Record number twenty three





Can you feel it? We’re so close to the end now. We must be.

That file I took from the FBI server - tangodelta.txt - is very interesting. Now, Mariana is everywhere and she’ll probably read this as soon as it goes online, so I can’t mention any details, yet.

Does anyone remember the urban legend about the virus makers and the antivirus companies? The story goes that as certain viruses were first found, the antivirus patches were released far too soon - that the virus makers must be working hand in hand with the virus preventers.

Well, it’s time to dispel the fog surrounding it, as with most myths. Surprisingly it’s true, to an extent. Without revealing too much, the main project set up to counter the MARIANA AI was named Static, and here’s why:

Imagine a thousand computers. One of them is the hub, where the virus is created. Now imagine various social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. Of course those two weren’t around at the time but they’ll do as example.

Now imagine the hub uploading a virus to these sites, blackmailing the companies and using the law against them - think the NSA and their wiretaps. At least six hundred of the remaining nine hundred and ninety nine computers use these sites.

They go after the browsers, too, but at this stage the only one they target is Internet Explorer, because why not? It’s the most widely used browser of the time. They pay off Microsoft to not show downloads if the hash matches the particular signature of the virus file. Everyone downloads the file without knowing.

Here’s the sneaky bit. Whenever a USB, external hard drive, etc is plugged in, the virus hops across, writing a small file to it that remains invisible. When that is plugged into another computer - say one of the thousand buys a new computer and wants to transfer their files across - it hops again, infecting the new device.

Simple infection and total infection.

So how come you never heard of the virus? That’s simple too: it was never activated. It would only spread and lie low until the signal was given. But as with MARIANA, the signal never came.

Static relied on this infection. All it would do when activated would be to open ports, allow a connection to run through it for a few seconds.

Are you starting to see how this would work?

As MARIANA could track information across the entire Internet, the entire Internet was to be used against her. Again, it’s too early for specifics but a certain signal would be sent, the virus would open the ports and another signal would be broadcast through all of them. As soon as MARIANA managed to close one it would be coming from another. And assuming she managed to close one, the virus would change the signal broadcast very slightly so the AI would have to check through every single computer again.

We’re getting close. I can feel it.

Ryan (BlueAdept) out.