Chapter 3 – Crime and Punishment
New York City
Ray is awoken by a shaft of sunlight making its way in through a small slit in the curtains. He stretches out and looks over at Gracy who appears to still be in deep sleep. He can't believe it's already ten o'clock. Both he and Gracy must be really tired. But it was a great night. He slowly got up and lightly moves up the comforter to cover Gracy while appreciating her features. He thinks about stroking her face but decides against disturbing her deep sleep.
He jumps in the shower quickly then dries himself off and puts on his polo shirt and dress pants. He goes to the kitchen. His house sensor senses his presence and automatically turns on the wall screen. A good looking lady comes on and started reading news off the net. The lady is a computer animation customized by Ray. But she looks very real with all the imperfections of a human face. He even gave her a name. He calls her Amy. Amy starts reading the headlines title. Ray immediately heard something about an accident involving Zeus 1. He then instructs Amy, “More about Zeus 1.” Amy then interrupts her enumeration of the headline title and starts reading the content of the news.
“This morning, the Zeus 1, a next generation electric car touted as the car that will make oil obsolete, was involved in an fiery accident. One of the Zeus 1, being driven by one of the early testers, has exploded, killing its occupant.”
Ray is shocked and sits down on one of the kitchen bar chairs. His shoulder sags forward as if he is carrying a heavy load. He then turns his attention back to Amy and commands
“show video.” Amy immediately complies with a video of the scene showing a fiery car and later on a charred steel.
Gracy walks in and sees Ray. “Good morning,” she says with a wide smile and notices his ashen face. She then turns toward the wall screen. She commands the screen “replay last report.” And Amy replays everything, starting from detailed report of the accident. Gracy covers her mouth with her hands in shock. “Oh no.”
“With just days to its official launch and this happens.” Ray grimly observes. Ray then looks at Gracy. “I have to go visit an old friend. Help yourself and make yourself feel at home. I have to find out what is happening. Ray looked at Gracy apologetically. Gracy touches Ray arms to comfort him. Go ahead, I can take care of myself. I'll see what I can find out from my contacts also. Ray nodded and moved to kiss her cheek. He holds her arm before turning to rushed out.
Silicon Valley
In Kitrics headquarter, the maker of Zeus 1, Oleg Oborski rushes to his office early in the morning for an emergency meeting. He was rudely awoken from his sleep. Had he known the day would going to start badly, he would not have gone out and drunk so late last night.
Oleg looks distressed and tired and the day has barely begun. All these years of hard work threaten to just evaporate after the breaking news this morning spread like wildfire across various news channel. All the hard work for nothing is not what causes him most grief. Instead, it is the thought that all the hard earned cash by his parents, which he inherited after they passed away in a fatal accident, is about to disappear. His parents were immigrants and worked really hard first, as vendors in a market, and then eventually they used their savings to open a convenience store. They never settled and kept growing their business to make sure Oleg and his two sisters would have a comfortable life and education, something they did not have while growing up.
How could this happen? They made sure they did their safety test over and over again. He has already called one of his men to see what he could gather from the site of the accident, and he has tried to call his contacts in the police department to see if he could get more information.
He keeps having flashbacks of the media's pronouncement on TV and radio this morning. “It is an unproven technology and the quick rise in stock value were driven by hype.” He has never met that reporter. Why would he pretend to know so much? One anonymous supposedly ex-employee of Kitrics with his face blacked out claims that the technology has been shown to not work as advertised and they've been having problems.
Oleg can't believe his ears. Who is feeding all this misinformation? How could the media get on the anonymous person so quick right after the accident?
Turning to business channels, he saw a report about the plunging Kitrics stocks. Just as he thought the day could not get any worse. One of his employee rushed in to say the FBI have a warrant to confiscate all their documents including the car's design.
New York City Police Precinct
Eldon got called in early to help investigate the explosive event this morning. But soon after cordoning off the scene, FBI arrived and claimed jurisdiction over the case, claiming possible corporate fraud. They cordoned off and intend to take all parts from the accident with them. Eldon's boss did not object, thinking the federal laboratory and forensic team would be able to better handle the investigation of the cause, which was very likely caused by a new technology nobody and his department would have any clue about. Eldon exchanged contacts with his FBI counterparts.
