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Dodger77
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Post Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2017 8:27 pm |
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Roger gulps audibly. "I won't, Sir. " He adds, "I want to be helpful to the colony in any way I can."
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CCC
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Post Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 8:42 am |
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"Good chap. Good chap." The captain nods, still shaking Roger's hand. "So, tell me. I understand you're good with languages and computers?"
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Dodger77
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Post Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 2:33 pm |
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"Indeed. I speak English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Russian fluently. Oh and Elene of course, but it sounds like I'm not the only one who woke up speaking it. And of course I'm a skilled programmer which is why David asked me to look at the translation program."
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CCC
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Post Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:29 pm |
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"Excellent chap. Going well? Can I be diplomatic over the translator without the other diplomats trying not to laugh yet?"
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Dodger77
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Post Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2017 3:43 am |
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"Probably not. There's a lot of vocabulary and I've managed to add search functionality to make look-up easier, but there isn't much in the way of grammar. I've made a little progress in the area but for the time being I think we'll have to rely on human translators."
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CCC
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 2:59 am |
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"Brilliant. Now, there's one more point I'd like you to look at, if you don't mind?" Without waiting for an answer, the Captain continues speaking. "You and, well, three others, woke up rather unexpectedly. I know David's already looking into who exactly did it, but I've had a look at your file, and, quite frankly, I think you might be better at all this computer stuff than he is. Do you think you could perhaps look into why the computer is spontaneously waking people up? And perhaps who's next, and when?"
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Dodger77
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 1:20 am |
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"You suspect a computer malfunction then? Interesting. I can certainly look into that for you. It would be helpful if you logged into a terminal for me. I'm sure your account has access permissions mine wouldn't. It would aid my search."
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CCC
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:03 am |
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"Well, if you think it'll help..."
The Captain quickly logs into a nearby terminal.
"David's convinced that someone did it. He says no computer malfunction ever taught anyone a completely new language ex nihilo, and I have to say I see no reason to contradict him. I'm not sure whether we should be thanking whoever it was or watching our backs or both..."
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Dodger77
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:33 pm |
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"Thank you Sir. It's impossible to say until we know who or what we are dealing with, but I do feel caution is warranted."
Roger gets to work. He delves into the diagnostic logs to check if there are any reported malfuntionings around the time of the first wake-ups. Then he checks to see if there is any evidence of tampering with logs. Then he makes sure that new account, administrative or not will trigger David's security camera script, and while doing this he attempts to obfuscate the script as much as possible to hide what it actually does.
OOG: I'd like to spend a fate point to help with the obfuscation.
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CCC
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Post Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 2:45 am |
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There are plenty of malfunctions reported when the computer came on-line again. Since the computer came on-line again under a minute before the log-in that started waking people up, all of them were first reported around that time.
Roger: Science: +5 Specialisation: Hacking: +2 Roll: -1 Total: +6
It's clear at first glance that over 99% of the reported malfunctions are... well, what you'd expect from a starship that had gone several million years with zero maintenance. Systems not responding, systems responding but with errors, that general sort of thing. Roger tries to filter out the errors that have nothing to do with the spontaneous waking of people from cryosleep - and finds he's left with nothing. Loosening the filters slightly, looking for anything to do with cryosleep... ooooh, a few of the cryosleep modules aren't working. And haven't been working for, well, since the computer came back online. That/s going to be unpleasant to deal with, later.
Roger tries approaching it from a different angle, and looks for malfunctions that were reported after the computer was turned on and had booted up, but before the first people awoke.
...there aren't any.
He looks for evidence of tampering with logs. He can find two signs of tampering. The first is his own earlier attempt to hide his tracks checking the logs previously (and, quite honestly, he might not even have found that had he not known it was there).
The second is a little odd - at some point, a few days after landing, someone reset the clock on one of the terminals, setting it back almost seventy-two hours. After the reset, that clock is now perfectly synchronised with every other clock on the network.
