Carla took a trip into the city to do some shopping. An internet search had turned up an electronics specialist able to make up bespoke equipment.
The deep narrow shop was a geek’s paradise with everything from electronic components to complete equipment lining the shelves or under glass counters.
The proprietor greeted Carla with a beaming smile. She was so non-geek he figured she was lost and just wanted directions, so he was overjoyed when she spoke his language.
“I want a pass-through 15 pin VGA connector on my monitor, in dark grey finish. It must take a snapshot of the screen in jpg format, when I manually press a button, so there will be a lead from it, to my keyboard position.
“The data is to be stored on an SD card that slots into the connector. The card must be easily removable.
“The device must be as compact as possible, and unapparent to a non-technical person.”
“Ah! I have just the thing; it is in dark grey, the new beige. No one has beige anymore.
“The capture card is ideal if you are in a secure environment, where you can see, but cannot print data. This version adjusts compression of the screen image depending on content. If it is text only on screen, the file size is very small. If a color picture, it produces a lossless compression.
“If you use the micro SD in an SD adaptor, you can have large capacity storage. If this is what you want, that will cost you $250 including tax. A 64Gig micro card is included.”
Carla pictured how she would position the gismo. It was less than an inch long, no more than a slight extension to the existing connector on the back of her monitor.
“Great, just give me a demo and I will take it.”
The owner was pleased to show her how it worked, taking less than a minute to fit it and capture screen shots. He guessed the girl was working on a dumb terminal, or she could have just plugged the card into a standard built-in port and used the SCR button. Dumb terminals do not have these ports or the functioning software.
There was one other item on her shopping list, a length of the thinnest monofilament fishing line. She bought a small spool and headed to Pharma Inc.
Because it was Saturday morning, the laboratory building would be open. Carla went to the public area toilet and wound about 10 yards of the line around her hips at the level of her panty line, leaving the remainder of the spool in a waste bin.
She redressed, passed through security and went to the toilet block that served her secured laboratory. Because there were no opening windows, she unscrewed the large cleaning access cover to the toilet waste pipe and fed the fishing line into the large diameter pipe. A bunch of paperclips acted as a weight, dragging it down the pipe. Carla carefully screwed the cover back on, leaving the end of the line exposed. A flush of the toilet would wash the line down as far as the manhole cover in the yard below.