This morning's casualty was the first one for this precinct in months. Crime rates have been falling since they ramped up rehabilitation efforts and provided more care for prisoners. The principle of rehabilitating people to soften criminals influenced by the surroundings they grew up in has caught on. It has replaced the jail-and-forget punishment approach. But recently, there was a big corporation who lobbied hard to build a state of the art super-jail. It could house thousands of people. Funding has been approved. Eldon wonders if they are expecting an influx of crime. He also wonders why they don't use the funds to increase rehabilitation funding in other crime infested areas or at least increase the police forces there. Politicians who use crime fighting as their campaign slogan are instead cutting police forces and using funds to build super-jail.
Eldon is prepared to be occupied for the rest of the day, but he suddenly finds himself in his office for the rest of the afternoon. He decides to get some coffee at their cafeteria. As he looks for a seat, he sees Nolan Hudson, their cybercrime department super-cop, and decides to sit with him. Nolan Hudson is a nerd but does not look like your stereotypical nerd. Working in the police department, he religiously goes to the gym to buff up his body and to look less nerdy and skinny beside the other officers.
“Hi Nolan, how are you doing?” Eldon asks.
“Here, getting bogged down with identity theft cases.” Nolan does not sound please.
“What has changed?”
“Nothing has changed. Based on our statistics, cybercrime has been increasing since the Motherland Defence Initiative (MDI) law was passed. Now that more and more countries are adopting that law, the problem has just skyrocketed worldwide. There has also been unusual rise in cybercrime and personal financial theft here on our precinct alone.”
“What does MDI have to do with an increase in cybercrime?” Eldon said.
“MDI pretty much got rid of any protection of privacy that existed before. This makes it easier for criminals to steal people's information. The cashless currency also makes people more vulnerable to online theft like never before. With credit cards, consumer don't feel the effect directly. Losses by credit card companies from fraud's write offs are passed onto consumers through higher interest rates and fees. “
“Why doesn’t the government do something about that?”
“The government wants to be able to spy on everyone, so they mandated data retention and weakened encryption by ISP. They don’t want to give that up. Corporations are pretty happy that they are able to monitor people's activity to customize their sales pitch for them. So the two end up working very nicely together in the background. Losses are shouldered by each individual. Cybercriminals are switching to more subtle stealing. Rather than stealing directly from people's cashless currency, which usually results in huge outcry from the people, they steal their identity and use it for illegal activity instead. It is a pain trying to sort through who are innocents and who have th
eir identity stolen. Cases of innocents being charged are increasing as a result of huge backlog on our court.”
“Aren't you working on any high level fraud and corruption cases?”
“Yes, even that is not looking very promising. The irony of MDI is people's activities are increasingly scrutinized while the government’s disclosures continue to decrease in the name of national security. Government e-mail is exempt from the MDI and on one corruption case that I am working on, all e-mails have been deleted or documents have been permanently blacked out.”
“Why doesn't anyone speak out against this?”
“Believe me I've tried. But after the Ordo Tribus XI attack, people are scared shitless. The government also did a good job of promoting it as a necessary evil. That it is better to surrender some rights than to have you or your love ones killed. Which kind of reminds me of that quote from Benjamin Franklin - 'Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety'.”
“What ever happened to that case that you mentioned? The actor claiming the media hacked into his account.”
“We have some leads but not much. The Solara media claim a source gave them the video. The video is an unflattering video of the actor with a lady during an online chat that they have before he became famous. My theory is Solara is able to tap into the vast resources of saved online activity record kept as part of the data retention requirement of MDI. How do you think they were able to have breaking news and scandals day after day? Viewers like sensationalism and so Solara's rating shot up. Other networks, seeing Solara's profit rise, are trying to play catchup discarding less profitable and life endangering investigative journalism.”
“Can't you charge Solara?”
