Daemon

back to their ISP for follow-up. We also established a manual system where we could select any player name, and the CyberStorm techs would look up that player’s originating IP address.’
    ‘Why bother with IP address? Doesn’t CyberStorm have a record of each player’s billing information?’
    ‘Yes, but it seemed likely that Ross would steal or borrow an account. By using his IP address to locate the Internet Service Provider, and then contacting the ISP for the physical address of the connection, we were more likely to actually find him.’ She looked around the room for emphasis. ‘We scrambled airborne strike teams in several U.S. cities in preparation for this meeting in the hopes that Ross would be hiding in a major metropolitan area.’
    The FBI analyst couldn’t resist. ‘I gather from the fact that Ross is still at large that this plan did not succeed.’
    A voice in the darkness: ‘Can we continue, please?’
    Philips nodded.
    The screen suddenly came to life. Animated 3-D people moved through the scene. It was eerie how realistically the people moved – although only half of them had glowing names floating over their heads.
    ‘The characters moving around without names are NPCs, nonplayer characters – they are computer controlled. Only human players have names.’
    The perspective of the screen changed. It was a first-person view from Philips’s character as she moved through the crowd.
    ‘We conducted this session from our offices in Crypto. The game permits players with VOIP capability to speak directly to nearby players over a voice channel. Ross requested that we have such a hookup. I am controlling this character in the game, and it is my voice you will hear talking with him. I had a mute button on my headset, and you will also hear me issuing instructions to my team. Ross did not tell me in advance thename of his character, but he said I would be able to pick him out of the crowd. Which is why we put the auto-trace script in place. But Ross took a page out of Sobol’s playbook.’
    The screen view changed as Philips’s character turned this way and that, checking out the shoppers in the market. Then the POV moved toward a Nubian female 3-D character wearing a black leather corset with a plunging neckline. Something resembling a French-cut steel thong wrapped her shapely hips. She was a hentai cover girl. As the frame moved closer, the Nubian woman turned, revealing what was unmistakably a computer-generated version of Philips’s face.
    Mild amusement spread through the audience in the meeting room. Philips ignored it.
    On-screen the glowing name over the Nubian avatar read: Cipher. Philips’s recorded voice came in over the speakers:
    Philips: Get me an IP for the screen name ‘Cipher.’ That’s spelled cipher
.
    NSA Tech: Got it, Doctor. Looking up ISP
…
    The screen perspective moved right up to Cipher, and stopped. The scantily clad warrior princess faced the screen. A male voice came in over the speakers:
    Ross: Good evening, Doctor
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    Philips: Mr Ross. Apparently you can’t resist identity theft. How did you upload my likeness to this game?
    Ross: I didn’t upload anything. Players can edit the geometry of their avatars. I sculpted this one to resemble you
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    Philips: I didn’t realize you studied my appearance so closely
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    Ross: How could I forget you? Besides, I knew you’d try to identify my account in advance of this meeting, but your automated forensics tools don’t know what you look like, Doctor. Your physical appearance is a graphical encryption that the human mind is uniquely qualified to decode
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    Philips: That doesn’t make it any less unsettling to have a conversation with myself as a transsexual lingerie model
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    Ross: I find it just as uncomfortable being seen with you
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    Philips: How’s that?
    Ross: Well, you’ve got the default skin of a generic warrior, and nobody keeps the default skin. You are the fantasy world equivalent of a Fed. I recognized you a mile away
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    Philips: Jon, why did you call me here?
    Ross: To prove to you that I’m innocent
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    Philips: And how do you intend to do that?
    Ross: By showing you one of the back doors in this game
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    Philips: We’ve been through every line of the source code, Jon. There are no back doors
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    Ross: None here, true
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    Ross’s female warrior gestured dramatically, as if performing a spell. In a moment a magical portal appeared in the street. A wandering player character tried to walk into it but