I spy (part 2)--The day the music died

So, I had already gotten caught goofing around within the security system of this insanely security-intense, self-important company that maintains a huge database. Trust me when I say that I laid pretty low...for a while. But I always kept my eyes and ears open to see what was going on around me.

One function of my job as a computer operator was to maintain job logs--every time we performed any special subroutines, a document was created that showed every piece of data moved around, every subroutine accessed, and the final disposition of the action. The job logs showed up on a screen at the control panel, and either needed to be saved or deleted, depending on the status: (COMP meant "complete, and ERR meant there was an error with the job, along with the detail of the error). Typically we would just delete completed job logs and file the ones with errors for review by programmers. If we had an error, we would call Minneapolis and those guys would dial in over the multiplexors and log into our system and take control, usually checking the job logs for guidance in fixing the problem.

It turns out that if there was a malfunction of the job log, most of the time the on-call programmer would just give up--this told me that there wasn't a sophisticated diagnostic technique built within the software.

Also, there was that early morning incident....

As mentioned before, for some reason, after I was promoted there were a lot of computer operator candidates that just couldn't cut it, and they would just get frustrated and leave (usually suddenly). This revolving door gave me some opportunities for overtime, usually at unsavory hours when system maintenance was necessary.

One morning at 2:30 AM, system maintenance created a job log with an error. Our procedure was to page to on-call programmer, since our system was going to go on line in four and a half hours and it was critical that the Texas office handle its one-third of the nationwide calls--otherwise, the whole system bogs down and some of our very high dollar contracts demanded that we be equipped for a certain volume of calls.

The programmer, Tracy, didn't answer her page, so I called her home. A deep, burly man's voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Mike from Dallas. Sorry to wake you but I need to speak to Tracy."

"This IS Tracy!"

Apparently I woke her out of a crazy deep sleep; I would have bet my last buck on earth that it was a 6" dude and not a 5" petite woman.

"Oh, sorry Tracy. We got an error on a job log."

"Can you read it to me?"

So I did. It referenced a program called MEH75210.

She Paused. I thought she had gone back to sleep.

She told me "I'm going to get you to test this one for me so I don't have to drive 20 minutes to the office. Press Control-Shift-5."

I did. I saw a progamming screen pop up, which I had never seen before on our system, but I knew that it existed from my initial training. I had no idea this was the back door access hotkey sequence. Would it work from other computers, or just the operator's console?

"Go to the command line and type 'call MEH75210'." I did so, and a common authorization screen that almost everyone had access to came up--this must be a way to call up programs without going through authorized menus. Hmmmm. Quite interesting.

"Find a record and enter a query." I did, and everything worked normal.

"Delete the job log and forget everything we just did. Good-night." And I could hear the dial tone before I was able to put the receiver down. Looking back, that may have been the last time I ever talked to Tracy.

So I did forget. Kinda. For a time. And then I noticed that the alphanumeric sequence MEH75210 appeared on the normal menu access screen right next to the description of the authorization screen. And all functions seemed to also have corresponding alphanumeric sequences. By using these program keywords I could call them up anonymousely and perform their functions without it leaving a trace...

Now, I'm not mischevious or dishonest, but I do have a curious streak. And, over the next 3 years, I did a couple of tests to see what this functionality would help me do. There was a process where I would see a printout at the endpoint. So, when no one was looking I went to an unoccupied terminal (couldn't use the one at my desk because each Local Workstation had an address (mine was LWS235)) and pulled up the programmer menu and called up the program. Then I made some corrections to a record that had some data entry mistakes. Pressed Enter. Held my breath...nothing (bad) happened. The record was changed. And a week later when I was looking through the printouts of changed records, it came up, with the "changed by" field completely blank. You see, those smart-ass, self-important Fargonauts didn't have any warning bells in place for this type of thing....

Another test that I did was a little fancier--I analyzed the sequence of alphanumeric codes and projected which code the "master" list would come under (wasn't too hard). When I called up that program, it gave me a list of every function possible within our database. Now there wasn't anything bizarre or creepy like employee records or anything where I could really get in trouble--our company kept those records on local PC's. I was really more interested in the data analysis functions that we may have available.

Before anyone gets too scared, yes, I know I was way out of bounds here. However, during this time I had reworked several of our staffing and projections formulas to save the company a ton of money. I had also completely automated our staffing productivity recordkeeping, saving us over a quarter of a million dollars in soft costs and increasing the overall productivity of our office a whopping 15% in just 6 months! (That dinner where I made the joke to Dan Fargo was actually in honor of our success, which is probably why he somewhat forgave me for it). A lot of my success came from pushing limits, and, even though I was out of line here, it had ended up okay in several other circumstances.

