He volunteered us for another experiment. In fact, he told a fellow boss that I am “a great tester—thorough and sneaky,” which I’ll take as a compliment.

I cannot reveal the nature of this experiment, which is super top secret, but it gives me the opportunity to break things. I take this responsibility seriously, so earlier today I phoned up the Information Technology security department:

IT security dude: Good morning. How may I help you?
Me: Hi, this is Becky S. Can you give me directions on how to do a ping flood?
IT security dude: Uh, no. No! Hey, who told you to do a ping flood?
Me: What makes you so sure I didn’t think that up by myself?
IT security dude: C’mon, Becky. Who told you about ping floods?
Me: Hey, look—a call on the other line. Bye!

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10 Responses to “Boss-across-the-hall update: big brother edition”  

  1. Gravatar Icon 1 Clair

    So you are like the company hall monitor now. Congratulations.

  2. Gravatar Icon 2 Sam
  3. Gravatar Icon 3 Mark

    you’re an eeee-VIL genius.

  4. Gravatar Icon 4 Becky

    Thanks, Sam–will take a look. Actually, I wanted our security department to know that they have a bad-ass computer hacker on their hands.

    Just like to keep ‘em on their toes.

    Also, part of the experiment is that my surfing habits are being carefully monitored. In fact, I should not be here right now posting this comment.

  5. Gravatar Icon 5 Bernie Goldbach

    Damn! Us laggards in the auld country thought your secret mission was to break something in Starbucks, perhaps their WiFi node or their double latte mocha expresso machine. But a ping flood? We have them all the time in our internet banking here. Most true pingers carry their port scan action list in the thumb drive that dangles from their pencil necks. And you?

  6. Gravatar Icon 6 Becky

    Good God, man! If I broke Starbucks, the entire economy of the tri-state area would come crashing to a halt!

    I’m not a hacker and didn’t even know what a ping flood was until today, though I had heard of the “ping of death.” The ping flood idea was just a means to an end.

  7. Gravatar Icon 7 Becky

    Is a port scan action list like a little black book for nerds?

  8. Gravatar Icon 8 Dave

    I dunno — according to that Wired article on Guerilla Geek Dating Tactics, captured packets make a fine black book.

  9. Gravatar Icon 9 Becky

    Capturing packets is the same thing as flooding ports? Excuse me while my head explodes.

  10. Gravatar Icon 10 IT Security Dude

    Now you are ALL being watched.