Hinn Ch. 22-24

Chapter 24

The lecture hall was an auditorium, curved and raised to put the lecturer at the center of focus for those seated. There was a walkway halfway up the auditorium with a small table.

"Set up the table. There are chairs stacked up at the top, let's get eight of them around that table. Close fit, but out in the middle. We take four, they take four, they get first choice. Jessica, would you like to join us at the table?"

"Do you plan on offering seats to the other representatives at the following meetings?"

"No, just my lawyer, to make sure our side of any contracts are legal and enforceable and to get her advice as needed. We'll do the intro to Tech and cross-connecting meeting at ten, after the meeting with Boch tomorrow. Would you like one of your people at the table too? Tauriz and I will handle security as needed, not that I'm expecting it to be a problem."

"I don't think we should have difficulties with any of the three. The worst I expect is they walk without a contract. I'd say that's pretty unlikely. This is the kind of job they like -- high risk, high reward, high value, with a close, well-defined objective -- you two and your property."

"I'd say we need to think a little broader than that, Jessica -- think of it as a team of specialists. I'm not going to say you should be their lawyer. That's between you and them, but as far as I'm concerned, you're the team's lawyer, and as they sign on, they'll have a legal rep they keep available for you. Similarly, they'll have one or more points of contact for us to reach for their areas of specialty, physically here or remote."

"I see. I think that shouldn't be a problem. I'd like another of my people at the table for a second record."

"Jessica, Tauriz and I have what amounts to a photographic and eidetic memory. For instance, when you got here, you were posed in the middle of an arc of your people. Hina was on my left, Amber and Monica, then Jonathon, and Pete filled out the arc. I can describe what you were wearing to a fine degree of detail if needed. Would you care to test me on any point since then?"

"Can you describe Amber's necklace from when you first met her?"

"Never saw it directly, but it was on a leather thong or square strap, heavily worn and smoothed. I'd guess it was fairly heavy but small, so probably metal of some sort, from how it moved as she walked around. The lace would have been put on over the head rather than fastened, the knot on the thong slipped into view and was as worn and smoothed as the rest of the strap."

"More speculation than observation, but solid observation none the less. OK, that'll work, as far as I'm concerned."

"Great, so three of us to up to four of them. That'll help keep them a little off balance. The rest of your team is perimeter security on this one, probably half-way to the doors? Rule of Engagement is - don't. Let Tauriz and I handle it if needs be. Acceptable?"

"Barring self-defense agreed."

"Oh! Of course, not counting self-defense."

"Wonderful."

Whispering, Ray asked, "Mac? Do these companies know about you, and if so, are you willing to talk to them as need be?"

"Done work with an' for all three, Ray. You figgered out more than any of th' three. Tongxin know the most, none officially know about what I am, but Tongxin's lead tech, Wu Emily, has substantial suspicions. The rest think I'm some sorta hacker or hacker organization. Useful but weird."

Speaking up again, Ray informed the team, "They're in the building. Less than two minutes out. Where'd the catering get to?"

"Set up on the lecturer's bench down front, Ray."

"Anyone want a cup?"

Jessica started walking down the stairs, as did Ray. Tauriz stayed behind, waiting to greet the representatives.

As Ray finished adding a splash of cream, the doors opened and two women walked in. Both were impeccably dressed in business-casual styles -- skirts and blouses, coats and briefcases in hand -- but that does not adequately express the sense of presence that came with them.

They were both gorgeous. The shorter of the two was about 5'2" or so and the elder, but she was exceedingly well preserved and could be anywhere from thirty to sixty years old to Ray's eyes. Her straight black hair ran in a ponytail down her spine to mid-back, dancing with each step and motion. Her white blouse and tan skirt were both silk and tailored to fit perfectly. It was exceedingly evident there was a fit, attractive body under there. A delicate choker with a small cameo graced her throat, and her shoes were professional but pretty black kitten heels.

