them, and we have peanut butter with our jam." Doug grinned over his laptop screen. Forge was not amused, and threw an empty soda can at Doug.
"I mean, look at this!" Forge kept rambling, oblivious. "He's got this entire place locked down so tight you couldn't get a fart out of there without being patted down and searched. You think Remy's going to have an idea?" The two paused and looked at each other, then Forge rolled his eyes. "Of course Remy's going to have an idea."
"Remy going to have an idea about what, hommes?" Both jumped at the voice behind them. Remy had a disquieting habit of just turning up without warning. Doug had theorized that the only real way to track him was by the telltale puff of cigarette smoke right before he appeared, and Forge had threatened him with a wrench. It had been a long night. "I'm going to make a guess, but dere's something dat's giving us problems with de system, oui?"
Doug figured he would get kicked - or something anyway - for it, but it came out before he could stop himself. "We're in barney..." he panned, complete with accent.
"You really shoud have been hit more as a child." Remy said dryly, lighting a cigarette with the tip of his finger. "Now den, let's try it in English. What's going on wit de system? We need to get control by de 9th."
"What's going on is that we're locked out." Forge's voice was that of a scolded child. "Unless we can get in with a physical connection, or get access to their password schema, or go in like ninjas and do a
snatch-and-grab on that key... the Excelsior's systems are locked down tighter than a choirgirl's panties."
"What he said. Unless you know someone who can stop time long enough for me to do a twenty hour rewrite on the OS.' Doug grumbled. "Because right now, geniuses or not, there's no way to get in. Its actual -good- security, he's off the damn grid."
Remy closed his eyes for a second, thinking. He was a decent brute force hacker, at least for normal systems, so their techno-babble wasn't totally lost on him. "So, de system needs to be hooked into from inside de network."
Doug and Forge nodded, black looks on their faces.
"Den we get you both inside de system." Remy put his hands in his pockets, and suddenly smiled as he pulled out a deck of cards. "De covers we use are too dangerous to try and book a room in de hotel..." He trailed off, and his grin got wider. "But de suites are on de same level as Arcade's office. Forge, we get you into de ceiling space, can you break into de system?"
"The what with the who?" Forge mumbled through a mouthful of Doritos. Swallowing, he fumbled through the blueprints that Remy had somehow acquired. "Um, well... if I had physical access, yeah. I mean, if
someone could get through the air vents, it just goes up through here, to central venting here, and then down and around to the office. But who's small enough to do... that..."
He suddenly realized that Remy and Doug were both looking right at him. Forge blinked. "Oh, fuckberries."
Doug coughed around a mouthful of soda, trying not to asperate it into his sinuses. "Fuckberries?" He gasped. "That's a new one on me." Once he regained his ability to breathe oxygen instead of soda, he
continued. "So now what?"
Forge looked back and forth from Doug's wheezing face to Remy grinning like the Cheshire Cat. He hung his head in resignation. "Yeah, yeah. I can get in there. Gimme two days, the blueprints, and time to rig up a
VR layout of the AC system, and I can be in and out and get what we need." He sighed deeply, realizing that five years of getting shoved into lockers was actually about to pay off.
"Simple. All dat we need to do is get Arcade's people to offer one of your a free suite for a few nights." Remy said, and Doug didn't trust his grin.
"What, but just asking nicely?"
"Non. Homme, Remy hears you play poker?" Remy shuffled the deck between hands. Both teens watched the cards perform complicated trails. "Casinos will often offer free rooms for de players on a lucky streak, because if dey can keep dem longer, chances are dey going to lose de money right back to de house. Remy figure dat your power includes reading body langauge, den you likely de original mutant cardshark." Doug nodded. "So, we going to break de bank."
"How do I get in?" Forge said.
"Remy noticed you brought a big suitcase, homme." Remy grinned as Forge winced. "De setup is simple. You win, pick up de room, next day lose most of it back. Den pick up again. Just keep de streak going for a few days. Oh, and Doug, make sure you wear your mustache." He said with a wicked grin.
Doug Ramsey could swear in ... well, more languages than he could actually keep track of. He knew, for fact, he could go on for at least a minute and a half without repeating. Either phrases or languages. He was well on the way to breaking his record at the moment.
"The SSL phish isn't working. Its not even making a damn -dent- in this security." He rubbed his temples and sighed. "I swear to God, if I have to go bust down encryption by hand I'm going to find Arcade and hit him. Or at least hit a picture of him. Or a picture of someone. Maybe Remy."
He looked over at Forge and gestured impatiently. "Tell me you've got a couple of splitters in there? Maybe if I get the laptops and your mobile working I can grab source on whatever he's got locking this
down. I'd need to get them all on one of the flavors of Unix though, or ... gah. We don't have time to delve into coding OS's here.
Forget it." He nearly growled, running his hands through his hair and kicking at a empty can of Mountain Dew. "Remind me to find Bill Gates someday and hit him in the mouth."
Forge fumbled in his satchel, feeling around by touch. "RJ45 splitters or coax?" he asked, continuing to type furiously at his laptop with his other hand. Not getting a quick enough reply, he tossed Doug one
of each. "I'm already ghosting on his standard network spoofing a blank terminal ID. From what I can tell, his main network's running a completely broken flavor of Unix. Seems like Milan, but there's an
embedded encryption layer."
Hammering away at the keys, Forge spent a minute in total concentration before balling his hands into fists and pounding on the table. "Dammit! There's no way we can brute-force this without leaving
a trace. And we don't even know if the key is ON this system."
