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[Perry/GM]
Names of users (by gang) and their apparent agendas
The Angels
~~~~~~~~~~
Orc - this mysterious figure is known as the "Angel of Networks"
and apparently has a male named Jean as his direct superior. You haven't
actually read much e-mail FROM or TO him, but he is talked about in
several circles. Usually spoken of in a very positive light. He appears
to be in charge of the angels though he is under the leader, a figure
called "Jean" who is referred to as an Archangel and is also known by
the handle "Lightning". One confusing point about Orc is that he is
sometimes referred to as a "Master of Lightning", which might imply that
he is Jean's master. It is not entirely clear. Orc's agenda, from what
is said about him, and what e-mail you've read that came from him
directly, is with funding Computer Science research aimed at expanding
the Net and making it more efficient. He is rumored to always being
very busing with getting the bugs out of Angel-Operated systems, but it
apparently not overly concerned with coordinating the nearly constant,
but somewhat cold, war with the Demons.
Raziel - this figure is quite clearly the person in charge of managing
the war with the Demons. He calls himself and is occasionally referred
to as a "Friend of the Illuminated" He apparently takes orders from the
person known as "Jean" but his relationship with Orc is one of mutual
respect. Raziel apparently is below Orc on the Gang ladder. It is
clear that many of the Angels are taking orders from Raziel but that
Orc is the true leader of the Angels, with Jean, and even more mysterious
figure, somewhere in the background. Recently, Raziel has been giving
orders for a few of the Angels (known as Gleam, Bodycast, and Edge) to
implement a plan called only "Hayyoth's Arch"
Gleam - apparently a newbie who is 'on loan' from an Angel named Thaleia,
a "Servitor of Creation". Most likely, "Creation" is another handle like
"Lightning" and may or may not have another name attached to it.
Bodycast - is under Raziel's command. He is called a Vassal, whatever that
means. He apparently in charge of Gleam and Edge.
Edge - talks tough, defers to Bodycast somewhat unwillingly. He seems very
intent on "fucking up some Demons", "kicking the diabolical's black asses"
and "spread[ing] their forces out over the Symphony"
The Demons
~~~~~~~~~~
Nybbas - this is apparently a figure somewhat the equivalent of Jean,
spoken of but rarely seen. He is also called "The Media". His motives
are unclear, but all those who claim to work under him appear to be tied
to large media groups (CNN, IBM, TNT) judging by their e-mail paths.
Andrealphus or Andre - also called "Lust" (which you known to be one of
the seven deadly sins, thanks to the movie "Seven") is apparently
credited with being directly connected with the child porn industry. Not
much has been revealed about him except that he is powerful and "will
either fuck you, fuck with you, or fuck you up"
Secacah - known to be essentially the one that is in charge of leading
the chief attacks on the Angel's territories as well as generally being
the one in charge. He's often referred to as the "Demon of the Net"
and claims to serve both "Technology" and "The Media". He's a smooth
talker, even for e-mail, and apparently the only reason he's having some
trouble organizing things, it might be because he's frequently called a
liar, though not to his face.
Zalaph - apparently Sececah's right-had man. He is working currently to
try and organize the Demons into something resembling an organized "force".
He's been threatening to bring in a Demon of War to get things running
more smoothly. So far not much has been organized. Zalaph is harsh,
bitter, angry, rough, and mean mean mean. He's being pretty rough with
his "troops", as least verbally.
Cozbi - apparently a "defect" from the Angels. He is said to have Fallen
willingly from Grace in order to join the Demons. By the e-mail he sends
you can tell that his server is within the city of Vancouver... He
apparently is working for "The Media" right now but there have been a
few whispers of his switching over to "Lust". Secacah's take on him is
that he's relatively worthless. Zalaph has been asking questions about
him and his relationship with the Angels.
---
[Rob]
Damien finds himself getting somewhat more and more disturbed as he learns
more about the "Angel" and "Demon" hacker gangs. Somehow, they seem
more... serious than hacker gangs he has run across in the past.
