Fic: Someone's Got a New Cell Phone Ring Tone
So, I didn't know I'd be doing a sequel to this, but in lieu of the art I only ever blocked out and never finished (Sorry, Random! You can have this universe instead.) I give you this. Based on comments to the preceding story, Someone's Got a New Desktop Wallpaper
Thanks to dauphkantus, the_improbable1, and ranuel for making funny comments.
Now has an Interquel, link at bottom.
Someone's Got a New Cell Phone Ring Tone
by Astapez
Not Beta'd so whoever wants to read it over and tell me if I'm being too geeky or raping the English language too much, let me know please!
Universe Inspired by Random_Nexus' Fic
http://random-nexus.livejournal.com/168457.html
“What is this?” Sherlock asked one day, as John opened the door to their flat. John did not immediately see what Sherlock was referring to, and there were a couple options at the moment, so he focused on setting down the cans of paint and carpet samples first before anything else.
“This thing that has appeared in your room. It's like a laptop in a briefcase, crossed with two typewriters, a steam engine, and an octopus. What. Is. It.”
“It was Mrs. Turner's idea, and Mycroft's pet engineers loved it. They took a Lenovo ThinkPad and attached an enigma cipher and some lockboxes. And they've given it to me, because that means that the person who's going to do penetration testing is you. And the only way to get you motivated enough to try and break into it is for me to put all sorts of interesting things that I don't want to tell you on there,” John said, completely nonchalant, as he compared carpet samples to the broken wall and scorched ooze stains.
Sherlock gaped at John. He could either break into it, thus helping his brother, or not break into it, thus leaving things that he didn't know about John. Worse, conceding defeat in The Great Cryptography War.
“You're evil,” Sherlock said.
“That thing you summoned out of the Necronomicon was evil. I'm just... well, I suppose I'm evil, too. Tea?” John threw the carpet swatches he approved of in Sherlock's general direction and dropped off the ones he didn't like so much by the door, so he could return them, on the way to the kitchen to make some tea. And probably a couple sandwiches, too, this whole 'Fix the flat and I'll exorcise the demons' thing had got him a bit peckish.
Who would have thought that Mrs. Hudson knew how to dispel horrible things?
“Fine. And I want to know more about this thing. What's it called?”
“I think Mrs. Turner and her new engineer friends want to call it the Labyrinth ThinkPad. Or something. They change the name every time they think of something else they want to add to it- it's really become their pet project to get all their frickin' laser beams and ridiculous ideas out,” John said. He started slicing tomatoes. “Which one of the carpets do you like?”
“This lightish thing. If I spill something it will be more immediately obvious to you. What kind of security does this thing have?”
“If I told you, you would have an easier time of it. Why don't you just observe me logging in,” John said.
He put two plates with sandwiches on the table around the test tube rack and the microscope, which John was borrowing to write down some things about the ooze, and then came back with the tea, while Sherlock
John took a key from his boot and unlocked the case- Sherlock had picked it before but it locked differently on shutting and transport. He opened the case, and a sleek laptop that was the same rich auburn leather of the case popped out. The screen lid slid up the inside of the case, and the laptop was propped up at a drafting table angle- much more ergonomic than having it sit up all chunky- box like.
John put his hand on the screen and the webcam lit up briefly, before he put the thumb of his other hand over the webcam. The screen turned on with a cheery tone and came to a password prompt.
Now John carefully tilted the thing on its side, so that Sherlock could see the second “keyboard” underneath.
“That's the enigma emulator. It works on a modified software version of the Enigma electro-mechanical roto cipher machines. That is actually a smartphone whose purpose is to calculate the cipher, and report if it detects damage or tampering.”
Then John typed in one of his godawful really long ultra secure passwords at something like 70 wpm and Sherlock coughed inelegantly.
“Oh, and it runs Linux with my personal idea of a good partitioning scheme and a rather obscure allocation table hacked by MI6. Good luck, Sherlock. I hope you'll not get bored or too frustrated. You can poke around in this 'unlocked' scheme, but be warned that it is weaponized and not all the way unlocked. It'll give you loads of fair warning before it tries to kill you, though.”
“Your personal idea of a good partitioning scheme is a different partition for each directory tree,” Sherlock said.
“Yep,” John said.
“And Linux, where in order to do any damage or see anything you don't want me to see, I'll have to not only guess your password, but several passwords of increasingly higher authority until we get to root. Not even most Linux users do that.”
“Yep.”
“Nonstandard file allocation table means that I can't even bypass the bootloader and suck the data off the hard drive.”
“Indeed.”
“And that cipher means that at the very least, every partition is encrypted differently, but likely it's something like every file.”
“Yes?”
“And the biometrics would be interesting enough to fool, seeing as- what was that, using the capacitive screen to measure the electrical impulses and dimensions of your hand, and the webcam as a thumbprint scanner, instead of the touch pad? Where is the weak link?”
“Hell if I know. It shoots lasers into your face if you guess the password wrong five times.”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. He pulled the laptop over to himself.
