Security For All

The Adventures of Captain X-Ploit:
Bills + Bagels = BOOYA!!!
– Part 2 of the epic chronicle –
Captain X-Ploit vs The Bills

David hastily dressed and ran downstairs where he was greeted by his dog Nicky, an intelligent, good natured Shetland Sheepdog. Nicky’s full name was David Nicholas Stone. The chief reason for her strangely unfitting, yet oddly familiar name was that David had trouble coming up with original names. He figured his name had served him well and didn’t see why it wouldn’t serve just as well for Nicky. That and Nicky didn’t seem to mind being confused with David on Bill Day.

Nicky licked his face as he knelt to pet her. “What do you want to eat today, Nicky?” David asked, whereupon Nicky cocked her ear with a confused sort of expression as if to say “you think I can talk now?” David simply responded with, “I’ll get you something nice,” as he stood up and walked out the door on his way to his favorite breakfast shop, “Bill’s Big, Bombastic Bagels“.

David entered the shop and after a quick glance around, realized that the familiar ubiquitous cash registers were no longer there. In their place was a strange, small machine. When David inquired about this change, Bill (from Bill’s Big, Bombastic Bagels not from Bill Day) responded smartly, “Just the guy I’ve been waiting for! Every week you short change my clerks or find some other sneaky way out of paying. Well this week I have you beat! This new state-of-the-art system is foolproof, not even you can beat it.”

“How does it work?” asked David casually. “Well, you see, you put your credit card in that machine,” he said, cackling and pointing to the new strange, small machine, “and it will give you a magnetic chip. Then you pick your items and exit the store. The chip activates the door and charges you for any items in your possession. Your credit card comes out on the other side of the door. It’s foolproof, I say! Not even the infamous Captain X-Ploit can beat it.”

“That’s really quite interesting,” David said rubbing his goatee, “But I believe I’ve already found a flaw in the system.”
“What!? No way! Show me!” sputtered the incredulous Bagel shop proprietor. David promptly walked over to the machine, inserted his credit card, got the chip, grabbed a shopping basket and walked out the door. He set the empty basket outside behind the door and reentered the shop, leaving his credit card in the return receptacle outside. Sauntering over to the bagels, he selected and bagged several dozen, and returned to the counter exclaiming, “I’m sorry I have no credit card, and therefore no way to purchase these many bagels. Further, I am unable to leave this establishment and that’s very inconvenient for I now must stay here and hold my bagels until this horrible flaw is fixed.

Visibly relieved, Bill, the Big Bombastic Bagel guy, smirked and proclaimed magnanimously with an air of victory, “No problem, I will retrieve your card for you.” The shopkeeper then inserted his own card into the strange, small machine, picked up the chip and exited the store. But just as Bill was halfway through the door, David tossed his bag of bagels over the open door and into the strategically placed basket outside on the side of the door opposite the credit card retrieval portal. Bill didn’t see this clever toss-the-bag-o-bagels move since he was busy retrieving David’s card.

Reentering with a triumphant look the Bagel-Meister returned David’s card to him. David, acting dejected said, “It would seem you are correct. I have been foiled. Sadly, I’ve lost my appetite.” He then used his card to exit the store empty-handed. As he retrieved his bagel booty, David was fairly certain that when Bill realized that he, Bill, and not David had been charged for the bagels there would be a barrage of exclamations emanating from Bill’s Big, Bombastic Bagels that would be heard throughout all of Trustonia. But that would be later.

Happy with himself David set off for his favorite coffee shop intending to obtain a cup of coffee into which he would dunk his, or rather Bill’s bagels.

In this episode of The Adventures of Captain X-Ploit by Nicholas Webster, we find our hero engaging in a sort of man in the middle attack whereby he obtains the goods and the unlucky victim gets the bill. But the important part of this parable is, I think, the misplaced confidence the victim places in his security measures that causes him to defeat his own system by attempting to work around an unexpected circumstance. Rest assured – all vulnerabilities are exploited strictly through unexpected circumstances. Stay tuned for more questionable adventures of the (not so) good Captain.