“I don’t want that.I want the secrets.The things we can sell, leak to the news, give to interested parties.That’s what we’re going to do.Every time one of their idiot employees clicks a link on an unauthorized site, on a company computer, we are going to be there to chase them down.”
He nodded at her, staring at his own laptop in his hands.Then he smiled.Suddenly he smiled.
“What?What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Social media.”
“We’re working with that,” she said dismissively.
“No.No, not like this.I’m thinking we get part of the team to troll the social media sites to see what these people are interested in.Do they like cats, dogs, knitting, painting, dancing, hell, I don’t know anything!Then we intentionally put ads in their feed to draw them in.”
“How many people would you need?” she asked staring at him.
“At least ten to start.I have a few that can get on this right now but we’ll want to create a sort of routing system that leads us to the individual, then follows to their social media accounts, collects data from there and then intentionally feeds their interests.”
“This could be very, very profitable,” she smiled.If this worked, they could find channels of revenue that would last for years.Once she finished with her personal pet project, this could carry her through beyond old age.She would be a very wealthy woman.
“Millions,” he grinned.
“Alright.Do it.Andy?Do it big!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“You know, when the internet came about we all thought it was going to be a place for us to find information quickly, share it, save it, and learn from it.Then it became something bigger.Something more sinister,” said AJ.
“Sinister?That seems extreme,” smiled Wyatt.
“Wyatt, it’s the truth,” said Hiro.
“Listen,” said Hex sitting in front of the screen back home.“Explain it to us like we’re idiots.Because some of us are as it relates to the internet.”
“Okay,” nodded Tanner.“A history lesson in the advent of the internet.The internetoriginated in the 1960s asARPANET, a U.S. Department of Defense project designed for secure, decentralized data sharing via "packet switching".It evolved through the development of TCP/IP protocols.”
“Stop.What is that?TCP whatever?” asked Cam.
“TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.It isthe fundamental set of communication rules that allows computers to exchange data over the internet or private networks.It is supposed to ensure reliable end-to-end delivery by breaking data into packets, addressing them, and routing them to the correct destination.In the 1970s and 1980s, enabled network interconnection, and exploded in popularity following Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of theWorld Wide Webin 1989.”
“Ah, so www dot whatever?” asked Hex.
“That’s right,” grinned Tanner.“In 1991 the first website went live and the internet became commercialized.Google wasn’t even founded until 1998.Think about that.We’re talking just twenty-eight years ago.In 2007, we get the first phone that’s capable of launching the internet on the device, giving everyone, literally, the world at their fingertips.And.Giving them to the world.”
“Jesus,” muttered Luke.“We’ve come so far in such a short period of time.Yet, I still wonder if it’s for the better.”
“It is,” said Hiro, “but most users fail to take the necessary precautions.With the introduction of everything, literally online, it brought out the worst in humanity as well.Shopping, gaming, reservations, work, searches, social media.We can do it all in the palm of our hand.”
“How do we stop this?” asked Cam.
“We don’t,” said Hiro.They all stared at him wondering if there was more to his statement.“The reality is, we cannot stop this.It’s way too big.But we can stop whoever it is that’s stealing from our kids and digging into national security installations.That’s what we’re good at.We will begin there.”
“Tanner and I are headed to NuGame tomorrow,” said AJ.
“I thought we couldn’t find an address for them,” said Luke.
“Everyone has to file tax returns,” grinned AJ.“We found them.It’s a business located in a residential area, which tells me it’s a guy working out of his home, or her home, maybe in the basement.I’m going to guess they have ten or twelve people working for them.”
“That’s all?” frowned Cam.
“Look, they’ve developed an algorithm and capture system that does the work for them.They just route the money once the kids, or adults put the credit card information into the system.”
