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Post by forge on Aug 31, 2006 11:02:29 GMT -5
Never let it be said that Forge isn’t a paranoid man.
When he woke at 5am, a habit he never really broke from his military days, he sent his will through the computer system at Xavier’s to check for any sort of abnormality, malfunction, or breach in security. All seemed pretty well… but oddly, it appeared that Candice was logged into the cerebro section of the mainframe last night – at 3:30 in the morning.
He didn’t make it a point to track down a person’s computer activity, of course, but the password requirements for accessing the sensitive material were completely different from normal logon procedures. You had one set of passwords for standard access to Xavier’s network, and another for the higher level information. No student in the school could access the mutant archives, though Candice could – because she would need the information on the students.
Her code was used at 3:30 in the morning, in her office. Not necessarily a worry, but just slightly queer. She’d logged out of her personal system at 10:44 pm the night before, and didn’t log into her personal system at all in that early time frame.
Sighing, and not wanting to wake her, since he’d never really talked to her, He patched his speaker-phone into her room.
He waited while the phone rang. Finally, she picked it up, sounding awfully groggy.
“This is Candice…” She said.
“Uhh… hey, uh Candice. This is Forge. Err, Bandero – the new X-Man?” He said stupidly. She sounded as cute as her picture looked in her file.
“… yeah, yeah, Bandero Tandaka. Yes, I’ve read your file. What is it?”
Hey baby, I was thinking – you read my file, I’ve read yours – why won’t we skip the small talk and I’ll come over right now and – “err...This is an odd question, but I was digging through secure access logins this morning, and it appears you logged into the mutant files this morning at 3:30 am? That sound right?”
A pause. “No.” She sounded much more awake now. “No, not at all. I was asleep at eleven.”
Well shit.
“Ah… well, I’ll try to see if it was a bug in the system. I’ll also dig around and see what was viewed. Is it alright if I meet you in your office in about half an hour?”
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Post by forge on Sept 1, 2006 18:12:21 GMT -5
Forge hummed along with the tune in his IPOD, which didn’t actually have headphones coming out of it. It was simply in his pocket, though it was on, and his awareness was in it – therefore he could listen to the music in what sounded like real-time.
He rolled his wheel chair easily down the hall, hands moving quickly and deftly, already used to the obnoxious device. It was a decent wheel chair, one of the professor’s. Lightweight, well manufactured, and durable, but not the sort of thing he wanted to rely on… he only used it when he would need a lot of freedom for his hands. He had crutches that worked better with the speed he’d need – but he was still not very proficient at keeping his balance. It had been less than a week, and that was hardly the time it took a body to get used to a missing leg.
“where the hood, where the hood, where the hood at…” he sang along under his breath as he entered the elevator.
When the doors opened again, on the second floor, he was still singing. “Where we at baby? Creepin’ through the fog!” Though he was much more enthusiastic.
When he finally made it to Candice’s office, he cut the music and knocked. She answered, every bit the beauty he thought she was in her files, and showed him to her computer.
He almost said ‘Hope you cleared out the porn!’ but decided it was a bad idea.
So he put a hand against the machine, and started to work his mutant magic. He gathered everything regarding the search performed last night, including what was found, searched, and for how long it was viewed. He also learned that the information was copied onto a flash card.
Poor Candice must not have realized that he’d be able to see everything she had in the machine in a matter of minutes, otherwise she may have removed the files on her message board Harry Potter game. She probably would’ve gotten rid of the short term access memory to her photobucket account, which had a boudoir style picture of her in it. Forge felt his cheeks get hot, and he immediately moved on to other things… but that didn’t mean regretting his photographic memory.
After a few minutes, he had everything he needed. And with an awkward goodbye, he left as quickly as possible before he said something stupid.
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Post by forge on Sept 2, 2006 2:19:15 GMT -5
Back in the safety confines of his personal bunker, Forge decided it was probably a good time to come forth and let the X-Men know they may have a problem. Well, at least the three he considered the “primaries” – Storm, Kurt, and Logan. Then again, screw Logan… nah, he’d probably better tell him too.
So, he tapped his X-Communicator, “Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine,” Then said: “Forge here. Have a slight situation you may want to see me about as soon as possible. No one’s dying or anything, but it’s definitely time sensitive. If you’d like, you could contact me over the communicator as long as you’re out of earshot of everyone around you.”
That seemed sufficient.
He got back to work on the leg, running through the simulated testing once more.
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Post by Nightcrawler on Sept 2, 2006 2:36:32 GMT -5
With the characteristic bamf! Kurt appeared next to Forge. It had taken a few tries to discover just which room he was in. He'd have to remember to apologize for the smell of brimstone in Bandero's room.
