Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for June 08, 2022

Blaiswahl… firewall?… LOL…

UGH!!!!!! TOO. MANY. WORDS!!!!!

Good morning™, everybody!

They have a whole “cyber crimes unit” at the police station! I guess that’s good.

So, we have these 5 banks: Federalist, State Superior, First Central, Paragon Bank (who we’ve seen robbed before), and “Re___ Ba__.” Any speculation on what the last one might be named?

Instead of trusting their security to “Ionoclad Solutions,” I think they should have found a more ironclad solution.

Good morning™, un security trees !

I wonder if one of their suppositions would be that someone at the security company is a party to the thefts even tho’ we know that Memory simply tapped those banks by breaking the security code(s).

How long before Tracy is on Mayor sourpuss’s carpet ?  I take it the meeting has not happened yet or did we do a time jump past it ?

Pretty obvious the police don’t use Big Data, AI or security camera footage of the ATMs hit, because all of that would have gotten closer to the answer within the first few minutes. Heck, they still don’t seem to have figured out that the money came from the cash boxes of specific ATMs within specific time frames. Unless Mister Memory is really pulling a hack on the ATMs to suppress transaction logging on withdrawal, the “cash box low” alarm should have triggered, too, and registered the time of activation.

A clue!

DT: I see. Keep me posted Brock.

Translation: I have not a clue what he just said.

If Tracy has access to air car tech then finding a hacker should be child’s play!

So THAT’S what happened to Henry Kissinger!

TRACY (horrified) FIVE BIRDS?! Notify the World Wildlife Foundation. He have a Defcon Five and need a massive air drop of troops!!

“Curse you Ionoclad!”

Could Blaisewahl be some sort of portmonteau type word? Modesty Blaise, maybe? Chris Wahl? I don’t see a connection though.

Another day of talking heads. They keep talkin’ but the story does not move forward or become any clearer.

Tracy’s just checkin’ in. I guess the MCU washed its hands of this investigation and shuffled it over to the CCU department. I suppose because Tracy, who used to be pretty savvy with Air Cars, Voice-O-Grafs, Atom Lights, and all of Diet Smith’s other technology, has no working knowledge of computers. Kind of like the guy who wrote the story, eh?

TRACY: Thanks for connecting the dots and doing my detective work for me. I swear, I never would have thought to find a common thread between the robbed banks. Boy, you computer guys are real smart! Be sure to keep me posted so that I can show up at the end of the story, save the day, and get all the credit. Otherwise we’ll have to change the name of the strip to something that sounds more Chester Gould-like, such as “Brock Blaisewahl, Friend of the Author.”

BROCK THE CROCK and TRACY: Ha Ha Ha.

BROCK THE CROCK: Oops, I just found out that when I press this button, I get this nice blue screen with white lettering. Whatta ya think that means?

TRACY: The stupid readers think this is supposed to make sense. They’ll accept anything we dish out.

BROCK THE CROCK and TRACY: Ha Ha Ha. Ha Ha Ha.

1-BROCK: Come in, Chief Detective Tracy. DT: I’m already in. BROCK: Oh. So you are.

2-DT: Would you mind if I called you Black Blazed Ballz? It amuses me. BLACK: Be my guest!

3-BLACK: So this hacker has exceptional skills and…

DT: I’ve known hookers who have exceptional skills. I should round ‘em up and have them give me the 3 Degrees.

BLACK: That’s the “Third Degree” and you give it to THEM.

DT: Why would I pay to give them the 3 Degrees? And have to buy a tub full of ice to boot?

BLACK: What? DT: What?

How will B.O. Plenty fit in this story?

“BLAISEWAHL”…… cute name for your cybercrime guy

How is the investigation of the bank cyber heists going?

Boy, that’s some real urgency there.

Yada, Yada, Yada

Nah… this hacker didn’t kill five birds with one stone…only thing done was plucking their feathers.

Mr. Memory comes across to me as one who is self-employed. I cannot imagine him working for a security service provider.

MOVIE QUOTE——“I don’t mind being killed,but I resent hearing it from a character whose head comes to a point!”

Groucho Marx—A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA—1946

Blaisewahl might want to throw out all those coffee mugs with the name “Teevo” on them.

Ionoclad. That sounds like a nice business name, I’m sure they wouldn’t do anything wrong.

I remembering Collins’ “Uppward Lee Mobile” case.

To nail this Ponzi swindler with the hoity-toity attitude,Diet Smith and Vitamin Flintheart put up some of their own money as “bait” for him to steal.He bit.

Again, several weeks into this story, it’s still not exactly clear what Mr.Memory did, or how he did it. The impression seems to be that he somehow hacked into the banks’ computer systems, apparently through the “same security service provider”, & literally transferred their currency holdings somewhere else, but would such a person a) still be living in an area near the B.O. Plentys of the world & b) be using what appears to be Radio Shack quality equipment.

Brock Blaisewahl, Cyber Sleuth for the Tracyville P.D., knows!

Even without full cooperation from the recalcitrant bank security officers, Brock quickly recognized the commonality that stands out as a weakness in their cyber defenses: the shared Security Service Provider, IONOCLAD Solutions! Hack that, hack them all! Easy for Mr. Memory. Now, Brock and Tracy (with his MCU cohort) need to track down and identify Memory. Is this where B.O. Plenty may re-enter the story and provide the wedge-clue?

…I like the way you’re approaching this……….