Once in the garden, Doug continues: "My associate will be imaging the memory, logs, and all storage from the house.  It will be put under bond at our offices and only my crew will review your business data and logic.  All are under strict NDA and bonded.  We will only share the data with your insurance carrier, the FBI and other members of the task force.”

Rachael: “I’m sure we have nothing to worry about regarding the security of our data.”  Bear continues, “My firm has also been given the task to evaluate your current protections in new systems as your insurance ‘risk status’ will be reevaluated.”

“Why is that?” Rachael responds, “Nothing has changed since the policy was put into place. I’m already rather unhappy with how this review and resolution is proceeding if it requires a reevaluation and possible increase in our fees or reductions to our policy.”

Doug: “Understand, we are strictly a neutral third party.  I'm just an agent for the insurance investigation and hired to investigate and report on the cyber-crime.  Mostly I initiate and coordinate the work going on in the private sector and act as a liaison to the public sector investigations. Some of it, like pulling your house and corporate data, my staff will handle; mostly I’ll personally run the analytics analysis and prepare the report to the insurance company and the local law offices."

Then he continues: “Off the record, your company runs under the ‘light-touch’ regulations about data privacy for information collected by IoT sensors - data gathering which is not directed at or by people.  But your analytics business compares this data with public utility data, correlating by address. The lobby association NIPA, that’s National IoT Privacy Association, will likely challenge and obstruct North East Control Analytics going forward because of this incident."

"You can expect that they will use your breach as part of their privacy avocation political ads.  I would consider being careful about personal security as you move about in public, vary your daily travel routines and watch for fraudulent entrapment interviews.  Avoid discussing this incident in any public venue.” He pauses, thinking to himself, ‘this is a fine woman, and she's about to be bushwhacked.’ 

Leaning in and speaking to Rachael, “Also, it might not be a bad idea to make a corporate contribution to reelection committees for select members of the Congressional Caucus on Corporate IoT. The DHS investigation has turned up your association with Sabre Gaming and its leader, identified in the transcripts as ‘Jorge’.  It was decided by the C3 that this relationship might potentially interfere with our efforts and adversely impact prosecution prospects.  Therefore, its likely that they will request that you suspend any ongoing contracts with Jorge during the period of the investigation to avoid any complications.”

Rachael: “He’s a personal friend and won't be happy about us suspending our work together for an extended period of time. How long is that expected to take?”

Doug: “I’ll have our report inside of a week and you can be back in full business. The public slash legal side; can take as much as a year.  These international things move like molasses. But on the good news, the insurance company agreed to cover Sabre Gaming for your device recovery charges and the initial home response, after the deductibles, of course.”

Doug looking compassionately at her: “Rachael, I understand what you did and I would have done the same in your shoes.  But the Homeland Security agents and the FBI, well, they are not pleased with your counter response. That Response to Cyber Attack legal notification and the felony complaint at The Hague, it puts the whole international response effort under control of the U.N."

"Aetna is still running the task force, but the ICE & FBI agents are effectively hamstrung in any overseas prosecution actions. Nevertheless, ICE is using their supercomputer cloud for tracing bitcoin exchanges on any potential data sale. They requested an international warrant for tracing monetary exchanges made via any ex-national’s cloud access. It will eventually come through, but backlogs in getting it processed will mean those receiving the payouts will have invoked their cutouts and killed the data trail."

"Still, it will be another point in the ongoing investigation that will eventually converge on who are the players in this syndicate. Also DHS have flagged and restricted all banking transactions in the U.S. by International Widget. It will be difficult for International Widget to do any funny business in the U.S. for a few years.”

Doug’s associate appears, telling his boss, “All wrapped up here.” They say their goodbyes, including Doug giving Toby a good head rub and saying to the dog, “Now take care of your master here; she’s likely to get some unwelcome attention.”

Blame

Eight days later Doug video calls Rachael to say he has some preliminary results and would like to deliver them in person.  He suggests meeting at an upscale diner he frequents that is not far from Rachael’s offices. Rachael immediately responds yes.  Afterwards she questions her quick response, She thinks to herself, ‘I am clearly not getting out enough. I’m fooling myself if I believe something good might come from this nightmare.’ 

Rachael, sitting down, opens their conversation with, “I know I should not blame the messenger, but I hope this is finally some good news.” Doug responds, “I can see this situation is very frustrating for you. And anger is natural, but it won’t improve the situation.  This is just the way our world is now."