Who Do You Work For?

I don't believe in international conspiracies. I don't see spies around every corner. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't exist.

As I once said, I rarely have dealt with the underworld of crime. But then, what exactly is the underworld? And what is crime but the violation of someone else's definition of correct behavior?

I grew up in a small town in the United States in the 1970s. I joined a youth gang when I was nine or ten years old. In the gang, we stole cigarettes, candy, magazines, over-the-counter drugs, and other items from local stores. We also snitched cigarettes, cigars, liquor, and prescription drugs from our parents. We broke into other people's homes to steal the same items, which we would consume in houses under construction as we vandalized them. Sure, we had a clubhouse but the core members of the gang never fully trusted it because it was an open secret among all the neighborhood kids. We terrorized little kids to keep them from telling on us but inevitably a kid would tell a sibling who would inform his or her parents about one of our activities, getting us in trouble.

Once you join a gang, you never really get out. Even though I left the gang after my parents found out about a house I vandalized, my gang buddies never forgot about me. Throughout my teenage life as the perfect Boy Scout, which included earning an Eagle Scout Award, I always had the old neighborhood bullies on my back, so to speak. My later "crimes" with them, such as they were, included cheating on tests, ratting out rival gang members to teachers, terrorizing younger kids and generally protecting my former fifth grade band of brothers whenever they got in trouble (diverting a teacher's attention is just too plain easy when you have an angelic face like mine).

After high school, I lost touch with my buddies. Their criminal lives had taken some of them in and out of juvenile delinquent detention centers and later county jails. One of them served time in a federal penitentiary, from what I heard. Overall, our lives had taken tracks in two different directions.

Or so I thought.

A couple of years ago, after accumulating a large stock portfolio, I decided to retire in midlife. I looked forward to a life of leisure, doing whatever I wanted to do. And for the most part, I have. Except for this one small thing.

You see, just about the time I retired, I got a call from a woman named Melissa Wu. Ms. Wu claimed she had seen my CV (or resume, if you will) posted on a website called monster.com. Now, I don't exactly remember posting my CV on the Internet but sure enough, there it was. Anyway, Ms. Wu mentioned that I had been highly recommended by a colleague named Litho. Litho? Wow, I hadn't heard a name like that since...well, since fifth or sixth grade.

Ms. Wu told me that the job she was interested in my taking involved a software development project between a firm in China and one in the United States. She told me that both firms wished to remain anonymous in exchange for a hefty bonus and a exclusive contract for my services for the next two years.

Smelled fishy to me, doesn't it to you, too? Like a really bad movie plot. But, unfortunately, life is like that sometimes. I told Ms. Wu that I had retired and wasn't interested in a job. She told me that she or someone from her recruiting firm would call me back.

A few weeks later, I got a call with no identity on the Caller ID. The caller's voice sounded familiar.

"Litho?"

"Gus! Hey, how's it going?"

"Pretty good. Yourself?"

"Can't complain! Hey, I understand you're available for hire?"

"Well..."

"Hey, come on, man. Do me a favor here, will you?"

"You in trouble?"

"Not at all. It's just that I've got this Web business thing going on and I need someone who can help me get the whole system all tested out. We're using worldwide connections to computers tied to a Microsoft Home Server and thought maybe your software testing skills and management skills could get this thing finalized."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Say, I tell you what. We were hoping to get you or someone from back home involved in this. But, thing is, we need you to move to Shanghai."

"Shanghai?"

"Yeah, pretty cool, huh? Look, I know you ain't working right now and could use a little spare pocket change. What say you come over to China and check us out?"

To cut the story short, I told Litho I'd think about it. He called me back a time or two and when I was still hesitant, he got Ms. Wu back involved.

Melissa was more convincing than I thought. She walked me through the technical details of the setup, which intrigued me. We finally worked out a deal where I didn't have to travel out of country. Instead, using a simple VPN connection, I communicated with a test team in Shanghai, one in the U.S. and one in Bangalore to organize a complete test team.

We finished our task last October.

I felt like I was in the movie, "Paycheck." As soon as I received confirmation of a deposit of my bonus check in my account in UBS in Switzerland, I started getting odd vibes, especially since my deposit occurred the day the stock market took a dive. In a panic, I checked my account and it had actually grown.

Litho had told me that the system I had tested would truly be a global network. Sure enough, I and my team had shown how a small network of home servers strategically placed in homes, offices, universities, government facilities, convenience stores and just about any out-of-the-way places could control untold number of computers, no matter whether the computers had so-called secure antivirus and firewall software installed, by taking advantage of a backdoor method I had developed in testing KVM switches. A KVM switch is a device that lets you hook up a computer to a box and extend the length of cable of the Keyboard, Video, and Mouse devices (as well as USB devices like flash drives and MP3 players) -- extending the cable included a virtual cable connection across the Internet. Thus, while theoretically you could not directly download files from the computer through the KVM cables, you could take "pictures" of what was going on across the KVM cables and process them realtime, meaning you could duplicate the exact actions of your home computer or a computer in a government lab and send those actions to a bank of servers halfway across the globe. Litho was impressed that my test team not only worked out all the bugs but had made excellent suggestions for improving the system's robustness, transparency and scalability. He promised that my work would not go unnoticed.

Today, while the global stock markets are plunging, my private accounts are growing. BTW, I no longer have an account at UBS. Seeing the attention that UBS was getting a few weeks ago at a quiet government office near Washington D.C. that my own private home server network alerted me to, I just as quietly split my UBS account into deposits at other remote locations under companies, accounts and names that Litho highly suggested I use to protect my investments.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, you see, everything I've done in the past two years is completely legitimate. I have contracts, paycheck stubs, IRS tax payments and other documentation to clearly show my work is on the "up and up." But I still smell a fish, don't you? So, when you think you're working for a U.S.-based company, take a look at the list of U.S. companies that are foreign owned, like Holiday Inn, compiled in the book, "The United States of Europe" by T.R. Reid.

Think about it. Who do you work for? Don't lean in too closely or you might smell a fish, too. Sometimes it's better not to know. Hey, if the IRS thinks it's legit, it's legit. Take my word for it.