Chapter 3 The Framed Suspect

I stared at my phone, trying to process what Ryan had just told me. My game character stood motionless on my monitor, dumbly waiting for an enemy to finish him off.

Someone had used my computer, or more accurately, someone had gone out of their way to make it look like I was responsible for the attack.

I closed the game, grabbed my jacket, and headed straight for the elevator.

This time, I was going back to the conference room because I wanted to, not because someone had called me down.

…

When I walked in, Dylan had already pulled up the activity logs on the giant screen. The records showed that at 2:58 a.m., a device identified as George Langford's Development PC, with the source IP address 192.168.50.123, had modified administrator-level access rules.

Leon stood beside the screen, looking like a prosecutor who'd just found the evidence he needed to win.

"Well, George, I guess I don't have to ask who's responsible anymore," he said, turning toward me with a smug expression.

I ignored his tone and studied the IP address on the screen. "My development PC hasn't been turned on in three months."

"That doesn't mean nobody accessed it remotely," Dylan replied, pointing at the device information. "The hardware ID, security chip signature, and browser fingerprint all match your machine. Someone would've needed your cooperation to replicate all three perfectly."

Xavier closed the folder in front of him and turned toward my father. "If this turns out to be an inside job, we're looking at much more serious consequences. Mr. Langford, I recommend securing the device immediately and cooperating fully with the investigation."

"That's fine by me, but I want to see the device first," I said.

Leon chuckled as though I'd just made another ridiculous excuse. "What now? Are you going to tell us someone hacked into your computer?"

I replied, "That's one possibility."

Leon added, "Which would still prove the attack came from your device."

"No, it would only prove that someone used my device's identity."

Dylan frowned at my response. "That identity includes a unique hardware ID."

"A hardware ID isn't the same as a fingerprint," I replied before turning to my father. "Mr. Langford, give me ten minutes."

My father looked like he wanted to argue, but he held back for a moment. "What exactly are you planning to do?"

"I'm bringing my development PC down here."

"You want to do that right now?"

"Yes, right now."

He stared at me for several seconds, clearly weighing his options. Eventually, he turned toward Ryan and told him to come with me.

My old tower PC sat on a shelf in the farthest corner of the underground parking garage, covered in a thick layer of dust. It had been exactly where I'd left it three months ago.

Ryan picked up the tower PC while I gathered the cables. He was panting laboriously by the time we were halfway back.

"George, is this thing really going to prove your innocence?" he asked between breaths.

I shook my head. "Nope."

He nearly stopped walking at my answer.

"Then, why the hell are we hauling it all the way upstairs?" he demanded.

"Because it might prove that someone tampered with it."

Ryan looked like he wanted to whinge, but he kept walking.

…

Once we returned to the conference room, we connected the tower to a monitor and powered it on. The fans rumbled to life, and everyone watched as the computer slowly booted up.

I opened the login history as soon as Windows finished loading. The others gathered around the monitor, eager to see what I would find.

There was a record showing a Remote Desktop connection established at 2:57 a.m. the previous night, routed through an internal relay server.

Dylan leaned closer to examine the record, and his expression immediately changed. "He's right. There was a remote login."

Leon didn't hesitate to jump to conclusions. "So, someone used George's device to launch the attack."

"You're still getting it wrong," I corrected.

He frowned, clearly irritated by me constantly contradicting him. Then, he asked impatiently, "And how am I wrong this time?"

"If my device had initiated the connection, it wouldn't have used this login method." I opened the network traffic logs and continued explaining, "Someone copied my device's identity onto another device."

Leon folded his arms and shot me a skeptical look. "You can spin this however you want, George, but the data doesn't lie."

I glanced at him and replied, "You'd be surprised how easily it can."

I didn't bother wasting any more time arguing with him as I imported the previous day's captured network traffic into an analysis tool and filtered everything associated with the IP address 192.168.50.123.

The traffic looked completely normal at first glance. The request structures, device identifiers, and connection routes all matched what everyone expected from my development PC.

Everything matched, which explained why the investigation team had so quickly pointed the finger at me.

I started expanding the packet fields one layer at a time, carefully examining details most people would overlook.

Ryan leaned closer and squinted at the screen. "What exactly are we looking for?"

I scrolled for another moment before stopping on a particular field.

"Take a look at this." I highlighted a single number on the screen and pointed it out. "The TTL value is what matters here."

Dylan leaned over my shoulder to see better. "What's wrong with it? It says 64."

"Exactly," I replied, pointing toward the dusty tower sitting beside us. "That's the problem. My computer runs Windows, and Windows typically starts with a TTL of 128."

I tapped the highlighted number on the screen. "But this traffic has a TTL of 64, which is a common starting value for Linux systems."

Leon reached toward the table, but his hand suddenly stopped.

I turned toward him and continued, "These packets didn't originate from my development PC. Someone used a Linux server to impersonate my machine."

I looked back at the screen, where the supposedly matching device information was still displayed.

"The IP address, hardware fingerprint, and browser information were all spoofed to make the traffic look like it came from my computer."

Nobody said a word.

The same people who had been so eager to accuse me just minutes earlier were now staring at the screen, trying to make sense of what I'd shown them.

Xavier finally leaned forward, his expression growing solemn at the implications. "Can you prove that?"