Originally published by Chief Monkey on the A Day in the Life of an Information Security Investigator blog (the “Security Monkey” blog) at it.toolbox.com. Mirrored here from the Internet Archive. All rights remain with the original author. See the section intro for full attribution and takedown contact.
Part I 路 Dec 13, 2006
“Hey, watch it!” Scrap yelled as he quickly jumped out of the way of an accelerating New York cab. “Is everyone in Manhattan in a freaking hurry all of the time or what?”
“Maybe he didn’t like your shirt.” I joked as I pointed to Scrap’s chest which proudly advertised a New Jersey sports franchise.
Scrap and I were walking down the sidewalks of the Big Apple searching for the offices of our newest client, Eastern Equitable Equities, and taking in the big city sights and smells.
“Okay, we’re lost. Let’s grab some sidewalk and look at those directions again.” I directed as I crouched down near the doorway of a shop under renovation.
“Is that urine I smell?” Scrap asked as he sniffed the air around him. “Dude! It IS urine!”
“I turned my head to see what Scrap was pointing at. Sure enough, two feet from my laptop bag was someone’s recent contribution to the New York recycling program.
I laughed at Scrap and examined my printout of the directions to EEE.
“Ah. We’re one street off. Stopping for that coffee screwed up our pace. According to this map, they are located in that grey building over there.” I said, motioning to a large building with my paw.
“Is it a urine-free building?” Scrap whined.
I rolled my eyes and began to briskly walk towards our target.
Moments later we were in an elevator and a few floors from meeting our client.
“Tell me again why you dragged me several thousand miles to this place?” Scrap asked.
“It’s the usual gig. Computers, deception, lies, and probably some type of financial loss to the client…” I trailed off as the elevator doors opened.
“And babes!” Scrap whispered as we approached the receptionist’s desk.
“Mr Wreed is expecting you. Please follow me.” the receptionist said as she escorted us down a berber-carpeted hallway. With a soft introductory rapt of her knuckles on one of the doors, she opened both doors to reveal a man in a very expensive suit and a wide smile.
“Chief! It’s so nice to meet you! I trust that the plane ride was enjoyable? Please, sit down. I don’t believe I’ve met your associate?” the fifty-ish gentleman said as he extended his hand towards Scrap.
“Mr. Wreed, this is my associate Scrap. He’ll be assisting on this investigation.” I said in a professional tone.
Wreed sat down behind his desk and shuffled through a few files on his desk until he found the one he was looking for.
“Well, I have to say this is quite the quandary. As I explained on the phone, I am actually the co-CEO of EEE. The other CEO, Mr. Wahlberg has no idea that you’re here and I’d like to keep it that way. As a matter of fact, only two people in this entire company know that you’re here. Myself and Mr. Edson, our General Counsel and Senior Vice President. Shall we dig into the facts of the matter?” Wreed asked while flipping through papers and without any eye contact.
“Please.” I replied, shooting a quick glance towards Scrap who was exhibiting nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
“To put things simply, I need you to find me a date.” Wreed said.
“I’m sorry, you want us to get you a date?” Scrap blurted out shortly before I tapped him with my shoe in a stealthy manner.
Wreed chuckled. “Not a girl, Mr. Scrap. A date. The kind you’d find on a calendar.”
“And this date is significant because?” I asked, troubled that this conversation was nowhere in my notes from our phone call.
“Because the date I’m looking for is the date that my co-CEO is planning on having me terminated.”
漏 2006 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part II 路 Dec 27, 2006
Wally Wahlberg sat at his breakfast table in the luxurious Manhattan apartment that he shared with his wife and two daughters. He had carefully placed himself at the table so that his back was towards the kitchen door. It was his birthday and he knew that the kids had a surprise waiting for him.
“Happy birthday, daddy!” yelled the fair-haired duo as they placed a construction paper birthday card in front of him, narrowly missing his half-eaten eggs and toast.
Wally smiled and gave each of the girls a kiss. He enjoyed being a father and a husband more than anything in his life. He glanced at his diamond-encrusted wristwatch and leapt from the table just as the familiar honk of the Lincoln town car blared outside the window.
“Daddy is late! But I’ll see you two princesses after work, okay?” Wally exclaimed as he ran out of the front door, nearly knocking his wife to the ground.
“Slow down there honey, you’re going to hurt somebody! Did you get the letter from…?” Wanda said as the front door closed in front of her.
“I guess not.” she mumbled as she wandered into the kitchen to get the girls ready for their day at the local public elementary school.
“The lumbering ox just can’t seem to meet market expectations.” Sinjin said as he shook his head. “I’ve been watching National Communicators for years, and these guys move slower than my grandmother after that folding couch accident.”
Sinjin was the most senior of the equity analysts at EEE, and had an impeccable reputation in the financial markets. If he so much as burped while talking about a company, their stock, or future projects, that company could find their stock trading at a much lower price the following day. It was a lot of responsibility, but he was used to it. He really was the best, but you’d never hear him bragging about it.
beep
The familiar and regularly bothersome beep of his Blackberry phone interrupted his thoughts. He glanced at the screen to find a message from one of EEE’s CEOs on his screen.
“My office. Twenty minutes. Don’t be late. WW”
A stabbing pain went through Sinjin’s stomach. Was he in trouble? Was he getting promoted? Did Wally finally find out who had been sneaking into the executive washroom to enjoy the triple-ply bathroom tissue? His hands began to shake as he put the Blackberry back into the case on his belt and looked around on his desk for his antacid tablets.
“Mr. Wreed, I’m a bit confused. When we talked on the phone, you mentioned that there was some impropriety occurring amongst some staff members that involved financial matters. You never touched on this.” I said as I flipped over to a fresh page in my trusty notepad.
Wreed loosened his tie and sat back in his chair. “I apologize, but a great deal of information has come to me since our conversation and the beginning of this engagement. Allow me to explain.”
