The Devil's Code

for communications and storage. If you’ve got a relatively modern home computer, you could use that as a small server, with the right software. In this raid, we wouldn’t be going after the contentinside the servers. We wanted access, rather than content. I spent twenty minutes pawing through Bloch’s software and service-maintenance manuals, and then got into the servers themselves. They were running on a standard off-the-shelf UNIX server package. I had root in five minutes, with an outside maintenance account. Then I dumped in a little access program of my own; I’ve done this before. After checking it, I shut down local access, turned the light off again, pulled down the blanket, and cleaned up the tape.
    While I was working on the machine, LuEllen had been going through paper files in the outer office, using her flash. “All bullshit,” she said. “Tax forms, bank statements, advertisements.”
    One of the forms listed Toby Bloch as owner of 100 percent of Bloch Technology stock. “Is that the guy you talked to?” I asked. I crumpled up the blanket and tossed it back on the futon, more or less as it had been.
    “That’s the guy. Toby.”
    “All right. Nice little business he has here . . .”
    With everything back in place, we listened at the door, heard nothing, and walked out; out to the car, and we were gone. Nothing to it.
    B ut there was trouble back at the ranch. I wouldn’t go online with the server until after midnight, when there was less chance that the real system operator was online. Instead, I checked with Bobby, to see if he had anything more on Jack Morrison or Firewall.
    He did.
L OOK AT NEWS PROGRAMS . F IREWALL ATTACKS IRS WITH D O S. B IG TROUBLE NOW . A TTACK MAYBE STARTS IN S WITZERLAND . S TYLE FEELS G ERMAN .
    W ILL LOOK . A NYTHING ON JM?
    JM FLIES TO B ALTIMORE -W ASHINGTON I NTERNATIONAL ON M ONDAY BEFORE SHOOTING , RETURNS SAME NIGHT . R ENTED H ERTZ , 64 MILES . N O MORE DETAIL . A LSO FLIES TO BWI ON T HURSDAY AFTERNOON BACK F RIDAY MORNING . N O CAR , NO HOTEL ON CARD .
    T HANKS . W ILL LOOK AT NEWS .
    T HIS IS * VERY * DANGEROUS .
    L ATER .
    I thought about that until LuEllen said, “What?”
    “Jack Morrison was in town the night Lighter was killed,” I said.
    “That’s not good.”
    “No. But Lane’s lecture about Jack and guns . . . that’s still pretty straight. I still can’t see Jack shooting anyone.”
    “What’s this about the IRS?”
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Bobby seems more worried about that than about Jack.”
    “Jack’s dead,” I said.
    I checked the Times and Washington Post online editions, but they had nothing on the attack on the IRS. CNN had a story, but like a lot of CNN stuff, most of it seemed to have been garbled by a mentally challengedparanoiac; I clicked over to The Wall Street Journal, which had a short item.
A D ENIAL - OF -S ERVICE (D O S) COMPUTER ATTACK AIMED AT THE I NTERNAL R EVENUE S ERVICE HAS CAUSED A MAJOR DISRUPTION IN THE HANDLING OF END - OF - QUARTER BUSINESS TAX FILINGS , AN IRS SPOKESMAN CONFIRMED THIS AFTERNOON .
    T HE ATTACK , WHICH BEGAN THIS MORNING , IS CONTINUING . T HE ATTACKING GROUP HAS IDENTIFIED ITSELF AS “F IREWALL .”
    A DENIAL - OF - SERVICE ATTACK ATTEMPTS TO FLOOD THE TARGET WITH HUGE NUMBERS OF LEGITIMATE - LOOKING TRANSACTIONS , EVENTUALLY OVERWHELMING THE TARGET COMPUTER ’ S ABILITY TO COPE WITH THE NUMBERS .
    W HILE OFFICIAL D EPARTMENT OF J USTICE SOURCES SAID THAT THE ATTACK IS LIMITED , ONE HIGH - LEVEL IRS OFFICIAL , WHO ASKED NOT TO BE IDENTIFIED , SAID THAT THERE HAS BEEN A MAJOR DISRUPTION OF END - OF - BUSINESS - QUARTER TAX FILINGS . H E SAID THAT “ TENS OF THOUSANDS ” OF BUSINESS QUARTERLY RETURNS WERE INVOLVED AND SAID THAT THE ATTACK SEEMED TO BE SPREADING .
    A N FBI SPOKESMAN SAID THAT MANY OF THE D O S CALLS APPEAR TO BE COMING FROM SMALL - COLLEGE COMPUTER LABS .
    “W HAT APPARENTLY HAPPENED IS THAT SOME INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP PLANTED SMALL ATTACK PROGRAMS INSIDE THESE OPEN COMPUTERS , AND DESIGNED THEM TO GO OFF AT THE SAME TIME . W E ARE GETTING IN TOUCH WITH THESE SCHOOLS AS WE IDENTIFY THEM , ASKING THATTHEY GO OFF - LINE LONG ENOUGH TO REMOVE THE PROGRAMS FROM THEIR COMPUTERS . M OST OF THEM HAVE NO IDEA THAT THEIR COMPUTERS ARE PARTICIPATING IN THE ATTACK ,” FBI SPOKESMAN L ARRY C ONNERS SAID .
    C ONNERS SAID THAT THE ATTACK PROGRAM IS AN UNSOPHISTICATED ONE , BUT THE IRS OFFICIAL SAID THAT IT TAKES ADVANTAGE OF THE FACT THAT THE IRS COMPUTERS MUST