Can A
TPF System Be Hacked ?
Come on, I bet most of you have sat around on a boring night shift or supporting an implementation that was going without a hitch and wondered how you could
wreak havoc on your TPF system...?
Well now someone has written a book about doing just
that. Long time TPF'er Andy Rowland has just had his first novel published
called:
"Dancing on the Brink of the World"
~ A CTL-000001 Catastrophic TPF Novel
Rest assured that as soon as I have
read the book I'll be back with a proper review...
Press Release:
"Computer expert Conor Morgan devises the ultimate wordwide credit card
heist: the biggest robbery in criminal history. But who is ultimately
the hunted, and at what cost?
$ $ $ $
Conor Morgan has the perfect plan: recruit a team with hearts of
larceny
to pull off the greatest techno-heist in modern banking history.
The stakes: close to a trillion dollars.
The target: neXus, the world's
premier credit and debit card payments system, operated by the power of
invisible money.
With futurist weapons inspired by Zulu and Mongol battle strategies,
Morgan's crew crashes neXus computer systems worldwide in a daring
transcontinental robbery. But a Delta hit team of Enforcers hunt them
down as Morgan's plan unravels.
Dancing on the Brink of the World is interwoven with elements of the
mysterious. Recurrent prime numbers and echoing supersymmetries
converge
in a morality tale of friendship and trust, betrayal and vengeance.
In San Francisco and London, Morgan's team is on the run from the most
sinister assassin since Jack the Ripper, with a ransom of untraceable
diamonds, a dazzlingly erotic heroine and the ghostly messengers of
ancient Celtic gods.
"Authentic as today's dispatches from the 21st century
battleground of cyber warfare, chilling and funny and brilliantly
observed. A tour de force, infused with the carousing spirits of dreamy
Irish rebels. Brendan Behan would be proud."
~ Kristine Rosemary, author of "The War Against Gravity"
$ $ $ $
"Credit card crime is hot news," Andrew Rowland said at his home in
London. "My novel describes the biggest credit card robbery in criminal
history. It takes the lid off the way the credit card industry works,
and reveals how vulnerable the banking computer systems really are.
In the best traditions of Clancy and Forsyth, the technical details are
based upon meticulous research and my extensive qualifications as a
mainframe computer realtime banking systems expert.
Every aspect of the robbery plan - from the electromagnetic bombs, to
the ability to bypass biometric ID passports and fingerprint intrusion
systems - would work in real life.
As a former Silicon Valley systems programmer I gained an intimate
knowledge of all aspects of card fraud and the interchange between
the worldwide credit and banking industries.
A credit card robbery of this magnitude, with authentic technical and
location detail, is perhaps unprecedented in heist and thriller novels
of this genre."
$ $ $ $
"Bankers who hire money hungry geniuses should not always express
surprise and amazement when some of them turn around with brilliant,
creative and illegal means of making money."
~ Linda Davies, investment banker and bond trader turned novelist, in a
1997 speech to central bankers and financiers at a conference on the
European Monetary Union in Amsterdam.
The story for Dancing on the Brink of the World came about in a similar
way.
Part of Andrew's job description as a realtime systems troubleshooter
in
San Francisco was a remit to detect bank and card fraud within the
company, or any of its 21,000 member banks worldwide.
During graveyard shift lulls, Andrew and his colleagues brainstormed
ingenious ways whereby opportunists with inside information could rob
the major credit card companies blind.
Andrew ran the novel's scenario past some of the best minds in the
business. First they laughed. Then they thought about the audacity and
complexity of the plot.
Unanimously, they agreed: this could really work.
That's when Andrew began amassing authentic detail to plot his novel
about a neXus takedown, a financial thriller with a metaphysical twist,
set in the no-limit, high stakes world of computer crime, with San
Francisco and London backdrops.
$ $ $ $
Since 1977 Andrew Rowland has worked on three continents as an airline
and banking realtime computer expert. Past TPF consultancies
include British Airways (London), Saudi Arabian Airlines (Jeddah),
Galileo (Swindon), Continental Airlines (Miami), Amadeus (Stuttgart,
Miami), SNCF (Lille, Paris), American Airlines (Tulsa), VISA (San
Francisco, McLean), and United Airlines (Denver). Andrew spent seven
years as a systems troubleshooter for the world's dominant card
payments
platform, headquartered in Silicon Valley.
He lives in London and writes online about geopolitics and society.
This is his first novel.
Copyright © 2006, Andrew Rowland. Published by iUniverse Inc.,
(Lincoln, New York, Shanghai): $29.95.
Available via ~ www.dancingonthebrink.com