“Please.” I begged.
“Are you familiar with a company called National Communicators?” Wreed asked.
Scrap awoke from his nap and piped up. “NC? Those guys are into everything. Cell phones, data services, dial tone, you name it.”
“Very good, Mr. Scrap. They are quite the behemoth. They are so big, in fact, that the new executive team that was hired on a few months ago has had a very hard time steering them towards growth. Their stock has been flat for years. However, recently there has been a lot of communication between EEE and NC. Well, there has been a lot of communication between Mr. Wahlberg and Mr. Whet, the CEO of NC. I was astounded that Wahlberg would be attempting to get NC’s business for our money management division without my knowledge and called him on it. He told me that he and Whet are old college buddies and there was nothing to talk about.” Wreed explained.
“I’m following you.” I said. “So where does this take us?”
Wreed sat up in his chair and threw his pen on his desk.
“I want you to find out what is really going on between Wahlberg and Whet, who on my staff is involved, and you need to do it quickly. I firmly believe that Wahlberg is cooking up a deal that will eject me from the company and hurt a lot of other people in the process.” Wreed said tensely.
“Like who?” Scrap asked.
“A few hundred thousand investors.”
漏 2006 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part III 路 Jan 10, 2007
Sinjin grabbed his stomach as he pressed the button on the elevator control panel. He didn’t like roaming around on the executive floors. Not one bit. He didn’t need any additional pressure in his life. Between the pressures of having a family and making decisions that make and break the financial futures of companies, he was at his stress limit.
ding
The elevator doors opened and Sinjin rushed by the nosey executive assistant and proceeded down the carpeted hallway. With a deep breath and one last grab of his stomach, he knocked nervously on the door marked “Mr. Wahlberg CEO”.
“Come in.” boomed a voice from inside the office. Sinjin almost wet himself.
“Hello, sir.” Sinjin squeaked as he took a seat in front of Mr. Wahlberg’s desk.
“Sinjin, Sinjin, Sinjin. How are you? You are doing an amazing job. Your call on HP was right on the money, literally! I’m very pleased with your performance and so are our customers.” Wahlberg said with a smile.
Sinjin was caught completely off guard. He had never received such gracious compliments from a member of the executive staff before. It unnerved him.
“Thank you, sir. I try my best.” Sinjin stammered.
“That you do, Sinjin. How is your wife and those handsome sons of yours?” Wahlberg inquired.
Sinjin started to relax and replied almost melodically “They are great, sir. Thanks for asking. And your wife and daughters?”
“Fine! Fine!” Wahlberg began. “You know Sinjin, my daughters just completed their first year at the Cheshire school. Isn’t that the school that you and your wife wanted your sons to attend?”
“Yes, that is the school. It is so exclusive and expensive, but it is so much better than the public schools. My wife dreams of the day when our sons can be accepted.” Sinjin boasted.
Wahlberg’s smile grew bigger as he sat back in his chair. “Did you know that Mr. Whet over at NC sits on the board of Cheshire?”
Sinjin laughed inside. Of course he knew that, he knew everything about NC and the new executive team.
“Yes sir. I was aware of that.” Sinjin replied.
“Of course you were. You are the best. What was I thinking? Sinjin, what if I told you that Mr. Whet wants your two sons to start at Cheshire next semester? What if I told you that both your sons names will appear on the next selection committee roster as ‘approved’”? Wahlberg asked.
Sinjin shuffled in his chair before he replied.
“I would say that you have my attention.”
“Dude, I HATE being rushed. This is not cool.” Scrap moaned as he stretched out on the couch in our hotel room. “I mean, I can understand why the dude is paranoid and there’s a lot on the line supposedly, but he wants us to scrape EVERY workstation that his staff uses and give him a content analysis in seven days? Please!”
I raised an eyebrow in agreement and sipped on a luke warm cup of possibly the worst hotel coffee I had ever had.
“Be that as it may, we have the job assignment. It’s not like we’ve never done this in a hurry before. According to Wreed’s ‘person of interest’ list, we’re talking ten computing devices and ten cell phones. Lucky for us, they are all the same make and model.”
Scrap huffed and threw a pillow across the hotel room floor. “Well, I guess it won’t be that bad. Did you make up the keyword search list yet?”
I popped open the lid of my powerbook and brought up a large text file that I had been working on.
“I think that it’s close. I have all of the names of interest, client names, phrases, everything that Wreed instructed us to look for. I’m just impressed that he got his staff to give up their cell phones that easy.” I said, raising both eyebrows this time.
“Yeah, how exactly DID he do that?” Scrap asked.
“He told his staff that the corporate account password for their cell phone provider was stolen, and until the vendor had their security stuff squared away he was confiscating the phones. Brilliant.” I replied.
Scrap rustled through a stack of papers near my powerbook. “These desktops won’t be too bad. All of them are running Windows 2000, attached to the corporate domain, and these cases all have thumbscrews. No screwdriver for me this time.”
ring
“Hey, it’s our pimp… I mean, it’s Wreed!” I joked tiredly as I answered my phone.
“Chief.”
“It’s Wreed. I’m afraid that I need to add one more person to the list of people that I’d like you to investigate. I’m not very happy about this, because I placed a lot of trust in this person over the years.” Wreed said in disgust.
I breathed a sigh of relief. For a second I thought that perhaps yet another paying gig was about to dry up around me.
“No problem, what was the name?” I asked.
“Sinjin Smith.”
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part IV 路 Jan 24, 2007
I couldn’t see a thing aside from the glowing buttons next to the elevator door that we had just exited. The lobby of EEE had zero lighting and a notably missing security or emergency light.
“I’ve been in better lit bar bathrooms.” Scrap joked as he inched towards the locked lobby door of EEE.
