Black Hat Magick Volume 2: Tango & Cache
“You think the message from Mercer is legit?” Toller asked Warren as she eased the car into the parking space—the wheels crunched over a carelessly discarded soft drink there. The side of the ASU Bookstore loomed large in front of them, the sun had already fallen far from its zenith in the sky and now … Read more
“Boss,” Hadaly said, her voice projected from the speakers on Elaine’s Enoch so that Frog could hear it as well. “I think that Operation Honeypot has revealed something interesting when correlated with the bitcoin transactions related to the Tango’s professors.” Elaine and Frog had crossed most of the campus between the Math buildings and the … Read more
Morehouses’s office was occupied. When Frog opened the door she thought it had been unlocked by the KNOCK spellcode earlier; but instead of it being empty, she discovered a male student hunched over a computer screen, headphones on, tabbing through charts. The tinny sound of his loud metal music could be heard spilling wicked bass … Read more
Every lock in the entire hallway in both directions simultaneously unlatched itself after Elaine ran the KNOCK program on the Enoch. The initial gong chime produced by the program triggered a cacophony of rattling locks that chunk-chunked down the hallway across each door. The group stood stunned in front of the door they wanted to … Read more
Roger Powers walked like a cat stalking prey. Adam had retreated from the front of the hall, two cell phones in hand, and headed for the elevators—or perhaps the restrooms, Roger hoped he wouldn’t have to double back and lose him if that were the case. The fact that he’d taken out a second cell … Read more
“I found out something interesting about Tango’s professors,” Hadaly said. “Is it related to your cheating ring investigation?” Elaine asked. She’d been engrossed in data collating behind her goggles—the empty antechamber and the stairs had become her personal data laboratory. On the ground floor, Frog fielded phone calls with other colleges pretending to be an … Read more
“Hadaly,” she said, “bring up any new information you’ve gathered about the students involving the cheating ring, the changes to GRE scores, and the manipulation of the graduate studies recruitment that we’ve seen. Include anything that we’re receiving from the ARG teams as part of Operation Honeypot.” “Thought you’d never ask,” Hadaly replied. Her eyes … Read more
“Well, that was cryptic,” Frog said after Tango logged out. Tango didn’t spend long on World of Warcraft, but he did spend long enough to deliver some confirmation to Hadaly about the academic cheating. He didn’t mention any upcoming meeting with the dean or why he was contacting her; instead he dropped the names of … Read more
“Whitaker certainly seems to have a lot to lose if something goes wrong,” Toller said. “Is that what you’re getting at? This whole story about them doing it on the University dime sounds nice when Shutter’s tells the story but it sounds like a game to him—but perhaps those two aren’t playing.” “So you’re going … Read more
“With all the relevant data points,” Elaine said, “we can see that someone is using some sort of extremely sophisticated statistical magick to affect the outcome of tests. Now, it’s similar to but not exactly like the Improbability Engine that took hold in the minds of Brad and Larry. The type of effect we’re seeing … Read more