Kill Process by William Hertling Read Free Book Online Page B

phone status, and see he’s receiving a call from his office. I cross my fingers and offer a small prayer to universe he’s not within distance of the phone.
    Crap, there’s probably an Android API to reject calls! Why didn’t I prepare for this? I search and end up with a list of Stack Overflow questions and answers even as the phone keeps ringing. Damn. I’m hoping for a simple one liner, but none of them are, and to be honest, Java makes my eyes want to bleed. After an eternity, the phone stops ringing. I keep searching, because it would be awesome to dismiss the notification of the phone call. I glance at the receptionist’s email. No reply yet.
    Finally, I find what I’m looking for, a snippet of Java to allow me to dismiss notifications I have permission to access. I check his Android version, compile the code, and download it to his phone, where the backdoor executes it. The odds are good it worked, although I can’t be sure without finding and running yet more code, which just isn’t worth the effort.
    I wish I could get up and pace. I can’t stand without hunching over, and the van rocks back and forth if I move around, so instead I settle for closing my eyes and counting. I’m up to 697 when my computer beeps to indicate the doctor received an email. I open my eyes. It’s spam. I go back to counting. At 770 it beeps again. A text from his wife. The doctor is suddenly popular. After losing track of my count several times, I’m up to 852 when I hear the third beep. The subject line says “Erik Copley”.
    I snap my fingers and return to work, copying the email contents onto my computer, deleting the email from the doctor’s phone, and clearing his notifications again. I hit Enter, realizing too late I accidentally cleared the notification for the text message from his wife. Whoops. Oh well, the worst that will happen is that he’s puzzled. Finally I delete the email from the clerk’s sent archive. Anything else? Not that I can remember. I reset the doctor’s account to non-debug status, and shut down all my connections.
    Armed with the ID, I’m ready for part two.
    Wirelessly reprogramming Erik’s pacemaker requires a 175 kHz signal or 402 to 405 MHz signal. I need a transceiver capable of those frequencies. Fortunately, the office building where Erik works uses a mesh network, and the mesh boxes use software-defined radios to implement their transceivers. That’s a fancy way of saying they can transmit and receive on a wide range of frequencies, including 402 MHz.
    I’ve already researched Erik’s workplace, so I spend the next three hours finalizing a piece of software and data package, interspersed with eating protein bars, drinking coffee, having a chocolate bar, using the bucket again, and shaking out my arm, which grows numb from hours of non-stop work.
    When I’m done, I make a call through my computer, a simple dial-out through an anonymous Skype account, passing through a service to spoof my caller ID. Someone picks up, although I can barely make out the voice on the other end through the garbled connection. I glance at the screen to find I’m routing through twelve onion network nodes. Too much latency. I dial it back to four nodes.
    “Lois Thatcher, calling for Chris.” I’ve called the building management’s main office. I happen to know Chris Robson, their onsite IT administrator, has left work early, according to his current Tomo location.
    “Sorry, Chris is gone. This is Margaret. Can I take a message?”
    “Damn. He and I played phone tag all day. You have a new tenant coming in on Monday, on the fourth floor. He needs me to reconfigure the network.” This I found out from a quick web search.
    “You’re with Tucson Telecom?”
    “Yes, that’s right,” I say. Sucker.
    “Oh, Chris will be sorry he missed you.”
    “Well, maybe you can help.”
    “I’m the office manager.” She laughs. “I don’t know a thing about computers!”
    “Oh, it’s pretty easy. Is