Page 39 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

The Extrapolator Murders

into the cause and finds something fishy. The software has been
tampered with, making a high-speed collision with an expressway
abutment inevitable. The vehicle appears almost to have been aimed
at an angle of the bridge support that would destroy the onboard
computers as well as the passenger. But one of the tires blew out
just before impact, avoiding that direct hit by several inches, leaving
enough of the circuitry intact to make the case for sabotage.
Corporations are loath to reveal flaws in the safety of their robo-
cars, so Inspector O’Clocker will only discover it in the course of
making what were called ‘routine investigations’ before that job was
handed over to the crime detection and prevention software. From
there the detective will look at the records of the other deaths. He
will not find the same kind of smoking gun again, but the means
will have a striking similarity: electronic systems gone awry—
individually all within the expected failure rate, but every one of
them could have been caused by a skilled hacker. Electrocutions,
fires, small appliance explosions.”
“Now you have means,” said Hydrargyrum Diggers. “But
motive is crucial. Haven’t you already set that up to some extent?”
“Yes, but here it becomes tricky.” Izzy frowned. “It turns out
the victims were all working, in their different companies—
including Opticracy—on algorithms for an improved and more
powerful system for policing. Employee poaching, industrial
espionage and disgruntled programmers and executives were
everywhere the detective turned. Only one of those companies,
Neurespionics, did not have a key person on those projects
assassinated: naturally, that is where O’Clocker winds up focusing
his inquiries. He discovers not just a bunch of wily eggheads, but
the fact that their product was considered inferior by other people
in the field and unlikely to be successful in the marketplace. Lots of
motives there!”
“Okay,” began Brad Razeberry slowly. “Means and motive: what
about opportunity? That brings up alibis.”
“Right. And here the detective tries to use the Extrapolator to go
through that process of elimination: who was where when, what
were their known hacking skills, and so forth. And now the system

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