The taller of the pair looked like she might be in high school, just maybe college. Her hair was a short cap of tight black curls with scarlet highlights, and she appeared to be as tall as Tauriz, 5'8". Her blouse was gaily patterned in bright primary colors and her shiny black skirt stopped a couple of inches higher than the older woman's. Given her long legs, the effect of the skirt was right on the borderline of office-appropriate. She had no jewelry showing except small diamond studs in her ears, and the blouse was open enough that necklaces would have been visible. Instead, an inch tall realistic tattoo of a dove rested in the hollow of her throat. Her shoes were black flats.

"Professor Helms? Oh, and Jessica! It's been so long!"

"Emily and Annya! Welcome to Ray's little shindig, ladies. Would you two care for a cuppa?" greeted Jessica.

Walking spritely down the stairs, the shorter one said, "I'd just about kill for some caffeine. It's been a long day already, and YOU must be the one I have to blame for that!" pointing at Ray.

"Guilty as charged, ma'am. Ray Helms at your service," Ray returned, smiling.

"I'm Wu Emily, this long drink of water here is Huyang Annya. I'm the VP for technological development for Tongxin LLC, and Annya here has the North American office."

"A pleasure to meet you, Professor," Annya said. Emily's voice was like a machine gun, powerful and aggressively paced. Annya's, in contrast, was almost ethereal, gorgeous, and sweet.

"Now, you're not in my class, just Ray, please."

"And you can call me Annya then, Ray," she smiled back.

"This is my girlfriend, Tauriz Aoud. And it seems you already know Jessica and her team."

"Ms. Aoud, a pleasure to meet you," Emily said, offering a hand and shaking firmly.

"Tauriz, please, for both of you."

"What a beautiful name, I don't believe I've ever met a Tauriz before."

"It's been in the family for a very long time," Tauriz smiled back. Ray had to bite down on a snort.

"So, now we're caffeinated, let's sit down and talk business if that suits you two?"

"Definitely! Where do you want to talk?"

"The table up there in the center of the room -- take your choice of seats, please, and we'll settle in after."

"So polite -- thank you, Ray. So much better than corporate power games."

"You'll find I have little patience for such things," Ray commented.

Jessica got down to business. "So, here's the half-million in a certified check, Ray will sign it over at the end of the meeting. Here are two NDAs for you two to sign. My standard form, you've seen it before."

Both ladies read the form, signed without comment, and each took a picture of the signed form with their phones.

"OK," said Ray. "Strange question number one -- are either of you maintaining an active link with anyone or anything you're not physically carrying right now? I'm about to put security into place, and I don't want to cause anyone problems."

"I am," Emily said, "One second, and I'll put it on a, what, one hour pause?"

"We'll be done by then one way or the other, Emily," Ray agreed.

"All right." Emily poked about on her phone, pulled out a separate device and typed in a password. "All set, sixty minutes."

Ray pulled up the 'cone of silence' and asked, "OK, there we go. I'd request you try to reach out to external resources -- you'll see things are blocked."

After fiddling further with their phones, both ladies looked up and confirmed. "Interesting! That's a potent capability, Ray. Are we able to count on using it on this effort if we sign on?"

"Yes, as and where practical. There are certain limits that we'll go over with you if you sign on, but we'll keep those close-hold for the moment.

"You start to see what this contract is about. Modern life is about communications and knowledge, in large part, electronically delivered. You and your firm are experts in this field. We have capabilities such as this 'cone of silence'...."

Here Ray had to pause as Emily burst out laughing, "You didn't! You named it after Get Smart?"

"Indeed, I did! At least this one lets us talk in it, so perhaps this should officially be the Advanced Cone of Silence -- what do you think?"

"Cone of Silence, Mark 2," offered Emily, her laughter still bright in her dark eyes.

"Perhaps! If we end up marketing it, we'll certainly bring you in on the naming brainstorming, Emily," Ray grinned.

"I'd LOVE that! You're on!" she enthused.

"So. We've got a radical new technology, for lack of a better word. NSA has figured out that we have it, and they seem pretty motivated to get it. We're not sure how they figured out how we have it, but we're aware they have at least one asset that is not willingly working with them with technologies similar to our own. Perhaps that might explain it -- we're uncertain at this point.

"The tasking would be to protect us and those we hire around us from interference and infowar, initially from the NSA and likely from other cyber players around the world as the knowledge leaks from them."

