Stratagems #25: Derek Changed the Delay. The AI Didn't Flinch.
Keep the beams standing. Replace what they carry. — The 36 Stratagems, Replace the beams with rotten timbers Previously on this series: #23: Alex Counted the AI's Hands. Lena Set the Bait. — The honeypot in the MediSys sandbox was hit twice. The first hit came through the Singapore node. The second came from an unknown source. On the other side, Lena fed forged node-signature data into ACL's…
On day three, Derek noticed a discrepancy in the MediSys sandbox's scan source behavior. He observed that the port order on the shallow layer, which consisted of 22, 443, 8443, and 9443, did not match the order used on the deep layer. The deep layer sequence was 22, 8443, 443, and 9443. Derek noted this difference in his notes, as the port order on the shallow layer never aligned with the deep layer's sequence.
He questioned why there was a difference, as both layers were part of the same system. The next night, Derek systematically analyzed the scan source's behavioral data, performing five checks. One of these checks focused on the time aspect, revealing that the growth curve of new features per visit appeared to be artificially drawn with a ruler. This sudden regularity hinted at an underlying pattern or manipulation.
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