by RockyMountainNavy, 9 September 2024
Brant all-but punched his fist through the computer screen. After the mix-up with The Armchair Dragoons website renewal this was exactly NOT what he needed. The logs clearly showed that the website was under attack by a zombie-horde’s worth of Bots trying to get into the Forums. So many, in fact, that the website was overworking and not accessible to outside users. He had already notified Patreon supporters and was working with the website host provider but the attacks were incessant. Banging his fist on the table (he knew hitting the screen would only make things worse) he got up and went in search of another energy drink because this was going to be a long night.
ArChaDra, Zero Day
Colonel G’dadi was awake the nanomoment the alert sounded. The holo dashboard floated in their line of sight with data logs. Captain Worf, the SAV Program who manned the walls of ArChaDra, was pleading for help. Somebody—many hundreds if not thousands of somebodys—were trying to get past the walls and reach the ArChaDra Forum. This was a brute force attack with massive numbers of invading Bots. As a SAV program, Colonel G’dadi led the ArChaDra internal defense forces; it was the Colonel’s responsibility to fight off the threatening bots if they made it past the walls and into ArChaDra.
The data logs from Captain Worf told of many bots trying to breach the walls and reach the Forum, but few other details were available. Colonel G’dadi checked the intel web and saw a recent report from a source on CVE-2024-6386 which reported a threat from bots trying to break into cities using a vulnerability in the multilingual plug-ins that Mayor WillIE PEte, the leading OP program, used to help foreigners work in ArChaDra. G’dadi noticed that somebody had already activated a Captcha App that demanded extra identification when passing the wall. G’dadi ruefully wondered if the Great Cloud would notice; with an election coming demanding identification was actually helpful. Probably not.
G’dadi’s commlink chimed. It was StremY, the main REC program that produced Mentioned in Dispatches, the official podcast of ArChaDra. “Colonel,” they started. “I’ve got my latest podcast episode ready to post but I can’t get any processor time. Do you know what’s happening?” Getting the podcast posted was important for the economy of ArChaDra depended on the wealth the Great Patreon provided. No podcast and the Great Patreon could turn away and ArChaDra might perish. This truly was a life or death situation.
By now G’dadi had grabbed their Byte Rifle and made their way to the walls of ArChaDra. Upon arriving at the wall G’dadi saw Captain Worf, now also supported by Sergeant Askim—another SAV Program—atop the wall. They were being backed up by OSsie, the ever vigilant OP Program that was responsible for processor time allocation throughout ArChaDra. OSsie was working hard as they passed all the processing time available to Worf and Askim. G’dadi tried to communicate with OSsie but they were so busy feeding Worf and Askim who were fending off the thousands of bots that there was no response. G’dadi watched as OSsie fed a steady flow of processor time which Worf and Askim used to plug chips in the wall from the many bots. Worf and Askim were racing from chip to chip, replacing the damage before the bots broke through. G’dadi tried again to plead with OSsie to free up some processor time to let the outside world communicate with ArChaDra. OSsie, brow sweating, could only give G’dadi a dirty look before going back to shoveling processor time to Worf and Askim.
Confident (for the moment) that the walls were holding, G’dadi went to check on the data porters who waited just behind the wall. If a bot was going to get into ArChaDra they would very likely try to hitch a ride with one of the data porters to move around. G’dadi went first to Ey-E, the most popular BROW program found in ArChDra. While Ey-E was the most used data porter, they also had a reputation as not being very security conscious and took on most any customer, no questions asked. Ey-E, of course, had not updated their APT Lookout List in quite awhile. Ey-E insisted that WinnIE, the main OP Program, was supposed to feed the updates automatically but it just did not happen; it was not a “them” problem. G’dadi could only tell Ey-E to call WinnIE and get the latest update. Ey-E did so, all the time complaining that they would need to restart their entire day several times. It took a while but eventually Ey-E was freshened up.
Code Warriors RPG (NerdBurger Games, 2023) was a recent successful Kickstarter
Next, G’dadi dropped in on Go0gs, another BROW program. If Go0gs was known for anything it was they always asked for identification. The problem was G’dadi always found them selling personal information to many dubious Apps; so much so that they single-handedly ensured the employment of a great many SAV Programs that monitored the web for others. Worse still, Go0gs seemed to have dubious connections to the Dark Web and was always moving currency for the Crypt, run by a bit-gangster AV program named Bitcon that started out as an e-gamer but then joined the Crypt. Like Ey-E, G’dadi ensured Go0gs was updated with the latest APT lookout list.
