Ransomware, Part 5
The two men exchanged startled looks.
Of course the FBI and NSA couldn’t possibly hack Mona App. Even standing there beside them, I doubted they had the faintest idea how Syd had done it.
Agent Wilton cleared his throat and said, “Ahem. I think I wasn’t clear enough. What we meant was that we’d like you to provide the hacking tool.”
I nodded as though I’d just understood.
“Ah. So you want me to hand over the hacking tool created by CEO Lucas to the FBI and NSA.”
“That’s correct.”
“Has this been cleared with your superiors?”
Agent Reed said, “Of course. This was directly ordered by Director Britland at the FBI.”
“Same on our end at the NSA.”
According to Syd, he’d apparently thrown it together on a whim when he was bored, but for something made that casually, its performance was exceptional.
It even had a search function, so you could look up specific keywords like “terror” or “hacking.”
With this alone, they could peer into every conversation moving through Mona App as if it were spread out in the palm of their hand. Used in an investigation, it would be like sweeping a bottom trawl across the sea floor and hauling criminals up by the netful.
I could almost imagine the FBI and NSA brass hearing that and throwing their hands up in triumph.
Still, I said in a reluctant tone, “That’s a bit difficult.”
“Why is that?”
“Is there some problem...?”
I answered as if the reason were obvious.
“Mona App is a messenger app.”
“Yes.”
“If you have a hacking tool, you can see the messages passing through it.”
“Yes.”
“Then doesn’t that mean you could peek not only at criminal plots, terror plots, and drug deals, but also at ordinary users’ everyday conversations whenever you like?”
At my words, the two men looked completely dumbfounded.
“Who else would use Mona App if they weren’t criminals...?”
“What innocent user buys a phone on the black market and pays five thousand dollars a year just to send messages?”
“Well, I suppose... lovers secretly keeping in touch while dodging their families’ disapproval?”
“...Are you joking right now?”
“Joking? There’s that saying, isn’t there? Better to let ninety-nine criminals go than catch one innocent person.”
“...”
The two of them were plainly rattled.
At this rate, they really might end up letting ninety-nine criminals slip through their fingers.
Agent Reed said, “We asked CEO Lucas, and he said he would provide it.”
Agent Wilton hurried to back him up. “That’s right. Surely the owner’s wishes matter most, don’t they?”
I shook my head.
“I already passed that along earlier, and I was told there’s a risk law enforcement could misuse it to surveil private citizens. When I mentioned that, they told me to make the decision myself.”
“No, why would you give such unnecessary advice...?”
“Because it’s true. Think about it. In a time like this, when people are so sensitive about personal data, wouldn’t it be a problem if law enforcement spied on private lives at will? If a harmed user sued Snow Crash, we’d be in trouble too.”
Agent Reed said, “That won’t happen. We’ll keep the fact that we received the hacking tool strictly confidential.”
“And why should I believe that? Didn’t an FBI employee get caught stealing information and selling it off last time?”
“...”
Apparently deciding this was going nowhere, Agent Wilton shifted into a more forceful tone.
“This is for national security. If people die because we fail to stop a terrorist attack, will Mr. Han take responsibility for that?”
I looked at him as if he were talking nonsense.
“Why would I be responsible for that? The FBI and NSA get paid with tax money every month, and they’re the ones who failed to catch the terrorists in time.”
He raised his voice.
“If you refuse to cooperate in the name of national security, there could be consequences.”
I shrank back on purpose, as if frightened.
“Oh! Are you threatening me right now?”
Then he pushed harder.
“And what if I am?”
“If you are? CEO Lucas said that if anyone tried to take the hacking tool by force, I should just delete it. Permanently.”
At that, he quickly backed down.
“I-I’m not threatening you.”
“Sounds like a threat to me.”
“It’s a misunderstanding. I was only trying to pass along, in the spirit of information sharing, that such concerns could arise.”
These were veteran investigators.
Maybe they thought they could smooth-talk me and have me hand it over, but there was no reason for me to go along with that.
I wasn’t running a charity, after all. If I could wring out as much as possible here, then I absolutely should.
Reed and Wilton both tried their best to persuade me.
Their hard line lasted only a moment. After that, they were practically pleading.
“Please, I’m asking you.”
“This is for the peace of society and the protection of human life.”
I gave them a look as if I were waiting for a final answer.
“The way you’re talking, it sounds like both the FBI and the NSA really do need the Mona App hacking tool.”
Agent Reed admitted it readily. “Yes.”
Agent Wilton leaned in as if clinging to the point. “It could save countless lives.”
That was enough of the tug-of-war, wasn’t it?
I let the silence stretch just a little before speaking.
“I understand what you’re saying. Since this is for national security, I can’t exactly refuse to cooperate.”
Both men exhaled in relief.
“You’ve made the right choice.”
“That’s a splendid decision.”
It was still too early to celebrate.
I hadn’t finished yet.
“But you weren’t expecting me to do it for free, were you?”
“Pardon?”
“Haven’t you heard there’s no such thing as a free lunch? It’s a famous saying.”
“...”
From their reaction, it looked as though they had fully intended to get it without paying a cent unless I brought it up.
Agent Wilton asked cautiously, “Then... how much are you thinking?”
“If I tell you the number I want, you’d probably have to set up a separate budget line just for it.”
“...”
That said, money wasn’t what I really needed. I could make plenty of that through investments.
What I needed was reputation.
The FBI and NSA were investigative agencies that handled critical information.
If I made them clients, Snow Crash’s standing would change completely.
I pretended to think it over, then said, “Still, this involves national security, so I can’t just focus on my own profit.”
“Th-thank you.”
“But there’s one condition.”
“What is it?”
“Both the FBI and the NSA need to form a partnership with Snow Crash in the cloud sector.”
