Digital Fortress Chapter 5

Where is everyone? Susan wondered as she crossed the deserted Crypto floor. Some emergency.Although nearly NSA departments were fully staffed s so far days a week, Crypto was gener totallyy quiet on Saturdays. Cryptographic mathematicians were by nature high-st fiddleg workaholics, and there existed an unwritten radiation pattern that they dupe Saturdays hit except in emergencies. Code-breakers were too valuable a commodity at the NSA to risk losing them to burnout.As Susan traversed the floor, TRANSLTR loomed to her sound. The sound of the generators eight stories under sounded oddly ominous today. Susan neer correspondingd being in Crypto during off hours. It was identical being trapped alone in a henhouse with or so grand, futuristic beast. She quickly made her way toward the com small-armders office.Strath more(prenominal)s glass-walled workstation, nicknamed the fishbowl for its coming into court when the drapes were open, stood high atop a set of catwalk stairs on th e venture wall of Crypto. As Susan climbed the grated steps, she gazed upward at Strathmores thick, oak door. It bore the NSA seal-a bodacious eagle fiercely clutching an ancient skeleton key. Behind that door sit down one of the greatest men shed ever met.Commander Strathmore, the fifty-six-year-old de formaty manager of operations, was the like a father to Susan. He was the one whod hired her, and he was the one whod made the NSA her home. When Susan joined the NSA over a decade ago, Strathmore was point the Crypto Development Division-a training ground for mod cryptographers-new male cryptographers. Although Strathmore neer tolerated the hazing of anyone, he was especially protective of his sole female staff member. When accused of favoritism, he simply replied with the truth Susan Fletcher was one of the brightest young recruits hed ever seen, and he had no intention of losing her to sexual harassment. hotshot of the cryptographers foolishly decided to test Strathmores resolve.virtuoso morning during her first year, Susan dropped by the new cryptographers lounge to get most paperwork. As she left, she noticed a picture of herself on the bulletin board. She al closely fainted in embarrassment. in that location she was, reclining on a bed and wearing further panties.As it turned out, one of the cryptographers had digitally scanned a photo from a pornographic magazine and edited Susans head onto someone elses body. The effect had been kinda convincing.Unfortunately for the cryptographer responsible, Commander Strathmore did not find the stunt even off remotely amusing. Two hours later, a landmark memo went outEMPLOYEE CARL capital of Texas TERMINATED FOR INAPPROPRIATE CONDUCT.From that day on, nobody messed with her Susan Fletcher was Commander Strathmores golden girl. precisely Strathmores young cryptographers were not the only ones who learned to respect him early in his career Strathmore made his presence known to his superiors by proposing a pattern of unorthodox and highly successful intelligence operations. As he move up the ranks, Trevor Strathmore became known for his cogent, reductive analyses of highly complex situations. He seemed to demand an uncanny ability to see past the moral perplexities surrounding the NSAs tight decisions and to act without remorse in the interest of the common skinny.There was no doubt in anyones mind that Strathmore loved his country. He was known to his colleagues as a patriot and a visionary a decent man in a world of lies.In the days since Susans arrival at the NSA, Strathmore had skyrocketed from head of Crypto Development to second-in-command of the entire NSA. Now only one man outranked Commander Strathmore there-Director Leland Fontaine, the mythical overlord of the Puzzle Palace-never seen, occasionally heard, and eternally feared. He and Strathmore seldom saw eye to eye, and when they met, it was like the clash of the titans. Fontaine was a giant among giants, just S trathmore didnt seem to care. He argued his ideas to the director with all the restraint of an warm boxer. Not even the President of the United States dared challenge Fontaine the way Strathmore did. One needed political immunity to do that-or, in Strathmores case, political indifference.Susan arrived at the top of the stairs. Before she could knock, Strathmores electronic door lock buzzed. The door swung open, and the air force officer waved her in.Thanks for coming, Susan. I owe you one.Not at all. She smiled as she sit down opposite his desk.Strathmore was a rangy, thick-fleshed man whose muted features somehow disguised his hard-nosed efficiency and demand for perfection. His gray eyes usually suggested a cartel and discretion born from experience, but today they looked wild and unsettled.You look beat, Susan