I had tested the viral router BIOS code through a simulation on one of my computers. Now I needed to confirm my test. I had to use the router that I brought home. I grabbed the router, and connected it between the first and third computers. The two computers used their Ethernet network cards to send and receive data from the router computer, so it was just a simple connection change to replace the middle computer with the router I brought home.
I just had to make a change to the two computers so that they had the IP addresses that were used at the company down in Sacramento. That only took a few minutes. I double-checked everything, and started the test. And let it run for a while.
It was time for some more cogitation. This was a "Kool-Aid cogitation session", so cookies were not required. I went to the kitchen, and got the big 32-ounce glass, filled it with ice, and poured the cherry Kool-Aid to the top. I took a quick sip so it wouldn't spill. Most people think that "computer geeks" subsisted on Jolt cola and Twinkies. But I'm not really a soda person (as you may have already guessed), and don't drink any alcoholic beverages. But I do enjoy my cherry Kool-Aid. Although the Lime flavor and the Berry Blue flavor is good, too.
I took the full glass, grabbed a pad of paper and pencil, and went out to the front porch. It was a nice day outside. The paper said a high of 87, a nice breeze from the southwest to keep the air moving, and just a couple of clouds in the blue sky.
It was a weekday morning, so there wasn't too much activity outside. It was just the right environment for cogitating. I took a drink, and then started drawing a diagram on the paper. It showed data going around the web, through normal routes and the delay routers. Wherever the data hit a delay router, the data would be delayed. But somewhere along the path of the data, something had to be inserting the delay codes. Those codes weren't a normal part of the data packets.
Where were the delay codes coming from? (Well, actually, they were a combination of delay and tracking codes. Let's just call it the viral packet code.) I'd have heard about hack attacks on servers around the 'net. But these viral packet codes seemed to be very stealthy. There seemed to be a randomness to the whole attack, but I couldn't prove anything yet. I'd have to gather some more information, and some more router source code. I'd have to backtrack the packets. And that was going to take some time and effort.
I needed to do a bit of hacking into other systems myself. I'd have to start with my clients, and move into other systems.
I'd have to write several programs. They would need to be really sneaky. And I would have to be sneaky about how I got into the systems.