The Zero Day Proposal [06of10]
What will be Daniqua's answer to The Zero Day Proposal?
[#2.5.00 #UPDATES]
"What information consumes is rather obvious:
It consumes the attention of its recipients.
Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention,
and a need to allocate that attention efficiently
among the overabundance of information sources
that might consume it."--Herbert Simon
#2.6//TWO_TWO_TWO_TWO_SATURDAY
Ajaarg closed the door to the ADMIN office then took a seat. Exhausted, she asked, “You've been down there several hours. Report?”
The connection to Earl came to mind. Grounding herself, Daniqua countered with a self-minimizing mental mantra, thinking: 'You Are Not Fucking Special'. She knew about the human mind's tendency to cast itself as the important center of any particular phenomena. A trait selected for by nature; counter-productive to her current mission. Perspecting the group was difficult enough without the possibility she was part of the system she was trying to observe.
More information was needed to make a decision.
Confidence in her objectivity lessened.
“No meaningful revelations to report yet, ma'am,” she answered, following up, “-what else has changed?”
“Aside from the nukes being public? The Doomsday Clock being at fifteen seconds to midnight? The geopolitical clusterfuck resulting from that? Well, we had negotiated a consensus to not evacuate any of the cities. This MARDUK thing however, has forced our hand. The panic we hoped to avoid is now raging.”
“Consensus to not evacuate?”
“Yes, but that tactic is no longer feasible.”
“How could it have bee-”
“Never-you-mind that,” interrupted Ajaarg. “Not important anymore.” She picked up a tablet from her desk and flicked at it. “As for changes relevant to your assignment, we've analyzed data obtained from the people on the list being held at other sites. Certain public figures have greater social connectivity and reach, but we found no pertinent correlations in the network. No degrees of separation lower than 3. Except at our site, with the Brickner-Family, and Brickner-Kine links. Furthermore, we have a statistically significant concentration of people with IT backgrounds.”
“The AI angle… that for real?”
“Is there a site? Is it calling it self MARDUK? Yes and Yes. Is it an AI? We cannot confirm that. None of the state or corporate AGI projects we are embedded in were anywhere even close.”
Ajaarg gritted her teeth. “Whatever MARDUK is… it's not fucking good. Our Deep Packet nodes are offline. Our hardcoded backdoors were exploited, the tech co-opted, and the backdoors plugged. Every API. Every datacenter. Core routers. All gone. The Department of War has resorted to communicating over HAM.”
“Can't we just turn it all off?”
“We took the exascale centers and cloud providers offline. It's using everything else. The entire internet of things. There is no big red off button. The power grid has been hardened, automated, and mostly decentralized. We've lost the control systems, and our 5G Relay Glider mesh network. Those low altitude solar drones don't have to land for five months.”
“What about our weaponized drones?”
“Our tactical UAVs are still manual launch and refuel. All units worldwide are accounted for. Drone Force and Space Force are both completely grounded, and totally G-D useless.”
“Is there any good news yet?”
“Some good news,” Ajaarg's mouth twitched an almost-smile, “Our techs in Langley gave us our first real lead. Segments of code in the MARDUK site have heuristic signature matches with code used in our beloved Mayor's livecasting platform.”
“Do we know if whoever wrote the livecasting code also authored MARDUK?”
“The signature was matched to program code in an open-source repository. One major contributor we failed to link to known persons. Would appear to be an individual developer. They have made an effort to remain anonymous. Indicates they have something to hide. Handle 'Embryo' underbar 'AD'.”
Daniqua's head pounded as she dug for a pertinent followup question. “What was the code's objective?”
“In its original form, it solved the problem of how to amalgamate hundreds of thousands of posts in real-time livestream chats into intelligible communication for the livecaster. It used deep learning to monitor for emotional keywords. Interpreted tone and topic in group discussions. Elevated sentiments so the stream host could optimally direct content.”
Daniqua checked to see if she was following. “In essence, the software made huge audiences readable. This allowed LaMango to reflect back what they most wanted to hear?”
“Correct. Seemingly benign, but a potent form of persuasion. Analysts have isolated it as the reason why LaMango was able to attain populist appeal. Very dangerous when used on a large platform.”
“Do we think LaMango is trying to scale up?”
“He's blacklisted by the commentariat class. All signs are his influence is limited to the fringe. And of course, his municipal realm. Not nearly as dangerous as more powerful positions. Roles that historically result in terrors, atrocities, 'cults of personality' et fucking ceterra.”
LaMango's odd greeting came to mind. “The first thing LaMango said to me was something about being 'a historical monster',” she reported, then negated, “-but, as our number one suspect he doesn't fit. Groks as legitimately not wanting to be here.”
“He has benefited from the code. The code has been linked to this MARDUK thing. Currently he's our best lead.” Ajaarg frowned. “Another angle is his use of the code was explicitly not permitted by the code's license. By using it for political purposes, he may have made enemies.”
