Always Prepared

Posted on Mon Jan 21, 2019 @ 8:37am by Lieutenant Commander Arrda

Mission: History
Location: Various
Timeline: MD 33 || 2200 Hours

Arrda had thought about this for some time now, and had finally gotten Commodore Aravan's approval for it. Too many times in Starfleet history, ships had been hacked and either controlled or disabled or even captured because they were not sufficiently protected from such hacking. Granted, to fully protect the Triumphant from such hacking would have required far more obvious measures, and therefore he was unable to take his plan quite that far. But alerted was better than nothing, and that he could do.

His research had shown several systems that were typically used for the purpose of hacking Starfleet ships and accessing command systems or protocols subtly, and these were his concern as well as the command systems themselves. He had spent half the day putting in his security alert system, a sub system that would not interfere in any way with the standard security systems or the systems it was monitoring but would alert him if any of these systems were in any way tampered with.

Lately, Starfleet seemed to be sending them into more and more... covert and dangerous missions, and so it was time for this. His subnet was in place now, and he tested it by switching out a single isolinear chip from a secondary replicator system. The PADD in his pocket vibrated in response, and he smiled as he read the alert. "Excellent." he whispered as he put the proper isolinear chip back into place. He then made tests of various kinds against his alert system, the system catching every one. The last test was to replace one of the isolinear chips with an exact copy of itself replicated just moments before. Part of his alert system checked the registration number on each isolinear chip as it was removed or inserted and matched it against appropriate records to determine whether it was supposed to be inserted into the particular panel. In this case, the system registered that the second chip had been replicated without authorization, and though the numbers matched, it had not been authorized to be changed. The PADD vibrated, and he put the original back.

Next came the "tags", but he could do that from his Security Office computer. Heading there, he entered his codes and set to work. First, he pulled the medical file on every one of his Security personnel, accessed their DNA records, and then tied that into his Security System. Inserting an isolinear chip he took from his pocket into his desk terminal, he ran the program contained on it. The program finished, and he took the chip out, replacing it into his pocket. He then brought up a schematic map of the ship, overlaid his new program over it, and BAM! Each of his Security personnel appeared on the map, denoted by rank and nAme, a second line of text showing location. Now he would be able to track where every one of his people went at all times.

Now that he had their location data, he needed a way to know if they moved outside of their normal patterns of travel. So he ran another algorithm that figured out (by using replicator uses, computer access points, etc.) where each of them typically went. Another program integrated those results with a second layer of the alert system. This second alert layer would notify him if any of his security personnel moved outside of their normal location patterns -- he added medical and duty locations to this list of permissible locations -- with a different vibration pattern. He also tested this by going, himself, to somewhere outside of the normal for him. -- no, he did not exempt himself from his alert system either as it recorded everything it tracked and stored that information in the secondary computer core. Satisfied, he sent a quick message to the Commodore that read simply, "Completed." Then he returned to his quarters to curl up with his wife for the last couple of hours before he had to get up for shift.