“Hellooo, my designation is 'Ultra'. I am the secure computing and storage assistant. How may I assist you today?” the computer trilled.
Several weeks later, John was painting over some laser tracks on the wall, when two things happened.
The first was that there was a polite knock on the door, and Mycroft let himself in.
The second was that Sherlock rushed out of his room with the Labyrinth Thinkpad and Ultra trilling cheerily.
Sherlock held out a pocketwatch to John, who waved it off with his paint-covered hands.
“So, how did you break in?” John asked.
“Yes, well, I'm afraid that it wasn't a perfect break in,” Mycroft said.
“You cheated. Both of you, at different times,” Sherlock complained.
John and Mycroft both raised eyebrows.
“John has a guest account that he allows access to, because he always has guest accounts on his laptops so that I can get on quickly. Mycroft cheated by having a keylogger and tracker daemon installed on that account, and John cheated by making it so that if I just asked nicely, it would spill everything.” Sherlock was outraged.
“I fail to see how monitoring the unsecured account is cheating, when the computer is in fact prototype military technology-”
“I fail to see how 'Will you please unlock' as a master override code is cheating. It seems to me to be a rather glaring security oversight-”
“IT WAS TOO EASY!” Sherlock roared.
“And yet it took you more than a month to ask nicely. That's just anvillicious, Mycroft,” John said, as he finished painting. There, another non-papered wall matched the colors of the wallpaper on the sitting room wall. And the scorch marks were gone, which meant that Mrs. Hudson was probably going to make biscuits.
“Actually, that's more of an unsubtle lesson from you, John,” Mycroft said.
“Really? How?” John asked, as he took his painting supplies to the kitchen. Mycroft sat at one of the chairs and glanced disinterestedly over Sherlock and John's final lab report on the properties of “Lovecraft Ooze”.
“The entire purpose of the Labyrinth project was to have an ultra secure laptop with many levels of security. When you put in the master override code, you were making a particularly overt statement on multifaceted authentication schemes,” Mycroft said.
“That's it. That's how it works,” Sherlock said. John smiled.
“Yes. It needs one of three specific cell phones to be in the area, a hand print, a thumbprint from the other hand, picture identification, and your voice,” John said.
Sherlock and Mycroft's faces were priceless. Clearly, John had a lot more control over that laptop than anyone had thought.
“Oh, come off it, it's obviously his laptop, too. Happy birthday, the watch is actually yours, as is this sandwich.”
Sherlock didn't have anything to say, until John's phone rang.
'Will you PLEASE UNLOCK?'
'Will you PLEASE UNLOCK?'
“Will you PLEASE UNLOCK?'
And the Interquel, The Hackneyed Jet Li Movie Plot
Thanks to dauphkantus, the_improbable1, and ranuel for making funny comments.
Now has an Interquel, link at bottom.
Someone's Got a New Cell Phone Ring Tone
by Astapez
Not Beta'd so whoever wants to read it over and tell me if I'm being too geeky or raping the English language too much, let me know please!
Universe Inspired by Random_Nexus' Fic
http://random-nexus.livejournal.com/168457.html
“What is this?” Sherlock asked one day, as John opened the door to their flat. John did not immediately see what Sherlock was referring to, and there were a couple options at the moment, so he focused on setting down the cans of paint and carpet samples first before anything else.
“This thing that has appeared in your room. It's like a laptop in a briefcase, crossed with two typewriters, a steam engine, and an octopus. What. Is. It.”
“It was Mrs. Turner's idea, and Mycroft's pet engineers loved it. They took a Lenovo ThinkPad and attached an enigma cipher and some lockboxes. And they've given it to me, because that means that the person who's going to do penetration testing is you. And the only way to get you motivated enough to try and break into it is for me to put all sorts of interesting things that I don't want to tell you on there,” John said, completely nonchalant, as he compared carpet samples to the broken wall and scorched ooze stains.
Sherlock gaped at John. He could either break into it, thus helping his brother, or not break into it, thus leaving things that he didn't know about John. Worse, conceding defeat in The Great Cryptography War.
“You're evil,” Sherlock said.
“That thing you summoned out of the Necronomicon was evil. I'm just... well, I suppose I'm evil, too. Tea?” John threw the carpet swatches he approved of in Sherlock's general direction and dropped off the ones he didn't like so much by the door, so he could return them, on the way to the kitchen to make some tea. And probably a couple sandwiches, too, this whole 'Fix the flat and I'll exorcise the demons' thing had got him a bit peckish.
Who would have thought that Mrs. Hudson knew how to dispel horrible things?
“Fine. And I want to know more about this thing. What's it called?”
“I think Mrs. Turner and her new engineer friends want to call it the Labyrinth ThinkPad. Or something. They change the name every time they think of something else they want to add to it- it's really become their pet project to get all their frickin' laser beams and ridiculous ideas out,” John said. He started slicing tomatoes. “Which one of the carpets do you like?”
“This lightish thing. If I spill something it will be more immediately obvious to you. What kind of security does this thing have?”
