Story code: ST-001210
Part 3: The Network Breach
I tapped Marcus’s username on the moderator dashboard, opening a direct, private message channel.
“Marcus,” I typed, “I can see the uncropped feed on the public forum. Your unique stream key and user ID are visible on the source data. You disabled the privacy filters. Shut the restream down now.”
A minute passed. On the tablet, the viewer count ticked up again. Strangers in the public chat were now making crude jokes about the flowers, the chapel’s lighting, and the way my mother leaned against the pew.
Marcus’s response in the private admin chat was immediate and dismissive. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Avery. I’m just watching the service. If your system is showing extra stuff, that’s on the funeral home. I’m not shutting anything down. The rest of the family wants to see this.”
He was playing dumb, confident that I would not risk disrupting the broadcast for the older relatives. My grandmother was watching from a hospice care facility across the country; my uncle was tuned in from an overseas military base. Marcus knew I felt trapped by my desire to keep them connected to my father’s farewell.
Sarah watched the screen, her knuckles white as she gripped the back of the wooden pew. “He’s not going to stop,” she whispered. “Look at the comments. Someone just posted a link to our mother’s social media page. They’re starting to tag her in the chat.”
I refreshed the admin dashboard. The traffic on Marcus’s restream link was ballooning. Because he had bypassed our secure portal to stream the raw feed, the forum users weren’t just watching; they were actively extracting the stream’s metadata.
I checked the network logs on the control tablet. The IP addresses accessing the feed were multiplying, but they weren’t connecting to our secure server. They were connecting directly to the relay point Marcus had exposed. He had left the incoming port completely open to maximize his own stream’s bandwidth.
“He’s letting external users join the channel,” I told Sarah. “He’s not just restreaming it anymore. He’s routing them directly through his connection.”
Just then, a message from Marcus popped up in the main family group chat, visible to all our aunts, uncles, and cousins. “Avery is threatening to shut down the memorial stream because of a minor glitch,” he wrote. “If she does, none of you will get to see Uncle David’s service. I’m trying to keep it running for everyone, but she’s locking me out.”
The family chat immediately lit up with confused, anxious replies from relatives begging me not to turn off the feed.
I looked back at the admin console. A new alert flashed red at the top of the screen. In his attempt to boost his viewer numbers, Marcus had done something irreversible: he had posted the master VR link, complete with the active stream security key, directly into the public chat. Anyone on the forum now had the administrative credentials to hijack the video feed entirely.