Silvertroll

Spamrolled

The off-peak city-bound train is commuter-free, albeit a worker wearing a high visibility vest sits a few rows down, seated facing me. I always ride facing the direction of the train. Why people choose to ride seated backwards is beyond my understanding. I check the rest of the carriage. There isn't a lack of seating, so why the fuck sit like that? The Yellow-vest Man stares at me so I avoid eye contact, looking at my phone.

I look up to find the Yellow-vest Man sleeping.

Where is he going at this time?

I ponder this the entire trip, up until I enter the foyer of my office. I greet the regular faces. The cleaner wiping the glass panel, the receptionist at her desk, it's business as usual. I get smiles and nods from staff, and pity from the ones that know of my misfortune. I retrieve my laptop from the locker and find a free desk to work at, late as I am, nobody is going to give me any grief. I am a no-go zone. The sympathy and space afforded to me have been overwhelming and appreciated. The office left me alone, and I left them...

...ACCOUNT LOCKED.

What?

It took a few seconds and a few attempts at login to get my head around the fact that access to my laptop was not happening. I get up and approach the IT help desk, where Derek sits. The pained look on his face worries the hell out of me.

"What's wrong with my laptop, Derek," I ask him. I know he doesn't like me. Dickhead infogeekologists like him look down on people like me. They view us as a dying breed. A blight on the face of a corporate fiction called 'progress'.

"Your account has been suspended."

"Why?"

Derek looks confused, worried even, when another man steps up. Same age, but wearing a neater suit, the executive places his hand on Derek's shoulder, telling him, "I'll deal with this." He then turns to me and says, "Hello, I'm Peter Zansk from Hyperor Systems. How can I help you?

"I haven't seen you around," I answer.

The young well-dressed executive looks around and nods proudly, "We're new. Part of the intelligent network upgrade.'

That is more information than I need, so I get to the point, "Okay... Well, I can't log into my account."

Zansk looks at my laptop, "Oh, you must be Nathan Caves. Your account has been suspended."

"Why?"

"You're receiving a deluge of spam, it's grinding down the entire network. It's basically a DOS attack, so we had to shut it down."

Derek shrugs. "Sorry. You'll have to get by without it while we sort it out."

I don't understand a thing this kid is telling me. "What's a dos attack?"

Derek speaks up, "Distributed denial-of-service attack. It happens when multiple external systems flood the network using up the whole bandwidth."

Zansk adds, "Very unusual why they'd be targeting only your account. Where the hell have you been using your email address?"

Halfway through the explanation, it dawns on me.

Fucking Silvertroll.

Derek and this guy, Zansk stare at me, probably waiting for me to stop twitching my head.

"Show me," I say.

Zansk is confused, "Show you what?

"Show me the spam."

Zansk hesitates but relents. He takes me to a corner of the building, to another monitor. He clicks on a program until a mass of email headers fills the screen.

Penny Need a girl for sex?

Belinda Will date a man for sex

Greg Hudson 30 freespins no deposit required

CV 678 We are looking for employees working remotely

Lillie Pretty girl is looking for a man with a big cock

Velma Ready to fuck someones wife?

Denise Open sex registry

Hundreds of them. Thousands.

"How do we trace where these are coming from?" I ask.

Zansk looks at me as if I said something outlandish. He frowns and pinches his lower lip, contemplating how to explain it to me. "This is huge. Most of this stuff usually comes from trojans and bots on ordinary computers. If your computer at home's been compromised, then these hackers can use it to emulate an email server. That's how they do it. Millions of spam from botnets all over the world. But this has everything. I took a sample and found a good mix of marketing companies, proper servers, most likely hacked, and free email services. This attacker used every trick in the book."

"Is there any way to track down the attacker?"

Zansk's voice changes, "Not really."

"There has to be."

Zansk resists, "It would be difficult."

"But it can be done?"

"We don't have the resources."

"Come on, Peter Zansk. I need to get this guy."

Zansk steps back, "Hey, we've just been hit by a gamut of email bombs, including cluster and zip bombs. Do you know what these things did? They ground down our server to a crawl, which has already taken up time and resources. We've closed your account. This seems to have fixed the problem."

I have no idea of what he is talking about so I debate my next move in my head. Do I push it, or do I... "Can I have a sample, something to investigate?"

"What's there to investigate? You've been spamrolled. Next time be careful what you do online."

This doesn't sit well with me. "What? People can get away with this sort of thing without any recriminations? I understand we inhabit a world that is both virtual and actual, but it does not mean we have no rules, etiquette or respect when inhabiting the virtual one, does it?"

Zansk shakes his head, "Nope. Pretty much how it is. It's a dog eat dog jungle out there. There are no rules. There exist no etiquette, so to speak. And that's why they do it? Because they can. All that can be done is manage the problem. This is why customers pay big bucks for intelligent network providers such as Hyperor Systems to manage this sea of anarchy for them. Tell you what. I'll send you a link. It'll have all the archives and raw message information. Go for your life."

"How am I gonna get a link without an email address?"

Zansk sighs. I suspect he doesn't really give a shit about my situation. "We'll have one up and running for you soon."

"How soon?"

He shrugs as his phone starts ringing, excusing himself with an outstretched finger. I can see how eager he is to get away from me. "You've been a great help," I tell him. "Your boss at Hyperor Systems should give you a pay rise."

Zansk turns to me and responds, "I am the boss." He gives me a thumbs-up and goes on his way.

I end up walking around from workstation to workstation looking for a colleague, any colleague, to talk to. But suddenly, I feel like I don't belong.

What am I doing here?

Meetings. Projects. Scorecard Updates. Huddles. Lunches. Steering Committees. Fun Committees.

I sit down in the collaboration area, on those nice cushions, and watch the corporate propaganda slides on the vertical television. The world around me doesn't seem relevant anymore. Pointless to even be here. Clear as day, my rage is my world.

A tangible world.

Silvertroll.

I decide to quit this job. I don't bother to write a resignation letter, I simply make up my mind to walk out of there and never return.

I snatch a whiteboard marker and write on the glass panel.

CAVEMAN10@SIA.MAIL