identification by carrying out a variety of technical measures, such as implanting hidden code and additional pages in secret locations on already established websites, and building pathways into unused data spaces on servers, where they would create a temporary website called a 'fox hole' with partially hijacked domain names, all of which usually occurred without drawing any unwanted attention, but when it did, everything could be dismantled or abandoned and relocated within a moment's notice, leaving the authorities and their moles always on the back foot.
Once Ikaros had collected the components for the programs from various hard-to-get-at locations — a nearly seventy-two-hour hunt and hoop-jumping exercise that required an intensity that would be difficult for anyone to sustain, particularly when, for the most part, it seemed entirely likely he was chasing a phantom, and also that the final twenty-four hours needed to be done just about without so much as a piss break — Ikaros found to his relief that the technology was easy enough to install and use. What resulted from this, however, was an unprecedented way of laundering money: his ransom was transferred to a freshly generated and temporary ghost account attached inconspicuously to a foreign bank's website; upon arriving, it was then channelled through a 'mouse hole' made in a nearby so-called 'super-firewall'; once resealed, over a hundred thousand false traces were disseminated through the Internet for forty-eight hours while the actual data divided into small sub-groups and hid randomly amongst the code of legitimate data strings, thus making any chance of being followed infinitely complex and well-beyond the capabilities of any law-enforcement agency, or home-based hackers for that matter. Once the data groups arrived at dozens of institutions around the world, inconspicuous amounts of money were placed in accounts previously opened by the meta-parenting program and its developers and were shared by the growing network of users — an inherent risk that Ikaros had to take, the continuation of which was not without its benefits for the developers who became extremely wealthy. All funds were moved on to other accounts after a short time, and the account being departed from was closed for security reasons, a process that was repeated at irregular intervals until long after Ikaros stopped using the service.
Accessing money was also easy as it could be withdrawn via the Internet from any of the institutions in which small portions of the total amount were being kept by using an access code generated daily by the program hub, which kept in periodic contact with all of the data sub-groups and co-ordinated their movements: the program hub itself was Internet based and only provided updates when contacted by Ikaros after entering a security code on the program's phone app, which had covertly merged with, and buried itself in, a popular science app Ikaros otherwise seldom used. Only a few minutes were required for the transfer of the requested sum to be processed and money to be drawn from around the network; Ikaros's cash card would then be credited after being swiped through a card reader — a technology that came into use sixteen years earlier when coins, printed money, and ATMs were phased out. The convenience of the cash card, of course, was that it obviated Ikaros's need for a real bank account and allowed him to make purchases anonymously in a similar way to the real cash of the past.
It dawned on Ikaros that, with just a few modifications, this technology could have been just moments away from being able to generate free money, which would evidently cause rapid inflation if its use became widespread. He mused that perhaps he should have spent some time looking for such a possibility instead, and that he could have gone to an awful lot of unnecessary bother by conducting the operation that he did. He dismissed this concern almost immediately as
Once Ikaros had collected the components for the programs from various hard-to-get-at locations — a nearly seventy-two-hour hunt and hoop-jumping exercise that required an intensity that would be difficult for anyone to sustain, particularly when, for the most part, it seemed entirely likely he was chasing a phantom, and also that the final twenty-four hours needed to be done just about without so much as a piss break — Ikaros found to his relief that the technology was easy enough to install and use. What resulted from this, however, was an unprecedented way of laundering money: his ransom was transferred to a freshly generated and temporary ghost account attached inconspicuously to a foreign bank's website; upon arriving, it was then channelled through a 'mouse hole' made in a nearby so-called 'super-firewall'; once resealed, over a hundred thousand false traces were disseminated through the Internet for forty-eight hours while the actual data divided into small sub-groups and hid randomly amongst the code of legitimate data strings, thus making any chance of being followed infinitely complex and well-beyond the capabilities of any law-enforcement agency, or home-based hackers for that matter. Once the data groups arrived at dozens of institutions around the world, inconspicuous amounts of money were placed in accounts previously opened by the meta-parenting program and its developers and were shared by the growing network of users — an inherent risk that Ikaros had to take, the continuation of which was not without its benefits for the developers who became extremely wealthy. All funds were moved on to other accounts after a short time, and the account being departed from was closed for security reasons, a process that was repeated at irregular intervals until long after Ikaros stopped using the service.
Accessing money was also easy as it could be withdrawn via the Internet from any of the institutions in which small portions of the total amount were being kept by using an access code generated daily by the program hub, which kept in periodic contact with all of the data sub-groups and co-ordinated their movements: the program hub itself was Internet based and only provided updates when contacted by Ikaros after entering a security code on the program's phone app, which had covertly merged with, and buried itself in, a popular science app Ikaros otherwise seldom used. Only a few minutes were required for the transfer of the requested sum to be processed and money to be drawn from around the network; Ikaros's cash card would then be credited after being swiped through a card reader — a technology that came into use sixteen years earlier when coins, printed money, and ATMs were phased out. The convenience of the cash card, of course, was that it obviated Ikaros's need for a real bank account and allowed him to make purchases anonymously in a similar way to the real cash of the past.
It dawned on Ikaros that, with just a few modifications, this technology could have been just moments away from being able to generate free money, which would evidently cause rapid inflation if its use became widespread. He mused that perhaps he should have spent some time looking for such a possibility instead, and that he could have gone to an awful lot of unnecessary bother by conducting the operation that he did. He dismissed this concern almost immediately as
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