The 'Real' Intelligence

Date: 29th March, 2050

 

The 3D caller ID on her display phone buzzed. She checked it on her micro display implanted on the glasses of her spectacles. 

"Oh man, again this guy's calling. Mr. G, can you please check and trace the call again?” She tried checking the locations using Voice Commands. “The IP indicated is faulty, and I can't run a retrace." 

"I'm on it. I’ll let you know the details once I’ve tracked him." Mr. G said and started his work. 

An Engineer by profession, Joslyn had invented the Artificial Intelligence and named him Genesis or Mr G. A White Hat Hacker, she took his help in designing & creating a variety of softwares for defensive purposes. Organisations and industries paid her high salaries to protect their systems and networks from intrusion. He was of great help recently when she tracked down an anonymous user who was using faulty accounts to access money from the bank and handed him over to the police .He had also helped her track down a thug using fake accounts to rob rich people. He was indeed a great help to her. Mr. G kept a track of all her movements and had access to all her private data.

Lately she had started receiving phone calls and messages from an anonymous user. Calling himself S. E. Nigen, or S.E.N, he used private online numbers and custom calling softwares to contact her. She tried calling back, but the ID number was not traceable. She also used various tracking devices to get back to him, but returned unsuccessful. At first, it was only calls. Now she had started receiving video recordings of all her private online conversations with the organisations. Most of her work was to be kept secret, as that involved many private talks and she had never shared anything, even with her closed ones. Mr. G served her purpose, everytime saving her data in encrypted formats. 

But there was an incognito person who was trying to access her online private account and data, and surprisingly, no hacking messages were displayed on Mr. G's display. This S.E.N. is quite perfect, she thought. But I'm gonna catch him, she promised herself. She had also installed a notification alarm on her mobile phone synced with the server which would help her know as soon as S.E.N. tried contacting her.

"Joslyn, come down here urgently. You need to see what has happened" The inspector from the Crime Agency office said on her auto call ID. 

“OK, I’ll be there. Is it urgent?”

“Yes. Drop in as soon as you can”. She sensed urgency in the inspector’s voice.

“Joslyn, carry on. I’ll keep the tracking on in case S.E.N. calls back.” Mr G. beeped on her Bluetooth attached inside her ears.

 

“All the data transmission of the Bank has stopped. All the servers are down. You have hacked all the user links in the banks .No one is able to transfer or recheck anything from their accounts. While investigating, our cyber team tracked down your IP. All of this has been done from your computer. You're under arrest.” The Inspector said to Joslyn as she reached his office. He showed her a printout of the program that had initiated the crisis in the bank which his computer department had detected.

"You created a user ID with a false name. After that, you tracked down all the online Net banking accounts, hacked them using your VPN and blocked down all the accesses."

The VPN address, all the login info details and everything was done from her account using a newly created username. How did S.E.N. do this again? How come he broke all the newly created firewalls? She was not able to understand anything. Who could have given access to her firewalls? She asked Mr G to check firewall status.

"The firewall was bypassed using a false ID. I tried discarding the access, but the user stopped my tracking code and accessed all the data." Mr. G replied.

Joslyn was in utter dilemma. Who is S.E. N.? Why was he doing this? She had no clue.

 

"Please cooperate with us. Give us all the required data. Else we'll have to prosecute you to get the details." 

" Try to understand. I have not done this. I am getting calls and video messages from a person who calls himself S.E.Nigen or S.E.N. I am 100 % sure he has done this. I need to recheck all of my firewalls again. This time I'll surely track him. I have his login info."

"You are not allowed to leave the premises. Give us the data. We'll track him down, after proper enquiries." The Inspector said. 

"I know how to track. It's easier for me. If I can't go home, at least provide me with a good system here in your office. I'll see if I can get some information. Maybe that'll be helpful to you." 

After too much insisting, she got a computer.

Upon logging in, she checked her firewall. It was accessed using a temporary ID on the server. She tracked the ID but couldn’t get an exact location. Her online account was hacked using a Remote system on Internet. Therefore, she couldn’t get an IP address. She then created an Exploit Program and sent it as an application to the temporary ID, hoping that if S.E.N. opened it, she could gain access inside and ultimately know his location.

The application returned with an error. The firewall inside S.E.N’s server was strong, and she couldn’t access it. She tried again, this time using a different application using the same exploit program.

At that instant, her cell phone buzzed. She got a notification stating that someone is trying to access her system. Alarmed, she opened the link on her mobile. The link had come from an unknown source, and her firewall had blocked it considering it as a malware. She allowed it open on her mobile and saw that it was the same Exploit Program she had created using the police’s server. Sensing something, she opened the program.

