Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [22]
‘You know, I’m rather enjoying myself,’ the Doctor said.
‘I haven’t played with technology this simple for a very long time. It’s rather like discovering your old toys at the back of the cupboard. I’m not having much luck with these files.’ He tapped a fingernail against the glass of the display ‘I think it might be easier to read through some of Swan’s email.
Perhaps she’s discussed what I need to know with some of her colleagues.’
Breaking and entering computers is still a grey area of the law But the law aside, there was something a little itchy about reading other people’s mail. But before the Doctor could start purloining any letters, we were suddenly and decisively kicked off the TLA system.
‘Someone’s noticed us,’ said the Doctor.
I had spent a few minutes in a half-panic, expecting the police to descend on the hotel room. When someone knocked at the door, I just about dived under the bed. But it was room service, with a three-course meal and a bottle of champagne.
The Doctor knew that whoever had slammed the door in our face had no way of telling which direction we’d come from. So we did it all again: another genuine email message followed by a, uh, Doctored one. The Doctor typed with one hand while he sampled his dinner with the other. I cracked open the champagne and had a badly needed half-glass. The system opened up to us again in less than five minutes. ‘It will take them days to puzzle out how we’re getting in’ This time his user name was jeoffrey. ‘For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command,’ non-explained the Doctor.
He used the who command to see who else was online at TLA. ‘Sarah Swan herself,’ he said ‘Undoubtedly it was she who invited us to leave.’
‘How long before she notices we’re back?’
‘No time at all,’ said the Doctor, already sitting forward in his seat and tapping intensely at the keys. ‘So, turn about being fair play, I’m going to log her out before she can do the same to us, There.’ A few more commands, and the Doctor’s bit of magic was running in the background – a time bomb quietly ticking. ‘While she puzzles over that, I’m going to download a copy of all her email. Then we can read it at our leisure.’
I’ve sat and watched a lot of hackers at work. Whether driven by curiosity or greed – or a little bit of each – they all treat their ‘hobby’ as a game. Hackers match wits with systems and system operators, dumb and smart. They pit their skills and know-how – and more often, their sheer bloody-minded determination – against the people who want to keep them out of their chosen playground.
The Doctor treated his hacking mission just the same way.
He reminded me of the enthusiastic kids in my high-school chess club, taking a piece with a twist of the wrist, a clack of colliding wood, and a triumphant quip. The difference was that he gave me the overwhelming impression that this was just a game. Nothing as sophisticated as chess: more like an adult stooping to sit in the dirt and flick marbles with a pre-schooler. More like a human being deigning to throw a tennis ball again and again for a dog.
My guess is that the Doctor spends most of his time with computers far superior to the humble Apple II – presumably the multi-million-dollar mainframes that hackers itch to have illicit access to. And yet, I can’t help but feel that if the Doctor were confronted with the latest Cray supercomputer, it would just be another half-chewed tennis ball to him.
When Swan saw that her intruder was back again, she slammed her coffee down on her desk and grabbed for the log files. She must have managed to back them up before the Doctor could erase our fingerprints, because her next step was to try to break into the university’s computer. Swan was not the sort to waste time reporting burglars to system administrators who knew less about their machines than she did. Besides, to be fair, it was unlikely anyone would be in the office at that hour.
If there had been anyone