confusion on my face. “I inserted an access into the base code, a remote 'back-door' into the system. If anything strange is going on I'll know.”
“My father had a similar set-up on a computer in my flat at the Hall.”
Oldfield looked me sharply. “What do you mean?”
I told him what I had discovered. He smiled gently. “That’s the code I showed him how to write back when we were at Cambridge. My own invention. He remembered. Well I'll be damned. It's quite antiquated now, but obviously it still works.”
He declined a flight in the helicopter, preferring to keep his feet on the ground and opted to take the train. 'Good meditation time' was how he put it.
Julie and I flew back to the Hall as dawn broke across a threatening looking sky. A cold front was expected in the early afternoon and I didn't want to be caught out. As it was, the first spattering of rain began just as we wheeled the aircraft back into the hangar.
I t was still raining two days later as we pulled into the parking slot at the University. Big drops splashing down, gathering force until soon it seemed as if we were driving through a waterfall. Oldfield had called and asked us to meet him at the University. Cambridge was only one hour’s drive away and with the weather conditions, flying made no sense.
Julie and I dashed to the door and were met by the Professor. He led us through the corridors, greeting students and faculty alike until we finally arrived at his office, a small but immaculately kept room full of reference books on computer theory and computer language. He wasted no time once we were settled into our seats.
"What do you know about the way computers operate?" he said to me.
“Not much. Zeros and ones?” I offered. Julie dug me in the ribs sharply and Oldfield just looked at me as if I was an idiot.
"I know you know more than that. Okay. These days with the Internet and cloud storage, we can keep billions and billions of pieces of information in multiple places, that unless you were specifically looking for, and knew the pathway to, you would never find." He paused and crossed to a filing cabinet, opened it and pulled out a bottle of Talisker Single Malt Scotch Whisky. “Unless you're a very good hacker.” He poured two glasses handed one each to Julie and myself, then poured a generous amount into his own glass.
“Now you will appreciate that if a company such as yours takes all its financial, employee records, accounts and other business activities, and stores that information in the 'Cloud', it is particularly susceptible to fraud or sabotage. Indeed a certain gentleman has claimed that he could 'steal a company blind in three days and leave its books looking balanced' . It has been done on numerous occasions and the ones we know about are only the people who have been caught. Now we try to prevent 'hacking' from occurring by employing very sophisticated security encryption programs, but sometimes the base system is so outdated that it is easy to crawl in through a 'backdoor'. One reason why Governments are always being hacked is that they employ security companies with the lowest bid.” He took a long draft of scotch and licked his lips appreciatively before turning his gaze on me. “How do you like the whisky?”
“A little peaty for my taste, but interesting.”
He nodded and poured more into his glass. “How did you know that there was something wrong with the system?"
"Well, it's more of a gut feeling. I feel there's something wrong and yet there is no information, which serves to further fuel my feeling that there is something wrong. That and the fact that my father was murdered."
He nodded. “I managed to find out the amount of computer storage that had been used, cross-checked this with the programmes running and the data files. There are seven and a half gigabytes unaccounted for. The computer is simply a machine that relies upon being given information. Very sophisticated and complex information
“My father had a similar set-up on a computer in my flat at the Hall.”
Oldfield looked me sharply. “What do you mean?”
I told him what I had discovered. He smiled gently. “That’s the code I showed him how to write back when we were at Cambridge. My own invention. He remembered. Well I'll be damned. It's quite antiquated now, but obviously it still works.”
He declined a flight in the helicopter, preferring to keep his feet on the ground and opted to take the train. 'Good meditation time' was how he put it.
Julie and I flew back to the Hall as dawn broke across a threatening looking sky. A cold front was expected in the early afternoon and I didn't want to be caught out. As it was, the first spattering of rain began just as we wheeled the aircraft back into the hangar.
I t was still raining two days later as we pulled into the parking slot at the University. Big drops splashing down, gathering force until soon it seemed as if we were driving through a waterfall. Oldfield had called and asked us to meet him at the University. Cambridge was only one hour’s drive away and with the weather conditions, flying made no sense.
Julie and I dashed to the door and were met by the Professor. He led us through the corridors, greeting students and faculty alike until we finally arrived at his office, a small but immaculately kept room full of reference books on computer theory and computer language. He wasted no time once we were settled into our seats.
"What do you know about the way computers operate?" he said to me.
“Not much. Zeros and ones?” I offered. Julie dug me in the ribs sharply and Oldfield just looked at me as if I was an idiot.
"I know you know more than that. Okay. These days with the Internet and cloud storage, we can keep billions and billions of pieces of information in multiple places, that unless you were specifically looking for, and knew the pathway to, you would never find." He paused and crossed to a filing cabinet, opened it and pulled out a bottle of Talisker Single Malt Scotch Whisky. “Unless you're a very good hacker.” He poured two glasses handed one each to Julie and myself, then poured a generous amount into his own glass.
“Now you will appreciate that if a company such as yours takes all its financial, employee records, accounts and other business activities, and stores that information in the 'Cloud', it is particularly susceptible to fraud or sabotage. Indeed a certain gentleman has claimed that he could 'steal a company blind in three days and leave its books looking balanced' . It has been done on numerous occasions and the ones we know about are only the people who have been caught. Now we try to prevent 'hacking' from occurring by employing very sophisticated security encryption programs, but sometimes the base system is so outdated that it is easy to crawl in through a 'backdoor'. One reason why Governments are always being hacked is that they employ security companies with the lowest bid.” He took a long draft of scotch and licked his lips appreciatively before turning his gaze on me. “How do you like the whisky?”
“A little peaty for my taste, but interesting.”
He nodded and poured more into his glass. “How did you know that there was something wrong with the system?"
"Well, it's more of a gut feeling. I feel there's something wrong and yet there is no information, which serves to further fuel my feeling that there is something wrong. That and the fact that my father was murdered."
He nodded. “I managed to find out the amount of computer storage that had been used, cross-checked this with the programmes running and the data files. There are seven and a half gigabytes unaccounted for. The computer is simply a machine that relies upon being given information. Very sophisticated and complex information
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