The wheels on Rosco’s transport case squeaked on the freshly waxed floor as I pulled him behind me.
“Card?” I asked the dark, shadowy figure in front of me.
“Uhhhh.” Scrap said with a guttural throat solo as he quickly searched through his pockets. “Yep, got it!”
I could barely make out the card in Scrap’s hand as he raised the card to the card reader. With a quick vertical movement, Scrap ran the card through the machine.
The light on the card reader went from ‘green’ to ‘red’ and a loud beep could be heard.
“Uhhhh.” Scrap said again as he repeated the motion, only to be greeted with the same results and a beeping sound increasing in volume.
“Scrap, turn the card around. The magnetic strip reader is probably single-sided!” I said urgently.
Scrap carefully rotated the card in his paw and repeated the vertical motion.
A pleasant chime welcomed the card and the lobby door unlocked with a loud “thunk”.
“See, that went well.” Scrap boasted as he picked up his backpack.
I grunted as I flipped on the lighting for the suite, covering my eyes with a paw to help myself adjust to the lighting level difference.
“Shut up. Get moving.” I ordered. We had approximately nine hours to image as many workstations as possible, and we were bleeding time.
“Alright, we’re going to grab this by level of urgency. Here’s your list. Get Rosco busy. I have to find our care package.” I said as I waved Scrap away.
“Care package?” Scrap asked.
“The phones, man! They are apparently in a large manilla envelope in a file cabinet… somewhere…” I trailed off as I left the lobby and headed down a hallway.
“You’ve got mail!” chimed a familiar voice from Wahlberg’s home computer. His tired eyes scanned his inbox as a frown formed on his face.
“Fricking spam.” Wahlberg whined as he deleted over half of the e-mail from his inbox.
He was halfway down his list of e-mails when he spotted the one e-mail that he cared about more than anything. With a quick flick of his wrist, Wahlberg double-clicked and opened the e-mail.
**From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Su: re: he’s in
Glad to hear that SS meeting went well. Next Q financial is two weeks away and critical. Rest of team understands situation and agrees with your suggestion. I will take care of SS and conjoined twin. Send date asap. **
Wally rubbed his forehead and glanced at the clock on his desk. It was nearly time to tuck in the children for bed.
“Finally! Hey Scrap, I found the phones!” I cried as I found the filing cabinet that belonged to the key that Wreed had provided me. After pausing for a few seconds to collect my thoughts, I inserted the key into the filing cabinet lock and was treated to a friendly “pop” sound as I opened the lock. With a few tugs of the bottom drawer I was staring at a large manila envelope.
I placed the envelope on a nearby desk and emptied the contents. The phones slid neatly out of the envelope and lined up on the daily planner calendar on the desk like small plastic soldiers.
“Motorola. Nice.” I commented as I opened one of the flip phones.
I spent the next few minutes comparing the serial numbers of the phones with the serial numbers and names listed in an e-mail from Wreed. My inspection and verification process went smooth until I came to the bottom of the list.
I had an extra name!
“You look confused, tired, or possibly angry. Something wrong?” Scrap asked as he parked a cheek on the desk near the phones.
“I would say so. The last guy on our list happens to be the greatest person of interest to our employer, yet we don’t have his phone.” I moaned.
“Big deal, boss. We call Wreed in the morning and he ‘allocates’ the phone for our inspection like he did for the rest, right?” Scrap said.
I smiled at Scrap. “Scrap, take a guess at whose desk this is?”
Scrap peered around the desk, his monkey eyes resting on a silver nameplate.
“Sinjin Smith” Scrap parroted. “So?”
“Notice anything unusual on his desk that isn’t on any of the other desks on the lobby level floor?” I asked.
Scrap peered around again.
“Nope.”
I sighed, clearly frustrated with Scrap’s lack of observational skills this evening.
“Scrap, all of the other employees that work on this floor have Motorola phone docks on their desk. And what does Mr. Smith have?” I asked as I pointed to the right side of the LCD on Smith’s desk.
“A blackberry dock that nobody knew existed? Uh oh.” Scrap said quietly.
Time to give Wreed a late night wake up call.
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part V 路 Jan 30, 2007
“Still no answer?” Scrap asked as checked his beloved Batman watch on his right wrist.
“Nope.” I said with a sigh as I hit the “hang up call” button on my Treo and returned to properly documenting the materials that Wreed has provided me in the envelope, complete with pictures.
Scrap glanced at his watch again. “This is going to be a bit for me. You doing the phones back at the hotel?”
I carefully placed the phones and documents back into the envelope, and then slid the envelope into a larger CoC bag.
“Affirmative. I never know how long this procedure will take. Be sure you clean up after yourself, lock the door and set the alarm like a good little chimp.” I said with a chuckle.
“Okay Mom!” Scrap snapped back while walking towards the machine he was imaging.
Sinjin’s head was pounding. A quick glance at the clock on his night stand showed five o’clock in the morning.
“I’m going to be dead asleep at work today.” he thought to himself as he clutched his writhing stomach with his left arm.
“Are you not well?” came the caring voice of his wife Vidja as she wiped the sleep from her tired eyes.
“I am fine. I must get ready for work.” Sinjin said as he looked around the room for his eyeglasses.
Vidja laid flat on her back on the bed and took a few moments to collect her thoughts.
“Sinjin, you must take the boys to school on your way into the office. They cannot walk to school.” she said.
“Why is that? They will become lazy.” Sinjin queried.
Vidja looked away for a moment. “It is the harassment again. They are threatened every day, and sometimes have things thrown at them. They told me this morning that it’s not just the students anymore, but the people on the street! It is insanity!”
Sinjin closed his eyes and kept the mounting frustration to himself. Being of Indian decent had been hard in this neighborhood after the recent September 11 attacks, and being mistaken for a potential terrorist was insulting to the core.