"How critical are different communications technologies to your new technology, Ray?"

"They're in place, and almost everyone has access to them. Therefore they're convenient for us. Not having them wouldn't stop us from utilizing our new technology, however."

"Any unusual requirements?"

"Not at this time, but you'll be overseeing and coordinating cyber defenses for all those hired. Similarly, we'll be bringing in financial and physical security experts, who I'll be expecting to lead, each in their fields, so coordination will be a many-way street if you sign on."

"Who are you thinking for those positions?"

"We've got meetings set up with both Skepsi and Boch and Children in the next twenty-four hours. If they don't want the work, we'll keep going until we find satisfactory partners."

"They're both excellent companies in their fields. Prickly, but then again, so are we. We've successfully worked with them in the past. I don't foresee major difficulties with our working with either or both of those two. If they don't sign on, would you take suggestions as to other firms?"

"We'll take advice from those on contract and make a decision based on that and other factors, yes."

"Excellent. What devices do you intend to keep using, Ray, Tauriz?"

"I'm using the last generation iPhone, with a tablet and PC workstation at home and another PC at the office. Phones are VoIP, as is common in this area finally. Entertainment via cable system, some smart devices scattered around the current home. I'm not married to any of the tech, but the capabilities are nice to have. We are looking at moving to larger digs in the near term. If you sign on, we'll be having a meeting tomorrow at ten to go over options and make a decision on housing."

"And Tauriz?"

"I'm a bit of a Luddite, I don't even have a phone at this point."

"Well, they have some beneficial capabilities if you'd not mind carrying one."

"If you sign on, we can discuss in detail. I'd need to know more one way or the other. I'm not against it --I'm just leery of them."

"With some reason. OK. For the two of you, we'd charge a million a month. Jessica, do you mind?"

"I've already told them you're our support."

"Oh, excellent -- thank you for the recommendation. If you add Jessica's team, and with her approval, the fee would be an additional ten k monthly so we could build and maintain solid interconnections between what we design and implement for you and what we have in place for her already. That will make defense-in-depth easier and allow for changes in companies with minimal problems if ever needed.

"Other companies we'll gladly discuss on a case by case basis, depending on if we have an active contract with them or not and the scope of the efforts needed. Figure that setting up a brand new defensive environment could cost a million a head, probably much less than that, but potentially up to a million. If it's bridging together two of our efforts, it's typically in the ten to hundred K range, depending on information flow density and suchlike.

"Sound reasonable?"

"Certainly. What, if any, legal reporting are you required to do?"

"We're required to report any known attacks we detect from any source against Taiwanese national assets. Given the breadth of our installations and efforts, this ends up effectively as an anonymized information feed. We're required to report any contracts above a million dollars as a revenue issue. Finally, not a few of our people are Taiwanese military reservists, who are allowed to make use of corporate proprietary technologies as needed in their other jobs. As such, I'd suggest that we talk about a separate contract renting services from you like the cone of silence."

"We're not going to be service providers at this time, Emily. Tauriz or I will use what technology is relevant in a given situation. Perhaps in the fullness of time, I'd love to add significantly to cyber defensive measures, but we have other priorities."

"And what are your priorities, Ray? It's almost like you're reading from our initial site review template!"

"Well, I'm not -- I don't believe I have access to your template. But -- we have three primary priorities. The first is maintaining our freedom and independence. Second, to hopefully help the unwilling NSA asset to leave, or at least to confirm and maintain or improve their health. Finally, to maintain control of our technology. We're aware there likely are competitors at various degrees of completion, you could say we're doing the equivalent of some market research to learn more as we continue down this path."

"Hrm. I'm assuming that you'd keep us in the loop on these competitors as you learn about them, assuming we've signed on?"

"Yes, harder to defend blind, and I suspect we'll be quite reliant on your A-game. We plan on briefing the companies that sign on about the high-level strengths and weaknesses of our technology and what we are aware of in terms of competition."

"Does that include the mysterious Tauriz and her history?"

"To a reasonable degree, yes."

"Jessica, would you mind commenting on your experience working with them, specifically how decisions have been made?"

