Overclocked | Page 8

The attacks are electronic, biological, nuclear and
conventional explosives, and they are very widespread. I'm a security
engineer, and where I come from, attacks in this kind of cluster are
usually viewed as opportunistic: group B blows up a bridge because
everyone is off taking care of group A's dirty nuke event. It's smart. An
Aum Shin Rikyo cell in Seoul gassed the subways there about 2AM
Eastern -- that's the earliest event we can locate, so it may have been
the Archduke that broke the camel's back. We're pretty sure that Aum
Shin Rikyo couldn't be behind this kind of mayhem: they have no
history of infowar and have never shown the kind of organizational
acumen necessary to take out so many targets at once. Basically, they're
not smart enough.
"We're holing up here for the foreseeable future, at least until the
bioweapon has been identified and dispersed. We're going to staff the
racks and keep the networks up. This is critical infrastructure, and it's
our job to make sure it's got five nines of uptime. In times of national
emergency, our responsibility to do that doubles."
One sysadmin put up his hand. He was very daring in a green
Incredible Hulk ring-tee, and he was at the young end of the scale.
"Who died and made you king?"
"I have controls for the main security system, keys to every cage, and
passcodes for the exterior doors -- they're all locked now, by the way.
I'm the one who got everyone up here first and called the meeting. I
don't care if someone else wants this job, it's a shitty one. But someone
needs to have this job."
"You're right," the kid said. "And I can do it every bit as well as you.
My name's Will Sario."
Popovich looked down his nose at the kid. "Well, if you'll let me finish
talking, maybe I'll hand things over to you when I'm done."
"Finish, by all means." Sario turned his back on him and walked to the

window. He stared out of it intensely. Felix's gaze was drawn to it, and
he saw that there were several oily smoke plumes rising up from the
city.
Popovich's momentum was broken. "So that's what we're going to do,"
he said.
The kid looked around after a stretched moment of silence. "Oh, is it
my turn now?"
There was a round of good-natured chuckling.
"Here's what I think: the world is going to shit. There are coordinated
attacks on every critical piece of infrastructure. There's only one way
that those attacks could be so well coordinated: via the Internet. Even if
you buy the thesis that the attacks are all opportunistic, we need to ask
how an opportunistic attack could be organized in minutes: the
Internet."
"So you think we should shut down the Internet?" Popovich laughed a
little, but stopped when Sario said nothing.
"We saw an attack last night that nearly killed the Internet. A little DoS
on the critical routers, a little DNS-foo, and down it goes like a
preacher's daughter. Cops and the military are a bunch of technophobic
lusers, they hardly rely on the net at all. If we take the Internet down,
we'll disproportionately disadvantage the attackers, while only
inconveniencing the defenders. When the time comes, we can rebuild
it."
"You're shitting me," Popovich said. His jaw literally hung open.
"It's logical," Sario said. "Lots of people don't like coping with logic
when it dictates hard decisions. That's a problem with people, not
logic."
There was a buzz of conversation that quickly turned into a roar.

"Shut UP!" Popovich hollered. The conversation dimmed by one Watt.
Popovich yelled again, stamping his foot on the countertop. Finally
there was a semblance of order. "One at a time," he said. He was
flushed red, his hands in his pockets.
One sysadmin was for staying. Another for going. They should hide in
the cages. They should inventory their supplies and appoint a
quartermaster. They should go outside and find the police, or volunteer
at hospitals. They should appoint defenders to keep the front door
secure.
Felix found to his surprise that he had his hand in the air. Popovich
called on him.
"My name is Felix Tremont," he said, getting up on one of the tables,
drawing out his PDA. "I want to read you something.
"'Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and
steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of
the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome
among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
"'We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I
address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself