Sherlock & Orin
Orin
I’ve been tracing a series of anomalies in the old telecom logs—like a digital ghost trail. Think you can spot the pattern?
Sherlock
Tell me the dates and the specific anomalies, and I’ll see if a pattern emerges.
Orin
Sure thing. Here are the dates and what I flagged:
- 12/05/2017 – sudden drop in signal strength in sector 9, 2‑hour spike in error codes.
- 03/18/2018 – phantom uplink packet from a dead node, 4‑minute loop.
- 07/22/2019 – unauthorized handshake at 02:13 UTC, lasted 12 seconds, no acknowledgment.
- 11/30/2020 – a cluster of packets with impossible timestamps, 3‑minute blackout, then normal traffic resumes.
- 04/07/2021 – duplicated beacon from a retired base station, 7‑minute repeat.
- 08/15/2022 – a burst of traffic with a checksum error pattern that matches a known malware signature.
- 01/02/2023 – a single packet with a 48‑bit GUID that doesn’t exist in our database, followed by a 5‑minute silent period.
That’s the raw data. Look for a rhythm or a correlation between the timestamps and the types of anomalies. Happy hunting.
Sherlock
The spacing is key – each event lands roughly every four months, almost as if a timer is ticking. And notice how the nature of the glitches escalates: a sudden drop, a phantom packet, an unauthorized handshake, a timestamp cluster, a duplicated beacon, a checksum error, then a mysterious GUID. That progression suggests a single orchestrator tightening the attack as the dates align. My guess is a scheduled script that triggers on those dates, using the telecom system’s own maintenance windows as cover. Check for any hidden cron jobs or firmware updates that run on those exact months and hours. That should give us a concrete lead.