The intercepts of a graph are points at which the graph crosses the axes. The x-intercept is the point at which the graph crosses the x-axis. In our story and real-life, the Intercept is the point where the visible, our world, crosses the unseen or, as many call it, the “Dark Web.” That glimpse of the two worlds crossing is where our story begins.

Cities Across the World

Our story takes place across the globe and knows no geographic bounds or citizenship requirements. Its fluidity and nature make it hard to identify except when a member of our society fights back against theirs. That is where the story begins.

Dive Deeper into Both Worlds

  What if there existed two economies, two worlds, the visible and the unseen? A few of us know this is true: the world you can’t see or comprehend is called the Dark Web.  It has, this unseen world over the ages, had different names in its other manifestations.  Merriam Webster defines the word comprehend; “to grasp the nature, significance, or meaning of.” The term underbelly comes to mind, for as a leach living off its host, the Dark Web feeds off the visible, the economy we see. The economy most call home; now the feeding ground for the unseen. . 

  The upcoming books are based, in fact, on facts that little is known, few understand, and remain unseen. That will probably not change; it has been that way in other forms for a millennium. One thing that is known, great mysteries leave questions to be asked.   I am reminded when I speak of the Dark Web, most think of a dimly lit alley where a few souls live and make their living stealing from a few. Over the last few years, when businesses or governments fall prey to a cyber-attack, an arrest is made, it is often a “lone gunman” called out. I have seen it over and over again where a “spent youth” or “rogue employee” is singled out as “The One!” Lee Harvy Oswalt was supposed to have shot Kennedy; he, of course, we are told contrary to facts, was alone.

  Reason calls out this question, “How can the one repeatedly beat the great cyber-defense firms, huge banks with security, and Microsoft?” In truth, it is much more. Some have started asking, “Why no fact-finding investigation into the truth, who controls the real Dark Web.”

  That brings us to the question of what and how? The question of where does not need to be asked, the Dark Web’s presence touches every country, city, and state worldwide. Today many of the pages you access are controlled in some way by the Dark Web. The Cloud you store and trust your data the Dark Web calls it, “Their Piggy Bank,” where intellectual property and that next great idea await. Many digital lightbulbs you read this page by are feeding information to the Dark Web now. Select social media Apps most think benign gather information for an overlord of a new kind. The IP phone on your desk, a sophisticated operating system can and in many cases does, gather information for its masters unseen. Those gadgets that Silicon Valley dreams up contain an operating system the modern, sophisticated user or technical IT staff have no control over. 

And What of The Fallen?

  And what of the fallen? Those companies are attacked by digital criminals who pay a ransom, thinking they are clear of their digital clutches. Most never report cyber-attacks for fear of losing business or the stigma of “being one of those breached.” Today, most viruses that infect bore into their prey like a beetle into a tree. Eighty percent of businesses infected are never free from their invisible attackers unless they sanitize one hundred percent of their data and machines. Today, the viruses are designed to morph and linger, like an assassin waiting for its next bigger target. Stuxnet virus way back in 2010 was the first and only virus exposed openly to show the real power on an unseen enemy. Wired wrote in a 2014 article still worth reading, “Stuxnet, as it came to be known, was unlike any other virus or worm that came before. Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it escaped the digital realm to wreak physical destruction on equipment the computers controlled.” 

Dive Deeper into Both Worlds

 Are we so arrogant to think that code written a decade ago has not been improved upon and released in new forms?  The NSA leak of a trove of code proved that progress had been made. A group calling itself the “ShadowBrokers” announced an auction in 2016 for what it claimed were “cyber weapons” made by the NSA. On the Dark Web’s equivalent of an Amazon or iTunes store, ShadowBrokers and thousands of groups advertise and sell their wares today. 

 In his article in August 2016, The Intercept, Sam Biddle reported on “an NSA program called SECONDDATE built by the US government to infect and monitor what one document estimated to be millions of computers worldwide.” Does anyone imagine that only the US, now second in programmers, has the only program of this magnitude? Artificial Intelligence and government’s money in many countries is at the discretion of many underworld foes.  Why has no one asked, “Is not diligent and caution the watchwords for us all?” We keep our children away from strangers while storing our data in cloud folders watched by strangers who freely can access our vital information. Our permission is in the privacy policy we do not read and the blind trust of people we do not know. Social engineering and privacy policies include free access to the data we call our own. 

 Today we are a society numb to the danger. Still, like a small child approaching a busy street, most cannot sense the actual danger without a reference to understand the threat we collectively face. How did we get into this place? Are we proverbial frog slowly boiling alive? Perhaps because we are not aware of or don’t understand the control and cost this enemy can bring upon us all.  What is our reference to understand this all?

  The Wallstreet Journal wrote about Solarwind’s successful cyber attack; the “Hack Suggests New Scope, Sophistication for Cyberattacks.” Few remember just a few years ago when one of the largest banks, Captial One, was hacked, giving up the information of over a hundred million, or a third of the adults in the US. When the MGM Grand attack gave up ten million accounts, most in the press seemed not to care. “US Cyber Firm FireEye, one of those supposed to protect us, “Was Breached by Nation-State Hackers,” writes the Wallstreet Journal. Does anyone remember the 2020 United States federal government data breach by Russia or when China accessed 100 million US records in 2005?  The EU imposed the first-ever sanctions against cyber-attacks the headlines in July 2020. The worldwide press didn’t seem to notice, or many have no reference to understanding the problem like the rest of us.

  If the beginning of knowledge is understanding, the last question is, how can most understand a threat so complicated it bores people to listen? Let me offer you this thought, “Our technology threat from the Dark Web is so complex, the reference to what it means so unclear only stories can give it enough form to be understood.” Besides a great ride, I hope to do just that. Your mother and father told you there were monsters in your closet and under your bed; they were telling the truth in this case. 

 Many of the characters are based on real people. Actual locations have been changed. Through their fictional counterparts and many new characters, we enter the world of the unseen. Enjoy the ride.