[Perry]
In the past, when Damien came across hacker gangs, they were either kids
like himself one without the restraint or good sense to use discretion in
their hacking, or they were college kids who were misfits and thought it
was cool to go out and damage other people's systems. The hacker gangs
who had gotten into hacker wars with each other were mostly interested in
one-upping each other and screwing each other up.
Something seems strange about these Angel and Demon hackers. Take the Orc
guy. On the one hand, he seems like your typical sysadmin. Trying to
keeping the networks running well, trying to get bugs out of his systems.
Some sysadmins even like to take net handles, and "Orc" is about as
classic a handle as you can get. On the other hand, in Damien's (perhaps
limited) experience, while many hackers have sysadmin skills, serious
sysadmins like this Orc guy seems to be don't tend to get involved in
hacker gangs. Serious sysadmins tend to despise all hackers. Yet, here
is this guy, supporting his systems and evidently providing platforms for
the Angel hackers to work from.
The angle who calls himself Edge seems more like hacker gang members
Damien's familiar with: interested primarily in screwing up rival hacker
gangs and doing damage to their systems.
Some of the Demon hackers seem to be better connected than what Daminen
thought was your typical hacker gang. Usually they're kids out trying to
screw each other up, and sometimes trying to screw up innocent bystanders'
systems. (It's cool to crash government and large corporation computers,
for instance, because they're supposed to be so hard to break into.) And,
sure, Daimen's read "The Cuckoo's Egg," and hears about hackers who try to
steal information for the KGB (or whatever), but usually hacker gangs who
take aliases and name their gang things like "Demons" are misfits intent
mainly on screwing with each other.
Now, though, there's this Nybbas guy, who seems to have contacts all
throughout the major media. What's with that? That makes the gang sound
more like a corporate espionage group than a hacker gang. Perhaps that's
not so unusual, but it is unusual for them to get involved in a war with
the Angel hackers. It would be like the FBI getting involved in street
gang fights and doing drive by shootings. It could be that Nybbas is just
a busy little hacker, and has made a point of hacking media systems. All
his media contacts could just be aliases that Nybbas uses, pretending to
come from places in the media, and even his other Demon gang members don't
know it's him.
(The connection with child porn doesn't suprise him much though. That
seems more like the speed of what you'd expect from a hacker gang.)
And "the Symphony" as a name for the internet is a new one to Damien.
In any event, Damien thinks that he's stumbled across a very strange
hacker war, and sometimes he thinks he doesn't see what's really going on
here. His suspicion is that there is some real corporate espionage going
on, that somebody is paying one or both of these rival hacker groups, in a
disconnected way to maintain "plausable deniability" or something like
that.
Part of Damien thinks it would be cool to get some big corporation to pay
him to go hacking through the internet. A more rational part of Damien
realizes that this is crazy, that down that path lays all kinds of
trouble. He hacks for fun, and he's gotta keep a low profile if he's
going to keep doing it. He's better off making money programming, if he's
going to get somebody to pay him.
Yet another part of Damien maintains hidden fantasies of blowing a real
hacker gang wide open. If, as it looks, this is more than a couple of
misfit hacker gangs trying to one-up each other, but there is something
really bad going on, then maybe if he figures it out and exposes it, he
could write a book and be famous like Cliff Stoll.
Whatever the reason, Damien finds himself fascinated with these hacker
groups, and finds himself wanting to know more about what's going on.
The Demons, with the Nybbas guy, seem to be connected to the media. It's
odd that NBC and CNN and all those other places would have the same hacker
guy working for it, but there you have it. The Angels, though, so far
seem to be in it for just computers' sake. Why are they out to foil the
Demons? Is it just a longstanding gang rivalry? Or do they have an
outside agenda like the Demon hackers seem like they might?
Damien will instal a few packet sniffers at other places on the internet,
to look for the handels of the angels and demons he's come across. He
wants to find out if these guys are reaching into bits of the net where he
hasn't seen them yet. He'll put the sniffers on a few of the systems he's
broken into, but which aren't maintained very well. That way, there is
only a very small chance of the sysadmins finding the sniffers he's
installed. He'll also only leave a sniffer going on one system for a
couple of days, before restoring the system to the way it was. He won't
set up the sniffers to look for passwords or information he can use to
break into other systems, though. Rather, he'll set up the filters to
look for information about these two gangs.
