COMMS PSA : It's a new dawn, it's a new day, and you wouldn't believe how much paperwork is involved

[ryuuzaki]

[audio:]

[L’s voice is the voice he’d use for any public announcement: smooth, measured, calm, not betraying much of the intense irritation and frustration that the network crash has caused him in the previous few weeks.]

Greetings. This is Ryuuzaki, speaking for the Communications Department.

The recent problems with the network were caused by an attack on our systems by a particularly malicious virus. Its effect was to systematically overwrite existing material with random characters. The department itself had no control over this and no effective way to stop it.

When network service returned, it was because a fail-safe rebooted the network software itself, something we’ve never had the authority to do -- or, to be honest, the desire. We are now active on the ship’s original network, and have learned that the system that we’ve always used in the past was actually a subnetwork.

[As far as he’s concerned, every bit of this is a clue about why posts from prior to the arrival of the first wave of passengers are only sporadically available. Was the network previously rebooted in response to an infection with the same virus, or something even worse? That doesn’t explain how they would have ended up on a subnetwork, but it might explain much of the rest of it.]

As some of you may have noticed, nothing posted prior to the network’s return has been accessible since then. One of the functions of the Communications department is to archive network activity, and fortunately, we were able to back up the vast majority of the network as it existed before the emergency shut-down.

I’ll be posting what I can of that archive in a minute. However, please be aware that we don’t have the technical capacity to make this available to you in the format you’re used to, and that any posts from the old system that had been subject to an encryption created by one of us are completely incompatible with the new one.

[A beat of silence.]

Related to that: while we’ve been trying, no one in the department has yet been able to create new encryptions that work on this network, and the built-in privacy function seems to be much stronger and more reliable than it was before. We can’t say that the privacy function will be reliable forever -- very likely, it will be broken in the future, which will compromise the security of anything you’ve done using it -- but it appears that it’s currently dependable. This also does not rule out the possibility that someone we’re not aware of has the ability to break it already.

If you’re able to create an encryption that the network will accept, or if you simply have skills in this area that you’d be willing to put to work, please let us know, and please consider joining the department. [He is now turning on the charm, such as it is, and sounds slightly wittier and less serious than he had earlier in his announcement.] We’re not short-staffed at the moment, but we wouldn’t want to let your talents go to waste.

Those of you who don’t have talents in this area should consider joining another department. Agriculture could certainly use your help, even if it’s only for a few hours a week.

[The lightness in his tone now vanishes.]

On an associated note, if you receive any anonymous messages in your inbox, particularly from someone calling themselves Lina, or attempting to strike up a conversation and fish for information, please let us know. The same goes for any situation in which your communication device otherwise behaves in an unexpected way, and if you can visit the Comms Hub with your communicator while any of these things are still ongoing, so much the better. We’re located near the Bridge.

We’re aware that it’s common to come from a place where this kind of network communication is unusual. If you need help learning how your device works, let us know. We also have several programs which can be added to it, and some people may be able to make music or game files available to you. Those were programmed for your communicators, not the network itself, so it appears that they’re still compatible.

Finally… [a hint of regret enters his voice]... as of the jump several days ago, Clara Oswald has left the ship.

If you have any further problems involving the network, please contact me or Bail Organa.

Thank you. Comms out.

--

[Filtered to Tyke | Private]

If we learn that someone onboard has falsified an anonymous conversation similar to the one I just mentioned on the network, particularly if they do so in the future, can Security consider a suitable punishment? I had to discuss the messages here, but doing it so publicly is likely to encourage pranksters. I'd really prefer that they didn't waste my time.

Likewise, we’re still looking into the matter of the virus. If it turns out that someone is responsible for it, I’d like them to be subject to brig time.

--

[OOC: Please note that even the most talented hackers won’t be able to get into posts marked private for at least three months, and new characters will probably need about that much time to get up to speed with this system after they come in! It will not be a smooth road, either: the new system has many built-in blocks and tricks, and some hacking attempts will even flag SEC.

The link within the post is to an open Comms log. Please have your character drop in if they're interested in being tutored in the ins and outs of smartphones, or if they want to ask a question, or if they want to bug someone who's trying to work.

The batch archive of posts from the old network is here! It covers everything prior to November 1, 2014, or a week before the 37th jump by TQ Reckoning. Notes related to technical aspects are on that post.]

Comments

anon ∞

[lostsoldier]

any idea where the virus came from?

[ryuuzaki]

Nothing concrete. It's under investigation.

text.

[xerampelinae]

thorough

I have the skillsets you're interested in
do I have to join to help?

[ She realises Roslin is in this department. But hey. ]

[ryuuzaki]

Yes, I'm afraid so, particularly now that security is heightened. But if you're still working in Medical, you're probably needed more there.

text.

