Introduction

When a hacker known as G0d_of_Internet hijacks millions of computers to do the bidding of an Islamic jihadist group, their first act is to disrupt the water treatment systems in three cities. Is this the start of a digital world war? Not if a band of white hat hackers can help it.

Editorial Review

No editorial review at this time.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

The screen of the disposable laptop flickers as though it trembles with as much excitement as the man sitting in front of it. He calls himself G0d_of_Internet online, a sacrilegious joke he shares with only one other person. And that person had expressed his dislike of it so vehemently that G0d_of_Internet keeps using it just to toy with him.

He knows the time has come to send his baby out into the world, yet like any parent, he holds on for a few more moments, his eyes caressing the programming language he has been working on for months. He’d written the worm’s coding lean and tight, then hidden it like a tiny pearl in a series of those matryoshka dolls from Russia where ever-smaller dolls nest inside one another.

He checks his TorChat instant message account and sees one message from his humorless client and counterpart, who goes by the innocuous online handle Proxyw0rm. Tor uses five thousand relays to bounce instant messages and online activity around the globe, all to keep his work wrapped in secrecy.

This is the beauty of the internet. It had been created by academic utopian idealists who believed in free information and had an abnormal amount of trust in the human capacity for good. No one actually controls it. The internet had been built from the start as a distributed, resilient network, a completely decentralized system that draws its greatest power from the fact there is no head to cut off. At its core are thirteen root servers that route and relay traffic all over the world. If one root server goes down, no problem. The internet just routes itself around that one.

He thinks of the internet like the starfish he used to see wash up on the Red Sea shore during his boyhood vacations. If a starfish loses a leg, it grows a new one. And the coolest part is that the leg itself grows a new starfish. Every part of the starfish holds the capacity to regenerate.

That resiliency, combined with the lack of centralization, opens the door for untold innovation and allows for the internet’s rapid takeover of commerce, social interactions and entertainment.

But, he thinks, those hippie-dippie techies forgot one thing. If no one is in control, then who polices and defends its use from the bad guys?

He remembers the private dinner in Singapore eight months ago with Abdul al-Lahem, leader of the Islamic Crusade, and his closest advisors. The comfort and ease he had felt at being among others like himself had been intoxicating after so many years living among the Americans, always on the fringes of their frenetic pace and constant consumerism.

“Imagine how the American people would feel to have their financial accounts wiped clean, even if you are only able to keep it so for a few days,” al-Lahem said to him over a steaming pot of chili crab. He pulled the crab legs off ferociously, splattering red sauce on the tablecloth then gnawing on the sweet white meat inside.

“Money is so important to them,” he said, and G0d_of_Internet nodded. Money is the main thing he has cared about for a long time. Even though his re-commitment to Islam helped him see past money to a greater goal, he still wants to be comfortable. Living in poverty may be noble, but he never wants to depend on others’ charity.

“I cannot continue to live in the United States once this attack is underway,” he said, and al-Lahem and his advisors nodded like they had understood that all along.

“We will make sure that you have safe passage to the Kingdom,” al-Lahem said. “Though you may need to live with brothers in Yemen for a while.”

G0d_of_Internet imagines the living conditions he might expect in Yemen. Concrete houses on narrow alleys, filled with brothers fighting for the cause, breathing dirty air and walking through piles of trash on the streets. He knows he should erase his pride, but instead his mind keeps churning, thinking of ways to hide money for his use once he is on the run. Some habits are hard to break.

He places his hands on the computer keyboard to type in the commands that will execute the worm he’s named Chrysalide, then pauses. He thinks of home: the smell of cardamom and coffee, the olive trees in his uncle’s courtyard, the azure waters of the Red Sea, the muezzin’s melancholy call to prayer. Soon he would be there.

He types in the commands, then holds his breath while he waits for launch confirmation.

Launch confirmed.

He tips his head back and closes his eyes, slowly expelling the air from his lungs.

He types into the TorChat interface:

G0d_of_Internet: Chrysalide is launched. The game has begun.

Proxyw0rm: Well done, my friend. Soon we will awaken the world to our honorable fight.

G0d_of_Internet: May our work reflect the glory of Allah. Peace be upon you.

And G0d_of_Internet rests.

Chapter 2

Juliana doesn't bother to go into a stall in the ladies' room to hide her tears. Plenty of the female employees in UCLA's Information Studies Department have seen her crying in here before, so why hunch over a toilet seat for the pretense at privacy?

Mahaz, her husband of eighteen years, had humiliated her again. She needs to think, but she just feels like crying. She feels trapped by their marriage, unable to see another path for her life, but equally unable to visualize being with Mahaz for twenty or thirty more years. Hell, she isn’t sure she wants to be with him twenty more minutes. At some point this marriage—and her life—has drifted far off course and she is tired of pretending that everything is still going according to plan.

Today’s embarrassment came during a meeting with a consultant he'd hired to advise on his Center for Information Technology's social media strategy.

"Let me show you some of our past social media efforts," he said. One of the profiles Juliana had set up on a video- and photo-sharing site appeared on the big flat screen mounted to the conference room wall.

"Pretty pathetic, huh?" Mahaz said. “Look at this, only five followers. It’s so obvious we don’t know what we are doing, right, Juliana?” His voice was low and convincing. She had nodded because he’d always had this power over her. To persuade her to change her mind, to acquiesce to his wishes, to follow him. And following him was what she had done her whole adult life, an act as routine as breathing or blinking. His certainty used to make her feel protected and safe, but lately it only makes her feel vulnerable and small. A fish swimming in the wake of a shark, pulled along by its force but dangerously exposed.

