Schooled by Jeff Adams

Author:Jeff Adams [Adams, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Big Gay Media

Twenty

Returning from the break room at the end of the hall, we found Mrs. H studying a monitor in the hallway. It hadn’t been there when we’d left the room earlier.

“Oh, hey, you guys are doing great it looks like.” She gestured at the screen and we looked at it.

The monitor showed how many modules had been broken by each school. We were in a four-way tie for first. Two schools had one and the remaining school had none. At the bottom of the screen was a note: Leader board only shows how many modules have been hacked. Scoring for timing will be added after the competition is complete.

“And we’re ready to attack three of the others.” Jessie sounded full of confidence.

Mrs. H smiled, as if all the plans she’d put in place were executing perfectly. We hadn’t won yet, but I guessed she felt pretty good about it.

Back in the room, we got to work. I brought up Six to study it. It was something I might create to secure sensitive TOS information. Is this what it looks like to teachers when a parent helps too much with homework? It’s hard to believe they even let it in the competition since it was leaps and bounds ahead of the other entries.

Maybe the team that submitted Six had someone skilled like Dean and me. It almost had to be a single person since it didn’t seem possible a whole team of people our age could have this level of skill. I couldn’t discount that it might be a fluke too. Maybe it’s the infinite monkey theorem in action—left long enough a monkey at a keyboard could code something uncrackable.

I smiled at my weird thought, which evolved into monkeys trying to design encryption.

The code was beautiful, and the more I studied it, the more I marveled at the masterful structure. Nothing resembled a backdoor, but there were some traps waiting for those who weren’t cautious.

I’d looked long enough. I decided to dive in to crack it. I didn’t want to do the team’s job for them, but my review hadn’t given me tangible information to tell them.

After a couple hours or so, a recognizable pattern emerged. How had I missed these? Maybe because they shouldn’t be here.

I opened my notebook and wrote out what I saw, and there was no doubt.

“Fuck me,” I said quietly, but involuntarily.

“Theo?” Dean, seated two terminals away with Cullen, looked at me.

“Sorry, nothing. Missed something obvious. It happens.”

“Maybe you should take a break,” he said. “You’ve looked like you want to climb inside the screen. Come talk to us about Four and then check on how the guys are doing on Three and Five. By then we should break for lunch.”

“Gimme a few more minutes. Then I’ll take a break, clear my head, and work with you guys.”

He nodded and returned to work.

I flipped the page of the notebook over and scribbled the same code over again. There was no mistake and yet it had to be wrong.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.