“No direct evidence to implicate them. They cover their tracks well. We interviewed the lady in the video who chatted with the actor, and she claims someone coerced her into admitting she recorded the video, but the truth is she did not record their chat. Which means whoever obtained that video got it from the data retention repository. But by Solara claiming an anonymous source gave it to them, they have plausible deniability. Solara has replaced tabloid journalism, which used to make up scandalous news. Now they can get all scandals that they can get their hands on online. By the looks of it there is nowhere that they cannot go. I think Solara has very powerful connections.”
“Looks like you've got your work cut out for you.”
“No kidding.”
“Well good luck. I'll see you later.”
Eldon then heads to his office. Just as he is settling into his desk, his phone rings. He does not have an office phone, just his cellphone. It is an ordinary cellphone, like everyone else’s. Built in to a rectangular shaped watch whose screen extends from the wrist to just before the forearm area. To answer the phone, he pulls out a strip that is inserted into the watch. The strip is an earphone that fits to his ear. The front reception desk tells him a Ray Carter is here to see him. His face lights up. “Go ahead, sent him in.” He has not seen Ray for a while. They went through a lot when they were kids, and he was glad Ray was there to help him.
Ray was about to knock when Eldon swings his office door open. “Hi Ray how have you been?”
“Good.” They forego the pleasantries and get down to business. “Listen, I need to know about this morning's fatal accident involving the Zeus 1.”
“Oh that one. Well the FBI took over, claiming possible corporate fraud.”
“What! Are they out of their mind?”
“Is there something you know that I don't?”
“Kitrics, the owner of the company who made Zeus 1, is a personal friend of mine. I saw the design myself and invested huge amounts to help them get it out of the door. I can tell you that there is no corporate fraud. The design works. Something else must have happened.”
Eldon is not expecting this. “I will try to see what I can find. But I am leaving for Canada tomorrow to visit my brother.”
Ray decides not to push harder. “Okay, I am sorry to be so abrupt this morning. I just feel like something is not quite right here. I did not realize the FBI took over so quickly.”
Ray paused to ponder his option and decided to leave Eldon alone. “Anyway, I shall trouble you no more. Have a good trip.”
“Yeah, I'll see if I can get anything out of my FBI contact before I leave.”
“We should get together when you come back from your trip.”
“Yeah sure.”
“I better check on Oleg. My friend from Kitrics. Call me when you are back in town.”
“OK. Take it easy.”
JFK International Airport
As Eldon is walking to his gate at the airport, he sees a guy who reminds him of an incomplete sketch from an old file that he came across. Similar features but his lips are bigger. He was retrieving a file from the cold case when he encountered that file. It was just a page from what could be from a police report. The page had a few paragraphs describing a hacker with the alias “Caliphate.” There was an incomplete sketch of his face that was scratched out and a note that said “see attached.” It described the man’s crime as a criminal hacking and stealing laptops. He paid drug addicts to steal discarded personal financial information from people who thought their records were going to the landfill. He targeted wealthy neighbourhoods or financial firms where employees, rather surprisingly, throw out sensitive information in recycling bins instead of shredding them.
Caliphate also used drug addicts to open bank accounts, which he then used to move money that he stole online and offline. Caliphate boasted to his interrogator that any Microsoft computer that people and corporations still used could easily be cracked. Password protected laptops gave the user a false sense of security, for he could easily boot externally to access all records in the hard drive. Businessmen's laptops were his favourite target. He would just sit and observe people on Wall Street to look for a potential victim. Once he got access to the laptop, he could either image the drive or sometimes just run away with the laptop. He got many of those companies’ client's personal information that way and was able to acquire credit in their names.
What puzzles Eldon about that paper was that there was no usual form like those from an official police report, just that one page. Also no traces could be found on their database. His boss seemed disinterested when he told him about it. Asking him to concentrate on his actual case and not worry about misplaced junk found on old case files. It might be nothing more than an incomplete draft with inaccurate information. The final copy that was filed might have the right alias and corrected information.
Eldon was not so sure. His boss did not return the paper to him, discarding it in a pile of paper on top of his table. But Eldon had already scanned that mysterious one page document to his computer.