The Seven Keys: A Hacker Fable

My journey began in a place I never wanted to see again — but it managed to break out of my block-list. A place where the man-made concept of “day and night” loses its power, and its inhabitants cope with heavy metal, saunas, and the worship of our digital saint of freedom, Linus Torvalds. A place at the ends of a flat-Earthers’ world: Finland.

I’m E. Max Vim. This is the story of my most ambitious hack. Read along and you might learn something.

My first target was Oliver Salmiakki, a netsec professor at the University of Helsinki, where Darude shot his Sandstorm video. He was the only keyholder whose information was publicly available — a fatal flaw.

My goal was to destroy DNS, the internet’s phonebook. The catch? The master key for the root zone — the top of the pyramid — is so critical, they split it into seven pieces held by seven individuals scattered across the globe.

They call them Trusted Community Representatives. I call them targets.

My motivations are complex, but it’s mostly revenge.

We also have some history, Oliver and I. It involved a JavaScript conference, and his then-girlfriend who apparently found my explanation of Vim’s modal editing compelling. I was drunk, she was drunk, and frankly, nothing that happens at a JavaScript conference should be…