[ex_gloves423]

[ cassel's new enough that he's mostly just reading along rather than feeling the impact of these changes, though he does think it might be worth skimming some of the archive if there's nothing else to read. ]

so if you can't hack you're stuck as a farmer? nice.

how much are games and music here?

[ryuuzaki]

No, there are a number of departments. Medical, research sciences, Engineering, Gunnery, Support Staff, and so on. Flight Crew is even more short-staffed than Agriculture, but probably not as immediately necessary to our survival here. Security could use at least a few more.

What can you do?

The answer to your other question depends on who you ask. Games and music should be freely given, and usually are, but whether or not they will be in every case is something else. We really don't have a cash economy, but there are other ways of owing people.

text.

[adhesion]

much music
(sorry OP)

text.

[pushfall]

Agriculture isn't just about farming, for the record.

text;

[raisedontolkien]

I was here before and was a part of Communications. I'd totes be interested in helping out this time around too.

voice;

[axeyou]

Wow. Great.

[flat and bored, because she does not think it's great.]

So where'd the virus come from? No, wait, let me guess... we don't know.

[ryuuzaki]

We know it's attacked systems on the ship in the past. Who created it, I can't say.

private;

[puppydogeyes]

Brig for sabotage like that makes sense. The other one, we can work something up, but if they're faking anonymous conversations, they're gonna be anonymous.

[And last she checked, Comms hadn't figured out how to break those.]

private;

[ryuuzaki]

True, but given that we've moved to a new workspace and are running on a somewhat different system, they may not have any way to be sure of that. And they might be stupid enough to brag to their friends.

The threat will be the important deterrent. Probably not much of one, but--

[The way he trails off, almost a sigh in itself, suggests that he means he'll take what he can get.]

[alsohawkeye]

This is a weird question that I'm not totally sure how to articulate, but have you found anything in the back-up or on the new network that isn't a message? Any other sort of data?

[ryuuzaki]

Not so far, nothing we didn't know about, but we haven't been looking for anything in particular outside of the usual ghosts in the machine. Did you have something specific in mind?

[He might or might not notice anomalous patterns in data, but it's easier to see something when you're looking for it.]

[servator]

Mind giving us some more information about this "Lina" situation? Make make it easier if we knew what we were looking for, here.

[ on a more private setting: ]

Comm department... I guess you've seen the broadcast of the last Commander Shepard who was killed before a jump? If you have, was there anything you picked up from it that you can tell me?

1/2 - [public]

[ryuuzaki]

That's almost as much as I have. Someone calling themselves Lina contacted Jax Teller a while ago asking for information. You won't be able to see my comments there: they were encrypted. But they were along the same general lines as everyone else's.

[Attachment: JaxLina.trq]

[OOC:trq is a file extension... which I have just invented to make this look more like a doc file and less like a link. SpaceWindows3.1!]

2/2 - [private]

[ryuuzaki]

There's a lot to say. Are you thinking of something specific?

What she did... I could have told her, and other people did try to tell her, that it was extremely likely to end that way.

I've attached the transmission. I really don't know whether or not you'll want to listen to it. However, if you're curious, I can send some of her other network activity to you. Posts, mostly -- replies to other people's posts are a little bit more difficult to weed out. There was also a more thorough write-up of the situation that led to her death.

[Attachment: Shepardlast.trq]

[timeisluck]

what kind of information-fishing are we talking about here?

thx so much for this information, btw.

[ryuuzaki]

In the instance I'm aware of, asking for details about us. Nothing particularly personal, but indicating an interest in day-to-day life here, with corresponding evasion of any reciprocal questions. If I had to label it, I'd say it sounded like an attempt at reconnaissance, if it was really anything at all.

text.

[pushfall]

It sounds like Big Brother is watching, even with the privacy filter being stronger than it was before.

This is great information, also. Thanks for putting it all together and archiving it and everything.

[ryuuzaki]

You're welcome. We were lucky that it's always been an ongoing project. We wouldn't have had an archive as complete as this if we had been starting from scratch.

If you're speaking of Smiley, I'm not sure the filter will ever be strong enough. How it would be against more recent technology from this universe is a different question... it's hard to say.

[uncurse]

All that because of a virus?

[ryuuzaki]

Some of it. I doubt the virus was the cause of the new behavior of the murals: my impression is that that has more to do with the condition medbay was in when we woke up from last month's jump.

text;

[unforgives]

I actually spoke to someone named Lina around last jump, she definitely seemed to be quite curious with the questions she was asking me.

[ryuuzaki]

Would you be willing to forward those messages under a private setting?

[mspoots]

I might have some related skills.

[ She's really not much of a joiner, but that's been changing lately and maybe she can get some information for herself this way. ]

[ryuuzaki]

Might?