He's particularly interested in this Jean guy. Since Damien feels like he
doesn't even have a clue what the Angel's agenda is, and since Jean
somehow seems to be the key, he wants to learn more about him. In any
event, though, Damien will avoid getting noticed by either hacker gang.
The last thing he wants is a hacker gang directing their ire at him. He
hides his net presence well, but if they had an inkling who he was, they
could make it harder for him to move about the net.
All of this will porobably start to occupy a fair amount of Damien's
attention. When he's sitting in class at school, he'll find his attention
wandering back to the Angels and Demons gangs, wondering what's really
going on there. Oh, he'll pay enough attention to keep doing well in
school, but he'll think about all this whenever things get a little slow.
After school, he'll rush home to hook into the net, so he can find out if
any of the packet sniffers and such he's set out has garnered any new
information.
-Damien
---
[Perry/GM]
[Rob]
Damien finds himself getting somewhat more and more disturbed as he learns
more about the "Angel" and "Demon" hacker gangs. Somehow, they seem
more... serious than hacker gangs he has run across in the past.
[Perry]
The fact that these the Angels and the Demons are more serious than other
hacker gangs you've seen in the past is terrifyingly apparent. They do not
appeared tha concerned with one-upping each other, mostly with crashing
each others systems. Oh, more thing Damien's beginning to realize, these
hackers appear to also be fucking with real world stuff. The Demons seem
intent on fucking shit up, the Angels with keeping the systems running.
The Demons seem to be a lot more reckless than the Angels, at least judging
by what they tend to brag about. They seem intent on doing things to
make people's lives miserable. The Angels seem to desire to do just
the opposite.
[Rob]
Doing things just to make peoples' lives miserable seems to Damien to be
about par for the course for your typical hacker gang, but it does get
really scary when they start to take it out into the "real" (physical)
world. One could argue whether or not a hacker gang had a grip of reality
in the first place, but you know they've really lost it when they take their
petty fights off of the net....
[Perry]
And these fights aren't petty. :) Any group that plans, organizes, and
carries out strikes designed to eliminate entire systems at once as well
as taking things into the real world... yeah. Petty this is not.
[Rob]
Damien scoffs at a lot of hacker wars, for most of the time the hackers
involved in the gangs are not as skilled at hacking as even he is, and
usually they are petty misfits with a strange idea of a good time.
Here, though, he's feeling like he's seriously out of his league. It
fascinates him, though, and he finds himself almost against his will wanting
to know what is going on here.
[Perry]
Yeah, this is seeming to be more and more out of Damien's league.
Frighteningly more so. Oh, a few more proper name references.
Other leaders of the Angels seem to include a figure named "Gabriel"
aka "Fire", another named "Azrael" aka "Quietus", someone named "Michael"
aka "War", and another named "Laurence" aka "The Sword". The hacker gang
members who serve each are, respectively, "Fury", "Mashhit", "Achmetha",
and "Jered".
Mashhit referred to himself in passing as "one of the Kings", for whatever
that's worth. Also, Jered, was called an "Elohite".
[Rob]
More and more Orc seems like just the sort of computer geek you _don't_
expect to see associated with a hacker gang. He sounds like more the sort
of geek you'd see associated with a university's computer science
department, or with a high technology firm.
[Perry]
So true.. so true... Also, it appears more and more tha Orc is behind
some of the funding that's going to universities around the world. It
might not be a bad idea to check on the ones inside Vancouver.
[Rob]
Damien will do so -- using his tried and true methods. He'll start by
probing legally available, if obscure, information, about where funding for
university computer departments comes from. After that, he'll start to
cautiously break into some administrative computers to see if he can find
any connections between this Orc guy and these Angel people and said
universities.
[Perry]
Ahh... yes, Damien can now look through the files of the University of
British Columbia. My, my, my...
Okay, searching for funding for the computer departments.
