Anthrax - The Outsider

‘Yeah? What sort? Do you have the measurements, and the model number?’ And people thought phreakers were weird.

‘Ah, no model number. But its about a metre and a half long, has feet, in the shape of claws. It’s older style, off-white. There’s only one problem.’ Anthrax paused, savouring the moment.

‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘There’s a body in it.’ Like dropping a boulder in a peaceful pond.

❖

The list on System X had dial-up modem numbers, along with usernames and password pairs for each address. These user- names were not words like ‘jsmith’ or ‘jdoe’, and the passwords would not have appeared in any dictionary. 12|AZ63. K5M82L. The type of passwords and usernames only a computer would remember.

This, of course, made sense, since a computer picked them out in the first place. It generated them randomly. The list wasn’t particularly user-friendly. It didn’t have headers, out- lining what each item related to. This made sense too. The list wasn’t meant to be read by humans.

Occasionally, there were comments in the list. Programmers often include a line of comment in code, which is delineated in such a way that the computer skips over the words when interpreting the commands. The comments are for other pro- grammers examining the code. In this case, the comments were places. Fort Green. Fort Myers. Fort Ritchie. Dozens and dozens of forts. Almost half of them were not on the mainland US. They were in places like the Philippines, Turkey, Germany, Guam. Places with lots of US military presence.

Not that these bases were any secret to the locals, or indeed to many Americans. Anthrax knew that anyone could discover a base existed through perfectly legal means. The vast majority of people never thought to look. But once they saw such a