About 7 months ago I wrote a short post about traffic trends here on TCL. At the time there was a deluge of visitors from China that seemed legit, by which I mean that most views were of content pages. With enough IPs at their disposal I suppose that the Chinese government could’ve been scraping the blog for content but generally speaking the only unusual thing was the volume of requests.

That’s not to say that there haven’t been hacking attempts on the website but these usually come in bursts of seemingly uncoordinated activity from a variety of sources. Recently, however, I’ve been noticing what looks like a more sinister trend.

The first of these is a coordinated campaign being launched from Ashburn, Virginia and Columbus, Ohio. I’ve kept this fact on the back burner since Ashburn is considered to be a technology hub, not unlike Columbus, and no doubt home to many VPNs. This means that despite the traffic patterns being strongly suggestive of a single upstream source, that source could be almost anyone.

Notably, Ashburn is only about a 30 minute drive from Langley (home to you know who), but that’s hardly conclusive. Ohio is the fourth largest state for data centers and pumps out potential recruits for some of the United State’s three-letter agencies, but maybe that’s just a coincidence.

Maybe, or maybe not, as newer information suggests.

A few seconds of research quickly revealed that the CIA ran (and probably continues to run), a massive undercover hacking operation from Frankfurt am Main in Hesse, Germany. This top-secret CIA unit is reported to have made use of malware, viruses, trojans, and “zero days” — freshly discovered and therefore undefended vulnerabilities.

Very similar vulnerability scanning patterns also appear on TCL out of Singapore which boasts strong security ties with the US. The Frankfurt-Singapore traffic often appears alongside Ashburn-Columbus requests and all of them almost entirely ignore content.

If I had to hazard a motive I would say that whoever is behind this effort is trying to gain backdoor access to the site. TCL isn’t exactly a treasure trove of national secrets but it could provide a nice little boost to a DDOS attack or act as an unwitting intermediary for subsequent hacking operations. I can think of at least a few other uses for a compromised website and it sure doesn’t look like the “visitors” in question are here to read any stories so I don’t think that a little concern is unwarranted.

On the upside, I have the opportunity to take a first-hand peek at the secret arsenal being employed. I may not have heard of these vulnerabilities and I may not know how they’re exploited but this information could give me a wonderful starting point, were I so inclined.

Maybe the whole Frankfurt-Singapore-Ashburn-Columbus connection is a bit tenuous. The Frankfurt-Singapore traffic does seem different than the Ashburn-Columbus traffic — yet they collectively show other patterns like clustering and repetition of requests which suggest similar behind-the-scenes automation.

Maybe it’s just a bunch of unusually sophisticated and persistent script kiddies with seemingly endless access to international VPNs. Maybe other interests are at play. Whatever the case, I’ll be keeping my eyes open — and if TCL suddenly goes dark or launches a DOS attack against another site, it wasn’t me!

To answer the titular question: yes and no.

Chapter 7 will be the end of the first book and I think that once it’s read to completion, the reason will become clear. Although I’m taking great pains to explain things, people, and events, one big question mark will be left purposefully hanging over the narrative because it was always intended to be a two-parter. More on this later.

In the meantime, it’s my sincere hope that at the end of the first half everything will be as clear as it should be, but there are a few things I don’t go into outright so I’ll outline them here.

For starters, the name “/sectionb” is notably different from how the group refers to itself — namely, “Section B”. Other than the obvious terminal command described at the end of chapter 6, the slashed-and-condensed version of the name also refers to the end part of the URL where the novel currently resides. It may also be noted that with the slash prepended, the name provides a visual cue regarding the divided or “sectional” nature of the small cadre of agents (hint: there are more).

Moreover, there are sub-divisions of the book’s chapters into parts, presently numbered at 35. This was a decision I made at the outset to (hopefully) make the story a bit more readable. /sectionb is what I refer to as a shitter book, the kind of reading you can take with you as you head for the crapper, there to enjoy in small installments (hopefully) long enough for single sessions. For this reason I’ve tried to limit each part to somewhere between 2000 to 3000 words which, in my estimation, is about long enough for a comfortable deposit to the Bank of Porcelain.

Beyond the book’s structure, it may be of interest to note that most of the characters’ names aren’t just random choices. While the origin of the name Brock Medic is admittedly obscure, and Elvis is a guy I knew personally, other names have a more open and distinct lineage. For example, at one point Mirabelle directly explains her own suspicions about her family’s patronymic whereas Rebekah‘s dad’s name bears a resemblance to another historical Heinrich. The moniker Dominic Di Venona is similarly inspired by preexisting nomenclature, as is Dmitri’s. Within a wider scope, I like to think that this thematic mixing of names is apropos given the mixed themes of the story.

I’ve tried to follow a similar convention in the naming of the story’s parts. As an example, in the latest installment the German word “kryptowährung” translates directly to cryptocurrency which may refer to the cryptic “coin” hint for the terminal’s terminal password attempt, the (mostly) indecipherable meaning behind the firm of “Schatz, Liebling, & Tochter”, or to Rebekah’s concealed stashes of cash.

Above all, I sincerely hope that at every level /sectionb is an interesting, entertaining, possibly informative, and somewhat unique if not quirky story. With plenty of background notes (not including the extensive dossier), I feel like there’s ample opportunity to develop the book into a lengthy series. Other than the follow-up, I’ve been percolating over some ideas and I think that they’d be neat stories to tell. In any event and whichever direction this project ends up going, rest assured that the story is far from over.