[OOGM {clatter} 2, 6, CD2 on Comp Ops, 3, 6, CD5 on Comp Hacking]
Hmmm... ok, looks like Computer Departments are given such and such a
figure... but how do we know where the money is coming from?
A searching program run through the Finacial Office's records ought to
find that out... looking for anything specifically marked to go to the
Comp. Depts specifically...
[OOGM: 1, 3, CD3 on Comp Hack - 3]
Okay, got it. We've got four seperate sources which specified funding for
the Comp Science depts specifically.
IBM has donated, a private unnamed donor has, a company called P&M
Programs, and finally a private individual named Bruce Cunningham, 1235
Dunbar Ave, Vancouver, Britsh Columbia.
[Perry]
Orc is not merely providing platforms from which the Angels operate,
he also seems to keep them up and running. Of the few e-mails Damien's
read from him, he seems preoccupied with maintaining servers, keeping
them running, AND with research and development of *new* Net technology.
Edge is... his name is quite fitting. He appears to be on the edge a
_lot_. His e-mail nearly completely lacks any sense of sense of
structure, no commas, periods, very very little punctuation. Edge has
also been called a crazy Throne.
Yes, the Demons are closer to what Damien understands. The Angels seem
much less intent on _abusing_ their power than the Demons are and actually
talk about helping people and sneaking into systems only to make them
more efficient and user friendly.
[Rob]
As he figures this out, Damien sits back in his chair, his hands sliding off
of his computer keyboard. Sneaking into people's systems to make them run
_better_? In terms of hacker behavior, that's a new one for Damien. He's
known of others, like himself, who like to cruise around without doing any
harm, as well as the "virtual taggers" who do in fact do some harm, and the
gangs who get into fueds. In fact, the Angels' apprach sort of appeals to
Damien. He decides that while he doesn't have the time to go system
managing the whole world's computers, if he does see glaring faults or
problems or security holes in systems he gets into, perhaps he'll touch them
up.
[Perry]
Sounds like a plan. :) There're always systems that need improving. Let
me know if and when Daminen tries to improve a system, as well as *which*
system it is.
[Rob]
He'd probably start with one or two of his favorite "poorly maintained"
systems. I.e., those systems which have sysadmins who clearly don't pay
much attention to them. They make excellent platforms to hack from, so long
as he is careful, because nobody there is looking for hackers.
Since Damien's already in the systems, he figures there's no need for other
hackers to come in. Any obvious security patches he can make he will do.
He'll also do things like change the passwords (to a "strong" password) of
users who haven't logged in for more than a year, and perhaps upgrade system
libraries. He could easily turn this into a full time job, but won't; he'll
do things in small bites, over time.
Damien probably fells sort of protective about the systems which have
severed him sell as hacking platforms. He certainly doesn't want any harm
to come to those systems, both for selfish reasons (they are good places for
him to work from) and because he almost feels some responsibility towards
those who use them legitimately.
[Perry]
Gotcha. So far, nothing happened to any of these systems. :)
A note on Nybbas. Damien has NOT been finding e-mail from this guy.
Rather he is talked about. Those who SERVE him appear to work for CNN,
TNT, NBC, ABC, ESPN, IBM, Macintosh, and few other big name media sources.
He appears to be a mysterious figure behind the scenes, much like Jean
and Andrealphus. Referred to, but not heard from.
[Rob]
(The connection with child porn doesn't suprise him much though. That
seems more like the speed of what you'd expect from a hacker gang.)
[Perry]
Would Damien like to poke around the Demon's connection to child porn a bit
more? It seems only fitting that you would be interested. (Since he's
been taking down child porn sites for a while and the Demons talk about
the ones they have, not that he's seen them yet.)
[Rob]
Yeah, the child porn thing sort of worries him. He thinks that all of the
talk about the evils of the internet and how we have to protect our children
from the big scary virtual world is so many blowhards who don't understand
computers and want to regulate them out of fear. However, child porn is one
case where people really are getting hurt. Indeed, Damien thinks that those
who are using the net for that are just going to wreck it "for the rest of
us," by precipitating firmer regulation. If these demon hackers are into
that kind of thing, that's the angle that Damien would like to either shut
down (by using his own skills) or expose. (Damien's delusions of grandeur
aside, he recognizes that he's probably better of exposing their crimes
anonymously, to keep himself out of trouble.)