“I will figure out something, my love.” Sinjin said as he leapt from the bed and headed towards the bathroom.
“Something very soon.”
I narrowly missed hitting the television. With coffee, that is. One would think after all of the years of investigative work under my belt I’d know not to get too drawn into the procedure that I was doing and allow my coffee to get cold. Alas, poor 20 ounces of Columbian goodness, I knew thee for only a short, warm time.
“One phone left.” I told myself as I attached one end of the USB cable to the bottom of the last phone and clicked the ‘Get Phone Data’ icon on BitPIM’s toolbar. After the capture was complete, I exported the data in comma separated value format to a folder on my laptop bearing the serial number of the phone, and then pasted it into one larger Word document for quick and easy searching with my word list.
Wreed was fanatically concerned with any communication to a certain phone number. I did a quick search in the document for the phone number but came up empty handed. I then executed searches for the items in my word list, however I found no matches.
Strange.
I felt like I had just wasted entirely too much time.
“You are taking FOREVER dude.” I complained as I took up a position next to Scrap on the floor of our hotel room. After successfully imaging the hard drives of the workstations into EnCase images the night before, we were painstakingly walking through each image one by one, paying close attention to the results of our word list search.
Several hours and a room service lunch later, things became much more interesting.
“No way. No WAY!” Scrap bellowed as he performed a strange dance on the floor that reminded me of jaguar strangling a baby elk with telephone wire.
“Spill.” I demanded.
“We got a hit on that phone number and a metric ton of those keyword hits! I think we found what Wreed was looking for boss!” Scrap exclaimed.
I glanced down at the filename of the image, and then cross-referenced the serial number of the machine with my inventory list.
“Well, I’ll be.” I mumbled.
Mr. Blackberry himself, Sinjin Smith.
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part VI 路 Feb 16, 2007
Wreed had literally stopped breathing. The entire time we had been on the phone, he had been mouth breathing into the receiver. The phone line was full of dead, still air.
“Mr. Wreed?” I asked.
“Sorry.” he replied. “I’m just letting what you told me sink in. You’re positive that based on your early analysis that Sinjin is communicating with Wahlberg?”
I took a quick swig off of my water bottle.
“Yes, and Whet too. Scrap is building a timeline of the communications as we speak. From what we’ve seen so far, the communication is happening over his personal webmail account. Experience tells me that the holy grail will be found in his blackberry.”
Wreed sounded like he was humming a show tune, or thinking out loud.
“We only issued those to key personnel. I actually remember Sinjin writing up the requisition request for his. He’s had it quite a while. What do you suggest?” Wreed asked.
“We have a lot of options, but I understand that speed is of the essence in your situation. I propose that we get his blackberry in our hands long enough to forensically grab the contents and return it to him.” I replied.
There was a brief silence on the phone again as I heard Wreed cup his hand over the mouthpiece and speak to someone. After a minute or two he returned to our conversation.
“Chief, his blackberry is company property so he has no expectation of privacy. Tell me what you want to do.” Wreed asked.
“Okay, I’m going with a plan that we’ve executed many times before. It’s going to be easier to ask him to hand it over than have us try to swipe it and return it. I’d like to do something similar to what you did with your employees and their phones. Have a key employee walk around to a few blackberry users and confiscate their phone using the excuse that a company phone is overloading the blackberry server. Make it sound like an emergency, this will catch him off guard and reduce the chance that he’ll try to remove any data from the phone.” I suggested.
“You got it. Can you and your associate meet me in my office at 9AM tomorrow? I’ll send my IT manager around to do the collection. You should have all the time you need.” Wreed declared.
“Perfect.” I said as I disconnected the call.
This was going to get interesting fast.
Scrap clutched his stomach and released a belch that any disrespectful bar drunk would be proud of.
“Find something?” I said with a chuckle.
Scrap rubbed both of his eyes with his paws and stretched his arms upward in an attempt to fake an EnCase injury of some sort.
“Tons of stuff, boss. Tons. Every executive in the Fortune 1000 must have this guy’s personal e-mail address. He gets invited to go everywhere and do everything. In one of these messages a guy is offering to give Sinjin a free lease on a Mercedes!” Scrap said in disbelief. “And amazingly, he hasn’t accepted any from what I can find unless he’s not doing it over webmail.”
I grabbed my notepad and flipped through a few pages of notes.
“EEE has a pretty substantial corporate compliance and ethics program. I got a PDF of the compliance pamphlet that all EEE employees get on their first day of employment. These guys can’t accept any gift over $25, and every one of those puny gifts has to be documented and reported. This is good stuff. When you think about it, consider the power that a guy like Sinjin has. If he writes up a favorable analysis of your company and stock, people are going to buy it like crazy. If he trashes you, your company value could tank over a day or two. It’s no wonder the ethics program is so strict. From what you’ve found so far, Sinjin seems to be a straight shooter.” I explained. I looked up from my notes and noticed that Scrap wasn’t paying attention to me as he continued to whip through the magic bytes in front of him.
“Chief, what time did you say that we’re meeting Wreed tomorrow to do the blackberry grab?” Scrap asked.
“He said 9AM, but we should be there early just in case. Why?” I asked.
“We’d better be real quick about it. According to this mail message from yesterday morning, Sinjin is having lunch at 11AM.” Scrap said as he scrutinized the information in front of him.
“Lunch? With who?” I queried.
“Assuming that our assumptions about that mail message we found earlier about the conjoined twins is correct, I’d say he’s eating with Wahlberg… and a guest.”
Chief’s Notes:
I want to make sure that I haven’t lost any of you so far, so here are some discussion points for the comments. Put yourself in my shoes (or Scrap’s sandals) and consider the following:
-
Given the earlier case briefing from Wreed, we have established that communication between an EEE employee and an executive(s) of a publicly traded company has happened, and is suspected of becoming a regular occurrence. We were also briefed that Wreed believes that his co-CEO is plotting something that could result in our client being dismissed from his position. What is the significance of the suspected communication, and how could it be linked to a hypothetical plot by the co-CEO?
