maDNS2
The Domain Name System has more secrets than one could even imagine. And so does M-Link.
Read Part 1 here: maDNS1
6th of February, 2021
City of Dodvhall, United Riripublic
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," the TV in the cafeteria started broadcasting after an ad break., "My name is Ilya, and I am reporting from Dodvhall, The United Riripublic. Behind me stands one of the most iconic landmarks in Dodvhall: the M-Link HQ."
The camera slowly panned to a sleek and modern skyscraper rising high above the city. Its top was obscured by clouds, its reflective glass shimmered in the sunlight, contrasting sharply with older, weathered neighborhoods that surrounded it, their worn facades and faded street signs.
"Ever since M-Link formed the United Riripublic, under the rule of individuals then simply known as 'rferee' and 'andorvini', Dodvhall has transformed into the heart of technological innovation - pioneering advancements in every field: from medicine to quantum computing and synthetic intelligence, there are no limits to M-Link's ambitions."
The camera switches back to the host at the end of the sentence, his expression trying to conceal anger or pity, hard to tell. "But not everyone reaps the rewards of this progress," he said as the camera cuts to a shadowed street filled with crumbling buildings and a graffiti protesting M-Link and its government: "Corporation < Nation."
"Residents say that this transformation came at a steep cost to them, while providing nothing in return. As M-Link expanded, tens of thousands were displaced, their homes grounded for 'progress'," he said, while the broadcast showed multiple photographs of people protesting and rioting outside the HQ.
"Resources are being exhausted, entire industries collapse under M-Link's weight. Even more concerning..." the video cuts to a clip of the founders singing an agreement with world leaders.
"Since M-Link gained its status as a Free International Corporation, no laws or regulations were passed to keep the power in check."
The camera cuts back to Ilya, now more serious and composed. "Join us as we uncover the darkest secrets behind the world's largest international corporation and explore the true price of progress."
The video fades out, revealing the title, "Ilya In Tech," with the subtitle, "M-Link: The True Price of Progress," and the air date, "February 8th, 20:00 at RBS News."
As Vladimir gathered the printouts and was ready to leave the cafeteria, he noticed someone approaching his table. A tall figure, confident gait and unmistakably straight back (when he's standing, that is) - It was Kirill, or ThisPilot, depends on who you ask.
"Knew I'd find you here," he said, almost dropping himself onto the chair across from Vladimir with a grin. He placed a steaming cup of coffee on the table and put down a large tablet from under his arm. "Don't see you at the cafeteria often; I thought you'd be knee-deep in whatever shit ISMD is dealing with and working at your place."
Vladimir smirked, pleasantly surprised. "Long time," he said smiling, "what brings you to our little house of madness?" he added, chuckling as he sat back down at the table.
"BlackHat sent me over; got some inter-departmental integration stuff to take care of," Kirill briefly rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed by the bureaucracy and glanced at the printouts Vladimir was holding. "So, what are you working on these days? Something fun or just 'printer not printing' nonsense?"
"Funny you mention that..." Vladimir hesitated for a moment before continuing, "We had some, ahem, anomalies if you can call them that." Vladimir slid the printouts to Kirill, "The printer at our lobby started printing those," he said with a hint of amusement.
Kirill leaned forward, placing his coffee cup on the table again as he picked up the sheets. His usual confidence stepped back as curiosity kicked in and his eyes scanned the documents.
"'Brothers and Sisters... the truth behind every request...'" he murmured as he read, quickly flipping to the next page. "'DNS wasn't created by us?'", he glanced up at Vladimir, his brow furrowed. "The hell is this?" he said confused.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Vladimir replied, leaning back on his chair. "From what I saw in the logs, it started showing up a couple of days ago."
Kirill set the sheets down at the table, his finger tapping on the table as if he was processing the information. "You said this came from your lobby printer, correct?"
"Yeah, I want to investigate deeper," Vladimir replied, "but there's no way I'm getting authorization for that based on a printer printing... a manifesto of sorts; I don't know."
"You know you can ask Max or Anton to grant you access? They run this entire shitshow after all."
"Huh, maybe I should, but from what I know they don't have that much free time now; some bad publicity has been circulating around M-Link lately," Vladimir sighed. "Don't think I should bother them with what is most likely a prank some sysadmin is pulling off."
"Can't you just see who sent it to print?" Kirill asked, his voice laced with skepticism.
"That's the weirdest part," Vladimir said, his brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't know where these came from."
"What do you mean by that? IPs are logged as per company policy, no?" Kirill asked.
"The IP behind these print jobs belongs to a root DNS server which shouldn't have access to RIT or even M-Link's network, period", Vladimir said calmly, "And... this should be straight up impossible from what I know about the network".
"You know that all of that is not my area of expertise, right?" said Kirill, a glimmer of confusion in his eyes.
"Alright, so, there's this thing called DNS. Before 2018 it was controlled independently by ICOULDD and other orgs, but then they surrendered control to M-Link," Vladimir paused, as if thinking on whether or not he should continue, "The circumstances under which M-Link took over were... Rather shady, but that's not relevant," Vladimir said before pausing again for a couple seconds.
"So what about DNS?” Kirill said, bringing Vladimir back from his thoughts.
“Oh, yeah, sorry, so the system is hierarchical and it all starts with the root DNS servers. And one of them apparently sent us... documents to print.” Vladimir said, staring at Kirill dead in his eyes. “I promise, I am not kidding,” he added, thinking again about what he just said, as if he was slowly slipping into madness.
“Never said you did. All this doesn’t sound like it’s... intended, is it?” Kirill inquired, looking slightly confused.
"Nope, definitely not. There are literally no conditions I can think of under which something like that would happen..."
"Seems like we are not the only ones with some weird, what did you call them, anomalies?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well," Kirill said leaning back, "at BlackHat we've been seeing some weird stuff lately too as well," looking slightly concerned, "abnormal behavior of our synths, weird decision making by our algorithms, the list goes on."
Kirill's gaze became slightly more wary. "First we brushed it off as misconfiguration or edge cases, but it's happening more and more often and affecting older systems too," he sounded a bit worried. "Nothing major though, but I will send you something a little later to look at."
"What?" Vladimir questioned.
"You'll see, but... I feel like we had something that might be connected to whatever you are dealing with right now" Kirill said hastily as he was standing up. "Alright, I gotta run, see you around."
"Until then..." Vladimir said, puzzled by Kirill's mention of "something" and wondered how it could relate to whatever he was investigating.
Vladimir finished his dinner and grabbed the printouts as he hurried back to his desk. "If BlackHat is also experiencing..." his thoughts paused for a second, recalling the word Kirill used "...anomalies..." Vladimir thought as he paced quickly back to his workspace, "I might as well check up with the HQ".
Technically speaking, RIT was a part of M-Link and not a separate institution; it's more of an R&D department for software. And if someone has a clue on what might be going on, they'll likely be someone from the higher-ups. And it just so happens that both of the founders are among his best friends. Convenient, isn't it?
Vladimir quickly paced through the corridors that felt almost infinite, almost colliding with some of his co-workers on his way back. As he approached his office, he felt as if someone was staring him down, observing every move. He froze for a moment. He felt like prey being eyed down by a predator, somehow this feeling was hostile. Vladimir swiftly turned back, only to see Jackie walking behind him, talking on the phone.
"Alright Nance, will do, send me the forms," Jack said, smiling, "Great, will get on it as soon as I am back at my terminal" he excitingly said before hanging up. His gaze quickly moved from his phone to Vladimir.
"Is everything alright?" Jackie asked, clearly worried."
"Y-yeah... I think so, yeah..." Vladimir replied with uncertainty and confusion in his voice before turning around and continuing on his way to his office.
Back at his workstation, Vladimir pulls out his access key, slides it into a reader and logs into RIRINET determined to contact Anton. Usually he would message Max with stuff like this, but there seem to be what he would call "temporary technical difficulties". Translating from ISMD jargon this would be an equivalent of "shit hitting the fan".
> /enter DM@andorvini
[ CHANNEL: DM@andorvini ]
Online members: andorvini
- Beginning of chatlog for Feb6-2021
11:14 vapronva > Anton, could use your help.
11:15 andorvini > What is it?
11:15 vapronva > Can you authorize me to access printer
and network logs for M-Link's HQ?
11:17 andorvini > Is that connected to what you send to
The Group?
11:18 vapronva > Yes, and I think I might have an idea.
11:19 andorvini > See that Jack already made one on your
behalf for unclaimed docs, I'll mark it as urgent for you.
11:19 vapronva > Would appreciate that.
11:26 andorvini > Alright, submitted the request for M-Link
print and network logs as well, watch out for a message
from DART.
vapronva@net.rit >
Ah, DART. The Data Archival and Retrieval Team, mainly consisting of competent but lazy archivists that work just enough to not get fired. That said, vapronva had some respect for them because when they bother to do the job they are getting paid for it's done beautifully.
As he received the last message from Anton, he went back to work, trying to shake off the feeling of unease that followed him after being hit with that feeling in the corridor.
RIRA - M-Link's Internal Task Board
Welcome back, Vladimir M. (ISMD).
2 ISMD Eye of Riri notifications issued:
# RIT-EOR-342322
- Increased latency on MLNK-RIRINET-WEBHOST
Avg. 54ms with exp. 50ms
Affected : RITWH-K42, RITWH-U91
EOR Status: Diagnostics recommended.
# RIT-EOR-342356
- Increased latency on MLNK-RIRINET-DNSROOT
Avg. 11ms with exp. 10ms
Affected : RITDNS-A, RITDNS-G
EOR Status: Diagnostics recommended.
Vladimir quickly scanned the Eye's notifications. "Increased latency on webhost...", he muttered, "increased latency on DNS," he paused briefly, but quickly dismissed it. 1ms difference didn't seem significant enough to be a real issue. He clicked away on his keyboard to get rid of the notifications and access RIRA's main interface.
vapronva@net.rit > ignore 342322 342356
Notifications RIT-EOR-342322 and RIT-EOR-342356
will be ignored, unless assigned to you or escalated
further.
vapronva@net.rit >
Meanwhile, at M-Link HQ, Max sat in his office, making notes for a presentation later this evening. The place was quiet, except for the soft hum of his computer and occasional clicks of a cup against the table. His phone buzzed, pulling his attention away from his mPad.
A quick glance revealed the called ID: "DART: N. Khetsuriani". Max picked up the phone to answer. "Hi Nat. What did I mess up again this time?"
The voice on the phone chuckled before proceeding, "Good afternoon, Max. This is Natalia Khetsuriani from DART," came a formal greeting. "I'm calling to verify some flagged authorization requests submitted earlier today."
"Alright, what's all this about?" Max leaned back in his chair, sipping on his tea.
"It's tied to issue #8800-555-3535 on RIRA - titled 'A printer in the lobby spitting out documents of unknown origin.' The request 4823 submitted today grants Vladimir Malinovskiy, one of RIT employees access to SU #44A at RIT and another one..." Nat took a brief pause to open the request on her terminal, "And request 4864 submitted today grants additional permissions to access data related to M-Link's Infranet, network and print logs to be exact"
Max raised an eyebrow, "This much access for a printer issue? Who signed off on these?"
"4823 was submitted by Jack Novak-Aldbridge, the receptionist at RIT office on behalf of Vladimir and then authorized by Anton, the second one was submitted by Anton personally." Natalia paused briefly before continuing, "Given the scope of requested authorizations I decided to call in to confirm before finalizing it."
Max leaned over his desk, "Anton, of course. Hold on, Nat. Let me call him to confirm this, what were the numbers again?"
"4823 and 4864, both submitted today," Nat repeated.
"Got it, putting you on hold for a mo," Max said before quickly switching lines and dialing Anton, who picked up almost instantly.
"What's up?" the voice on the other end of the line said.
"It's Max. You submitted any requests to DART today?" Max asked Anton with a hint of confusion in his voice. It's not often Anton submits requests to DART personally, and especially ones that are so... perplexing. "I am on the phone with Khetsuriani and she would like to confirm."
Anton chuckled. "Yeah, vapron asked for it for a printer issue. I signed off on them without going too much into details. You know him, if he thinks he needs something he does."
Max smirked, leaning back in his chair. "Fair enough, just wanted to be sure."
"You're good with it?" Anton asked Max, his tone slightly more serious.
"Yeah-yeah, he's a good guy, just decided to check, thanks." Max said as he switched back to another line. "Nat, you still there?"