[Perry]
Got it. See below.
Yes, this hacker war is different from any other Damien's encountered.
They talk about the war as though (1) it's very old, older than the
existance of the Net and (2) as though the war is extended to the real
world... a discomforting thought.
[Rob]
Damien has trouble wrapping his brain around that one. Extending into the
real world, that isn't too hard to comprehend, although it does frighten
Damien. But a hacker war that started before the net and then moved
online... that one is particularly odd to Damien. Hackers are creatures of
the net, they and their ganges evolved on the net as it were. Usually rival
hacker gangs encounter each other first on the net. Something is really
bizarre about this particular war.
[Perry]
Although it's hard to tell for sure, from the comments of a few of the Demons and
Angels, it appears that they are more focused on the "real world" aspect
of the War. In fact, Damien sees that they discuss the War as being a
normal state, referring to "the Fall" as the initiator of "the War".
The more Damien reads the e-mails of members of the Angels and Demons who
seem more wrapped up in the aspect of the War in real life, he sees that
they describe is as the War between Heaven and Hell. Are these people all
suffering from mass delusion? An incredible group psychosis? Or is there
something else going on here.
[Rob]
Although the Angels and Demons at first seemed like typical names for hacker
groups, with members who perhaps get a little too much into their own
private jargon, he's coming to see that he doesn't really understand what's
going on here.
[Perry]
It looks like both sides are emulating the Judeo-Christian-Islamic
traditions, or at least their names. Much of the lingo comes straight
from it, at least the names of some of the big-wigs and Seraphim and
Cherubim. A little searching on the net looking told Damien that.
Their motives???
[Rob]
No "traditional" model seems to apply to these people. They obviously
aren't your typical hacker gang out tromping through cyberspace to get at
each other and just wantonly do damage. They don't seem like what Damien
would think corporate intelligence divisions would be like. He doesn't
really know what to make of it. He does know, however, that he's afraid of
both sides. He also comes to have at least a gruding respect for the faces
that the Angels wear, and does not like some of the activities (e.g. child
porn) that the Demons perform.
[Perry]
Oooooh... Damien has run across a dangerous looking site. It's called
"The Killing Grounds" and apparently the Demons come here to brag about the
number of people they've killed in RL as well as the methods, etc... A
few even included some scanned photos...
Another thing Damien discovers is that these systems are extremely isolated
from the rest of the systems on the Net. In fact, upon remembering where
he got the initial IP address for the first one he found, he _can't_ seem
to remember *where* he found it...
[Rob]
If he can't remember, he will try to reproduce it. Although he's in now, he
will attempt to search the net pretending he didn't know about these systems
to see just how one might come across them.
[Perry]
Oh, he's got all the IP addresses, he just isn't remembering HOW he got
them. After a few tries, he's unable to realize just how he found them
again. Eerie.
Okay, the sniffers. Damien installs a few packet sniffers at other
places on the net, no difficulty. They're set up to see just how
spread the Angels' and Demons' electronic talons extend.
[Rob]
Damien will keep an eye on them every so often.
[Perry]
Okay, gotcha.
About this Jean guy, aka "Lightning". He appears to be the name to which
both Orc and Raziel are taking orders from. No real direct evidence, but
(1) they describe themselves as "angel of Jean" or "angels of Lightning"
(2) both of them talk about Jean as being the head honcho (or The
Archangel)
You've actually found a few e-mails from Lightning. They're short, to
the point, and are always right about technical matters, so far as you
can tell. Disturbingly so... Jean seems to like to take matters into
his own hands, at leas in terms of giving expert advice. He's pretty
hands on...
[Rob]
Damien would really like to know who this Jean or Lightning guy really is.
Like Orc, he really doesn't seem like the sort to be a hacker, never mind
get into a hacker war.
[Perry]
On the other hand, a few of his posts find him referring to the Demons as
"worthless and god forsaken Diabolicals."
