Page 12 of Love and the Laws of Motion
“No, this isn’t work.Something came up.These little shits,” he muttered under his breath.
“Is there a problem?”Livie asked cautiously.
“Not really a problem.An issue.”Exasperated, he swiveled in his chair to face her.“Do you know what a DDoS attack is?”
“Sure.A Denial of Service attack launched by a hacker, right?”
“Yep.There’s kind of a big one hitting Europe right now.Seems to be targeting airlines.It’s a fucking mess.Usually these things are launched by some shady black hat operators looking to ransom the company to get them back online.Anyway, I started tracking these guys through the usual sources—”
“Youstarted tracking them?I didn’t realize you did that kind of work.”
Nick shook his head.“It’s not for a job.I try to shut stuff like this down when I can because it’s a shitty thing to do.Yeah, maybe the guys doing it are just making a buck, but real people’s lives are being fucked up by this.There are thousands of flights grounded right now.And we’re not talking about people’s vacations.I found out about it because there’s someone in Edinburgh trying to fly into London for a kidney transplant and she’s stuck.Her transplant window is narrowing while these assholes fuck with the system.That’s not right.”
Ah, hell.Like the looks and charm weren’t already doing a number on her.Now he had to go and bedecent.“That’s really nice of you, Nick.You’re like a cyberspace Robin Hood, minus the tights.”
“Don’t make me out to be too noble,” he warned.“You have to put these guys in their place.Maybe it’s not affecting me or one of my clients this time, but next time it might.”
Well, that’s what he might be telling her, but his genuine concern was hard to hide.He might be wrapping it up as a sensible business decision, but he cared, whether he wanted to admit it or not.“It’s still a nice thing to do.”
“Thanks.But it doesn’t matter.I hit a dead end.I tracked the attack back to the server, but it doesn’t belong to the guys launching the attack.They’re renting space and automated services from a third party.I can’t shut them down at the source.”
Livie thought about it for a minute.“Have you asked whoever owns the third party server?”
“It takes too long to get a cease and desist drawn up.”
“No, not legally or officially or anything.Justask.One person to another.”
“What...justaskthem nicely to shut these guys down?”
“Sure, why not?The anonymity of the internet makes people act like jerks.I bet if you put them on the spot about something specific, they’ll choose to do the right thing.”
Nick scoffed.“You are ridiculously optimistic, Livie.In my experience, people are generally assholes.They only respond to direct threats.”
His dismissal made her bristle.“And in my experience, they’re not.Just try it.What do you have to lose?”
He watched her for a moment, considering, before turning back to his keyboard and typing something.“Okay,” he said, sliding his keyboard over to her.“Give it a go.”
“What,me?”
He smirked.“Ask.Nicely.”
So what if he thought she was a starry-eyed Pollyanna?She wasn’t going to give in to his cynical worldview.He’d opened a chat window, presumably with whoever owned the server.Livie considered for a moment, then started typing.She kept it brief and painfully polite, explaining the situation and asking them to intervene.She made sure to emphasize that the server owner probably had no idea what was happening, because surely they’dneverwant to get involved in something so illegal and immoral, but now that they’d been made aware of what was going on, she had no doubt they’d choose to do the right thing.
Nick, reading over her shoulder, snorted in laughter.“That is the most passive-aggressive polite request I’ve ever read.”
“Hush.Being hostile doesn’t solve everything.”
“It can solve an awful lot.”
She hit Send on the message.“We’ll see.”
“Hang on.”He took the keyboard back and typed something else.
“Now what?”
His eyes were busily scanning a screen full of code.“Now we wait and see what happens.Okay, let’s get back to our programming—”
But at that moment, a ping indicated he had a new incoming message.“Holy shit.”
