Sunday night. School starts tomorrow. Winter break was good. Parents stopped checking my online time weeks ago, too tired from holiday prep to notice I was on the computer more than I was allowed.
Winter break spent doing surveillance, and finally—one vulnerability. A ninety-second window that happens every single day at 6pm when the hubs relink.
But taking the channels is the easy part. Holding them means days of around-the-clock defense. We'll have maybe forty-eight hours before SYN throws everything at us. Forty-eight hours we won't have once we're sitting in classrooms.
My mom's voice carries up the stairs. "Dinner in twenty minutes!"
Twenty minutes. The attack window opens in eighteen.
I run the final check on the attack scripts. Eight bots positioned across six different EFNet servers. Automated join sequence ready. Op-grab code compiled and tested. Defense protocols loaded.
I watch the clock. Two minutes.
This is different from #hackers. DarkOps were amateurs. SYN is professional. Twelve operators. Forty reserves. Taking their channels means executing perfectly in a window measured in seconds.
My finger hovers over Enter. The script will handle everything once I start it. Join flood, op acquisition, channel lock, defense mode. All automated because human reaction time wasn't fast enough.
I switch to my watch window. The channel shows eight SYN bots sitting idle. SKriLLa's manual client still connected. The daemon waiting to take over when he drops.
The seconds tick down.
I take a deep breath and hit Enter.
The script executes.
Our bots are already in the channel. Have been for weeks. ska|ghost, ska|shadow, ska|wraith—phantom ops, positioned across different EFNet servers, blending with normal traffic.
One side of the split went empty for a heartbeat. Long enough.
I watch the clock. Sixty seconds until their bots finish joining. We need a net split now.
Then my screen flickers.
* SYN|terminator has quit IRC (irc.prison.net hub.efnet.org)
* SYN|agentsmith has quit IRC (irc.prison.net hub.efnet.org)
* SKriLLa has quit IRC (irc.prison.net hub.efnet.org)
...
Net split. The channel fractures.
I check both sides. Prison.net: SYN's four bots with ops, maybe eight hundred users. Hub.efnet.org: our bots, one phantom op, two thousand users.
I check the split timer. Forty seconds average. When the split heals, servers will compare timestamps. Older wins.
Forty seconds later, the split heals.
Then the server messages start.
The network reconciles states: prison.net has older TS and ops, so the servers keep those ops and strip everyone else.
Our ops persist. Their ops get stripped. Timestamp rules decide the winner.
* ska|ghost sets mode: +im
* ska|ghost sets mode: +k secretkey
ska|ghost sets the modes before they can respond. Invite-only. Moderated. Channel locked.
The same sequence runs on #warez. SpaceGoat's bots executing the identical attack. Perfect timing across both channels.
Seventy-three seconds from start to finish.
We have ops on the two biggest channels on EFNet.
Two and a half weeks of surveillance. Ninety seconds of execution.
Then:
* SYN|terminator () has joined #mp3
* SYN|agentsmith () has joined #mp3
* SYN|docholliday () has joined #mp3
* SYN|kaisersoze () has joined #mp3
* SKriLLa () has joined #mp3
...
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
The syn bots start to reappear from other servers as the network finishes reconciling.
Feels like my eyeballs are expanding in their sockets, creating pressure in my head.
More joins. More SYN bots flooding back in. The reserves are mobilizing.
My bot tries to keep them deopped. But they keep coming.
I watch the user list scroll. More SYN bots joining. Not attacking yet. Just... arriving. Building presence. They know what we've done. They know we've found their window.
And they're responding.
My PM window blinks.
[SKriLLa] cute move. you got about 5 minutes to enjoy those ops.
[SKa] we'll see
Three seconds pass. Then:
[SKriLLa] 3 lamers with 8 bots vs 12 operators and 40 reserves. do the math.
I look at the channel. Fifteen SYN bots now. More joining every few seconds. He's right about the numbers. We're massively outgunned in raw resources.
But resources aren't everything. We've proven that by finding their vulnerability. Code quality matters. Timing matters. Strategy matters.
[SKa] math checks out fine
Another pause. Longer this time. I can almost feel him deciding whether to be amused or annoyed.
[SKriLLa] alright. your funeral.
The PM window goes quiet.
My mom calls again from downstairs. I don't answer.
I look at our defense scripts. I've written them to handle exactly this scenario—multiple opponents, superior numbers, sustained attack. Automated responses faster than human operators can coordinate.
But I've never tested them against professionals. My finger hovers over the keyboard—maybe we should—
The channel starts moving faster. Join messages scrolling. Bot count climbing. Twenty SYN bots. Twenty-five. Thirty.
My screen fills with system messages.
* SYN|docholliday sets mode: +o SYN|terminator
* ska|ghost sets mode: -o SYN|terminator
* SYN|kaisersoze sets mode: +o SYN|agentsmith
* ska|shadow sets mode: -o SYN|agentsmith
* SYN|terminator sets mode: +o SYN|docholliday
* ska|wraith sets mode: -o SYN|docholliday
...
SYN bots trying to grab ops. My scripts blocking them, maintaining control, fighting for every mode change.
We're holding — not winning. Just not losing yet.
Back and forth. My code versus their infrastructure. Automated defense against coordinated assault.
Thirty-five bots now. Forty.
He's right. This isn't an attack. This is SYN showing us what we're up against. Professional infrastructure that can mobilize in under two minutes.
I watch the bot count hit forty-two. Joins slow—but the channel is far from still. Every few seconds, a mode change scrolls past: one of our bots grabs ops, another of theirs deops it. Flickers of power across servers, operators appearing, disappearing.
Eight of our bots clinging to the channel's control, forty-two on the other side probing, waiting for a crack.
My hands move across the keyboard, pulling up monitoring scripts, checking server connections, verifying defense protocols are running correctly on both channels.
The channel doesn’t stop moving.