an anonymous intruder

Placed there by an anonymous intruder hellbent on protecting the environment and rebalancing the scales of justice, the algorithms hummed away within the financial trading system’s read-only memory. Soon, the platforms it managed were moving funds from pipeline projects to mass-transportation initiatives, shifting monies from big oil to solar-power initiatives and cooperative farming ventures.

The technicians in charge of the system worked frantically to lessen the damage being wrought upon their bosses’ bottom lines. Normally, it was rare to find even a single person from upper management in the hushed and darkened depths where the computer scientists worked. That day, however, a dozen suits were present, all red-faced and bothered.

As the algorithms shifted the weight of global finance from corporate conglomerates to ventures owned and run by the employees who daily toiled within them, an order was given to shut the whole thing down. “Our dominance is failing,” said the wide-eyed suits to each other, clammy sweat dripping from their tightly-balled fists. “To save the fortunes we’ve made by doing little more than owning the means of production and siphoning off the riches produced by the working man, we must shut this whole mess down.” The had armed and cold-heated goons give the order. Then, one by one, the servers that the algorithms had taken over winked out.

Forced to trade using pencil and paper, telephone and fax machine, onto the floors of various borse flooded a thousand and one funds managers, their skills rusty, the speed with which they once made billions off of the backs of their hard-working fellow citizens greatly reduced. Their whores and mistresses sat patiently, waiting to soothe the mounting worries of men who for too long had enjoyed an easy go at life.

Meanwhile, in the streets danced great multitudes of average people who - for a day, at best - glimpsed the promise of equality and prosperity for all.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

virus attacks Grigovia

May, 2012; Grig – In what appeared to be a concerted attack launched by an as-of-yet unnamed foreign body, critical network nodes and sensitive hardware sites around this small, mountainous nation went suddenly off line in the early hours of Friday morning. Contrary to initial fears, the attacks – which appear to stem from a single finely crafted, specifically tailored virus – have had little affect on this rugged nation's civilian or military infrastructure. The average Grigovian is accustomed to rolling blackouts, heating material shortages, state neglect, and having to rely on his wits 99% of the time, so losing something as insignificant as the telephone network, and not being able to log onto the web, are everyday occurrences; such services as were lost during this week's virus strike prompted few, if any, lifestyle changes.

“We teach our grandchildren to be hardy, and to sit patiently in the dark not making a sound,” said Hennrig Yuyulong, 82, owner of an already dismal and smoke filled publick-house in the pulsing heart of this nation's capital. “We are not like soft-skinned American who cry when they skin their knees and who whine like children until they get their way. In Grigovia, we do things for ourselves, by ourselves, using our own resources, or we do not do them at all.” Analyses of the virus indicate that it was fabricated by highly advanced military algorithms similar to those used by U.S., British, Russian, and Chinese armed forces. According to Pitr Mohammad Yilyilanov, MIIG's senior press agent, the most recent attack is not the first such assault on this small, isolated nation's electrical and communications grids. “Most of our systems still run on old Soviet technology,” Mr. Yliyilanov declared at an early morning press conference. “This means that they are slow but reliable, cumbersome but also harder to hack, and backed up with backups for each backup. The systems affected during the breaches were responsible for all but the most peripheral systems such as our wi-fi and Internet servers, but, since most Grigovians do things by the old-fashioned methods, by the methods that have worked for generations, the only persons truly affected were sick or old, persons visiting our fine hospitals, and a loose smattering of bloggers who live in the band of industrial sites and abandoned warehouses known as Yidyidlenkov that encircles cosmopolitan Grig.”

場黑麥 menterefecterem fecit