Letting a hand rest on Forge's shoulder, Kurt leaned down next to him. "So, mein Freund, what is the problem? It sounded important."
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Post by forge on Sept 2, 2006 2:47:14 GMT -5
Forge had braced himself for the inevitable teleportation entry, but he still jumped a bit when Nightcrawler bamfed into the place. Materialization was something that took a bit of getting used too… didn’t help that the process made the place smell like Hell. Literally.
He nodded gravely at the Kurt. “Yeah, seems pretty messed up. Turns out someone was in Candice’s office around 3 this morning scanning secure files and locations, using her personal ID and password… only she was asleep at the time. Whoever it was was a good enough hacker to bust through it no problem, and started searching the mutant archives. I checked in with her and got a visual on what they saw… check this out.”
He turned a flat screen towards Kurt, and though he hit no buttons on the computer – which apparently didn’t even have a keyboard or mouse – the images began to change. It cycled through the login process, then essentially showed the entire trip that was taken that night through the systems. It showed them gathering Poseidon’s file, then pausing on Phase’s… then it showed the upload, and the exit.
“And that’s it… Phase and Sy. I went ahead and set up a subroutine to notify me when someone logs into access restricted data like that, and I can just manually contact them to ask them if they’re actually doing it…”
He looked over to the German.
“But that leaves us with the mystery, doesn’t it? Who in the school went in and started hacking us?”
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Post by Nightcrawler on Sept 3, 2006 11:29:01 GMT -5
Kurt watched the process with concern. He knew very little about computers - his fingers were just a little too thick to use the keyboard - but he did know that there was a lot of sensitive information kept in those restricted files, stuff that they didn't want most people in the mansion seeing. And everyone who was supposed to be able to see them had their own access codes.
The problem was that there were so many new people filtering in. With absolutely no way to tell if all the newcomers were honest or not, this was a terrible development. It would cast suspicion on all the newer mutants at the Institute, and that was not something they needed to have happen.
Kurt chewed on the inside of his lip, looking at the computer screen. "Is there anything you can do to identify the hacker? Security feeds or something?"
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Post by forge on Sept 3, 2006 12:18:34 GMT -5
“Well,” Forge said, picking up a donut and taking a bite. “If you guys have internal security cameras or other surveillance, they aren't linked to the central computer system – which is smart. I haven't physically gone out and looked for them... I always thought the school wouldn't have internal cameras, you know, because it's a school? But given the level of problems this place has had before, it's possible...”
He stared at the screen again, munching. Casually he held the box of donuts out to Kurt, offering him one.
“Without the cameras, I guess someone is going to have to foot some detective work. Somebody had to have seen who was out and about in the school at three in the morning. Maybe that 'Remote Control' kid.”
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Post by Nightcrawler on Sept 3, 2006 12:31:21 GMT -5
Kurt took one of the donuts, his eyes never leaving the screen. Who would want information on Sy and Hannah? There must have been a reason...
"Danke," he said belatedly to Forge, taking a bite. "Can I ask you to check and see if we have any sort of surveilance on the upper levels? You would know the most about it. I can ask around to see if anyone saw anything." Kurt took another bite. "Jones may have seen something. He doesn't miss much."
Kurt sighed, rubbing his chin. It wasn't something they needed now, this issue of hacking within the mansion.
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Post by forge on Sept 3, 2006 13:04:47 GMT -5
“Not a problem, Kurt.” Forge said, rolling his chair back, and facing the door. “I'll see what I can find. If you talk to Orroro, let me know what she says about it. She would probably be the only one who'd know where the cameras are normally, IF there are any. I have a feeling we're watched in the halls down here, but in the school itself, probably not. Just doesn't seem like something Xavier would do.”
He grabbed an extra donut, and put it in a paper towel on his lap. Sliding a 20 oz Mountain Dew into a specialized holster on the chair, he nodded to Kurt.
“Come to think about it, there is external security – on the outside. We'll see if anyone was hanging out outside. I'll see what I can find. Keep in touch with the communicator.”
He rolled off towards the door, ready to begin the odd quest for surveillance in the house. He hoped that someone simply saw the person who was out and snooping around the offices at such a late (or early) hour. Either way, that leg of the inquiry will be up to the people with better mobility and knowledge of the student base than he.
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Post by Nightcrawler on Sept 3, 2006 13:17:15 GMT -5
Kurt finished off his donut, mumbling in agreement. He swallowed before continuing. "Ja, I'm not sure we have cameras upstairs either, but I will talk to Ororo about it."
As Forge turned towards the door in his chair, Kurt focused and was gone.
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