[Spoiler] Who else knew about Nimue? Title is not a spoiler

DMcCunney wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Something simple, like changing Chihiro's password to the OBS after it was used against the SSK convent.

If I'm Chihiro, I'm going to be real fussy about who gets to do stuff like that. I might not let *anyone* do it. Why should I?

Never heard of hackers and identity theft? It wouldn't have been a question of *letting* someone change a password; the whole point would be to do it in a way that Chihiro wouldn't know it had been changed until he tried to use it again.

Weird Harold wrote:Something simple, like changing Chihiro's password to the OBS after it was used against the SSK convent.

DMcCunney wrote:If I'm Chihiro, I'm going to be real fussy about who gets to do stuff like that. I might not let *anyone* do it. Why should I?

Weird Harold wrote:Never heard of hackers and identity theft? It wouldn't have been a question of *letting* someone change a password; the whole point would be to do it in a way that Chihiro wouldn't know it had been changed until he tried to use it again.

I would assume that they would have both dna/finger print/retina scans AND highly accurate truth verification as demonstrated in Wylsyn's staff - so no need for passwords!

Weird Harold wrote:Something simple, like changing Chihiro's password to the OBS after it was used against the SSK convent.

DMcCunney wrote:If I'm Chihiro, I'm going to be real fussy about who gets to do stuff like that. I might not let *anyone* do it. Why should I?

Weird Harold wrote:Never heard of hackers and identity theft? It wouldn't have been a question of *letting* someone change a password; the whole point would be to do it in a way that Chihiro wouldn't know it had been changed until he tried to use it again.

isaac_newton wrote:I would assume that they would have both dna/finger print/retina scans AND highly accurate truth verification as demonstrated in Wylsyn's staff - so no need for passwords!

So corrupt the reference data that identifies Chihiro's dna/fingerprint/retina.

There will be a way to counter whatever security measures the Terran Federation uses as a standard. Shueler, or one of his adherents, would at minimum be conversant with preventing hacking/identity theft on some level, which is a relatively short step to knowing how to hack into someone else's system. Assuming, of course, that Chihiro felt any need for rigorous security measures on a world where such knowledge has been suppressed.

"Changing the password" to the OBS does NOT have to literally mean changing the access code. Changing anything about the OBS that inhibits Chihiro's command and control -- re-aiming the receiver antenna, giving command/control permissions to someone dead, placing additional identity verification routines in place that Chihiro can't satisfy. etc.

Locking Chihiro out of every day command/control functions would probably not be terrible effective, but the OBS would be seldom accessed and the change likely to go undetected for a long time. Locking Chihiro out of the OBS wouldn't solve anything except blocking the most murderous impulses, but is something Schueler could do even under suspicion from Chihiro. I'm not saying that
Schueler did disable/lock the OBS, just that he could have; the Key and Stone demonstrate that he, or someone working for him, had some serious computer mojo.

Who knew ?
Whoever put the Sarmac's in Tellesberg.
Maikael knew of the name Nimue from the Brethren of
St. Zhernean, (BSRA)

Weird Harold wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Something simple, like changing Chihiro's password to the OBS after it was used against the SSK convent.

DMcCunney wrote:If I'm Chihiro, I'm going to be real fussy about who gets to do stuff like that. I might not let *anyone* do it. Why should I?

Weird Harold wrote:Never heard of hackers and identity theft? It wouldn't have been a question of *letting* someone change a password; the whole point would be to do it in a way that Chihiro wouldn't know it had been changed until he tried to use it again.

For the record, we're told that Seijin Khody's tomb was destroyed by some of the last living 'mere' junior angels, AFTER the rest of the Archangels, including Schueler and Chiriro, had allegedly died of old age.

Which certainly seems to mean that the orbital array was still functional, at least until the very last junior angels had died of old age.

now, it's POSSIBLE that Schueler left some sort of a secret script behind, to be implemented AFTER everyone with access rights was verified as being dead, which would THEN subtly disable the Bombardment Array in some way...

Such as revoking all user accounts of verified dead users, which would mean revoking EVERYONE'S accounts, which would mean that no bombardment orders could be granted without a user account... And for all we know, Langhorne may have been the only person with full admin rights for the bombardment system, so maybe there CAN'T be any new accounts.

TangoLima wrote:Who knew ?
Whoever put the Sarmac's in Tellesberg.
Maikael knew of the name Nimue from the Brethren of
St. Zhernean, (BSRA)

By Schism Rent Asunder makes pretty clear that Shan-Wei herself had the NEATs for educating the Sarmacs and the Knowles. It is not expressly stated she put them in Tellesberg, but it is strongly implied.

At any rate, someone other than Adm Pei who:

Was alive after the Armageddon enclave was destroyed, and
Was important enough to attend a meeting with Langhorne


knew about Nimue.

The rest of my OP was speculation, but that’s what we do on fan sites.

One of the interesting things about the OBS is that while there are a lot of hints, most of what we know about it comes from supposition on the part of Merlin (and Owl) and their analysis of what it would be expected to do. The only strikes which have been detailed are those on the Enclave and the original abbey of the SSK; and even for those we don't have direct evidence for who authorised them. If there have been others they have only been implied. Given our lack of actual knowledge the overall C&C and who is in charge of the system could be anything. It might not even be active for responding to events on the planetary surface. Or, it might have been subverted by an embedded sleeper (Schueler?) in Langhorne/Chihiro's leadership team and at any point before, or even after, the end of the war against the fallen.

RFC's apparent deliberate obscurity in this area, and also in what the Temple is actually capable of, gives him a lot of potential plot flexibility for the future, which of course means it's rather difficult to determine at this stage which direction he might go in; fun, though.