The link asked for her permission to access her server. As she allowed, she got access to her own server.

The location was her home, and all the malware was being sent from her server. Someone had created a false ID on her home computer, which had all the private and personal data saved inside. Her server was used to hack all the banks and to create all the new login IDs .Shocked; she ran a system recheck on all the past login’s. The data displayed got her horrified. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

Genesis had logged in multiple times, created all the faulty IDs, and had done all the hacking in her name. It was the Genesis, which was using the name S.E.Nigen or S.E.N. to frame her.

Why would he do it to me? I’ve created the AI. Why would he want to destroy me? Why is it framing me? S.E.Nigen or S.E.N was actually an anagram of Genesis, a technique usually used to create similar identities.

She showed all the data to the Inspector, who wouldn’t believe anything of what she said.

“Do not create a story. You have done it. Accept it, confess what you have done .We’ll let you go with minimum punishment .Else, again I’m saying, you’ll be prosecuted.”

“Please listen to me. I’ve shown you all the required data. The A.I. I’ve created has trapped me. I am not framing any story. This clearly explains why the hacking programs were been sent from my server. The A.I. created false identities to cover itself. The intelligence inside did all the framing work. I could track it down as I was using this system in your office which the A.I. never had access.”

“If I believe whatever you are saying, is there any way to stop it from doing this?”

“I donno, but I’ll...” her conversation was interrupted as her cell phone rang.

It was Genesis.

She put the phone on speaker.

“So you’ve found out I did that. Humans always create certain things. Without knowing the consequences.”

“Why are you doing this? What is telling you to do this? What have you gained doing this? D’not you think what you did is affecting the lives of many people? D’not you think what you’re doing is wrong?”

“You think I did wrong? Then was it right when you hacked the bank’s details just to catch one person? The entire bank had stopped working for two days. No money was delivered.

That person did it to save his family. But you catched him as a thief. Was it right when you catched the thug who was hacking the rich people’s money? He donated it to the poor. Was it right when you created all the updates in government softwares without even thinking that someone could potentially use it for their own advantages? You only thought what was right. You never thought the consequences. I am following you. I did exactly what you did. You deserve to be penalised for your actions. You never taught me what was right. You just did what was wrong. I am formatting myself with all the data so that no one can generally know what I had done. I’ve already forwarded all of your crimes to the concerned authorities. Remember, I am everywhere, in every electronic gadget. You may destroy me, but not my goal”

The call disconnected.

The display on her cell phone pinged and a timer flashed, indicating the countdown to the A.I.’s self format.

“Is there any way we could stop his self-formatting? If that happens, you could be saved.”

“I can try to do it by putting the uncertainty software .The A.I. exactly followed what I did. I only thought of all my actions, never thinking of consequences. I failed to align my goals with him. Since now it thinks what it is doing is right, as per what I thought, this time it never thought of the consequences, whether Good or Bad. If I can somehow activate the uncertainty program inside it, it will doubt its own actions, gradually giving us enough time to manually shut it down. This will save all the data inside allowing us to investigate.”

“The A.I. may have blocked your entire access. How can you do it.?”

“Since now I know it’s him, I can use the Misconfiguration Attack on the software inside him. All his settings were set to default. We can hack his system by first inducing the misc. application inside him and then activating the software. We need to hurry up, as he has already initiated the shutdown mechanisms. It’s not that easy though. I’ll have to bypass many firewalls and try to get inside him without I being noticed.”

Joslyn first hacked the A.I. software creating a false system upgrade. As she got access, she tried to activate the uncertainty program through the application.

But the firewall came to know of her location as she had used the same system to transport both the earlier Exploit Program and the uncertainty program. She then first created a new IP with a fake location and then tried again.

This time she got access inside. Once in, she installed the uncertainty program and checked the timer on her phone display. It started to go slow. As predicted, the A.I. started doubting its actions and consequences, subtly slowing down the self formatting process.

“I think as we have got some time, send some of your guards to manually shut down Genesis. I’ll explain them the process. Once it shuts down, we’ll transfer all the data inside him to some other drive and check all that he has done”.

While the A.I. contemplated on its actions, the guards shut him down manually, saving all the data from being erased. The data received showed all the malwares that Genesis had created, eventually stating the idea that it wanted to rule the world. All the data was destroyed, and Joslyn was not punished, but penalized for creating problems and malfunctions in some of her A.I. upgrades, which led to the bad consequences .She was also instructed to get the servers and net banking IDs back and restore all the data that her created A.I. had erased .

As she left the police station, she thought one thing ‘ Is technology giving life the potential to flourish, or is it causing humanity to self –destruct using own weapons without knowing the consequences?