The Blockchain Revolution Page 18

  Everyone also agreed that streamlining the process with a blockchain network would save a fortune for all involved: commodities took up space, and a supply chain was linear – barrel B couldn’t be shipped to the next link in the chain until barrel A moved on to make room for it. But the owner of barrel B was in a hurry because storing oil was expensive. Empty tanks cost money but earned none, so the owner of a storage facility wanted to keep that asset topped off all the time.

  Therein lay the beauty of the GPN. When it was up and humming, every barrel of oil that wasn’t in the process of being refined was likely to be in motion, passing as quickly as could be from production to consumption, filling the tills of the petroleum industry as fully and efficiently as possible.

  Of course, when you redesigned a system to resemble a gigantic, global network of dominoes, you needed to accept that interrupting the flow of oil anywhere would mean stopping it everywhere. With the GPN now down, the only question was who would be the first to say “I won’t take your oil.”

  In Findlay, Ohio, the general manager of operations for Athens Petroleum Corporation, the largest owner of refineries in the United States, was preparing to say just that. With the GPN down, he could no longer document it when he shipped anything out of his facility and, therefore, no basis upon which to bill a customer for doing so. Since all of his far-flung storage facilities were at or near capacity, he couldn’t take in new crude oil either.

  Reluctantly, he gave the order to shut down all sixteen of the company’s massive refineries. Then he sent notices to all his suppliers and customers that Athens would neither accept nor ship any products until the GPN was once again up and running.

  With that single act, three million barrels a day of gasoline and other refined petroleum products dropped out of the system, and an equal amount of crude oil in transit between the wellhead and Athens refineries came to a halt wherever it was at that point in time. As the day progressed, all the company’s competitors followed suit. By close of business, eighteen million barrels of US refining production had fallen off-line. As had the output of almost all refineries elsewhere around the world, because the owners of those facilities were members of the GPN network as well.

  With the center of the petroleum supply chain shut down, the stoppage spread: backward to the oil fields and forward to the distributors. Oil tankers nearing terminals anchored offshore instead, unable to off-load their cargoes. Pipelines began shutting down everywhere.

  * * *

  The next day, Tom Bunker heard a ping and glanced at the phone mounted on the dashboard of his sixteen-wheeler. The subject line read “Read Now.” That didn’t sound good.

  He opened the email and confirmed it wasn’t. The message wasn’t very enlightening – all it said was “Pickup on hold. Await further instructions” – but it didn’t need to be. He’d been following the news all day. He took his next exit and coasted to a stop on the first wide shoulder he found. He’d spent enough time on the road to know any unexpected down time might as well be nap time.

  The same email, or one much like it, was on its way to petroleum product truckers everywhere. Within a few hours, thousands of semis, engines idling, were piled up in rest areas and truck stops across the United States, their drivers waiting for messages that would in the end instruct them to go home. Meanwhile, the stocks of oil companies and related industries plummeted on exchanges across the globe. Just about every other type of stock and bond headed in the same direction.

  By the next day, service stations were closing as they ran out of gas. As word spread, lines of cars formed at those that were still open, their drivers anxious to fill up while they still could. In response to rising howls of anger from consumers and business owners alike, US senators and representatives promised to hold hearings. But without knowing who had taken the GPN down or why, it was not clear what the purpose of the hearings would be, or who to call as witnesses.

  Among all those made furious or frustrated by the attacks, perhaps the most anguished was President Henry Dodge Yazzi. That was because the only major oil producer in the world that had chosen not to participate in the GPN was the Russian Federation. By all reports, its supply chain was humming. And it was filled with crude oil that was now selling for seventy-five dollars a barrel. Was the Kremlin behind the attack?

  * * *

  Frank heard a knock and looked up to see Ruth at his office door, holding an open laptop.

  “Can I come in?” she said. “I think you’ll want to hear this.”

  “Sure,” Frank said, pulling his guest chair next to his own.

  Ruth restarted the video she’d paused, bringing the faces of two commentators back to life.

  “… to this breaking news update. I’m Steve Thibeault, and with me is George Hurwitz. We’ve just learned who is responsible – or at least who claims responsibility – for the cyberattack that’s brought the global petroleum supply chain to a halt.”

  On a screen behind the commentators, a bizarre smock-clad figure appeared, wearing a wide brimmed, flat-topped hat. An enormously long, down-curving beak protruded from the mask that hid his face. Ruth pushed the pause button.

  “What in the world does that guy have on?” she asked.

  “I think I’ve seen that get-up before,” Frank said “It’s what plague doctors wore during the Middle Ages. I guess Guy Fawkes masks have gone out of fashion.” He started the feed again.

  “Less than an hour ago, the Reuters news agency received a video statement. In it, the strangely disguised person you see behind me introduced himself as the spokesperson for a secret organization calling itself the Nakamoto Anarcho-Syndicalist Liberation Army, or NASLA. He goes on to claim it was NASLA that destroyed the software used to support the Global PetroBlockchain Network, or GPN, which took over management of the petroleum supply chain earlier this year.”