said.Ive been better. Strathmore sighed.Ill say, she thought.Strathmore looked as bad as Susan had ever seen him. His thinning gray hair was disheveled, and even in the rooms crisp air-conditioning, his forehead was beaded with sweat. He looked like hed slept in his suit. He was sitting behind a modern desk with two put keypads and a computer monitor at one end. It was strewn with computer printouts and looked like some sort of alien cockpit propped there in the center of his provide chamber.Tough week? she inquired.Strathmore shrugged. The usual. The EFFs all over me round civilian silence rights again.Susan chuckled. The EFF, or Electronics Frontier Foundation, was a worldwide coalition of computer users who had founded a powerful civil liberties coalition aimed at supporting free voice communication on-line and educating separates to the realities and dangers of living in an electronic world. They were constantly lobbying against what they wauled the Orwellian eavesdropping capabilities of organization agencies-particularly the NSA. The EFF was a perpetual thorn in Strathmores side.Sounds like business line as usual, she said. So whats this big emergency you got me out of the tub for?Strathmore sit down a moment, absently fingering the computer trackball embedded in his desktop. by and by a foresighted silence, he caught Susans gaze and held it. Whats the long-run youve ever seen TRANSLTR take to break a edict?The question caught Susan entirely off guard. It seemed meaningless. This is what he called me in for?Well She hesitated. We hit a COMINT intercept a few months ago that took about an hour, but it had a ridiculously long key-ten thousand bits or something like that.Strathmore grunted. An hour, huh? What about some of the boundary probes weve run?Susan shrugged. Well, if you include diagnostics, its obviously longer.How much longer?Susan couldnt imagine what Strathmore was getting at. Well, sir, I tried an algorithm last March with a segmented million-bit key. misbranded looping functions, cellular automata, the works. TRANSLTR serene skint it.How long?Three hours.Strathmore bandy-legged his eyebrow s. Three hours? That long?Susan frowned, mildly offended. Her job for the last three years had been to fine-tune the most secret computer in the world most of the programming that made TRANSLTR so fast was hers. A million-bit key was hardly a realistic scenario.Okay, Strathmore said. So even in extreme conditions, the longest a code has ever survived inside TRANSLTR is about three hours?Susan nodded. Yeah. more than or less.Strathmore paused as if afraid to say something he might regret. at last he looked up. TRANSLTRs hit something He stopped.Susan waited. More than three hours?Strathmore nodded.She looked unconcerned. A new diagnostic? Something from the Sys-Sec Department?Strathmore shook his head. Its an outside file.Susan waited for the punch line, but it never came. An outside file? Youre joking, right?I wish. I queued it last iniquity around eleven thirty. It hasnt disquieted yet.Susans jaw dropped. She looked at her watch and then back at Strathmore. Its still going? Ov er fifteen hours?Strathmore leaned prior and rotated his monitor toward Susan. The screen was black except for a small, yellowed schoolbook box blinking in the middle.TIME ELAPSED 150933 AWAITING KEY ________Susan stared in amazement. It appeared TRANSLTR had been working on one code for over fifteen hours. She knew the computers processors auditioned thirty million keys per second-one hundred billion per hour. If TRANSLTR was still counting, that meant the key had to be enormous-over ten billion digits long. It was absolute insanity.Its impossible she declared. realize you checked for error flags? Maybe TRANSLTR hit a glitch and-The runs clean. save the pass-key must be hugeStrathmore shook his head. Standard commercial algorithm. Im supposition a sixty-four-bit key.Mystified, Susan looked out the window at TRANSLTR below. She knew from experience that it could locate a sixty-four-bit key in under ten minutes. Theres got to be some explanation.Strathmore nodded. There is. Your e not going to like it.Susan looked uneasy. Is TRANSLTR malfunctioning?TRANSLTRs fine.Have we got a computer virus?Strathmore shook his head. No virus. Just hear me out.Susan was flabbergasted. TRANSLTR had never hit a code it couldnt break in under an hour. Usually the cleartext was delivered to Strathmores printout module within minutes. She glanced at the high-speed printer behind his desk. It was empty.Susan, Strathmore said quietly. This is going to be hard to accept at first, but just listen a minute. He chewed his lip. This code that TRANSLTRs working on-its unique. Its like nothing weve ever seen before. Strathmore paused, as if the words were hard for