DMcCunney wrote:"Something simple, like changing Chihiro's password to the OBS after it was used against the SSK convent."

If I'm Chihiro, I'm going to be real fussy about who gets to do stuff like that. I might not let *anyone* do it. Why should I?

Never heard of hackers and identity theft? It wouldn't have been a question of *letting* someone change a password; the whole point would be to do it in a way that Chihiro wouldn't know it had been changed until he tried to use it again.

And precisely who would do that hacking?

Effecting hacking requires both a high level of skill and known vulnerabilities in the target system. Most of the hacking and identity theft we hear about relies on user stupidity, like all the probably phishing messages Gmail intercepts here.

You can assume Federation level tech had largely passed beyond humans writing code. I'd expect a lot of code to be generated by AIs, in part to have code that didn't have vulnerabilities.

(I've been a systems, network, and telecom admin, and follow various development efforts. I see both whole new languages designed to avoid the sort of vulnerabilities inherent in coding in C, like Go and Rust, and an increasing emphasis on "Design for Test", where new commits to a repository must include tests that demonstrate the code behaves as specified and doesn't choke on the data it manipulates.

Current practice starts with "never trust your data!" An awful lot of vulnerabilities being patched back when covered cases like a program allocating a buffer of X KB to hold data, and being fed more. What happens to the more?

Previously, it overflowed into some other part of memory and possibly overwrote critical code. It simply didn't occur to the developers who wrote that code that someone might do that deliberately and they didn't check for it.)

You can also assume something more than a simple password to confirm the identity of the person given access. I'd bet on some sort of biometrics like fingerprints and retinal scans but more sophisticated.

I don't see hacking as a viable explanation. (And from TextEv, the angel I see being able to do it was Dr. Proctor, who hacked Nimue's PICA software to get past the 10 day activation limit. I don't see a lot of other folks with that level of skill existing on Safehold.)
______
Dennis

DMcCunney wrote:]And precisely who would do that hacking?

Effecting hacking requires both a high level of skill and known vulnerabilities in the target system. Most of the hacking and identity theft we hear about relies on user stupidity, like all the probably phishing messages Gmail intercepts here.

You can assume Federation level tech had largely passed beyond humans writing code. I'd expect a lot of code to be generated by AIs, in part to have code that didn't have vulnerabilities.

(I've been a systems, network, and telecom admin, and follow various development efforts. I see both whole new languages designed to avoid the sort of vulnerabilities inherent in coding in C, like Go and Rust, and an increasing emphasis on "Design for Test", where new commits to a repository must include tests that demonstrate the code behaves as specified and doesn't choke on the data it manipulates.

Current practice starts with "never trust your data!" An awful lot of vulnerabilities being patched back when covered cases like a program allocating a buffer of X KB to hold data, and being fed more. What happens to the more?

Previously, it overflowed into some other part of memory and possibly overwrote critical code. It simply didn't occur to the developers who wrote that code that someone might do that deliberately and they didn't check for it.)

You can also assume something more than a simple password to confirm the identity of the person given access. I'd bet on some sort of biometrics like fingerprints and retinal scans but more sophisticated.

I don't see hacking as a viable explanation. (And from TextEv, the angel I see being able to do it was Dr. Proctor, who hacked Nimue's PICA software to get past the 10 day activation limit. I don't see a lot of other folks with that level of skill existing on Safehold.)
______
Dennis

Hacking might be the wrong word. Better terms might be "edit wars" "Credentials Battle" or "Physical Access Fight".

hypotheticaly, it might look something like this...

Langhorne has full admin rights to the AI that controls the bombardment system, and said AI mainframe is stored inside his HQ.

Kau-Yung nukes the HQ, killing both Langhorne and the AI.

The simpler, local, emergency backup bombardment system AI reverts to local control, with a list of pre-approved losers, verified by their NEATS. Chiriro is at the top of the list, with LIMITED admin rights. Chiriro revokes the access priviliges for everyone with lower-ranking credentials than his, including Schueler.

Schueler, however, has senior admin priviliges over the COMM SYSTEMS, and in order for Chiriro's NEAT to communicate with a backup computer in high Safehold Orbit, the messages have to go through Schueler's comm systems. Schueler revokes everyone's right to use the comm system for orbital-range communications, therefore, neither Chiriro nor anyone else can easily send a message out to the bombardment satelites in the first place. No message transmission means no orders.

Chiriro hot-wires several of the groundside communications dishes using physical access, forces them to undergo a hard reboot to factory default settings, then orders the reset radio dishes to treat Chiriro as the primary admin from now on.

Schueler makes a secret personality backup, then attempts to perform lead-pipe cryptography on Chiriro's knees...

Chiriro kills Schueler, then convinces all AI networks under Schueler's former command that since Chiriro hasn't been convicted of murder, Chiriro must inherit all of Schueler's legal authority over comms systems, per the established legal chain of command.

Schueler's VR persona wait till Chiriro dies of old age, then awakens and re-claims command of the comm systems...

Obviously, that's a purely hypothetical scenario, and didn't really occur that way... but I suspect that's the sort of thing most people are thinking of when they propose a "hacking" war between angels, even though that isn't technically computer hacking in the way we normally think of it.

DMcCunney wrote:And precisely who would do that hacking?

Whoever built the Stone of Schueler and the Key passed down to Paitr Wylsysn.

Schueler or somebody working for him had enough computer knowledge to apparently build that system without Chihiro finding and destroying it. I see no reason that level of competency wouldn't extend to mucking up Chihiro's access to the OBS.