  “Did he give a reason, Steve?”

  “Yes, George. NASLA is apparently made up of blockchain purists. According to the statement, they believe Satoshi Nakamoto, the original inventor of the blockchain concept, made a great gift to the world when he created a way to make central authorities – banks, suppliers, even governments – irrelevant and unnecessary. According to NASLA, evil business interests like the promotors of the GPN have corrupted that gift and must now be punished.”

  “Corrupted it how?”

  “By putting a central authority back into the equation while taking advantage of the rest of Nakamoto’s blockchain concept. NASLA says taking control of the blockchain away from the people is a crime against developer humanity. NASLA has assigned itself the mission of shutting down every blockchain with a central authority.”

  “Are there a lot of blockchains like that out there?”

  “We’re researching that in depth right now, George. But the quick answer is yes – there are scores, if not hundreds in use. The ones that have central authorities and operate on an invitation-only basis are often referred to as ‘private blockchains.’ Mostly, they’re used for tracking things from the point of production all the way to a consumer. For example, there’s one that tracks gems so consumers can be sure they don’t end up with a so-called ‘blood diamond’ when they buy an engagement ring. Others track goods and services like drugs, advertising, sustainable timber, and a lot more. Pretty much everything now, it seems. Including petroleum products, which is what the GPN tracks.”

  “But I thought blockchains were supposed to make everything more secure?”

  “So did I, George. And on that score, it seems NASLA has a point, of sorts. The reason they could take down the GPN is that, just as the spokesperson said, it doesn’t incorporate all parts of Nakamoto’s vision. It’s true there are hundreds of identical copies of the GPN blockchain around the world – comprising what Nakamoto called a ‘distributed ledger.’ But there’s only one copy of the GPN software capable of producing new blocks.

&n
bsp; “A Swiss company called Baher AG, based in Zurich, controls that copy. Baher receives all the data generated by the rest of the network, packages it into new transaction blocks, and then sends those blocks back to the rest of the network so that everyone has a complete local copy. Now that NASLA has destroyed the Baher copy of the GPN software, there’s no easy way for any supply chain data to get from one point in the network to any other point.”

  “I’ve got it now, Steve. The copies are still intact – or, I guess I should say, intact up to the point of the attack – but the command center, if you will, is gone. I guess that means that until it’s restored, there’s no way to transact business.”

  “Exactly. As the NASLA spokesperson went to great pains to point out, the petroleum industry created its own vulnerability by subverting Satoshi Nakamoto’s grand design.”

  “So, what happens next, Steve?”

  “According to NASLA, they won’t rest until they’ve taken down every private blockchain in existence.”

  * * *

  A pop-up reminder appeared on Frank’s laptop: it was seven p.m. He wasn’t an evening news kind of guy, but he found the unfolding chaos caused by the NASLA attacks to be morbidly fascinating – not least because the aftermath of a successful attack on BankCoin would look much the same. Only a hundred times worse, since it would affect all goods and services. He logged on just in time to see the video cut from a view of an anchor at a desk to a reporter standing, microphone in hand, in front of a milling mob of would-be passengers at an airport. Turning to the camera, she spoke:

  “Good evening, Bob. I’m reporting tonight from Terminal C in LaGuardia Airport, where carrier after carrier is terminating its outbound flights as it runs out of fuel.”

  The camera swiveled up to the flight board where the word “CANCELED” glowed angrily just about everywhere a departure time should have appeared,

  “Almost no flights will leave until further notice, and fewer are landing.”

  “I’m sure the people there aren’t too happy, Jill.”

  “Not at all, Bob, and no wonder. Passengers are furious at the carriers for not letting them know of the cancellations before they left for the airport. But to be fair, the airlines had no warning either. The government’s decision earlier today to commandeer civilian jet fuel supplies took everyone by surprise.”

  * * *

  Across town, President Yazzi muted the sound of the same broadcast. “Tell me again what I did to deserve this?” he said to Carson Bekin. “Would people be happier if we had no way to defend ourselves against an attack?”

  “Nothing to deserve it, of course,” Bekin said. “You did what you had to do. It’s just bad luck this is happening on your watch. And the media are making it worse. They make it sound like the Air Force could use the strategic oil reserves instead. Of course, that’s crude oil stored in underground salt dome formations, but why pay attention to the facts?”

  “We’ve got to get ahead of this, Carson. What’s the latest?”

  “Well, we’re making progress with the oil situation, anyway. The payment guarantees the Treasury and Transportation Departments announced yesterday are helping some. Everybody in the supply chain is feeling somewhat better knowing they’ll be paid sooner or later. That doesn’t help with the logistics though. Depending on where you’re looking, only about five to ten percent of what should be moving actually is.

  “The problem is, we’re dealing with something less like a flexible chain and more like a train on a track – you can’t push or pull one car faster than any other car in the same train. Without the GPN, everybody is scurrying around using telephones and spreadsheets to get things unstuck. It’s one epic mess.”

  “How about the GPN platform itself?”