LaMango's conflict with Forbin flashed to the forefront of her mind. “You think maybe LaMango was included among the 63 because he pissed off this anon Embryo-A-D?”
Ajaarg nodded affirmatively. “LaMango has lived a deviant, but fairly public life. Despite him being a scummy politician and an all around deplorable person, he is probably not responsible. Our culprit likely knows him, and if they know LaMango, smart money is they don't like him. That person will have coding ability.
Embryo-A-D's code fingerprints match none of the public work of anyone on the list. Still, the likelihood that someone at our location is connected or complicit has increased substantially.”
Forbin fit the profile. “If that individual is down there, and is responsible for list, the satellite, and the MARDUK site, then they would know that I am not supposed to be among them.”
“Yes. Unfortunately, that also seems likely.”
Objectivity be damned, the conditions of the mission were now necessitating a self-centered viewpoint. Daniqua again thought of her link to Earl. “Is it possible that any of them knew me before I was given this assignment?”
Daniqua grokked Ajaarg's answer through multiple lenses. Forthright blink interval. No tonal shifts. Mandibular muscle movements in sync.
“As I said earlier, you were chosen by me just this afternoon from a Top Secret DoD Contingency pool. And, no offense, there were better candidates. You just happened to be closest with the appropriate security clearance.”
Almost total perspect cohegencey. Everything illuminated. Nothing shady. Ajaarg was telling the truth. Although, maybe not the whole truth.
“Why would you ask that?” inquired Ajaarg.
Daniqua's head throbbed, beating like wardrums in the distance. If Ajaarg called for her inclusion, then the decades old link to Earl was meaningless or the mission had failed before it started. No good could yet come of sharing the Earl connection.
Daniqua looked Ajaarg in the eyes and lied. “I'm just wondering how I might adjust my strategy. Is my role still to observe and report? Why bring the laptop down there?”
“The site that is loaded on the laptop's terminal is not live. It is a copy that will return actual results, but we have an intermediary firewall set up to filter, sanitize, and relay communication.
It's a honeypot.
We are hoping that if any conspirators are down there, they get their hands sticky attempting to send some kind of control codes.”
“Is that all ma'am? Is there a theory why there's a Roman Catholic Bishop on the list?”
“Not presently. But the software license that LaMango violated was authored by Mr. Voorhees' organization. A common license, used on almost 90% of software written in the last 20 years.
And Mrs. Lau's ChainBank has links to that business, among thousands.
Mr. Voorhees has also been indirectly linked to Tom #Rando. They both spoke at the same TED Conference two days apart, three years ago.
Mr. Forbin and Professor Markov have been members of the same Artificial Intelligence ListServ for over a decade. Along with four hundred thousand others.”
Ajaarg shook her head, let out a sigh, and continued, “All of which is plausibly incidental. Aside from Mr. Kine and The Brickners there is no record any of them have had cause or occasion to directly communicate before today.”
“Ugh. T-M-I,” said Daniqua, overwhelmed with analysis paralysis. “Please tell me you've got other teams working on ways to stop this.”
Ajaarg raised her voice. “Massey, are you taking this seriously? 36 hours until we lose critical infrastructure, business centers, historical landmarks, and homes for almost 40 million people. Such an event threatens global stability. Focus on your own damn role.”
“Yes ma'am. I understand. I am taking this seriously.”
“Good.”
“I'm just tired,” said Daniqua, as the pounding of the distant drums in her head intensified. Was it head injury, dopamine withdrawal, uncertainty, or information overload? “I may attempt to get a few hours sleep.”
“Here,” Ajaarg produced a pill bottle from her pocket. “Have some amphetamines.”
Daniqua raised her hand waving the offer down. “Won't enhance my analysis. Might result in focusing too intensely on unimportant things. Sleep will allow me to recharge; get my conscious mind out of the way, so the rest of me can make pertinent connections.”
“Are you sure? We need to use what little time we have wisely. These are clean nootropics. You will not fatigue. I am clearheaded, calm, and have been awake for almost 40 hours now.”
Ajaarg might not have felt like it, but she grokked as someone who had been awake for 40 hours. This was not a particularly deep perspect; her hand extending the pill bottle shook.
“Thanks ma'am, but no. And, if I may,” Daniqua contorted her face with concern, “-you might feel fine, but many of the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation go unnoticed by the conscious mind due to the nature of the impairment. I would advise you sleep too.”
Ajaarg stubbornly twisted the lid off the bottle, jostled a capsule into her palm, and popped the candy-corn colored pill into her mouth. She forced a dry swallow. “I have a vital job to do, Private. The world is quite literally at stake. I don't have time for luxuries like sleep. But if you think it will help you get me results, do what you need to do.”
“Thank you ma'am.”
Ajaarg stood up, slid the pill bottle back into her pocket. She walked around the desk and put a hand on Daniqua's shoulder. “Now, let's get you and Mayor La-Fuck-Face back down there, A-S-A-P.”
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