5Copyright by Mike Hayes 2012-2019. All rights reserved.

December 31, 2028 16:30 UTC 11:30 EST

DLR HQ

Alexandria, VA

Scroggins continued unfazed. “As the Moon was going dark from the total eclipse, your two rovers in pursuit were slowing down. The enemy took high ground, and let his power reserve increase to the max. Then he coasted downhill and attacked. When he attacked, his shadow cast forward, and blocked what little solar energy your rovers had. Then when your rovers were sluggish, barely moving, he ripped their PODs out.”

She spat at him. “No problem. I’ve ordered an XSWAT takedown of the AntiMatters Guild Headquarters. The ringleaders of this mutiny will be handcuffed, booked, and jailed.”

Scroggins did not stop or even slow down. “Director, regarding the XSWAT operation. The Guilds are worldwide, and don’t have a central command. They use a Blockchain technology for data, distributed over a hundred thousand personal computer systems around the world. There is no central database and no cloud data you can seize. Unless you can break their communications links, you can’t stop them. We know that the first action of a rebel is to yank the PODs from any of our rovers nearby. What will you do after the eclipse passes, if you have communications but there are no PODs in the rovers?”

“What should I do?” She looked into Scroggin’s thin, pasty white, unmoving face, but he was silent. Afraid. If he answered, he’d be responsible for the outcome.

She picked up her handheld, brought up the phone app, and made the call.

“Special Security? This is Director Sparrow. Execute Plan Moonbeam. Get your men to the L2 Comm Administrative Facility at the New Mexico Spaceport. Locate the inbound router handling traffic to and from the Moon and take physical control of it.”

She listened, then answered, “Do not touch or change anything. Just take physical control, and station guards. Take control of the building’s power, as well. Then await further instructions.”

Seventeen hundred miles away, at White Sands Missile Range, two Army helicopters lifted off and headed west, for the short hop to the Spaceport. In the air, the attack squad leader found info about the classified mission on his console. The package included the blueprints for the L2 Comm facilities at the Spaceport. The squad leader began forming their tactical deployments.

“One more thing. Bring up the Hackers-On-Call list and find someone to modify the L2 Comm space router code. We need to selectively block rovers on a case by case basis.”

Blair had been listening, and stepped forward. “Director. I would suggest the Sleeper? He was the hacker that got into the TSA airport scanners. He’s very talented. You may recall we recruited him last year?”

Darn right I remember that criminal. The guy who’d released live audio and video of the TSA agents. A hundred streams of video of various airport scanner review rooms. The hacker had publicly leaked TSA agents’ personal, private collections of the video and X-ray data.

The Sleeper had released hundreds of video clips of the agents watching and joking about their collections, the celebrities they gotten video and X-ray of, what they’d like to do with them. They’d been trading them on their breaks and at lunchtime. One of the agents had thousands, cross linked with all their personal information, and was auctioning off their info and pics on Internet auction sites. At least that’s what happened to the ones that didn’t pay off in his blackmail scheme.

Of course, the TSA itself had also been embarrassed. They had for years been claiming that they did not acquire precision body images from all those passing through the scanners, and that only cartoon representations of body images were used. But actually, they acquired and kept permanently all high-resolution video and X-ray data sets, and tagged them with the individual’s personal data. This data was extremely useful to the TSA. By compiling a history of body images, it was easy to certify if the person was who he claimed to be. And it was equally easy to tell if there was any contraband under the clothes.

The body image database was useful far more than just for national security purposes. For example, suppose that the body image history showed that a person had over the last five years gained weight. A certain amount of Good Spam would be routed to those individuals on the subject of weight loss. Eevenues to the government were substantial from spam licensing.

The TSA had been publicly advertising for years to airline, train, and bus passengers, “TSA will not ever invade your privacy. With our advanced technology, our trusted agents will never see you as you might appear naked!”

The nerve of that Sleeper, embarrassing rank and file TSA agents like that! The agents deserved respect and privacy.The TSA’s mission performance had certainly been damaged by the leaks of the Sleeper.

Particularly damaging had been the leaked videos of the gay and lesbian TSA agents, assigned to review same sex passengers. One had matched the passenger manifests with names of celebrities, VIPs, and the persons-of-interest database. For those selected, he matched their video with their X-ray video data, and then ran it through motion activation software. Simple as that, he had naked celebrity video. This enterprising agent proceeded to sell the nude celebrity video on public auction sites. He didn’t even bother to pay the government fees for online pornography distribution. The Sleeper tracked him down, too.

Once targeted by the TSA, the Sleeper was promptly rooted out, and his public leaks put to a stop. He was faced with prosecution under the Privacy Act for the video he’d released. The TSA made him a deal he couldn’t refuse. Help the TSA and stay out of jail.

Under the table of course, the powers-that-be encouraged the growth of the hacker community and saw to it that leading talented hackers got boosts of publicity. It made good stories for the media. “Creative, brilliant underdogs challenge the establishment!” It encouraged growth and identification of talent, which the government could not do within the stifling bounds of military, or civil service. However, these activities were closely monitored and the best individuals were tapped or if required, coerced into public service.

Then she thought of a solution. “Tell you what — Get a couple of local police over to him. They can get him up and on the job. We need to restore communications selectively, as soon as possible after that darn eclipse passes.” She looked to Scroggins. “How long do we have before the sun is back up and rover power is back up?”

“Seventy-one minutes of complete dark, then sixty-nine minutes of gradual return to normal light.”

Sparrow turned to the room. “Crew, two hours before we have lunar power again. Let’s get that hacker on the job! Move on it!”