Chapter 9
Systems
security technician Phil Chartrukian had only intended to be inside Crypto a minute–
just long enough to grab some paperwork he’d forgotten the day before. But it was
not to be.
After making his way across
the Crypto floor and stepping into the Sys-Sec lab, he immediately knew something was not right. The computer terminal that perpetually monitored TRANSLTR’s
internal workings was unmanned and the
monitor was switched off.
Chartrukian called out, “Hello?”
There was no reply. The lab was
spotless–as if no one had been there for hours.
Although
Chartrukian was only twenty-three and relatively new to the Sys-Sec squad, he’d been trained well,
and he knew the drill: There was always a Sys-Sec
on duty in Crypto…
especially on Saturdays
when no cryptographers were around.
He immediately powered up the monitor and turned to the duty
board on the wall. “Who’s on watch?”
he demanded aloud, scanning
the list of names. According to the schedule, a young rookie
named Seidenberg was supposed to have started a
double shift at midnight
the night before. Chartrukian glanced
around the empty lab and
frowned. “So where the hell is he?”
As he watched the monitor power up, Chartrukian wondered if Strathmore knew the Sys-Sec
lab was unmanned. He had noticed on his way in that the curtains
of Strathmore’s workstation were closed, which meant the boss was in–not at all uncommon
for a Saturday;
Strathmore, despite
requesting his cryptographers
take Saturdays off, seemed
to work 365 days a year.
There was one thing Chartrukian knew for certain–if Strathmore found out the Sys-Sec lab was unmanned, it would cost the absent rookie his
job. Chartrukian eyed the phone, wondering if he should call the young techie and bail him out; there was an unspoken rule among Sys-Sec that they would watch each other’s
backs. In Crypto, Sys-Secs were second-class citizens, constantly at odds with the lords of the manor. It was no secret that the cryptographers ruled this multibillion-dollar roost;
Sys-Secs were tolerated only because
they kept the toys running smoothly.
Chartrukian made his decision. He grabbed the phone. But the receiver
never reached his ear. He stopped short, his eyes transfixed on the monitor
now coming into focus before him. As if in slow motion,
he set down the phone and stared
in open-mouthed
wonder.
In eight months as a Sys-Sec,
Phil Chartrukian had never seen TRANSLTR’s Run-Monitor post anything other
than a double zero in the hours field.
Today was a first.
TIME
ELAPSED: 15:17:21
“Fifteen hours
and seventeen minutes?” he
choked. “Impossible!”
He rebooted
the screen, praying it hadn’t refreshed properly. But when the monitor came back to life,
it looked the same.
Chartrukian felt a chill. Crypto’s Sys-Secs had only one responsibility: Keep TRANSLTR “clean”–virus
free.
Chartrukian knew that a fifteen-hour run could only mean one thing–infection. An impure file had gotten inside
TRANSLTR and was corrupting the programming. Instantly his training kicked in; it no longer mattered
that the Sys-Sec
lab had been unmanned
or the monitors
switched off. He focused on the matter at hand–TRANSLTR. He immediately called up a log of all the files that had entered TRANSLTR
in the last forty-eight hours. He
began scanning the list.
Did an infected
file get through? he wondered. Could the security
filters have missed something?
As a precaution, every file entering TRANSLTR had to pass through what was known as Gauntlet–a series of powerful circuit-level gateways, packet filters,
and disinfectant programs that scanned inbound files for computer
viruses and potentially dangerous subroutines. Files containing
programming “unknown”
to Gauntlet were immediately rejected. They had to be checked by hand. Occasionally Gauntlet rejected
entirely harmless files on the basis that they contained programming the filters
had never seen before. In that case, the Sys-Secs
did a scrupulous manual inspection, and only then, on confirmation that the file was clean, did they bypass Gauntlet’s filters and send the file into TRANSLTR.
Computer
viruses were as varied as bacterial viruses.
Like their physiological counterparts, computer viruses had one goal–to
attach themselves to a host system and replicate. In this case, the host was
TRANSLTR.
Chartrukian was amazed the NSA hadn’t had problems
with viruses before. Gauntlet was a potent
sentry, but still, the NSA was a bottom feeder, sucking
in massive amounts of digital
information from systems all over the world. Snooping
data was a lot like having indiscriminate sex–protection
or no protection, sooner or later you caught
something.
Chartrukian finished examining
the file list before him. He was now more puzzled than before. Every file checked out. Gauntlet
had seen nothing out of the ordinary, which meant the file in
TRANSLTR was totally clean.
“So what
the hell’s taking so long?” he demanded of the empty room. Chartrukian
felt himself break a
sweat. He wondered if he should go
disturb Strathmore with the news.
“A virus probe,” Chartrukian said firmly, trying to calm himself down. “I should run a virus probe.”
Chartrukian knew that a virus
probe would be the first thing Strathmore would
request anyway. Glancing out at the deserted Crypto floor, Chartrukian made his decision.
He loaded the viral probe
software and launched it. The run would take about fifteen minutes.
“Come back clean,” he whispered. “Squeaky clean. Tell
Daddy it’s nothing.”
But Chartrukian sensed it was not “nothing.” Instinct told him something very unusual
was going on inside the great decoding beast.
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