-
Considering the digital artifacts that have been discovered from physical evidence so far, is it a slam dunk that Sinjin is a party to these webmails? Why or why not?
-
Assuming that you capture all data from the blackberry and follow proper procedures, what digital artifacts would you expect to find? If the artifacts are related to the case and litigation resulted between EEE and Sinjin, how could a defense attorney discredit the blackberry evidence? The workstation evidence?
-
Many interviews and transcripts were used to reproduce dialog in this case file. Why would the conversation between Sinjin and his wife be important?
Put on your thinking caps, down the rest of your coffee, and let’s see what you all come up with by Monday afternoon. :-)
Chief
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part VII 路 Mar 7, 2007
“He really needs to look into some kind of nose surgery.” I silently moaned to myself as I attempted to concentrate on the enCase image in front me while being serenaded to the not so famous tune “Scrap Snoring in D minor”.
I politely asked Scrap to catch a few winks while I finished up the workstation analysis. I knew I wasn’t going to get any sleep, but I had little choice with all of our chess pieces in motion.
The image in front of me belonged to none other than Mr. Wahlberg, the “other” CEO. Traversing the usual files that one finds on an executive’s workstation is a true test of boredom control. Most executives are inundated with business case studies, lunch invites, financial statements, schedule adjustments, and the ever popular golf tee time.
My boredom was soon interrupted when I started picking apart his Internet Explorer history and cache. One of the first types of activity that I delve into is any webmail usage. Mr. Wahlberg appeared to belong to the several million-member strong America Online community.
I was right in the middle of giving my coffee cup some attention with a coffee stirrer when one strange word popped out at me: conjoined.
(Chief’s comment: To this day, I can’t explain why my tired eyeballs fixated on that word. It was an epiphany of sorts. Nearly every time I find something strange that causes my stomach to clench and my right foot to start tapping, I know I’m on to something.)
I carefully read the e-mail again, very slowly, and re-read the e-mail from right to left to make sure I was really seeing the words in front of me:
** From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Su: re: he’s in
Glad to hear that SS meeting went well. Next Q financial is two weeks away and critical. Rest of team understands situation and agrees with your suggestion. I will take care of SS and conjoined twin. Send date asap.**
“Conjoined twins. SS. Financial. Date. Could I have more keywords in one single fricking e-mail?” I said out loud.
I marked the e-mail as an item of interest and then searched on the sender’s e-mail address “[email protected]”. I couldn’t help but notice the obvious reference to one of my favorite Mel Brooks movies of all time “SpaceBalls”.
Over the next hour, you would have thought that I was sitting in front of a slot machine in Las Vegas winning one magic jackpot of $1 coins after another.
** From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Su: re: re: re: he’s in
I understand your frustration. We must concentrate on the big picture. I know that I made you a promise about the girls, but my hands are tied. Things would be too obvious. I nearly had to sell my soul to arrange the SS deal. It’s done and deliverable as we agreed. SS plays ball, I split the twins, you win, I win. Concentrate on the goal or we’re wasting our time. **
I had hit the proverbial motherload.
“Scrap! Scrap! Wake up dude!” I yelled as I kicked his feet repeatedly.
“She said she was single! I only kissed her!” Scrap screamed as he woke up from some strange, convoluted nightmare.
“Dude, read this goodness that I just cut from Wahlberg’s machine.” I said as I pointed Scrap’s beady eyes towards my blinking cursor on Rosco’s screen.
Scrap perused the messages and let out a power yawn.
“Okay, I give. Who is this ludicrous guy? Wait. Wait a minute. Boss, this totally confirms our assessment of e-mails that we found on Sinjin’s machine! Ludicrous has to be…”
I snapped my fingers in agreement.
“Ludicrous has to be Whet.”
Read all of my case files! Use the handy Official SecurityMonkey Case File Index!
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part VIII 路 Mar 9, 2007
(Don’t pass out! Two case file updates in two days! Enjoy. - Chief)
“What do you mean he hasn’t entered the building yet? The guy hasn’t missed a day of work in years. Keep calling his cell phone. Keep me updated!” Wreed bellowed into his desk phone shortly before dropping it into the base.
A quick check of my watch verified that it was shortly after nine o’clock in the morning. Things weren’t going as planned in our attempt to secure Sinjin’s blackberry. Sinjin hadn’t reported for work yet.
“Maybe he’s just running late.” I said, trying to lift Wreed’s spirits. “We can camp out here. When he shows, we’ll proceed as planned.”
Wreed frowned and shook his head.
“This is all very unusual. I have a bad feeling about this. Something is up.” Wreed said as he got up from his chair. “You two are welcome to remain in my office. I’m going to walk the floor and see if I can dig up any information.”
“Not a problem.” Scrap said as he made himself comfortable in his chair and watched Wreed exit his office.
I was lost in reflection while flipping through my notes and contributing to the uneasy silence that filled the room.
“Please tell me you have a working theory on this morning’s drama.” Scrap begged.
“I agree that something is amiss, but we don’t have much to go on. You’re absolutely sure that the artifact you scraped from Sinjin’s workstation said he had lunch plans today?” I asked.
“Positive. I wrote it down exactly as I saw it. They were meeting at some place called ’the cafeteria’.” Scrap replied.
I gave Scrap a look that he was very familiar with. It took him a mere three seconds to comprehend it.
“Okay, okay. I’m on it.” he said as exited Wreed’s office and headed towards the receptionist’s desk.
Scrap approached the receptionist and waited patiently for her to end her phone call.
“Can I help you?” she asked after slapping the ’transfer’ button on her phone.