At forty-six years old, Mahaz Al-Dossari is an exceptionally skilled computer network security specialist and a professor at UCLA. But the biggest feather in his cap is the enviably endowed chair he received, courtesy of His Royal Highness Prince Abdul Fahd bin Aziz, a schoolboy friend. That ensures not just his long-term employment, but also an overflowing coffer of money for his research. Mahaz uses the money to fund his Center for Information Technology at UCLA, where he hired her as his communications manager four years ago.

She once heard Mahaz describe her job to a colleague as a perk he had earned for bringing such a big donor to the university.

“I consider it another way to supplement my income. I put her in communications where I figured she could do the least harm,” he said to a visiting professor from Egypt. The other man laughed and looked at Juliana like she was a prize calf at the fair. Back then, she told herself that Mahaz was only showing off for his friend, and that he hadn’t intended to hurt her. Rationalizations that shepherded her through the dinner and the next day without confrontation. But his words still stay with her years later, growing a toxic mix of resentment, shame and rage like poisonous mushrooms in a terrarium.

If she were totally honest with herself, the pain of those words stems from how they expose her deepest fear that she is an imposter in her job. A college dropout, Juliana wishes she could be as confident about her work as she is about being a mother. But the bottom line is that she has more experience as a housewife than in the working world. She’d put in serious effort to tip the balance, taking classes on marketing and public relations at UCLA Extension, and joining the local chapter of the Public Relations Society to beef up her skills. But some days, she feels the deep chasm between her and the bevy of young, educated professionals who stream through Mahaz’s office having deep conversations on intricate information security matters she knows little about.

Funny how life works. She had started talking to Mahaz about finding a job because she wanted out of the San Fernando Valley homeroom mom crowd. In wealthy and competitive Sherman Oaks—where bumping into pop stars like Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears could happen at the nail salon or the organic farmer’s market—people were constantly trying to outdo one another. Whether it was private school tuition that cost more per year than Harvard University or equestrian lessons or birthday party movie screenings in private home theaters, the relentless beat of one-upmanship had worn her out. Juliana had thought working in an office would be a sanctuary from it, but the escape turned out to be an even swap of one set of problems for another.

She daintily tries to dab her eyes dry without smearing her mascara, all that was left of the make-up she had applied this morning. She grips the granite countertop with one hand and looks in the mirror. The face that looks back at her could be her ghost. Pale lips and cheeks punctuated by her red nose and dark, deep circles under watery eyes. She studies herself in the harsh light for a moment before closing her eyes so she no longer has to see the humiliation in them.

A toilet flushes. She thought she was alone. She blinks and tries to take a deep breath but she only shudders with the effort.

Allyn Carriaga, one of her husband’s teaching assistants, traipses her way to the sink with her eyes on the floor. She is avoiding eye contact, Juliana thinks. She’s embarrassed for me. Or by me.

Juliana pats the skin under her eyes with the rough paper towel while Allyn rubs soap on her hands with a surgeon’s thoroughness under a stream of running water.

“I’m sure it will get better,” Allyn says, finally meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I pray for your son all the time.”

My son? Juliana is startled by the sudden intimacy, even though she knows that her seventeen-year-old son Omar’s hydrocephalus, better known as water on the brain, is no secret among the staff and faculty. Sure, let Allyn think that she was crying about Omar. There is certainly enough sorrow and pain there to last a lifetime. She’d cried a thousand rivers over him in emergency rooms and hospital beds. But on a daily basis, she blinks back those tears and does everything she can to make her son’s life as normal as possible. And today is one of those wonderful, ordinary days, with Omar happily at school, doing the ordinary things that teenagers do.

What does it matter what Allyn thinks anyway? These co-workers aren’t confidantes or friends or even lunch buddies, just fellow travelers in a shared workplace. Let her leave the restroom and plop down at her cubicle and tell the other research assistants that poor Juliana is sobbing in the restroom about Omar. Better that than the more salacious gossip about the health of her marriage, how Mahaz treats her, and why she puts up with it. These twenty-something graduate students know nothing about the compromises you have to make in marriage and life. The messiness of life is still theoretical to them, so they can afford to shake their heads and proclaim they’d never stay with a man who cheated on them.

“Thanks for your prayers, Allyn,” she says, because her role as Mahaz’s wife is always to be graceful and kind to his staff. “We appreciate them.” She sniffles and runs the corner of the paper towel under her lower lashes to capture the last of the tears.

Allyn slips out the door and Juliana counts to ten to let her make her way down the hallway. She gives herself a big smile in the mirror, throws the crumpled towel in the trash bin and swings the door open. As her daughter would say, you’ve got this.

But her humiliation isn’t over yet. She hears Mahaz’s laugh and turns toward the sound. He walks down the hall with Kendall Sage, away from her. The woman leans into him. You couldn’t fit a cell phone between them as they stride toward his private office, footsteps echoing on the travertine floor. A rock lodges in Juliana’s chest as she watches them enter the office, Mahaz’s hand on her shoulder, guiding her inside.

She thinks of that song about setting the one you love free and wonders if in fact she still loves him at all. If she did, wouldn’t she chase after them, leveling accusations and telling that woman to stay away from her man? How had she arrived at this bitter, sad place of resignation? view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

n the first chapter, we met Juliana as she is crying in a UCLA bathroom over her husband’s belittlement of her at work, and his flirtation with another woman. Why do you think she has stayed with him?

Ken Oakey talks about how vulnerable water and power systems are to hacking, and we later learn that many systems are broken in to by hackers who steal or unlock passwords. Do you use obvious passwords for your email and other systems? How easily could you be hacked?

Mahaz’s mother Yalima seems to be Juliana’s ally at the end, but was she really? Do you think she knew about her son’s work for the Saudis?

Weblinks

»	Indie Reader Review
»	Kirkus Review
»	Author's web site

Book Club Recommendations

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 0 members.

Member Reviews

There are no user reviews at this time.
Rate this book