unforum

[Mima]

[UPDATE] May 25 - Sentinel - New Article - Next-Gen Keys

[BrianEnigma]

The Microsoft of keys

[Enigmaster]

Re: [UPDATE] May 25 - Sentinel - New Article - Next-Gen Keys

[Leeravitz]

Centrifuge have presumably taken the reins over from Key Surety, as per prior Sentinel reports. The implication would seem to have been that they were, for some time, contesting the same markets, and that this contest inspired an internalised 'one - upmanship' that advanced security tech. solidly within the City in the prior decade.

Key Surety had the contracts to look after Academy security, remember, on the night that it failed...

I certainly consider it have been in Centrifuge's interests to have seen such a failure occur, not least because it allowed them the opportunity to buy out Key Surety...

So, maybe Centrifuge does now control a monopoly on key manufacture...

[yanka]

[Leeravitz]

Oh, yeah. Just goes to show how well I remember what I've read a few days previously. In that case, though, then the problem seems even more cut and dried - Key Surety got bought out by Centrifuge, and now experts have announced there is 'no more competition...'. So, I guess Centrifuge do have the monopoly on key manufacture now, at least inasmuch as Key Surety are now an 'indepedent subsidiary'.

So, I'll reverse my previous position. The Djinn virus initially hit Centrifuge products, and *Centrifuge* had the contract for Academy security. Was the release of Djinn the work of a lone wolf, or was it a corporate sabotage that went awry for Key Surety??

[yanka]

Here's what we have, so far, that might have anything to do with security systems being disabled at the Academy on Jan 16th:

1. "the thieves reprogrammed portions of the Academy's security systems, disabling three different forms of security without tripping warning alarms." - from here.

2. "Academy security personnel discovered the theft at 2am when security guard Mendling failed to check in for her shift change." - also from here.
Now, we've seen that Fran Mendling had shifts at Gatehouse 24. Presumably, she was scheduled to work at Gatehouse 24 on the 16th, and was murdered by whoever was trying to get through, thereby becoming unable to report for her shift change. The other possibilities: her shift was not at Gatehouse 24 that night; she got murdered before she took over her shift at Gatehouse 24 seem less likely. The first one - because then we don't get to use or uber-knowledge of Gatehouse 24 logs, and also because it just doesn't seem as cool . The second one - because then the thieves would still have a problem with whoever was on guard at the gatehouse.

3. Djinn virus. "The original Djinn worm swept through the Academy last year. Several instances were also found in other large organizations around the city." - from here. Note that some copycat tried to replicate the virus, but wasn't as successful.
Anyway, we have no way of telling when exactly the worm "swept through the Academy" - before, on, or after Jan. 16th. But I'm somehow inclined to think that if this virus was responsible for the security mishap on the night of Cube theft, then either the Academy or the police would have made such implications somewhere already... for example, here.

4. "Centrifuge has a number of high-profile contracts for campus security, though of course the details are confidential. The internal Academy investigation is still ongoing, but has not publicly assigned any fault to Centrifuge in the matter." - from here.
I'm somewhat unclear as to what those portions of campus security had to do with keys. I'm not even sure that Centrifuge made keys before it acquired KeySurety.

5. Aiko's sculptures were on display at the Museum, and they have the capability to communicate with keys - from here. They (the sculptures) were taken apart by the police, but we don't know what they concluded.

6. Five of Cups (the bar) had trafficked all sorts of stolen high-tech equipment, including equipment from the Academy. Now the bar owner is dead. There is a range of possibilities here: someone could have altered a stolen security "thing" and used it to get to the Academy; someone could have studied the equipment to develop bugs for it, and implement the breach remotely, etc.

So, it seems that we are being nudged towards "keys had something to do with the security problem that night" in a number of ways. But I still find it rather hard to believe that the Academy would implement something as common as keys as access devices to the highly secure portions of their buildings (like Gatehouse 24). The more common such a device is, the easier it is to replicate it, reprogram it, infect it, steal it, and do other generally bad things to gain access. It just seems to make more sense that something as secretive as the Academy research "place" would want to have their own, more custom, and, possibly, a lot more "hardcore" ID check system.

[<PSH>]

That is a sweet rap up of security evens Yanka

[Leeravitz]

I'm glad that you put together that summing up. I'm not sure what it all adds up to, and it may well be the case that, for every significant fact included, another two are red herrings.

I am starting to feel that, now the informational supply is building up, we may need to start reassessing how we feel most of this material may or may not fit together.

Admitedly, I don't think we're 'missing' much from the information we've already been given, because we pore over it so diligently: I imagine that there are many pieces of the puzzles still missing.

Reactions like the current thread claiming the Reconstructionists did it are all very well, but seem like wishful speculation on the basis of nothing very conclusive. I hope that, if the PMs want us to solve a mystery properly, they'll be a bit more precise about giving us the relevant clues so that we can piece matters together...

[JebJoya]

Meh, I'll throw around some wild spec since you seem to hate it so much - the Cube is buried at the Acropolis, because Greece was mentioned by that old bint who died

Erm, yeah, spec is bad. BAAAAAD...

But i love it...



Jeb

[DogsHead]

OMG Jeb! That's it! You're a genius! It's so elegant and solid and... hang on a sec...


ahhh


spec


mmmm. crunchy.

[Violet]

Good theory Jeb, there's some mighty big rocks it could be under up there, grab spades and big ass lifting equipment and lets go!!!

[Crane]

I wish we knew a little more about PXC technology as a whole. For example, this Neuro Surpressant device used on Fran Mending (I can't let go of that one...); are such devices common weapons? The offhand reference to it suggests yes, but surely if they were very common, the police would have developed means to tell the time of death from people killed with them.
The reference to keys in that artists interview: "If you walked past and you had your key tuned into an audio channel, you'd think you heard voices whispering and stuff" implies to me that Keys have "channels" for different things, such as audio channels, video chanels, data channels, text channels and so on...

[Seej]

A couple of points worth mentioning - first, a Djinn is basically a Genie - Genie is just the Anglicised way of saying it. I guess this explains the naming of the Magic Lamp security exploit (apologies if this has been posted already).

Next,

[Leeravitz]

Re: Djinn - This is yet another reference that makes me wonder if the PMs have been reading the same books I have! Hofstadter's 'Godel, Escher, Bach,' has a whole section that's devoted to playing on the idea of the genie (it's actually concerned with discussing how recursion works). The section is (groan!) called 'Djinn and Tonic'...

I think Hofstader's analogy is to the hierarchical Arabian traditions whereby the djinns were servitors of God, interposing at different levels between humanity and Heaven, so there's lots of stuff about the meta - genie, the meta - meta genie, the meta - meta - meta genie etc. In other words, you can gon on recursively iterating the number of djinns between yourself and God indefinitely!!

I doubt that has anything much to do with the virus, and I assume its been named Djinn for some other reason (because its hard to detect? it works 'like magic'??). But the point is simply that maybe such background reading may have given the PMs plenty of inspiration!!