Page 30 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
“And whoever develops this kind of technology stands to make a lot of it,” he added. “There will be payouts for this formula forever. If Butterfly Junction is the first one out with it, we are leaning toward producing it ourselves so we can control it. It was developed for the greater good, and that is what we want to do with it.”
“You’re in the minority,” I assured him.
“We’re close, Charity. It’s more important than ever that we protect the formula.”
“How close?” I asked, my head cocked to the side.
“Imminently. The last round of testing was so promising that Thomas, our head scientist, thinks we’re within striking distance.”
“That’s great!” I exclaimed, sitting forward a bit on the couch. “What happens then?”
“Then we have to start the next round of trials on bigger fields and bodies of water. By then, the formula will be patented, though. If someone stole it, we would have proof it was ours.”
I held up the iPad. “I need to do a quick reconnaissance of this immediately then. What’s the passcode?”
“It’s 1961.”
I typed it in and was rewarded with the home screen. After some clicking about, I was in the system and finding run-of-the-mill emails without much information tied to them. I glanced up. “Your emails are innocuous. I’m going to check the cloud,” I explained, clicking the Drive symbol.
“You won’t find anything,” he insisted.
When the app loaded, I was not disappointed. I scrolled through it before I turned it around to show him. “Are you sure? This one says, ‘June second data.’”
His face paled under the light of the lamp. “What the hell?” he asked, his voice filled with shock as he leaned forward. “We purposely avoid uploading to clouds.”
“Well, you consciously avoid it, but the accounts are linked, and you have sync on,” I explained as I punched buttons on the screen. “Let’s sign into iCloud now,” I suggested, afraid of what I’d find. Sure enough, another copy of the data was there. I showed him everything, and the expression he wore reminded me of someone with bad heartburn.
“No, this isn’t right. Someone did this thinking I wouldn’t find out,” Gulliver insisted. “I should have checked more often.”
“It’s easy to assume once we set up devices, the settings will never change, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes a simple update to the device OS can change settings without us realizing it. Regardless, for now, we have to fix this. We’re going to wipe these clouds and add some security. Is all this information backed up on the server?”
“Yes, we didn’t do any work today because we were tied up with the burglary attempt. There’s nothing new on there.”
“Perfect,” I said as I tapped and typed. “You have four iPads only, right?”
“Yes, only four.”
I showed him the iCloud information. “This tells us there are three other iPads synced, so we have to delete backups on each one,” I explained as I worked. “Once the backups are deleted, we have to delete all the files.”
“Can’t we just delete iCloud in general?”
I paused in my tapping. “We can, but deleting it doesn’t get rid of your information. It’s still floating in cyberspace. Even after you delete your files, it can take thirty days to disappear completely from the cloud. I’ll need to check and make sure the files stay gone. I have a tool I’ll use to wipe the iPads back to factory settings without losing your apps. Once I finish clearing your Google Drive, I’ll disconnect it from your account. It will still be there, but it will be dormant and empty,” I explained as I worked. “Do you have old useless data we can upload to the iCloud once it’s cleared?”
“I mean, sure, but to what end?” he asked, his head cocked to the side.
“If we have something in iCloud, it makes it appear we have no idea someone is after the information. We just want to be sure whatever is in there isn’t tied to your research. Once we’ve planted the information, I’ll keep checking to see if anyone can breach the cloud and get the data. If they can, that might give me a trail to follow.”
“But you just yelled at me about security.”
I shook my head and held in the sigh of fatigue and impatience waiting to come out. “I’m talking about a formula as basic as something a home gardener might make and use, Gulliver. If they take the information via the cloud, then you’ll have to reconsider what technology equipment you’re using.”
“Maybe we should just stop using the iPads. It would be inconvenient, but far less so than losing all our research.”
I kept tapping and shook my head. “No, this serves several purposes. I could always encrypt the data in the cloud, but since you really shouldn’t be using it for information storage anyway, I’m not going to bother. Uploading fake information to the cloud assures me they won’t go digging for anything else they can’t see on the surface. They’ll be too busy frothing at the mouth over what they can see. We will need a new password and passcode. Something like butterflyjunction is so easy a third-grader could get it in two tries.”
The sheepish expression on his face was enough to tell me he was the culprit responsible for that atrocity. “Guess I failed there.”
“Major fail,” I joked, “but we can fix it. Only two people will know the password though, you and Mathias. There’s no reason they need to know the password to work the device. Pictures and videos can be uploaded to the server by you only.”
