NOTE: This commentary is a companion piece to The Drums of Heaven and may not make complete sense unless you've read chapter 7 of that story.
Hilde: I just want to announce for the record that Heero did NOT wash my underwear.
Duo: Yes, he did.
Hilde: No, stop joking. My underwear is...
Heero: Clean.
Duo: Hah! Gotcha. I'm not a first-class thief for nothing.
Zefyr: I thought it was a nice contrast to your new brassy image, Hilde. Shows you're still a little girly.
Hilde: *grumble*
Wufei: And we got more information on what the hackers are doing, too.
Quatre: What's this about relay bots?
Trowa: Zef made that up.
Zefyr: Sure did, out of whole cloth, but it's not impossible.
Quatre: It's not?
Zefyr: We pass messages in programming all the time, but our messages are usually called comments. When you type a line of programming code, the system registers the commands and acts on it. In most programs, you can 'comment out' a line – meaning that the system doesn't read it as a line of information to do – and on this line you put information for other programmers.
Quatre: Like putting in a side-note about the program itself?
Zefyr: Exactly. So I'd say something like, "this part is for checking passwords" and "now we need to confirm the session variables for user access" and whatnot. These comments will be read, down the line, by other programmers when they're trying to figure out my logic for how I set up the program.
Relena: And you could just as easily put in different comments, other than related to the program?
Zefyr: That's right. In this scenario, I was envisioning the track bots as little executables sitting on the server relay, that are set up to register and record any action on the server that fits the track bot's expectations. A specific IP address, a set of numbers for a bank code, that sort of thing.
Quatre: But the comments?
Zefyr: Inside that track bot – which consists of just a series of lines of code – I'd plant a statement or two that's encoded. If you have the key to unlocking the code, then you could read the comments. Changing those comments would be tricky, because it would require downloading and uploading a new track bot onto someone else's relay, which are usually protected quite heavily.
Hilde: This is all making a kind of sense that isn't.
Heero: No, it makes sense.
Duo: In a strange 'who the hell would freakin' bother' way.
Trowa: Yeah. That seems really intricate for just passing messages.
Zefyr: That's part of the point.
Quatre: You say so. But it seems like a lot of hassle to me. Just to say something like "hey! Got your email! When are you and the kids coming to visit?"
Zefyr: But you wouldn't say that. And the comment would naturally have to be short, or the code would be too easily broken because you'd have too much information with which to crack the algorithm that created the code.
Wufei: Great. You people are just geeking out all over the place.
Relena: Wufei, want to go get a beer?
Wufei: What? We're supposed to be doing the commentary.
Relena: We were, but now they're all going computer pinhead on us. It'll be awhile.
Wufei: In that case, beer sounds great.
Zefyr: Can I come?
Quatre: What? You're supposed to stay here and write more!
Trowa: Get the cattleprod!
Zefyr: GAHHH!
End Part 7
(:./sol/behind7)