“If I told you, you would have an easier time of it. Why don't you just observe me logging in,” John said.
He put two plates with sandwiches on the table around the test tube rack and the microscope, which John was borrowing to write down some things about the ooze, and then came back with the tea, while Sherlock
John took a key from his boot and unlocked the case- Sherlock had picked it before but it locked differently on shutting and transport. He opened the case, and a sleek laptop that was the same rich auburn leather of the case popped out. The screen lid slid up the inside of the case, and the laptop was propped up at a drafting table angle- much more ergonomic than having it sit up all chunky- box like.
John put his hand on the screen and the webcam lit up briefly, before he put the thumb of his other hand over the webcam. The screen turned on with a cheery tone and came to a password prompt.
Now John carefully tilted the thing on its side, so that Sherlock could see the second “keyboard” underneath.
“That's the enigma emulator. It works on a modified software version of the Enigma electro-mechanical roto cipher machines. That is actually a smartphone whose purpose is to calculate the cipher, and report if it detects damage or tampering.”
Then John typed in one of his godawful really long ultra secure passwords at something like 70 wpm and Sherlock coughed inelegantly.
“Oh, and it runs Linux with my personal idea of a good partitioning scheme and a rather obscure allocation table hacked by MI6. Good luck, Sherlock. I hope you'll not get bored or too frustrated. You can poke around in this 'unlocked' scheme, but be warned that it is weaponized and not all the way unlocked. It'll give you loads of fair warning before it tries to kill you, though.”
“Your personal idea of a good partitioning scheme is a different partition for each directory tree,” Sherlock said.
“Yep,” John said.
“And Linux, where in order to do any damage or see anything you don't want me to see, I'll have to not only guess your password, but several passwords of increasingly higher authority until we get to root. Not even most Linux users do that.”
“Yep.”
“Nonstandard file allocation table means that I can't even bypass the bootloader and suck the data off the hard drive.”
“Indeed.”
“And that cipher means that at the very least, every partition is encrypted differently, but likely it's something like every file.”
“Yes?”
“And the biometrics would be interesting enough to fool, seeing as- what was that, using the capacitive screen to measure the electrical impulses and dimensions of your hand, and the webcam as a thumbprint scanner, instead of the touch pad? Where is the weak link?”
“Hell if I know. It shoots lasers into your face if you guess the password wrong five times.”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. He pulled the laptop over to himself.
“Hellooo, my designation is 'Ultra'. I am the secure computing and storage assistant. How may I assist you today?” the computer trilled.
Several weeks later, John was painting over some laser tracks on the wall, when two things happened.
The first was that there was a polite knock on the door, and Mycroft let himself in.
The second was that Sherlock rushed out of his room with the Labyrinth Thinkpad and Ultra trilling cheerily.
Sherlock held out a pocketwatch to John, who waved it off with his paint-covered hands.
“So, how did you break in?” John asked.
“Yes, well, I'm afraid that it wasn't a perfect break in,” Mycroft said.
“You cheated. Both of you, at different times,” Sherlock complained.
John and Mycroft both raised eyebrows.
“John has a guest account that he allows access to, because he always has guest accounts on his laptops so that I can get on quickly. Mycroft cheated by having a keylogger and tracker daemon installed on that account, and John cheated by making it so that if I just asked nicely, it would spill everything.” Sherlock was outraged.
“I fail to see how monitoring the unsecured account is cheating, when the computer is in fact prototype military technology-”
“I fail to see how 'Will you please unlock' as a master override code is cheating. It seems to me to be a rather glaring security oversight-”
“IT WAS TOO EASY!” Sherlock roared.
“And yet it took you more than a month to ask nicely. That's just anvillicious, Mycroft,” John said, as he finished painting. There, another non-papered wall matched the colors of the wallpaper on the sitting room wall. And the scorch marks were gone, which meant that Mrs. Hudson was probably going to make biscuits.
“Actually, that's more of an unsubtle lesson from you, John,” Mycroft said.
“Really? How?” John asked, as he took his painting supplies to the kitchen. Mycroft sat at one of the chairs and glanced disinterestedly over Sherlock and John's final lab report on the properties of “Lovecraft Ooze”.
“The entire purpose of the Labyrinth project was to have an ultra secure laptop with many levels of security. When you put in the master override code, you were making a particularly overt statement on multifaceted authentication schemes,” Mycroft said.
“That's it. That's how it works,” Sherlock said. John smiled.
“Yes. It needs one of three specific cell phones to be in the area, a hand print, a thumbprint from the other hand, picture identification, and your voice,” John said.
Sherlock and Mycroft's faces were priceless. Clearly, John had a lot more control over that laptop than anyone had thought.
“Oh, come off it, it's obviously his laptop, too. Happy birthday, the watch is actually yours, as is this sandwich.”
Sherlock didn't have anything to say, until John's phone rang.
'Will you PLEASE UNLOCK?'
'Will you PLEASE UNLOCK?'
“Will you PLEASE UNLOCK?'
And the Interquel, The Hackneyed Jet Li Movie Plot