The night it came crashing down was not out of the ordinary. We were a couple of hours from closing and I was sitting away at my desk. In years past, I would be frantically pounding away at an adding machine trying to calculate statistics for all of the employee in the company, but thanks to my integrated spreadsheet I had not only finished, but typed up 20 batches of data entry, which was equivalent to 2 days worth of work for the average 8-hour-a-day operator. I was resting my brain for a moment and thought I would keep going with my little espionage project.

In addition to getting a categorical listing of everything the company's mainframe could process, I had also collected a small assortment of dummy codes that could be used to access names without leaving a record. This was a practice that went undetected by our company and was often used by private investigators, FBI agents, and others who were searching for criminals. I didn't really use these things, but it kind of fed my ego to know that I could put my hands on them if I needed to. I had systematically gone through several of the screens and had found some interesting information such as a screen that adds billing information to customer records, the ability to compile statistics for an individual over a long period of time (I leaked info about its existance to a manager doing an evaluation one time). Sometimes, I would call up a program on the list, and for some inexplicable reason, they just didn't work. I had even figured out a way to call up the computer operator's screen from another terminal and delete the job log so it wouldn't show up.

This had come in handy one time when there was no computer operator around and we needed to handle a critical item. I called up the authorization screen and authorized an employee for a new function which they needed. No one was the wiser, and it had never come up again.

But that night the whole party ended.

I saw a function that looked like it listed sales tax by county--it was an option that I had never heard of before--I decided to call it up from my workstation (I had gotten lazy and stopped going over to an unusued terminal when I experimented, because nothing had ever gone wrong). I thought it would be interesting to see different sales tax rates in this area because they are all quite different, some signficantly higher than others. After a minute my computer froze and I couldn't exit out of the screen indicating that it was processing. I quickly reached up and flipped off the terminal, but even I knew that in our type of system that didn't end the job that I had started. Then I started to see the whole crew start to look around with puzzled expressions. In another minute, there were 50 or so people standing up. Then the lights went out and all the phones died. Even the radio that plays over the loudspeaker was off. We were sitting quietly in emergency lighting with dead phones like the plug had been pulled. And my fingerprints were all over that plug. I had momentarily brought the company to its knees.

I waited at my desk for about five minutes and started to feel sick. This function was going to get traced right back to my workstation via the job log and I was about to get fired. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I felt like I was going to be sick. I had to calm down somehow--I popped an Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine in a cup and drank it down--normally those things put me to sleep, but tonight I needed it to help me keep my cool and not act like a spaz.

I'll just deny everything. No, they'll know for sure that I did it. No one could be using my computer. No way. Plus, they know that I'm the geek-type that could figure that out--I was sure they would know it was me.

So, I calmly walked back into the computer room to see if I could "help". I walked in and saw the relatively new computer operator, Abby, and thought to myself that there might be hope...

She was on the phone with the programmer, who was on their cell phone while tearing toward the office in Minneapolis. Abby had seen the whole system lock up and had accidentally switched the power supply to reserve--the battery-powered backup that was our shutdown safeguard enabling us to save all the records without losing anything--this is why the lights went out and the phone system died, because they weren't powered by the battery backup. She was convinced that she had done something wrong, and I guess she had by flipping that switch prematurely. She was on the phone and had her back to the computer terminal, which was pulled up to the job logs. She was busy by the reserve switch powering things back up. As I looked at the screen behind her, there were 10 job logs in a line and I saw where the cursor was. I could see from the descriptions and status' that I needed to delete the last 3 job logs, which would cover my tracks completely.

If I could just reach around her inocuosly, what would the sequence be that I needed to hit as fast as possible?

(tab, tab, tab, down seven times, 4 down, 4 down, 4 down (option 4 was to delete)Enter)
I waited until Abby looked distracted, then reached around her to pick up something. She didn't flinch. So I hammered out that sequence in about 3 seconds. The job logs disappeared.

Then I turned around and calmly and slowly walked out of the room. I knew I was going to get away with it, now. Incredibly, Abby seemed to not notice that I was ever there...

When the programmer got to the office in Minneapolis and logged onto our system, he announced that there had been an error with a program that calculates sales tax county by county throughout the United States--a job which takes up a ton of processor time and has to be done when the rest of the system is off-line. Also, since we were still taking lots of calls at the time, it locked up because the number of records kept changing. His analysis was that the job logs spontaneously deleted themselves. But they never did figure out how the tax program started...

And this time I really forgot everything and never ventured in over my head again. My career as a corporate spy was officially over forever--I found out that I didn't have the guts for it.

I went on to a prestigous career with that company, eventually becoming a self-directed production analyst with my own office, which was an unheard-of arrangement for a 24-year-old. I received the highest review rating of any employee in company history. When I left the company, they had a big party for me and gave me an engraved clock, which still sits next to my desk.

And no one ever knew.