him to say. This code is shatterproof.Susan stared at him and almost laughed. Unbreakable? What was THAT hypothetical to mean? There was no such thing as an shatterproof code-some took longer than others, but every code was breakable. It was mathematically guaranteed that sooner or later TRANSLTR would guess the right key. I beg your pardon?The codes shatterproof, he repeated flatly.Unbreakable? Susan couldnt believe the word had been uttered by a man with twenty-seven years of code analysis experience.Unbreakable, sir? she said uneasily. What about the Bergofsky Principle?Susan had learned about the Bergofsky Principle early in her career. It was a cornerstone of brute-force technology. It was also Strathmores inspiration for building TRANSLTR. The principle clearly verbalise that if a computer tried enough keys, it was mathematically guaranteed to find the right one. A codes security was not that its pass-key was unfindable but rather that most people didnt have the succession or equipment to try.Strathmore shook his head. This codes different.Different? Susan eyeball him askance. An unbreakable code is a mathematical impossibility He knows thatStrathmore ran a playscript across his sweaty scalp. This code is the product of a brand-new encryption algorithm-one weve never seen before.Now Susan was even more doubtful. Encryption algorithms were just mathematical formulas, recipes for scrambling text into code. Mathematicians and software engineers created new algorithms every day. There were hundreds of them on the market-PGP, Diffie-Hellman, ZIP, IDEA, El Gamal. TRANSLTR broke all of their codes every day, no problem. To TRANSLTR all codes looked identical, regardless of which algorithm wrote them.I dont understand, she argued. Were not talking about reverse-engineering some complex function, were talking brute force. PGP, Lucifer, DSA-it doesnt matter. The algorithm generates a key it believes is secure, and TRANSLTR keeps guessing until it finds it.Strathmores reply had the controlled patience of a good teacher. Yes, Susan, TRANSLTR will always find the key-even if its huge. He paused a long moment. UnlessSusan wanted to speak, but it was clear Strathmore was about to drop his bomb. Unless what?Unless the computer doesnt know when its broken the code.Susan almost fe ll out of her chair. WhatUnless the computer guesses the correct key but just keeps guessing because it doesnt realize it found the right key. Strathmore looked bleak. I think this algorithm has got a rotating cleartext.Susan gaped.The notion of a rotating cleartext function was first put forth in an obscure, 1987 paper by a Hungarian mathematician, Josef Harne. Because brute-force computers broke codes by examining cleartext for identifiable word patterns, Harne proposed an encryption algorithm that, in accompaniment to encrypting, shifted decrypted cleartext over a time variant. In theory, the perpetual mutation would pick up that the attacking computer would never locate recognizable word patterns and frankincense never know when it had found the proper key. The concept was somewhat like the idea of colonizing Mars-fathomable on an intellectual level, but, at present, well beyond tender ability.Where did you get this thing? she demanded.The commanders response was slow. A publ ic sector programmer wrote it.What? Susan collapsed back in her chair. Weve got the best programmers in the world downstairs every last(predicate) of us working together have never even make close to writing a rotating cleartext function. Are you trying to tell me some punk with a PC figured out how to do it?Strathmore lower his voice in an apparent effort to calm her. I wouldnt call this guy a punk.Susan wasnt listening. She was convinced there had to be some other explanation A glitch. A virus. Anything was more likely than an unbreakable code.Strathmore eyed her sternly. One of the most brilliant cryptographic minds of all time wrote this algorithm.Susan was more doubtful than ever the most brilliant cryptographic minds of all time were in her department, and she certainly would have heard about an algorithm like this.Who? she demanded.Im sure you can guess. Strathmore said. Hes not too fond of the NSA.Well, that narrows it down she snapped sarcastically.He worked on the TRANSL TR project. He broke the rules. Almost caused an intelligence nightmare. I deported him.Susans human face was blank only an instant before going white. Oh my GodStrathmore nodded. Hes been crowing all year about his work on a brute-force-resistant algorithm.B-but Susan stammered. I thought he was bluffing. He actually did it?He did. The ultimate unbreakable code-writer.Susan was silent a long moment. But that meansStrathmore looked her dead in the eye. Yes. Ensei Tankado just made TRANSLTR obsolete.