Tagg leaned back in his chair, feet kicking at the floor as he gazed toward his computer screen with an amused grin. Th3_Calm certainly had some interesting characters. All together, OffByNone, Scarlet Eye, and Freis could keep his attention split between them and his usual gaming squad. The other users in the server he had yet to see active, but that was all dandy by him. Unless one of them was the hacker who had garnered attention from the public with the stunt they pulled. No one really seemed to talk about it, but he had both the powers of scrolling through the channel AND deduction. So it definitely seemed plausible… 



He bit his lip, and then sat forward to inspected the 0-days provided by that quirky ReplAI entity. ATTACK #4 was the one he had claimed. It seemed ironic considering how undeniably excited RexX12 had gotten playing some modded out version of Surgeon Simulator with robotics. He snorted at the thought of that dumbass in control of remote surgical equipment. All potential the jerky and erratic movements were precisely why he’d rather have a human digging through his body any day- despite whatever field experts had to say.

Fingers briefly danced across the keyboard, mouse clicking a couple times to bring up information regarding Verb Surgical. It appeared to be a newer medical equipment company out of California, formed through a joint venture between Verily and J&J. The fact of it being headquartered on Google’s campus got a rise out of him. And their most notable product looked to be a surgical robot- not yet released commercially. Possibly 2020. Or never- the thing looked horrifying if Tagg had a say in it. 

His attention switched back to the details of the 0-day again. 

ATTACK #4:
Insecure Protocols used in Verb Surgical Remote Surgery Equipment
Direct takeovers of remote surgery equipment possible by breaking DES encryption
The API is simple and details can be found online



As far as he knew, the Data Encryption Standard had been ironically insecure and outdated for some time now. He hummed thoughtfully, wrapping his mind around what all there was to do- before the errors popped up of course. 

Five minutes later and the room had fallen into the thrumming from a mismatched sound system. And needlessly to say, it was in sync with obnoxious rainbow backlighting. But how else was Tagg supposed to kill time as he waited for his brute force attack to find the private key- besides a few matches? 56 bits for DES, 2^56 attempts- and some outrageously large number that summarized the possibilities. 

Scratch that. He was on his eleventh match, and the numbers on his digital clock were glaring at him to go to sleep. 


[hider=Rektx3#794]
[b][color=7ea7d8]Tagg:[/color][/b] RexrexrEx, ONE MOR? :DDDD 

[b][color=7ea7d8]Tagg:[/color][/b] Or you scared? 

[b][color=f7941d]RexX12:[/color][/b] its 521 and havent u evr heard of work? 

[b][color=7ea7d8]Tagg:[/color][/b] Didn’t know you was a s c r u b 070

[b][color=f7941d]RexX12:[/color][/b] !!!!!!!!!!! FINE. One more! And thats it!
[/hider]




Didn’t matter though, as long as he had company. He glanced at his other monitor, hoping that it would find those magic numbers soon. And no sooner did RexX12 charge his special, did a sardonic grin creep over Tagg’s face. [color=7ea7d8]“Sorry,”[/color] he said to no one, [color=7ea7d8]“but I gotta dip.”[/color] 



He left the match and went offline in an instant, before he could read any of the notifications now blowing up his phone. It didn’t take long for them to die down though, not that he noticed. 

The information relayed by ReplAI kept proving true. He confirmed that once more and several commands later as the API popped up on his screen. [color=7ea7d8]“Alright, Azar. Let’s see what’cha got.

“Definite alien tech setup. Four creepy ass arms- all with creepy ass medical instruments on the ends,”[/color] he muttered. [color=7ea7d8]“Or wait,”[/color] his eyes narrowed at the dark screen. [color=7ea7d8]“No that’s a camera…” [/color]

Typing… 



The feed on the prototype popped up in another window. Tagg watched it for a moment before accessing the API again. A few minutes of research and troubleshooting later, and he had gotten the camera to rotate- revealing absolutely nothing! He groaned and slumped back in his chair. Sure. It was a good thing that no one was around right now to see. And it was beyond doubtful security cameras would have noticed the teeny tiny device rotating. But this was absolutely boring. 

He ran a hand through his hair and cast a sideways look despairingly at Ghost. Stupid cat didn’t even notice. It was probably dreaming about that damn canned food addiction. Whatever. 

His attention switched back to the screen and he pulled up some new articles. On the fifth one, the corner of his lip curled into a smirk. 

Now, the hacker tweaked the settings in the API between the surgical operator and arms, and nullified any movement restrictions he found. 

Several hours later, Tagg leaned back in his chair with an empty cup of ramen. On one monitor was a news article concerning the humiliation Azarbarzin, CEO of Verb Surgical. Apparently during a mock demonstration of his surgical prototype that morning, one of the arms had all but slammed into the nurse stand in. Of course, that employee was fine. But responsibility of the major API oversight fell on helpless and bewildered Azarbarzin. 

The other monitor displayed a freeze frame of the CEO in shock. Blurred and out of focus it may have been, but it still drew out a soft, sleepy snicker. Finally. He could go to bed.