“I have a question. If I were supposed to meet someone for lunch at ’the cafeteria’, where would I be meeting them?” Scrap queried behind a charming smile and his usual casual demeanor.
The receptionist laughed.
“Sir, we don’t have a cafeteria in this building. Your date was probably referring to a deli about two blocks from here called O’Sharpies. Everyone calls it ’the cafeteria’ because it was a soup kitchen decades ago and is still sort of laid out like one.” she stated.
“Peachy. So what are you doing for lunch today?” Scrap asked as her phone rang again.
The receptionist immediately broke eye contact and glanced at her phone.
“I’m enjoying a can of soup and doing my nails. Good morning, thank you for calling EEE. Office of the CEO, how may I direct your call?” she said as she returned to her job duties.
I barely noticed Scrap returning to Wreed’s office, but I recognized his patented sigh.
“Get turned down?” I chuckled.
“She had plans, wise guy. Looks like our man Sinjin is having lunch a couple blocks down the road. Why do I have the feeling we’re eating there as well?” Scrap lamented.
I just smiled and returned to parsing my notes.
“He never showed.” Wreed exclaimed as he returned to his office an hour later.
“Crap.” Scrap blurted.
“Okay, change of plans. Scrap and I are heading over to Sinjin’s lunch location. I have stock photos of the entire management team of NC. I need a copy of Sinjin’s employee badge picture so I know what this cat looks like.” I said.
“Done.” Wreed said as he picked up the phone and contacted the security desk.
The walk to O’Sharpies was refreshing and tiring at the same time. The receptionist had described it to a ’t’ to Scrap. Upon entering, one is struck with the feeling of being back in grade school at lunchtime and wondering if today was salisbury steak day.
“Chief, let’s grab that table over there by the window. Good proximity view of the joint.” Scrap suggested as he wandered toward a table barely big enough to entertain two monkeys.
I eyeballed my watch. It was 10:45.
Shortly after sampling two hot coffees, Scrap nudged my leg under the table and pointed to a figure entering the deli. I casually peered over my shoulder, and then looked inside the file folder placed in front of me.
“That would be Sinjin.” I mouthed.
Sinjin peered around the deli and made eye contact with a sharply dressed man sitting five tables away. I glanced back into my folder and started flipping pages maniacally.
“Something wrong, boss?” Scrap queried.
I closed the folder and downed the remaining coffee in my cup.
“That guy over there that Sinjin just sat down with… the one in the suit?” I started.
“Yeah, what?” Scrap whispered.
“I don’t have a picture of that guy.”
Read all of my case files! Use the handy Official SecurityMonkey Case File Index!
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part IX 路 Apr 23, 2007
Scrap cradled his head in his hands as he watched me work.
“You are taking inconspicuous to a whole new level.” he joked.
I was attempting to carefully aim my camera phone in the general direction of Sinjin and the unidentified person at his table.
“Hi guys, what will it be?” came a cheerful voice from my right side.
Scrap snapped to attention.
“Uh, I’ll have a Coke. He’ll have a coffee.”
The waitress scribbled on her notepad and wandered away as quick as she appeared.
“Got it.” I exclaimed as I returned my phone to its carrying case. “Who the hell could that be? Things just aren’t adding up.”
Scrap mumbled something under his breath and flipped through my notepad.
I kept my eyes trained on Sinjin. Both he and the other gentleman were having a lengthy conversation and sipping coffee like it was going out of style. I wasn’t getting anything from their body language other than frequent smiles and head nods.
Nearly an hour later the two persons of interest got up from their table and walked right by us on their way out of the restaurant.
click click
“We’re going to need a photo album for all of these pictures.” Scrap joked.
“Let’s head back to EEE. Pay the tab.” I said as I put my possessions back in my bag.
Wreed scratched his chin with one hand and adjusted his glasses with the other as he peered over the poor quality camera phone images we had taken earlier.
“Things are making sense now, gentleman. Things are becoming quite clear.” Wreed bellowed.
“Do share.” I asked.
“The man with Sinjin is Roger Rogerson. He’s a social friend of Whet and Wahlberg and sits on the board of the Cheshire school.” Wreed said.
My brow furrowed.
“Cheshire school? What?” I queried.
“The Cheshire school is one of the most prestigious academies for children in the area. They have a very limited enrollment, a hefty tuition cost, and use a selection board to pick every student. You’ll find only children of the very elite in that school. Wahlberg has been trying to get his daughters into that very school for a year now.” Wreed explained.
I was puzzled.
“So what does this have to do with Sinjin? I’m missing something.” I said.
“This is purely my own speculation, but I’d say that Whet is manipulating Wahlberg and Sinjin into doing something, and using the school election board as the prize. Thinking back to previous conversations with Wahlberg, this makes total sense to me. I also know that Sinjin has been having a hard time with his sons and the public school that they attend. He’s had to drive to the school many times to pick them up after they’ve been victims of racist activities by the other students.” Wreed neatly said in one breath.
The wheels in my head started spinning out of control. This information would have been quite useful a few days ago.
“If your theory is true, then our objective is quite clear. We need evidence of such a proposition from Whet, or the same between Wahlberg and Sinjin.” I said as I scribbled quickly in my notepad.
Wreed smiled. “I completely agree. But how are you going to do that?”
I put down my pen and smiled widely.
“We’re going to talk to Sinjin.”
=*=
“Have you lost your monkey mind?” Scrap asked me as we walked down the hallway from Wreed’s office and entered a small conference room. Sinjin had shown up for work and Wreed was arranging for Sinjin to visit with us.
“Not at all. We’re going old school on this one.” I replied as I sat my laptop bag on the conference room table and sat down in a padded leather chair.
“We’re just going to smile and say ‘So, Sinjin… you’re being bribed to do a favor for a CEO of a huge company that you rate for your employer’? And he’s just going to spill his guts?” Scrap whined.