  “They’re hoping to get a new copy of the system up and running sometime after midnight tonight. But that’s just the first step. Once it’s stable, they’ll have to pull in all the data from all those quick and dirty spreadsheets, consolidate it, and push it back out to the hundreds of GPN sites that need to update. Until that happens, the network won’t be able to function again the way it’s supposed to.”

  “So, you’re telling me the more we do now to keep things moving, the longer it will take to get back to normal?”

  “Sorry, Henry. I’m just the messenger.”

  “What about the attack?” Yazzi said. “Have they figured out how NASLA got into the Baher system?”

  “They think so. And they’ve fixed the vulnerability. But there’s no guarantee the GPN will be bulletproof once it’s online again. NASLA may have installed a back door to let itself in again – heck, maybe lots of back doors. If so, the Swiss forensic team may not have found them all. Another concern I’ve heard is that NASLA could have planted a timebomb program disguised well enough to escape detection until they trigger it.”

  “Why hit the same system twice?” Yazzi said. “They’ve taken the pharmaceuticals blockchain down now, too. Isn’t it more likely they’ll keep moving on to new targets? Not that that’s a good thing, but hitting just about anything else would be less disruptive than taking the petroleum chain down again.”

  “There’s no way to know,” Bekin said.

  Chapter 23

  Don’t Tell Me What I Don’t Want to Hear

  A grim Horace Nukem sat at the head of the main conference room table on the sixty-fifth floor of First Manhattan’s offices. Seated before him were Benson Cronin, Audrey Addams, and the bank’s senior BankCoin technology and PR team members: Frank, Hank Taylor, Dirk Magnus, Ruth Kim, and Lola Logan.

  “Okay,” Nukem began, “I’ll keep this meeting short. Obviously, the topic is NASLA. Yesterday, the cyber terrorists hit a third crucial blockchain. That means we need to assume they can and will take down every private blockchain. Given their success so far, we also need to conclude they have the skills and resources to do just that.

  “Now I want to make one thing perfectly clear, so listen closely: as you know, this bank got hit – badly – by a cyberattack almost a year ago. The board brought me on as executive chairman with the specific mission of making sure that never happened again. I accepted that charge, and I’ll be damned if I’ll fail at it.

  “Further to that goal, we’ll meet here at this time every week until the feds catch up with this NASLA group. The agenda of each meeting will always be the same: item one is convince me you’re individually and collectively doing everything in your power to prevent NASLA from taking down BankCoin. Item two is to make sure our messaging is effective at convincing the public of the same thing.

  “Any questions?”

  Nukem stared briefly at each of them in turn. “No? Good. In that case, I’ll see you all next week. Ben, a word with you before you go.”

  Cronin frowned as the others filed out of the room. What did Nukem expect him to do? He wasn’t a techie. If Nukem wanted to tell him to instill the fear of God in the bank’s personnel, well, the executive chairman was a lot scarier than he was.

  “Okay,” Nukem said, when they were alone. “So, how secure are we really?”

  “I’m not sure how you want me to answer that, Horace. We think we’re as safe as we can be. We’ve got teams inside and outside the bank trying all the time to find a chink in our armor. If they do – which is extremely rare now, by the way – it’s always very minor and fixed the same day. But everybody’s human, and humans make mistakes.”

  “You mean like starting BankCoin in the first place?” Nukem snorted.

  “No! I emphatically do not mean that! What would you have preferred? Letting another bank take the lead instead or, worse yet, getting replaced by some startup with a billion dollars of venture capital? Like it or not, we were going to end up on somebody’s blockchain. I saw a big opportunity, and I took it. That’s what the board expects of me. And don’t forget, they voted unanimously to approve BankCoin.”


  Cronin’s slight emphasis on the word “unanimous” did not escape Nukem’s notice.

  “Unanimous indeed. The question is whether you sold us a bill of goods. Ending up on a blockchain is one thing. Taking the fall for the entire global financial system if someone takes it down is another.”

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Horace. Don’t forget that every single time a bank transaction takes place anywhere we get a fee – that means that all other things being equal, we’ll always be more profitable than any other major bank in the world. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Wall Street understood it completely, and our stock’s been up ever since.”

  “Hah!” Nukem snorted. “Have you looked at Baher’s stock price lately?”

  Cronin had. And what he’d seen was ugly.

  * * *

  It had been obvious to all what Nukem would want to discuss, so Hank Taylor, Frank’s boss, had booked a conference room for Frank, Dirk, Ruth, and Lola to meet after Nukem released them. They were sitting there now.

  “So,” Taylor said. “Anyone have any bright ideas how we prove the negative every week to Nukem? What does he expect us to do beyond what we’re already doing?”

  “Strictly speaking,” Dirk said, “He did not ask us to do anything new. His exact words, if I recall them properly, were we are to ‘convince him we are doing everything possible.’ So, if we are already doing everything possible, we can do no more. Where is the problem?”

  “The problem,” Taylor said, “is in making him believe us. If we don’t come up with something new each week, he’ll be furious.”