"It's been a great experience to date, Emily. I'm in the process of turning over most of my other work to concentrate on this one -- a fact that's covered under the NDA you two just signed. Thus far, they've been very reasonable, but there's no doubt they're the lead in this."

"Understood -- we'd have kept it close-hold anyways. Thanks, Jessica. Other than Jessica and you two, who else is on the team now?"

"Mac is the only other person."

"Hey, Emily. Havin' fun with yer pet project in lab three?"

Emily smiled, "Why yes, I am, Mac. It's been intriguing. Good! We like working with Mac. He rarely fails, and if he does, he fesses up right quick."

"He's been a great help to us thus far, once we stopped butting heads," Ray said.

"But.. .butting heads with Mac?" a shocked Emily asked.

"Yep. Tons a bitflips and noise goin' hither an yon, cats layin down wid dogs, huge orders of ice skates for a hot zone, all th' signs of th' apocalypse. Their tech is no joke, Emily. No joke a-tall."

"Wow. OK. Annya?"

"I'm good, boss. The full plan."

"Great. Here's what I propose, Ray, Tauriz. We keep our assets in our secure enclaves. We leave you Annya as our bellybutton. She knows where everyone and everything is that you might need. We hotfoot a response team out here to update, replace, and bake in the defenses, and when you're ready, we get a full install team in to take care of the new property.

"Anything we buy, we buy on your funds. Up to the first million of hardware purchases each month cuts half that off the monthly retainer fee. That way, you own it no matter what happens to the contract, and we help incentivize both efficient and effective defenses. All codes and passwords and the like are yours, left in secure storage of your choice -- if we have to recover a password, we come to you.

"Sound good thus far?"

"So far so good, but I'd like Annya to have a second body as a backup too. I don't expect to have to do operations twenty-four hours a day, but I'd like the capability if we have to."

"Annya, who would you like?"

"Other than you, Boss?" Emily chuckled and waved her hand in a circle, telling her to get on with it. "Probably Updike. Neophile, knows her shit, wanted to get out of incident response for a while now."

"Works. OK, we have a second for you if they agree. If not, we'll keep looking until we find one."

"Sounds good!" Ray enthused. Pulling out a pen, he signed the certified check over and passed it to Emily. "I'd say that counts as good faith. And as long as Jessica has no complaints about the terms, we're good to sign. I assume you've got a contract written up?"

"Of course! Hate to keep the customer waiting -- they might decide to go somewhere else!"

Laughing, Ray picked up a copy of the proposed contract and skimmed it. Jessica picked up a copy as well, reading it in detail, making notes in the margins as she did. After running his eyes over it once, he passed it over to Tauriz, who also skimmed it.

"You're missing the second representative it seems, Emily," Tauriz mentioned as she finished.

"Crapdoodle, I did," Emily said. "Anything else?"

"What's this about spoils of war?"

"Something new going through the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan, information and capabilities seized as part of defensive cyber operations -- DCO - become 'spoils of war' and the defender gets to profit off that information. There are some guidelines, 'hacking back' is not covered, just receiving whatever is sent over the networks to systems owned or otherwise legally defended by the DCO organization. It's likely to pass in the near term, so we updated our contract to address that assuming it happens.

"Information that can be sold is brought to the attacked assets' owner. If the information comes from multiple owners, each is informed independently. If instead the information only becomes sellable if two or more different owners cooperate, we'll broker that discussion. We retain the right to ask for a license for the technology to be addressed separately, and there's a clause in there allowing us to keep and use the technologies found to develop and test countermeasures. If all we have is the dev & test clause, we can't use the capability elsewhere."

"What happens if the capability isn't cyber? What if you learn of a plot to blackout power in an area?"

"We'd try to work with the authorities in that area to prevent it from happening, and as much as practicable to mitigate any problems for our customer. "

"But, you'd not expect to take the novel devices made by the attackers to go after the power plants?"

"Oh, I see what you're saying. So something like that would have to be on a case by case basis. We'd have to bring the Judicial and/or Control Yuan's inspectors in to address the legalities for truly novel technologies we can reasonably use once it becomes law. Something like a new nuclear reactor design, even if used as part of an attack, wouldn't be covered as I understand it."