"Broken isn't even the word, man." Doug mumbled, voice muffled by the fact that he was resting his forehead on the top of the now-closed spare laptop. "It looks like he's got some kind of kit-bashed custom
setup going on here. I'm not seeing how anyone gets remote access to this thing. Terminal Services is locked out, he's not running VPN, there's nothing that looks even the slightest bit like a set of login
security scripts, and yeah, I've got a password hash or two I can see but they don't have corresponding user-id's. They seem to connect to some ... "
He thudded his head against the laptop again. "Fuck. That's where I've seen that before. They're not password hashes. Not exactly anyway. Its a placeholder for a open port. A physical connector."
Forge paused, letting that sink in. "Physical connector with its own separate password layer... holy shit, he's running his connection totally independently through a hardware barrier. No WAY we're going
to get in remotely, not in this timeframe. Sure, if we could get physical access - but if we had that, we could just waltz right over to his terminal and go at it the old-fashioned way."
Pausing a moment, Forge called up blueprints on his laptop, then swore again. "Odds are like most executives, his personal computer's in his office. Which is almost as well-guarded as that vault. So much for walking in."
"We can't even use Nathan's telepathy to keep in contact," Doug added. "They've got jamming tech."
"Yeah," Forge called back, "but we can have jamming-the-jammers tech."
"But what if they have tech to jam our tech that jams their jammers? I suppose then we get Nathan or Mister Marko to step on them, and we have peanut butter with our jam." Doug grinned over his laptop screen. Forge was not amused, and threw an empty soda can at Doug.
"I mean, look at this!" Forge kept rambling, oblivious. "He's got this entire place locked down so tight you couldn't get a fart out of there without being patted down and searched. You think Remy's going to have an idea?" The two paused and looked at each other, then Forge rolled his eyes. "Of course Remy's going to have an idea."
"Remy going to have an idea about what, hommes?" Both jumped at the voice behind them. Remy had a disquieting habit of just turning up without warning. Doug had theorized that the only real way to track him was by the telltale puff of cigarette smoke right before he appeared, and Forge had threatened him with a wrench. It had been a long night. "I'm going to make a guess, but dere's something dat's giving us problems with de system, oui?"
Doug figured he would get kicked - or something anyway - for it, but it came out before he could stop himself. "We're in barney..." he panned, complete with accent.
"You really shoud have been hit more as a child." Remy said dryly, lighting a cigarette with the tip of his finger. "Now den, let's try it in English. What's going on wit de system? We need to get control by de 9th."
"What's going on is that we're locked out." Forge's voice was that of a scolded child. "Unless we can get in with a physical connection, or get access to their password schema, or go in like ninjas and do a
snatch-and-grab on that key... the Excelsior's systems are locked down tighter than a choirgirl's panties."
"What he said. Unless you know someone who can stop time long enough for me to do a twenty hour rewrite on the OS.' Doug grumbled. "Because right now, geniuses or not, there's no way to get in. Its actual -good- security, he's off the damn grid."
Remy closed his eyes for a second, thinking. He was a decent brute force hacker, at least for normal systems, so their techno-babble wasn't totally lost on him. "So, de system needs to be hooked into from inside de network."
Doug and Forge nodded, black looks on their faces.
"Den we get you both inside de system." Remy put his hands in his pockets, and suddenly smiled as he pulled out a deck of cards. "De covers we use are too dangerous to try and book a room in de hotel..." He trailed off, and his grin got wider. "But de suites are on de same level as Arcade's office. Forge, we get you into de ceiling space, can you break into de system?"
"The what with the who?" Forge mumbled through a mouthful of Doritos. Swallowing, he fumbled through the blueprints that Remy had somehow acquired. "Um, well... if I had physical access, yeah. I mean, if
someone could get through the air vents, it just goes up through here, to central venting here, and then down and around to the office. But who's small enough to do... that..."
He suddenly realized that Remy and Doug were both looking right at him. Forge blinked. "Oh, fuckberries."
Doug coughed around a mouthful of soda, trying not to asperate it into his sinuses. "Fuckberries?" He gasped. "That's a new one on me." Once he regained his ability to breathe oxygen instead of soda, he
continued. "So now what?"
Forge looked back and forth from Doug's wheezing face to Remy grinning like the Cheshire Cat. He hung his head in resignation. "Yeah, yeah. I can get in there. Gimme two days, the blueprints, and time to rig up a
VR layout of the AC system, and I can be in and out and get what we need." He sighed deeply, realizing that five years of getting shoved into lockers was actually about to pay off.
"Simple. All dat we need to do is get Arcade's people to offer one of your a free suite for a few nights." Remy said, and Doug didn't trust his grin.
"What, but just asking nicely?"
"Non. Homme, Remy hears you play poker?" Remy shuffled the deck between hands. Both teens watched the cards perform complicated trails. "Casinos will often offer free rooms for de players on a lucky streak, because if dey can keep dem longer, chances are dey going to lose de money right back to de house. Remy figure dat your power includes reading body langauge, den you likely de original mutant cardshark." Doug nodded. "So, we going to break de bank."
"How do I get in?" Forge said.
"Remy noticed you brought a big suitcase, homme." Remy grinned as Forge winced. "De setup is simple. You win, pick up de room, next day lose most of it back. Den pick up again. Just keep de streak going for a few days. Oh, and Doug, make sure you wear your mustache." He said with a wicked grin.
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Date: 2004-12-08 07:59 pm (UTC)And Doug says leet-speak is for losers. :)