"Of course," she said patiently.
"Anton confirmed it, let's give it a green light," Max said. He paused briefly, then added, "Honestly, this is the first time I've seen a request for so much access over a printer issue."
"Me too, I've seen requests for a lot of odd stuff, but this one stands out." Nat paused, keyboard clicks audible over the phone, "Alright, done and dusted, I have approved the request."
"Anything else I can help you with?", Max inquired with a note of sarcasm, grabbing his tablet and getting ready to delve back into work.
"No, that's it. If you don't have any questions, I should get back to work. DART is busy lately," she replied.
"DART's always busy from what I hear. Alright, I better get to my own things now, take care."
"You too," Natalia said as she hang up the phone.
Max set his phone down, his gaze returned to his tablet with notes, but his eyes unfocused, looking into abstract "somewhere", still processing. "So much for a printer issue, huh?" Max muttered, "He's either onto something or knee-deep in whatever nonsense that is," he added before pulling up RIRINET and messaging Vladimir.
> /enter DM@vapronva
[ CHANNEL: DM@vapronva ]
Online members: vapronva
- Beginning of chatlog for Feb6-2021
11:43 rferee > ay, what's up with the printer thing
11:44 vapronva > uhhhh... may i call you? will be
faster this way
11:45 rferee > can we do that somewhere in the
evening? busy day
11:46 vapronva > sure, message me whenever you'll
be available
rferee@net.rit >
Vladimir closed the chat, "Better get back to work" he thought. He was technically working either way since the issue about the lobby printer was still open and assigned to him. But he was thinking about a more boring kind of work.
After going through all the other available tickets on RIRA, he picked a simple one to get done in a day: migrating data from older RIT servers to new ones. The task was technically simple but took an eternity to copy over the data.
RIT-T293443 - data migration
Authored by : Eglė Nesuprantė
Priority Class: C0
guys someone get on copying data from DSU TH-E, block Y to newer model L1-E
low prio but has to be done eventually
Vladimir quickly scribbled down the IDs onto a piece of paper before rising and approaching Martin, the ISMD's inventory manager. Martin was an older man, in his mid-50s, with a couple graying hairs. Though he lacked the energy the youngsters have, Martin compensated with an unwavering commitment to detail. He knew where every little thing was and meticulously logged all the equipment, ensuring everything was accounted for.
"Martin, can you pinpoint some inventory for me?" Vladimir inquired, standing on the opposite side of Martin's table. Honestly, Martin was probably one of the easiest people to work with in the entire department - calm, knowledgeable, and straightforward.
"Sure," he responded calmly with him still focused on his terminal, "What are you looking for?"
"Need to know where these 2 DSUs are," Vladimir said, passing his note to Martin.
Martin replied after briefly glancing at the note, "They are stored on the lower floors." He paused before moving his gaze over to Vladimir. "Go to storage floor two and look in unit BA-11S; I've moved all the DSUs there."
"Thanks," Vladimir said, smiling lightly once again.
He walked out of his office and started walking towards the elevator. As he was walking, a light feeling of déjà vu came through. Wait, is this déjà vu? Or is someone staring him down again? Vapron dismissed these thoughts as he reached the elevator. He slid his access card in, quickly tapping in "-2" on the elevators touchscreen.
As the doors were closing shut leaving a more familiar and fancy part of RIT behind, a light in the corridor flickered briefly just as the doors interlocked and the elevator came into motion. Then the world fell silent, at least for Vladimir. The storage floors are deep underground and no sounds from the office make it through during the elevator's descent.
And elevator sounds? Well, if anything there is a slight hum. After all, completely silent elevators driven by magnetic force were one of the first M-Link's technologies that pushed them to the fame they have today.
And then the silence was interrupted by his phone buzzing, a familiar notification sound reminding vapron about an internal meeting set for 12 PM. "Mmmmm..." vapron mumbled, "I'll just read the summary" he murmured, dismissing the notification putting his phone in his pocket.
Just then, Max stood on the balcony of his office, his eyes fixed on some point beyond the horizon. His right hand clenched an M-Link branded cigarette, the flame from the lighter casting a golden glow on his face. The air was heavy with anticipation, and the only sound was the distant hum of the city's life.