… in which Brock has a revelation and Rebekah solves a personal puzzle or two.

Continuing my series on espionage, specifically as it relates to Toronto, we come to Station M.

Station “M”, which stood for “Magic”, was ostensibly located in the basement of Casa Loma which now hosts a related historical exhibit and similarly themed escape room game.

While some sources claim that Station M was actually located in Casa Loma’s stables and carriage house, its exact location remains hush-hush. This secrecy, along with the existence of a nearly quarter-kilometer (800 ft.) subterranean tunnel connecting the main building to these outer structures, only adds to the ambiguity.

I’ve been to the castle a number of times, including for a fancy wedding reception, but until recently had no idea that this “subterranean” operation existed. Next time I’m there I’ll be sure to do a bit more exploring!

Station M operated hand-in-hand with Camp X during the second world war to produce covert gadgets, forged documents, counterfeit currency, convincing local dress, and anything else that might assist Allied spies on their overseas missions. Think “Q Branch” from James Bond.

In fact, it’s been suggested that Station M is where Ian Fleming got his inspiration for the fictional support division mentioned in his works.

Fleming is reported to have spent time in Toronto, traveling daily to the Camp in Oshawa from his Avenue Road accommodations. While the amount to which Fleming was inspired by his experiences here is speculative, the fact that he resided across the street from St. James-Bond Church during this period seems to suggest an alternative, if only subconscious, explanation to Fleming’s own claim about appropriating the name from a bird expert. Maybe this official explanation is simply a misdirection based on a happy coincidence. After all, this is the world of espionage we’re talking about.

… in which the Section’s long, languid, and mostly monotonous journey (except when it’s not), back to their origin is detailed.

Poster-ffiti at the corner of Bathurst and Dundas.

… in which Section B manage to secure a ride back to where all their troubles began, and (hopefully) one step closer to some answers about their predicament.

A while back I wrote (with a leaning toward espionage) about a couple of books I’d been reading that highlighted the porous and permissive nature of Canada. I’d hoped to make this a preamble to other stories I was aware of but, at the time, didn’t feel that I’d sufficiently plumbed their depths for proper discussion. In other words, I knew of them but not enough about them.

Having now completed “The Soviet Spies” by Richard Hirsch I can say that I’ve done at least a little work to correct this oversight.

Long story short, it’s the 1940s and a GRU cipher clerk named Igor Gouzenko working in the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa goes rogue, making off with a bunch of files exposing the breadth and width of Soviet infiltration within North American politics, military, academia, research, industry, etc. His family is endangered, a bunch of roadblocks and nail-biting encounters follow, and eventually scandalous exposés and international drama ensue — standard spy pulp fiction fodder, except it happens to be true.

While I understand that there may be some disputes surrounding the accuracy of the following statement, the Gouzenko Affair is considered by many historians to be the unofficial start of the Cold War. This is where people like McCarthy got their (not entirely incorrect) ideas about a Red invasion and where movies like Russell Rouse’s wordless classic “The Thief” got their (sometimes literal) inspiration.

Naturally much of the Gouzenko backstory happened in Toronto and enough thorough detail is included in “The Soviet Spies” that I’m considering taking a tour of some of the conspirators’ homes and places of work. This attention to detail can get a bit tedious but the book manages to weave together detailed facts and timelines in a way that reads like a modern day (albeit wordy), spy thriller. Combining this with the history of places like Camp X adds even more intrigue to Canada’s post-war narrative.

This may all seem like a bit of nostalgia but with the current Canada-India diplomatic row, Canada-Russia diplomatic row, Canada-China diplomatic row, and undoubtedly a few others, the same sensational stories that were making headlines nearly seventy years ago are no less apropos today. In fact, the cloak-and-dagger nature of international diplomacy along with a resurgence of human intelligence gathering (HUMINT) and other old-school techniques seem to be more relevant in the modern era than ever.

In any event, if you get a whiff of similar themes in /sectionb then at least you’ll know where I ripped ’em off from.

I must admit, I was skeptical. The invitation to explore The Bentway neighbourhood through “the building of the route across the city as well as the big set off or ‘fall’ of the dominoes!” seemed contrived. However, the limited-time nature of the conceptually simple event proved to be rewarding. Maybe even genius.

Pretty sure everyone’s familiar with the cascading row of dominoes setup so you get the idea of what this event was about. Simple on the surface.

Within, though, there was depth to the stunt.

The path of Dominoes led through the Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre. Never been here before but I aim to return.

It’s a little oasis on the edge of an international airport and a bustling tourist sector.

It’s neat to see what actually exists right now — not just what can theoretically exist — at the heart of a modern urban metropolis.

I don’t know to what extent this event was advertised but it seemed to bring out a good number of people. I daresay, there was anticipation in the air.

When that last block went over the edge there was a hearty cheer.

Props, Toronto. Props.

_{P.S. In case you were wondering the bricks were made of aircrete (or something similar), a lightweight type of concrete that’s less dense than regular concrete. I picked up one of the blocks and although it was lighter than I expected, I suspect that if I’d dropped it on my foot from a carrying height I’d still probably break a toe or two.}

… in which it becomes obvious that sometimes things go sideways for Section B but sometimes they go downright backwards.