Low Tech Spyware
December 4, 2023 – San Jose, California, USA
Tony Fish was a social creature. He needed to be around people. He needed to be heard. It made him a great salesman. He could be charming and persuasive and when he identified a sales target, he could be relentless.
Tony was far and away the most valuable employee at Centauri Lasers. Centauri was a well-established company that had once been innovative. As it matured, however, the company relied more and more on Tony’s sales skills to keep its products moving.
That December morning, Tony splashed on his usual dose of cologne and strolled from his San Jose home toward the train stop. He wore his version of business casual: slacks, collared shirt, and a blazer. He was proud of his shape and the time he spent in the gym. Looking fit and manicured always helped when meeting clients.
Tony was also a creature of habit. His legs worked on autopilot when he made the seven-minute walk to the boarding platform. Unless he was out of town on a customer visit, he always took the commuter train into the office. No working from home for him. He needed to see people, like Leslie at the front desk and Michelle in accounting. The train ride to Mountain View was a predictable 56 minutes. Driving his car could take anywhere between 40 minutes and two hours, depending on traffic. Fifty-six train minutes was a good time to get business done.
A train arrived carrying only a sprinkling of people. Tony walked through the open doors of one of the cars, found an empty seat, and slid all the way in until he was leaning against a window. Four or five people boarded with him, which meant ten to twelve passengers were in his car. He was not interested in an exact count. The other commuters were simply nondescript figures in his peripheral vision, like extras in a movie. One or two of them may have been recognizable, but Tony did not waste his train minutes socializing with extras. He was at his freshest and needed to share that version of himself with people who mattered.
Tony pulled his smartphone and high-end headphones from his satchel. He grumbled to himself as he remembered the new connection procedure. Things were so much easier only a month ago. All he did was tap a number. Then the company brought in a cybersecurity expert to make his life miserable. Now it was like he was a secret agent working undercover. Everything he said into his phone had to be secure.
Hiring the cybersecurity guy was the idea of Lars, the company president. Lars was paranoid over losing market share to Centauri’s biggest competitor, Ceres Laser. Tony agreed it was a problem. Ceres seemed to show up at every one of Centauri’s clients right before or after Tony arrived. Ceres undercut Tony’s prices and seemed to know everything about Centauri’s product line and unadvertised features. At first, Lars thought a disloyal Centauri employee was giving away company secrets. Then he became convinced it was a cyber breach. Surely someone was hacking into Centauri’s computers and listening to their phone calls. Lars was afraid they operated in a foreign country and were contracted by Ceres.
To make sure no one was spying on his calls, Tony had to waste a bunch of time making his phone secure. First, he paired his phone with his noise-cancelling headphones and their built-in microphone. He put them over his ears and all the sounds of the train disappeared. Working in complete silence, Tony then launched a VPN on his phone and connected to the company’s server. He logged in with his long password and then pulled out an RFID card to authenticate his identity. Then he launched an app on the remote server that made encrypted calls. Tony sighed in frustration. He was finally ready for an unhackable phone conversation. He would start by checking in at headquarters. He dialed Leslie at the front desk and then stared out the train window.
“Good morning. I’m supposed to ask you if you’re using the secure system,” Leslie said.
“Yes. Feels like Mission Impossible. You loving Monday so far?”
“What do you think?”
“You have coffee yet?”
“No, but there should be some ready by the time you get here.”
“Did you end up going to that concert on Saturday?”
“What a disaster. I’ll tell you the long version later.”
The chitchat continued for another minute as Tony stared out the window, hearing nothing but his and Leslie’s voices. Everyone else on the train also got to appreciate at least one side of the conversation. Tony’s voice was so loud, he may as well have been shouting. He overwhelmed the click-clack sounds of the rails beneath the car. Each word was distinctly unavoidable anywhere in the car.
A few of Tony’s fellow passengers shook their heads and shot Tony dirty looks. He did not notice them. No one was confrontational enough to demand Tony’s attention and then demand he quiet down. Why would they take the risk of provoking some stranger on a train? What if he reacted violently? Those who had headphones of their own put them on and drowned out Tony’s voice. Those without headphones tried hard to ignore him. Anyone who had recognized him on the platform in San Jose had chosen to get on a different car.
Tony’s deafening conversation with Leslie moved from casual to serious. “I’m about to call up the guy from First Light Biosystems.”
“Is that the company in Monterey?”
“No, Florida. Melbourne. East coast. I’m going to promise him we can deliver 100 of our excimer lasers per month. Can you call manufacturing and make sure Greg can handle that? Model EX308.”
“What if he can’t?”
“Then he needs to find a new job. He’s there to make this stuff.”
“Should I tell him that?”
“If he gives you any flack, let me be the one to put him in his place.”
“I’ll bring the boxing gloves.”
Tony laughed loudly before saying, “Can we go over next week’s travel schedule really quick? I’m starting with those two metal cutting places in Boston – JPT and Ramplate Industrial.”
“Yeah. That’s your first day.”
“And then driving down to Connecticut to see Electric Boat and then Starlight Engraving in Binghampton.”
“You want to say the night in Boston?”
“See if you can find something nice in Connecticut.”
Leslie and Tony talked back and forth about flights and rental cars until Tony sounded satisfied. He ended the call and the train car fell deathly silent. The other passengers looked around as if the world had ended. The peace and quiet did not last long. Tony was already dialing the number for First Light Biosystems.
“Hello, this is Art Jensen.”
“Art! This is Tony Fish with Centauri Laser. How’s Monday treating you so far?” Tony’s voice again filled every inch of the car. The people around him returned to suppressing their hearing.
“Not too bad,” Art Jensen replied to Tony.
“And didn’t you just get back from a conference in Chicago? How was it?”
“Cold and wet.”
“Yeah, I hear you. Hey, I wanted to get back to you about those 308 nanometer excimer lasers. I’ve been working with our production team to get you a great price.”
“How low can you go?”
Tony quoted prices for 50 and 100 units per month. He also listed specifications for power, linewidth, and package size. Art wrote all the numbers down and repeated them thoughtfully.
“That’s a great deal,” Tony said confidently. “Best deal you’ll find. How about if I come down to your facility and I can demo one personally?”
The call ended with promises to reconnect within 24 hours and a tentative plan for Tony’s visit. He smiled proudly to himself as he removed his headphones. The train was minutes away from its final stop in downtown Mountain View.
When it was time to disembark, Tony was the first of the passengers out the sliding doors. He did not look back as his feet automatically carried him toward the Centauri Laser offices.
The final rider to leave his seat was Dan Laudermann. He was positioned with his back to Tony all the way from the San Jose station. He was not a regular train commuter. In fact, he went out of his way to catch it that morning as part of a work assignment. He was an engineer at Ceres Laser and his team of colleagues took turns riding the train that carried the loudmouth salesman from Centauri Laser.
Dan turned off his audio recorder. The sales team from Ceres would have a lot to sort through from Tony’s conversations. Customers. Prices. Product specs. After a Ceres employee happened to ride with Tony on a train three months earlier, the Ceres president decided it was well worth it to send out his team on daily intelligence gathering missions. Those morning missions were much cheaper than advertising or paying for market research. They were also cheaper than paying a team of cyber hackers, no matter what country they were from.
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