His left hand gripped his phone tightly, as if it was a lifeline to something - or someone. Max's eyes narrowed, as if he was searching for... searching for what? Perhaps just a distraction.
The silence was broken by the soft beep of a card reader. Footsteps echoed through the office, slow and deliberate. The tension in Max's body grew with each step.
"The file is on the table," Max said without turning back, his voice low and even, but laced with a hint of unease. He puffed on the cigarette once more, the smoke curling around his face like a veil.
The footsteps continued, growing louder, until they stopped somewhere behind him. The visitor's presence was hanging in the air. Max's eyes remained fixed on some point beyond the horizon, but his senses were on high alert, waiting.
"I hope you know what you're doing," Max muttered to the visitor, the words barely audible over the hum of the city.
With a low, calm and confident voice, the visitor replied, "I do."
A rustle of fabric, and then silence. The visitor had taken something from the table - or left something behind? But he didn't turn around to investigate. Instead, he let out a slow breath, his eyes still fixed on some distant point as the office door closed shut.
The cigarette ash fell to the ground. He turned back towards the table. Slowly walking to it, his hand closed around something small and rectangular – a tape, worn and unmarked. A shiver ran down his spine as he tucked it into his back pocket. Max walked up to his terminal, deleting the record of the visitor ever entering his office.
He quickly walked out of his office and headed for Anton's office. He knocked on the door, but opened it without waiting for an answer. "Hey, I'm going to meet with some stakeholders about possible territorial expansion," Max said nervously, clearly lying. "I'll be back in a couple hours." He shut the door as quickly as he had opened it.
Anton opened his mouth, ready to say something back, but Max was already long gone. "Weird..." he thought before walking up to the window of his office. "Stakeholders, huh?" he muttered under his breath.
Max rushed to the elevator, the doors slid open with a soft whoosh, and he stepped inside. As the elevator began to move, Max took the tape out of his pocket and inspected it more closely - a regular small recording tape, this kind was commonly used for security footage before everything went digital. He reached the first floor just as Kirill was planning to go up to meet some executives.
The doors slid open with a soft whoosh. "Hey, Max! How's life?" Kirill asked, but Max barely registered his presense before abruptly responding, "Sorry, mate, gotta run." With that, he pushed past Kirill and stepped out of the elevator into the lobby.
Max rushed down the lobby, his boots clicking against the marble floor. The sun shined through the large windows and caught his face, illuminating it with a warm glow. His eyes jumped back and forth, filled with a mix of anxiety and restlessness as he hastened towards the exit.
His private driver was already waiting for him outside, a silent gal in a crisp black suit. Max slid into the car without a word; the doors closed behind him with a click and the engine roared as they started pulling away from HQ.
Anton looked curiously out of his office at the top of the HQ as the car drove away into the distance. Anton turned back to his terminal. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he checked Max's calendar for any scheduled appointments, but there was nothing. A faint frown creased his brow as he wondered where Max could be headed in such a hurry. "Where are you going?" he muttered to himself, but the question hung unanswered in the air.
The city streets blurred together outside the car window as Max's driver navigated through the crowded roads. Max sat in silence, his eyes still fixed on some abstract point ahead, his mind racing with questions - and doubts.
"We should've gazed, learned, studied and accepted the way the world is, but we simply peeked behind and never paid as much attention as we had," Max looked at the security camera feeds, zooming into printouts Vladimir had on him at the cafeteria, with unrest growing with each word he read. His fingers tapped away a tune on the screen, his eyes glued to it, carefully re-reading every word.
Max re-read the documents for what felt like a million times, before opening the window and lighting another cigarette.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Yauhen, the driver, said as looked at Max through the rearview mirror. They always talk a little bit when they are en route, some could even say that they are friends.
Max looked back at Yauhen through the mirror, resting his hand on the open window. "Can I ask you an out of place question?" he asked, with a hint of unease in his voice.
"Sure," Yauhen replied softly.
The car came to a stop at an intersection and fell silent, with Yauhen waiting for the green light to come up. It's been a while since he saw Max this worried and in distress, he could almost feel the air in the car getting heavier and heavier. Yauhen brought his eyes up, looking in the mirror, waiting for Max to ask the question. His eyes meet Max's that were already staring him down.
"Don't you think we might be playing too close to the sun?"