It was going to be a strange trip. I had booked passage out of Chictown on the upper deck of a moving van, enroute from Milwaukee to Casper WY. I would borrow a government wing and fly into Kirtland AFB south of Albuquerque. That was still a bit uncertain - I hadn't arranged for a pilot yet, and I sure wasn't going to fly the thing myself. From the Base, it was a short hop to Santa Fe by tanker truck on the Interstate. Ok, I admit these travel plans weren't entirely legal. Most of the way I'd be travelling as cargo, not passenger. A manuscript editor earns enough for current tech, groceries and a homebase. But only the truly rich can afford normal commercial transport.
Enroute, I contacted Aporkalypse, using my palmtop to connect with her through my home set back in Chictown."Porky, what's the deal with Bob?" I asked.
"Microsoft Bob, the world's most common computer user interface. It uses little cartoon characters to handle file maintenance, back-up, connections and communications. It's a dead-end Graphic User Interface, no upgrade path. But the general pubs love it. Today it's use is declining, though it still satisfies the interface needs of a quarter of the world's population."
"An interesting piece of the Bob GUI," she continued. "It pays you to use it. Bob tracks your online usage and pays a tiny royalty to the user for each screen of adspace viewed. A penny per screen, I think. Turns out Bob users LOVE to play with the online interactive ads - sixty or so per day, on average. Some have earned a modest living off it."
I was thinking again about that red message from SENU to Wrenny. It had mentioned a back door. "Porky, what's a back door?"
"Ah, a secret way in! Programmers always, ALWAYS add a secret access to their apps, a way to get past any security and gain control of the program. Usually they're disabled before the final ships. But if there's really a back door in the Bob interface - well, that could get interesting."