In terms of the obvious power structure:
Most of the angels take orders either from Orc or Raziel or another angel
under Orc or Raziel. Jean is invoked occasionally by a few of the Angels,
mostly they just get help from Raziel or Orc.
The Demons have a very clear power structure. Everyone takes orders from
Secacah and Zalaph, or their superior under them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pocket sniffers:
Of them poorly maintained systems, only one was visited by a gang member.
Cozbi, the one whose server is in your city, apparently logged into an
old IBM site you had a sniffer working in. It does not appear that he
found the sniffer. If he did, he took no actions.
[Rob]
Damien's a little disturbed that there is a "Demon" with a server in his
home city, especially if these folks are taking their hacker war to the
streets. He's going to be especially careful not to be noticed by these
folks, and only to antagonize them when he's absolutely sure that it can't
be traced back to him.
Damien will note the net address of the server. Next time he visits KJ
Computers (which he will do on the way home from school the next day), he'll
ask Mike if he knows anything about that server. If Mike wants to know why,
Damien will say, oh, he got some spam from that site, and wants to know what
the site is all about.
[Perry]
Got it. It'll help to have a list of "things to do" at the end of posts
like this one. :)
[Rob]
OK -- I'll try to make one of these up with everything I've sent you in the
last three days either today or tomorrow. :)
[Perry]
What Damien finds that the Angels and Demons have lots of contacts and
connections. A simple sorting/seaching algorithm discovered links from
people across the Net (and globe) connected to the Angels and Demons...
These guys are widespread in terms of how far they can extend their power.
Scarier and scarier...
Anything you'd like know specifically, any individuals you're doing
specific footwork on?
[Rob]
(1) The footwork (starting with a question of Mike at KJ) on the local Demon
Cozbi, for starters.
[Perry]
See e-mail.
(2) Damien will also do a net search for the terms "Angel", "Jean", and
"Lightning" together. Searching for each independently would produce all
sorts of irrelevant garbage, but he hopes that perhaps requiring all three
terms might turn up something interesting. Damien thinks he sort of
understands the Demon hackers; your typical hacker gang with amibitions to
be a street gang as well. He's afraid of them, no doubt. The Angels are
the odd ones, and Damien worries that they may have some hidden agenda
behind all of their nice-playing that might make them even more frightening
than the Demon hacker gang. What he's seen so far of the Angles do make
them seem on the whole like a benevolent hacker gang, but they just don't
make sense. He wants to try to understand them better, and he'd like to
know who these Orc and Lightning fellows really are.
[Perry]
Rob, you could merely do a search yourself and use that information,
barring any and all In Nomine materials. There's a lot of good stuff
out there. :)
[Rob]
OOC: Well, yes. Heh. Of course, I was kinda hoping Damien could find more
information about the speicfic NPCs as they exist in your world.
[Perry]
Gotcha. Ummmm... Damien could try using a search engine provided on
one of Orc's sites. :) But, really, most OOC info on the NPCs is going
to be really useful, since I tend to base my information on a healthy
mix of RL and In Nomine. For instance, searching for Michael, Raziel,
Mashhit, and others might very well bring up something. This GM is
making use of RL stuff.
[Perry]
As for specific things on Orc and Lightning, Damien's searches turn up
nothing. Reading more e-mail about, to and from these guys might be
the only real way to find out more, unless of course Damien asks someone...
[Rob]
Damien isn't quite sure who to ask yet. He will follow up on Cozbi's server
starting with the guys at KJ, since that one is local.
Damien's not quite to the point where he's ready to send E-mail (even
anonymously) to any on either side. Soon, though, he may try to send E-mail
which he believes can't be traced back to a 12-year old boy living in
Vancouver. (I will explicitly state it if he does.)
[Rob]
(3) Damien will start collecting information and evidence about how far
the demon hacker gang is into child porn. If he sees an opportunity to shut
down a site for a time, where he's absolutely sure that it can't be traced
back to him, he will take that opportunity.
[Perry]
Okay, lets get back to this plot point (don't let me forget) after this
thing with Mike - see e-mail.
Cool. Let's have a look-see at the conversation at KJ.
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