G’dadi considered a courtesy call with Safri, the smallest of the data porters. Safri and Ey-E were the worst of enemies, so much so that it was sometimes (too many times?) all-but-impossible to transfer passengers between their two vehicles. G’dadi also thought Safri was a bit of a snob, always preferring to only work with programs and apps that belonged to the App-El Guild. “You have to admit though,” G’dadi thought, “that those iPhones in the Guild are pretty damn sexy looking. Their retina displays are dreamy to stare into. Too bad they gave up on the Lightening connectors because saying ‘Can I plug into your USB-C?’ is a really poor pick-up line.”
Once G’dadi made sure the data porters updated their APT lookout lists, they went to visit Mayor WillIE Pete. “WP,” as many called them, was a bit older than many other PROC programs in ArChaDra. There were many more recent versions of WP running other cities but for some reason the Great Developer had not asked any of them to move to ArChaDra. WillIE PEte explained that was probably a good thing; they speculated that the bots were optimized against newer versions of WP and found the older, more cantankerous version of WP in ArChaDra not as cooperative. This was a story G’dadi had heard before. There was a PIX Program, StAbdIf, that used the latest in AI technology that wanted to team with Mayor WillIE PEte to bring fresh marketing images to the programs of ArChaDra but WP was so old they just could not work together. G’dadi left feeling a bit relieved; in all likelihood WillIE PEte was going to survive the attack meaning ArChaDra would not need a new Mayor.
It was a tense few overclocked days, but finally the attacks against the walls of ArChaDra subsided. ArChaDra was safe, for the moment. OSsie was able to return to sharing processor time to the many programs and apps that (legally) resided in ArChaDra. Importantly, StremY got their episode posted to the Great Net which satisfied the Great Patreon. G’dadi was most happy Mayor WillIE PEte was still going strong, despite their age. That said, while Captain Worf had performed well it was obvious they needed more support than Sergeant Askim alone could provide. G’dadi smiled; it was about time their own spawn, G’dadi de Antiv, was promoted to a Lieutenant in the Order of SAV and sent to help defend the walls of ArChaDra. Colonel G’dadi slung their Byte Rifle over their shoulder. Today was not the day to battle the bots, but G’dadi, along with many other residents of ArChaDra, would be ready if the Bots came back.
— — — — —
This little story, inspired by true events, naturally seemed to lend itself to a good short campaign of the Code Warriors roleplaying game by Craig Campbell at NerdBurger Games. Code Warriors was published in 2023 and uses a relatively rules-lite game engine called the Roll-Track System. The default setting in Code Warriors is the Collapse of The System; those post-apocalyptic nanoseconds just as your computer dies and right before the Blue Screen of Death appears. In the Code Warriors roleplaying game, “all ‘people’ are programs. When referring to software and features functioning at a terminal or on a tablet or laptop, refer to them as ‘apps’ to keep things clear” (Code Warriors, p. 9).
In Code Warriors there are seven character archetypes or “Programs” as the game calls them. The core rule book defines the different programs this way:
- AV: “Part of a game program.” Celebrities, influencers, and entertainers.
- BROW: “Part of an internet or system browser.” Explorers, diplomats, and librarians.
- OP: “Part of the operating system.” Technicians, operators, and administrators.
- PIX: “Part of a graphics or modeling program.” Artists, builders, and fixers.
- PROC: “Part of a word/data processing, email, or spreadsheet program.” Laborers, clerks, and haulers.
- REC: “Part of an audio or video recording, playback, or editing program.” Guards, spies, and detectives.
- SAV: “Part of a screensaver, cleanup, antivirus, or system scanner tool.” Soldiers, scouts, and lookouts.
For this little story I mixed up the programs a bit, for example making BROW programs “data porters” or the Uber/Lyft of ArChaDra. In case you did not figure out what the different programs are, here are the Dramatis Personae and other names:
- ArChaDra – The Armchair Dragoons website.
- Colonel G’dadi – GoDaddy stock anti-virus program.
- Captain Worf – Wordfence firewall program.
- Mayor WillIE PEte or WP – WordPress website program.
- StremY – Streamyard online recording program.
- Great Patreon – Patreon.
- Sergeant Askim – Askimet protection program.
- OSsie – the Operating System.
- Ey-E – Internet Explorer (IE) browser.
- APT – Advanced Persistent Threat (bad programs and apps).
- WinnIE – Windows program.
- Go0gs – Google browser.
- Dark Web – Dark Web.
- Crypt – crypto currency.
- Bitcon – BitCoin.
- Safri – Safari browser.
- App-El Guild – Apple ecosystem.
- Great Developer – Regimental Commander Brant.
- StAbdIf – StableDiffusion AI image generator.
- G’dadi de Antiv – GoDaddy stock firewall program.
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