“Look at the pieces in motion here. Sinjin is a straight guy. He’s in a bad place. He has pressure from home, pressure from his employer, and now this outside pressure to relieve the other two pressures. Sometimes people do things in a pinch that are far outside their character.” I said.
“I hope you’re right.” Scrap said as he set up his laptop and spread notes out in front of him.
Several minutes later a lanky figure appeared in the doorway clutching his stomach and staring at the floor.
Showtime.
Don’t forget, the ENTIRE case file index (okay, I’m missing one - I’ll add it in there) is right here.
Chief
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part X 路 Jun 7, 2007
“Sinjin?” I asked as I stood up.
“Yes. And you are?” Sinjin asked as he moved to closer to shake my hand. His hand was cold and clammy and slippery with sweat.
“I’m Chief, this is Scrap. Have a seat.” I said as I motioned for him to sit down in front of us at the conference room table.
“Can I ask why my Blackberry was just confiscated?” Sinjin asked nervously as he watched Scrap place the blackberry into his laptop bag and exit the room.
“You can. But we need to discuss a few things first. We’ve been hired by EEE to investigate some corporate compliance issues that involve you.” I said.
Sinjin shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“But what about my Blackberry?” Sinjin asked.
“It’s part of this investigation. It’s being looked at right now, just like we examined your workstation yesterday.” I replied.
Sinjin was quiet.
“You went through my workstation?” he asked in complete disbelief.
“Every directory, every file, every byte… yes we went through your workstation.” I said while maintaining eye contact with Sinjin.
From where I was sitting, I could clearly make out the carotid artery in Sinjin’s neck pulsating madly. To say he was exhibiting the classic signs of stress and nervousness would be an understatement.
“I will help in whatever way I can of course.” Sinjin muttered.
I removed some papers from a folder in front of me and started flipping through them slowly. The silence in the room amplified the noise of each piece of paper being turned.
“What kind of car do you drive?” I asked as I looked up from my papers with my poker face engaged.
“Uh, a Nissan Maxima. Why?” Sinjin replied as he looked around the room.
“We found a picture of a new Mercedes in your e-mail. Very nice car. That sure beats a Nissan, doesn’t it?” I queried.
Sinjin stopped looking around and stared a hole into the papers in my hand.
“WHAT?” Sinjin asked.
“The Mercedes you’re picking up in a few weeks is pretty nice man. Mind if I ask what a lease payment on one of those runs?” I asked with a tilt of my head.
“Mercedes? I have no idea what you’re… wait a minute. You can’t be serious!” Sinjin exclaimed as he slapped a hand down on the table.
“I’m dead serious. I’m guessing that lease payment is more than $25.” I said.
Sinjin was clearly agitated and clutching his stomach with his left hand under the table.
“I am not leasing a Mercedes, nor am I accepting such a car as a gift from a customer!” Sinjin boomed.
“I didn’t say anything about a customer. You’ve been offered a Mercedes from a customer? That doesn’t sound legit to me.” I said as I egged Sinjin further into a confusing rage.
“Ridiculous! This is asinine! You have no such proof of this at all!” Sinjin said as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.
“It’s all here in your e-mail Sinjin. It’s in black and white. We seem to have a problem here.” I said as I started flipping through more papers.
On cue, Scrap entered the conference room and leaned towards me. He whispered a few details and then abruptly left the room.
I grabbed my pen from the table and started writing a lengthy paragraph on one of the documents.
“Sinjin, security and human resources will be here shortly to finish this interview. My associate has found additional communications between you and a customer regarding the Mercedes on your blackberry, and I’m afraid that my portion of this investigation is now over.” I said as I started to stand up.
Sinjin had finally reached his breaking point.
“No! You have this all wrong! There is nothing going on with that cursed car! Why are you doing this to me when there are so many other questionable activities in this company? Why me?” Sinjin exclaimed as he wiped sweat from his brow.
I slowly sat down and grabbed my notepad.
“I’m listening.”
Don’t forget, the ENTIRE case file index is right here.
Chief
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
Part XI 路 Aug 21, 2007
[Okay, okay… here’s the next to last installment. The last installment is coming very soon…]
“It’s a war zone here and I’m in the middle.” Sinjin said as he stared at the floor.
“Go on.” I said as I tapped my pen on the table.
“Surely I am being framed for this stupid car thing. That is complete crap. Wreed has to be behind that.” Sinjin muttered.
“Wreed? Why Wreed? He’s your biggest cheerleader here from what I’ve seen.” I cracked.
Sinjin rolled his eyes.
“The man is a manipulative jerk. He hates Mr. Wahlberg, and Mr. Wahlberg hates him. I’m not sure what either of them have told you, but there is a lot of bad blood between them. Mr. Wahlberg is buddies with the CEO of National Communicators. Are you familiar with them?” Sinjin asked.
“Whet. Yes, we know of him.” I replied. “So what does this have to do with you?”
Sinjin took a deep breath and collected himself.
“Wahlberg wants me to rate NC in a way that the market will go nuts. This will push their stock price up quite a bit. In return for that favor, Wahlberg has promised me financial compensation and he’ll get my kids into a premier school.” Sinjin explained.
I scribbled more notes on my notepad and let out a large sigh.
“Come on Sinjin, that’s highly illegal. There are checks and balances in this industry that would catch such a thing. If NC isn’t really worth the rating that you give them somebody is going to notice and cry foul. I’m not buying it.” I said.
Sinjin was looking more agitated as the minutes ticked by on the clock behind him.
“Look, you don’t know the situation. Whet and his team have been cooking the books over at NC for a while now. They are setting the company up to be bought. If I rate them as a ‘buy’ the value of the company increases. Whet and company are going to make a fortune. However, all the investors that pour money into that company are going to get ‘Enron-ed’ within a year when the place collapses. I have all of the research. I assure you that I know what I’m talking about!” Sinjin proclaimed.