As soon as he tries to change the way David's camera script works, though, he runs into an unexpected problem - it seems that the Captain's account has read access to everything, but write access to practically nothing. That is, it's set up so that Captain Argent can see everything, but can't change anything outside of his own personal documents (which consists, almost entirely, of a Captain's Log).
He can still attempt to obfuscate David's camera script, and immunise new accounts against it - it's not hard for him to get write access that he's not, technically, supposed to have - but it's not going to be any easier doing it from the Captain's account than from his own. Which account would he like to do it from?
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Dodger77
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Post Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:05 am |
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OOG: I believe I made a typo in my previous post. I don't want to immunize new accounts from tripping the camera, I want to make sure they can also set it off in case who ever attempts to use a new account to bypass it. (My understanding was that David tied it to a particular account, this just widens the net a bit)
Roger looks back in the diagnostic logs around the time of the clock reset to try and determine what that may have been necessary.
Roger gains write access for the Captain's account. Partly for the sense of legitimacy, partly because he was already logged in anyway.
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CCC
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Post Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:48 am |
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(Ah. Okay. I was wondering why you were doing that...)
Roger: Science: +5 Specialisation: Hacking: +2 Roll: -1 Total: +6
...this is odd. According to the rest of the network, that particular terminal was off-line for about one hour, between one and two in the morning. The terminal's clock matched the network clock both before and after that hour.
According to the terminal's logs, it was off-line for about three days. During these three days, a single user was logged in - not on the administrative account, but rather on a guest account. (Username, 'guest', password, 'guest', no access to anything except public stuff, no telling who it could have been). In those three days, this single user entered a large amount of Elene/English vocabulary into the translation program. In fact, almost all the Elene/English vocabulary that was entered into the translation program was put in during those three days. Afterwards, the clock was reset back almost three days, and the terminal was re-connected to the network.
...close investigation shows that whoever-it-was was entering words for close on three days without ever stopping. No sleep hours. No bathroom breaks. No meals. (One possible explanation of this, of course, is multiple people working in shifts - but that doesn't explain the three-day-one-hour difference).
Captain Argent's account now has write access to everything. (Is Roger going to leave it with write access, or return it to the state it was in before he logs out in order to better hide his tracks?)
Hiding the camera script, and setting it to go off for new accounts as well, is a fairly trivial matter. (It might be worthwhile to tell David that the script has been hidden - otherwise he's not going to be able to find it later, and may jump to the wrong conclusion).
There's a tugging on his shirt. Looking around, he sees that Captain Argent has left at some point, but Piper has turned up. She tugs on his shirt again.
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Dodger77
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Post Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:12 am |
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OOG: Obfuscation doesn't move the file; it's basically re-writing it to be as dense and unreadable to humans as possible to obscure the purpose of the code. (examples can be found here"Curiouser and curiouser..." Roger mumbles to himself. Roger gets lost in his work until Piper brings him out of his trance. "Oh hi there." He looks back at the screen and yawns. "Seems like a good time to take a break. Come on. I suppose I need to talk to David anyway.... God help me."
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CCC
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Post Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 2:56 am |
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OOG: True, but I was assuming Roger would be doing something like this IOCCC entry - making a script that, at first glance, appears to obviously do something different (like checking file quotas or similar) - at second glance has a few bugs - and only on a careful and thorough line-by-line analysis reveals its true function. Part of that is a simple change in file name - the file is still there , it's even in the same directory, it's perfectly visible, it's just that David will no longer see a file called camerascript.sh (because leaving it with that name makes the obfuscation rather useless) and would probably assume it's gone (it's clearly not filequotas.sh, that's obviously doing some file quota checking...)Piper smiles, takes Roger's hand, and firmly tugs him in the direction of Sir Bevier and the radio.
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Dodger77
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Post Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:28 pm |
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OOG: AH, point taken.
Roger remembers to remove the Captain's write access (he likes leaving things as they were as much as possible) and then allows Piper to lead him back to Sir Bevier.
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