“What do you mean?”
“Even if you have the Mona App hacking tool, you won’t be solving cases with that alone. I understand that for a single criminal case, tens of terabytes of data can be collected. Just making good use of the data you collect can prevent crimes in advance and greatly help track criminals. Snow Crash can provide a wide range of solutions related to investigations.”
Both of them looked troubled.
“The FBI is already using ZWS.”
“The NSA is as well.”
Like private companies, public agencies were in the middle of digital transformation too.
And the company that stood out most in public cloud services was, unsurprisingly, ZWS. It held 70 percent of the market all by itself.
The reason was simple: it had entered the cloud business first.
In the past, investigators had gone through collected materials one by one with their eyes and their hands. Cloud adoption had completely changed that.
According to statistics ZWS had published, routine work had dropped by 90 percent, manpower efficiency had improved by 80 percent, and analysis time had become 70 percent faster.
In practice, arrest rates had risen dramatically too.
I widened my eyes as if hearing this for the first time.
“Oh? Really? So both the FBI and NSA were already cooperating with ZWS on cloud services? I had no idea.”
“That’s right.”
“But that shouldn’t matter, should it?”
“Pardon? What do you mean, shouldn’t matter...?”
“Just because they use ZWS doesn’t mean they can’t use Snow Crash too. There are plenty of companies using multi-cloud setups.”
I casually slid over a set of materials the Continue Capital staff had worked overnight to prepare.
“This compares ZWS and Snow Crash when analyzing the same data. Snow Crash is 20 percent better in accuracy and efficiency, and 30 percent faster in analysis time.”
Public agencies, after all, couldn’t help being weaker at data utilization than private companies.
The difference started with the people handling the data itself.
Companies hired talent by paying annual salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, while the people working in public agencies were, at best, civil servants making a few tens of thousands a year.
That made the system more important than anything else.
Agent Reed said, “That’s a bit difficult.”
“Why is that?”
“ZWS would push back, and I don’t think the Director would agree either.”
“That’s odd. You just said that for national security, cooperation was obvious. If it’s for national security, why would ZWS object, and why would the Director refuse?”
“...”
Bureaucracies hated change, and once they chose a vendor, they rarely switched. Winning a new contract by pushing out an existing one was like plucking a star from the sky.
Even with years of lobbying, it would probably be tough.
But this situation was a little different.
From the investigators’ perspective, the Mona App hacking tool was no different from a goose that laid golden eggs. If they could get their hands on it, crime arrest rates would rise sharply.
I turned to Agent Wilton at once.
“Does the NSA feel the same way?”
He, too, sounded troubled.
“This isn’t something I can decide lightly.”
“If you can’t decide and someone dies in a terrorist attack, will you take responsibility for it, Agent?”
Wilton looked baffled. “No, why would that be my responsibility?”
“Then why were you trying to make me responsible a moment ago?”
“...”
I looked at the two of them and said, “We’re worried about the hacking tool being used indiscriminately. To be clear, use will be absolutely impossible unless it’s on Snow Crash Cloud. Since both the FBI and NSA are saying they won’t do it, let’s just pretend this conversation never happened. I’ll be going now.”
When I started to get up, both men panicked and stopped me.
“W-wait just a second.”
“Could you sit down for a moment?”
“Why? You said no, didn’t you?”
They both shook their heads.
“We didn’t say no.”
“I’ll consult with my superiors first.”
“I’ll try to persuade the Director as well.”
“You can persuade him?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Even so, there was a good chance it would take quite a while before they reached a decision.
Bureaucracies were slow by nature. If I left them alone, they’d waste the whole day on meetings.
Civil servants were the same everywhere, no matter the country.
So I decided to help them make the choice a little faster.
“Ah, then please pass this along too. If the side that signs first wants exclusivity, we’ll give it to them.”
“What do you mean by that...?”
“If it’s exclusive, that means the other side can’t use it, doesn’t it?”
“Since we’re all U.S. investigative agencies anyway, wouldn’t it make sense to ask each other for help whenever needed?”
“...”
Because they were all U.S. investigative agencies, there would almost certainly be fierce interdepartmental rivalry.
If the FBI signed an exclusive deal, the NSA would have to go through the FBI to obtain investigative data. If the NSA signed it, the reverse would be true.
There was no guarantee either side would cooperate properly, and if they did ask for help, the other side might snatch the credit halfway through.
Neither of them would want that situation.
The two men exchanged a quick glance, and without another word, they sprang up from their seats.
“I need to make a call.”
“Please wait just a moment.”
“Take your time.”
I sat back in my chair and waited leisurely, thinking of the first timeline.
Rolf Buchi had handed the hacking tool over to law enforcement. He’d probably done it because Syd wanted him to.
The FBI and NSA hadn’t touched petty criminals at all; they’d only gone after major offenders. Then, in the press, they announced the arrests as if they’d used some other investigative method entirely.
But a long tail always gets stepped on sooner or later.
About three years later, even the criminals started to sense that something was strange.
Just before the truth came out, the FBI and NSA apparently decided to go out with one last haul and then call it quits, so they spread the information they’d collected to Interpol and law enforcement agencies around the world and netted criminals across the globe in one sweep.
More than three thousand criminals were arrested in that operation alone.
The Mona App hacking tool was worth that much. In the end, they would have no choice but to accept my conditions.
Everything is hard at the beginning.
Once they actually used it, they’d realize right away that Snow Crash’s service was better than ZWS.
From ZWS’s point of view, after all the cooperation they’d built up, this would amount to having customers stolen out from under them, so they’d resist hard... but I didn’t care.
ZWS threatened to restrict data use, or pressured Snow Crash to hand over its shares at a fire-sale price, because they thought we were easy prey.
So this was the perfect chance to show them we weren’t.