Free The Blue Nowhere-SA by Jeffery Deaver Page A

wondered again why Shelton was riding the young man so hard - especially considering that the hacker was helping them out on a case the detective had volunteered for.
    Gillette ignored the pock-faced cop and sat down in a swivel chair, flipped open his notebook. When he spoke it was to Anderson. "There's something odd going on. The killer was in her computer. He seized root and--"
    "Dumb it down," Shelton muttered. "Seized what?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    Gillette explained, "When somebody has root that means they have complete control over a computer network and all the machines on it."
    Anderson added, "When you're root you can rewrite programs, delete files, add authorized users, remove them, go online as somebody else."
    Gillette continued, "But I can't figure out how he did it. The only thing unusual I found were some scrambled files -I thought they were some kind of encrypted virus but they turned out to be just gibberish. There's not a trace of any kind of software on her machine that would let him get inside." Glancing at Bishop, he explained, "See, I could load a virus in your computer that'd let me seize root on your machine and get inside it from wherever I am, whenever I want to, without needing a passcode. They're called 'back door' viruses - as in sneaking in through the back door.
    "But in order for them to work I have to somehow actually install the software on your computer and activate it. I could send it to you as an attachment to an e-mail, say, and you could activate it by opening the attachment without knowing what it was. Or I could break into your house and install it on your computer then activate it myself. But there's no evidence that happened. No, he seized root some other way."
    The hacker was an animated speaker, Anderson noticed. His eyes were glowing with that absorbed animation he'd seen in so many young geeks - even the ones who were sitting in court, more or less convicting themselves as they excitedly described their exploits to the judge and jury.
    "Then how do you know he seized root?" Linda Sanchez asked.
    "I hacked together this kludge." He handed Anderson a floppy disk.
    "What's it do?" Patricia Nolan asked, her professional curiosity piqued, as was Anderson's.
    "It's called Detective. It looks for things that aren't inside a computer." He explained for the benefit of the non-CCU cops. "When your computer runs, the operating system -like Windows - stores parts of the programs it needs all over your hard drive. There're patterns to where and when it stores those files." Indicating the disk, he said, "That showed me that a lot of those bits of programs'd been moved to places on the hard drive that make sense only if somebody was going through her computer from a remote location."
    Shelton shook his head in confusion.
    But Frank Bishop said, "You mean, it's like you know a burglar was inside your house because he moved furniture and didn't put the pieces back. Even though he was gone when you got home." Gillette nodded. "Exactly."
    Andy Anderson - as much a wizard as Gillette in some areas - hefted the thin disk in his hand. He couldn't help feeling impressed. When he was considering asking Gillette to help them, the cop had looked through some of Gillette's script, which the prosecutor had submitted as evidence in the case against him. After examining the brilliant lines of source code Anderson had two thoughts. The first was that if anyone could figure out how the perp had gotten into Lara Gibson's computer it was Wyatt Gillette.
    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    The second was pure, painful envy of the young man's skills. Throughout the world there were tens of thousands of code crunchers - people who happily churn out tight, efficient software for mundane tasks and there were just as many script bunnies, the term for kids who write wildly creative but clumsy and largely useless programs