“And Wahlberg has promised to get your kids into a better school - a private school?” I asked.
“Yes.” Sinjin stated. “The very best school. His own girls attend there.”
I furled my brow and peered at Sinjin with almost sympathetic eyes. My poker face was unraveling by the second as I grasped the level of deception played upon this poor soul.
“Sinjin, I’m going to level with you. Wahlberg is full of crap.” I said in a volume barely louder than a whisper. Sinjin froze in his seat.
I ejected myself from my chair and started to pace around the conference room table.
“Wahlberg’s girls attend PS #24. A public school.” I said while keeping my eyes focused on Sinjin’s drooping head. “And Whet hasn’t sat on the board of that school in nearly two semesters.”
I hadn’t seen a person sit so eerily still since that time Scrap was pulled over by an Alabama state trooper.
Sinjin was grasping his stomach and slowly leaning forward.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Sinjin straightened himself quickly. “Yes, yes. I am fine. So what, all of this is crap? Why would they make such promises if they could not come through? Wait. Wait. You have to be kidding me.”
I failed to change my facial expression.
“They were setting me up all along? The frequent gifts and offers of cars and vacations? Make it look like I was paid off by an investor? No way. NO WAY.” Sinjin howled.
“Yes, way.” I responded.
“And we have the evidence to prove it.”
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original
The Conclusion 路 Sep 10, 2007
[Note: Scrap and I had a brainstorming session over the weekend, and it actually produced a conclusion that sums up the events without giving away too much. I figured you all wouldn’t mind. ~ Chief]
The knock on the door echoed loudly through the room. Sinjin nearly jumped a foot out of his chair.
A glance towards the door revealed the entrance of Scrap and Mr. Edson into the room.
“Sinjin, I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Edson, Vice President and General Counsel.” I said as I turned my head back towards Sinjin.
“We’ve met.” Sinjin sheepishly replied.
Edson and Scrap took seats on my left and right sides. I gave Edson the international signal for “you’re on”.
“I’ve spent a good deal of time going over the findings of Chief and his associate. I overheard the conversation that you just had with Chief, and it is troubling to say the least. This isn’t a game, Sinjin. The corporation’s future and reputation is at stake here. Your future is at stake here. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” Edson queried an obviously nervous Sinjin.
“Yes.” Sinjin muttered.
“From what I know, Whet and Wahlberg are in the dark on these findings. For me to make these findings useful, I need to be completely assured of your cooperation.” Edson stated.
“I understand. But you have to believe me on this Mercedes thing! I have no idea what Chief is talking about. I drive a Nissan. I don’t even LIKE Mercedes cars!” Sinjin blared.
Edson chuckled and looked in my direction.
“Sinjin, I apologize about the car accusation. That was meant to get you talking. We’re very aware that you’ve accepted no bribes, gifts, or any other such thing. You’re off the hook.” I said.
Sinjin nearly collapsed and reached into his shirt pocket for a prescription bottle.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Fine. Fine. I have a weak stomach. I just need some water to take my pills.” Sinjin replied.
Scrap produced a water bottle that he “borrowed” from the receptionist earlier enabling Sinjin to gobble down his medication.
Edson turned his attention to me yet again.
“Now that we’re all on the same sheet of music Chief, I need you to explain some of this again before I brief Wreed. What’s the deal with the e-mails between Wahlberg and Whet? You’re sure these communications are between the two of them? What’s this about ‘conjoined’ twins?” Edson asked.
I flipped through a folder in front of me and produced copies of the e-mails that we had dug out of disk images. “Wahlberg screwed up a few times when e-mailing the person we suspected of being Whet. Scrap dug a little deeper in Wahlberg’s image and found AOL e-mails where he actually signed his name to the bottom of the e-mails. Whet made the same mistake two times. It’ll take a few orders of the court - but you’ll find that Wahlberg was logged into AOL from the office and his home during these transactions. The same procedure should be fruitful with Whet’s hotmail account.” I responded.
“And the ‘conjoined twins’?” Edson asked.
“A reference to the two men running this company. Co-CEOs. Both ‘joined together’ in running the company. From what we’ve been able to ascertain, Wreed’s suspicion that Wahlberg wanted him out wasn’t a hallucination. Wahlberg knew that Wreed would never go with the plan and was suspicious that Wreed was ‘on to him’. Hence the reason Wreed hired us in secrecy.” I stated.
“Bloody strange.” Edson quipped. “Sinjin, I’d like you to come up to my office. We have a lot to talk about.” Sinjin stood up from his chair and steadied himself. With a few blinks of his eyes he turned towards the door and walked very slowly, almost in a daze.
[For reference, the details of Edson’s conversations with Sinjin regarding the company’s internal investigation of Wahlberg have been stricken from this. Let’s just say that Wahlberg became suddenly unemployed and Whet found himself knee-deep with the SEC.]
“Sinjin.” I said.
Sinjin turned to look at me, his eyes half open.
“Don’t forget these.” I said as I tossed his prescription bottle towards him.
Sinjin grinned. “Mercedes. Jesus Christ. A Mercedes.” he muttered as entered the hallway.
“We’ll be in touch.” Edson said as he shook my paw and nodded his head at Scrap.
“I’ll send you the bill.” I joked as I waved Edson out of the room and then collapsed into a nearby chair.
Scrap sighed loudly.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m dying for some coffee. O’Sharpies?” I asked
“No can do Chief. I’m going to be on a coffee break downstairs… with Georgia.” Scrap replied.
“The receptionist? You mean you actually got her to say ‘yes’?” I asked in complete disbelief.
“Something like that.” Scrap said with a laugh as he collected his things and made a beeline out of the room.
“He is so getting a Mercedes e-mail when I find my laptop.” I thought to myself.
漏 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Source: archived original