Episode 27, The Squishie Job, Part 1 - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki
24 Moskva
Carbide is sneaking around the house, practicing his stealth with Mango. She is here for Boo getting ambushed back: that’s his training.
Paragon spent some time on her historical research, but ended up on the Wars of the Roses, not the Corporate Wars. Balthazar Napoleon was robbed! Carbide leans out: Monarchies suck anyway!
Star got an infodump from Sue on Oto-Nishi Logistics, the company that may have delivered the captives to the secret prison. She learned that:
* they run the ferries to Sado Island, where Wen-Yi is exiled
*they run labor camps out in the wilds, for ConBrands and for Izanami
*they’re the point of contact for a lot of bounties: payment on delivery to an Oto-Nishi representative or office
*they have an odd sideline in historical data, called Oracle: historical and scientific questions answered that can’t be answered by other means. Just whispered around, no details.
She sends her findings to the team with 4 thinky-face emojis. They think Oracle must be some sort of database: “You can have it as a wedding present if you want, we just have to figure out how to get it.”Star asks what this might have to do with her monthly lunch date with Vanta Black, given the ferry connection.
They turn to the issue of the squishie pornstars facing an income dropoff as they get popular. Star asked for and got their contracts. HHC Specialized Data handles distribution. Star notes it’s weird that they start to get traction, and then it disappears. Is it piracy? Paragon assumes a baseline level of piracy is built into contracts, so this is odd/new. Carbide suspects a bootlegging operation, like a Pornhub for braindance, that’s siphoning away all the hits. But for it to be not a viable alternative distribution, but the primary, it would have to be known. Star thinks it has to be in what’s recording the traffic: the sales aren’t actually down, but the books are being made to look as if they are. And the entire distribution network is cooking the metrics.
Paragon’s concerned that that Softshell Productions doesn’t have real net security. Assume the distribution hub is legit, the payments should be automatic to Softshell. But they don’t have a netrunner, or anyone to tell if there was a demon/bot/virus, shunting off the money. And Paragon’s shown she can do that once she owns a system – like what she did to Ebit, for convenience, not malice.
Vir wants to go to Electric Sheeple: everybody agrees that it’s worth talking to the sex workers.
Star, Paragon, and Carbide head over to Softshell Productions. It’s weird for Paragon to not be doing this furtively from outside: she’s got a comfy office chair. And nobody unconscious next to her. She asks Flopsy, the editor/IT person, comparatively politely to get the fuck out. She was trying to be helpful. But Paragon is looking for the tiniest imperfection, the tiniest wrong ping in the wrong place. Asking every 30 seconds how it’s going and if she needs coffee will not be helpful. Star leads the two away in a room, and asks them to infodump, not listening, but gauging their reactions.
Star’s on social engineering, Paragon on data tap, Carbide on hardware tap. Pargon discovers their network is all straight out of the box. Everything is factory-fresh. She runs through all the device nodes, looking for big differences, devices not accounted for in meatspace, cameras that don’t exist, that sort of thing. She’s checking file metadata to match contents, for evidence something’s overwriting file data.
She’s worked with Killswitch on how to find a virus. Any software tap would have to be based in a virus, with evidence in the files or devices. She finds it and leaves it in place until they’re done with the hardware node. She copies the program to evaluate it and figure out who programmed it. It is copying, not moving, the files. She sends that info to the team: there is a person involved and a hardware node.
Star wonders about the dropoff in traffic. If it’s still sending out at the same rate, what’s up with that? The location matters: braindance recordings are not small files. It’s not going to be a blip transmission.
Star figures out there’s a distribution competitor. If it’s a widespread enough distribution that it’s harming the business, you think the studio would have run across the bootlegs. Star wonders if the request gets re-routed to the customer. but the cash goes to the fake, not the legit distributor. A man-in-the-middle, routing distribution traffic and payment to the third party. That’s why nobody’s noticed bootlegs – there aren’t any! And that’s why it’s only become popular: before that it’s not worth stealing.
Paragon ID’s that the device is in the electrical room. Carbide thinks that’s kind of amateur. He finds the device. Range is across the street: so the back lot, interior parking, etc. Somebody in the backlot having a smoke could do the download. Star asks about cameras in the back lot.
Carbide pulls an activity log. Transmission times are late at night. Paragon checks against security: nothing on security cameras. But there’s an apartment complex across the street, Paragon notes. Carbide notes that you get your internet through your leasing company. So if somebody’s pulling down unusual amounts of data, and he can estimate the network traffic and power usage.
It’s been about 4 months, so that’s a timeframe. Star just needs to know who moved in 4 months ago, who’s got the highest pipeline requirements.
Star stops in makeup and wardrobe, and borrows a security guard outfit (okay, so it’s tear-away and open to the navel, but hey, there’s a sexy-security company for which that’s the normal uniform).