Alarms All Over It
Previously: Alexa Thomas relays what happened at Lake Tahoe in July.
1:55 PM - Monday, November 3, 2014
US Park Police Office, Ft Winfield Scott, The Presidio
“I think we need to get Ryan Dominguez here for his interview.” Jeannie and Mark were making their way up the stairs from Amanda’s evidence room, but this remark made Mark pause.
“Really?” His brows narrowed slightly at Jeannie. “I thought you said in a few days?”
“Something doesn’t add up.” Jeannie mused, looking up at him from the step below. “Everything Charlie said about giving him a ride home, plus this whole statement — if Alexa and Ryan were really that close, don’t you think he’d know? And therefore would know how much she DID NOT want to get back together with Seb?” Mark pursed his lips and kept climbing the stairs, Jeannie in pursuit. “He made some romance out of it, like it was some grand second chance - if that’s a thing in high school.” Mark moved at a clip down the hallway. “And how did Ryan know “Tyson the Dyson”? That’s not the kind of thing girls talk about.”
“They don’t?” Mark tossed back, eyebrow raised.
“Okay, well maybe in gossip, but…but it’s unsavory.”
“Of course it is, Jeannie, that’s why it’s gossip. Speaking of which —” they emerged into the conference room. “Why didn’t anyone mention the chatroom? That’s what I want to know.”
“I can answer that.” Raj turned from his computer. Both Jeannie and Mark looked at the young man, whose deep brown eyes were flashing with a hint of victory.
“Okay, what do you have?” Mark took a wide stance behind Raj and his computer, folding his arms. Jeannie took the chair next to him to see his computer screen, which was covered in indecipherable code.
“No one mentioned it because it doesn’t exist.” Jeannie looked at Mark who was staring a Raj, whose smug look was increasing by the moment.
“Can you explain that? I don’t know anything about computers.” Jeannie said gently. Raj turned back to the screen and gestured to his screen.
“Okay, what you’re looking at is the back end, but it’s basically a dupe.” Raj began.
“A dupe? Like a copy?”
“Yup. It’s a basic duplicate of any sort of IRC - that means Internet Relay Chat.”
“Thanks,” Jeannie whispered.
“It’s the basic technology behind your average instant messaging system. So, it doesn’t exist as a chatroom - it’s essentially an app. And it’s pretty brilliant too.” Raj switched his screen to show the interface of the site and the code disappeared to reveal a clean navy blue screen with “Pr3pSF” written simply in small font at the center.
“How so?” Mark asked from above.
“Well, you can’t get in there. I can see the code, but there’s alarms all over it.”
“Alarms?” Jeannie asked softly. “Like, security alarms?”
“Exactly like security alarms. Whoever built it is sophisticated enough to put little alarms in the code that would trigger in case anyone got too close or starts digging around.” Raj switched back to the code screen. “They’re sort of embedded in the code here and there — typical base64 PowerShell stuff —” Raj glanced back at Mark who nodded slightly, as Raj pointed to certain areas of the code. “That’s an input string - er, a type of encryption system basically, but it’s something you see in banks or something more heavy-duty. OR, you see it kind of thrown in to a code when someone doesn’t want you to get too close. They’re kind of like tech boobie traps.”
“Boobie traps like…The Goonies?” Jeannie smiled slightly with disbelief and glanced at Mark who shook is head at her slightly.
“The Goonies? What is that?” Raj asked, confused.
“A movie from the 80s. Don’t worry about it.” Mark said tersely. “Show me the code again? Did you trigger anything?”
“The best movie from the 80s.” Jeannie scoffed quietly. Raj scrolled through the code highlighting certain areas of the gobble-dee-gook of code. Mark leaned down to read it more closely.
“What do you think would happen if you poked at it?” He asked Raj.
“Well, whoever it is would know that we’re sniffing at their perimeter, and we probably wouldn’t be able to get inside and see it. Or, the whole thing could come crashing down.”
“How do people get in?” Jeannie asked. Raj flipped back to the navy screen and clicked on the Pr3pSF, which opened a small activation box, which prompted: “Who are you, anyway? Do you even go here?”
“You put in your email and I guess you’re then vetted by the host or site master. You probably have to have a school email address.”
“Like the original days of Facebook.” Mark said. Raj nodded.
“But, wait, those emails would have everyone’s name attached. If it’s a school email address, they can’t use fake names. Wow.” Jeannie was stunned. “That’s quite a list they must be building. That’s a lot of information…”
“A lot of gossip?” Mark prompted her. She glared at him.
“If they use their real emails, the webmaster has all the power. They vet everyone and know everyone, but the information comes from the members. It’s like crowd-sourced Gossip Girl - it’s hard to believe people would go in as themselves. That they’d be okay with it.”
“Maybe they don’t? We won’t know until we get inside. Jeannie, when you go to Academy, ask someone to set you up with a school email address to see if we can use that to get in. In the meantime Raj, try and test and see what would happen if you set off one of the alarms, but don’t touch the real ones. If this thing is going to blow when we play with it, I need to know. Whoever runs it could fold it all up and delete all the evidence, if there is any. Also, study the code some more and see —”
“Patterns, yeah, got it.” Raj was already typing furiously, opening new windows and switching rapidly between them. Jeannie could barely follow what he was doing.
“Patterns?”
“Coding is about patterns,” Mark began. “Sort of like accents or speech patterns, how people speak in a certain way, use certain words or expressions more than other people? So, sometimes, a hacker or webmaster has patterns in their code that can be revealing.”
“Oh, okay, that makes sense.”
“Hey - I got the computer for you, Mark.” It was Paco, coming in with Alexa’s laptop wrapped in a plastic bag. “Amanda took fingerprints but at first glance they’re Alexa’s, though she will do a full comparison in the computer too.”
“Good, we can start to go through that.”
“You mean I can go through that.” Raj tossed over his shoulder. Jeannie felt her eyes go big with humor but rolled her lips to stifle a giggle, glancing at Mark. She admired Raj’s cheek with his boss. Mark didn’t even bite.
“No, you stay on the site, and the phones. I’ll do the computer. Maybe I can see if Alexa has a login and we can see who gets inside first.”
“My money is on Raj.” Jeannie said.
“Thank you, Jeannie.” Raj’s fingers never missed a beat on the keyboard. Mark took the bag from Paco and moved to a chair further down the table.
“Okay, so back to the Ryan question.” Jeannie said.
“What’s the Ryan question?” Paco asked her.
“I’m thinking we need to talk to Ryan sooner rather than later. But Mark doesn’t seem convinced.”
“I’m convinced,” Mark said tapping away at Alexa’s computer, “especially since Alexa didn’t respond to his last text like he said.” Mark looked up at them all and then back to the screen. “Her texts are all here - a lot of concern from friends and her parents, but Ryan…he sent a text a few minutes before ten to say he was home, but she never replied.”
“Ryan said he heard back from her a little after 10.” Paco told him.
“But she didn’t. Why would he lie about that?” Mark tossed back.
“That does it. I’ll call Ed and get him here this afternoon.” Jeannie felt her ire rising. She didn’t like being wrong about people, but she absolutely hated being played.
the goonies reference!