CHAPTER 19
Matt Blundin sat in Stuart Gibbs’ office, aggravated and exhausted at the end of a seventeen-hour day. The director sat across from him, leaning back in his chair, head tilted upward, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
At 2:00 A.M. in Washington, Blundin had just finished explaining the nuances of a developing situation: a security breach and data theft that he’d only recently discovered.
Gibbs brought himself forward and exhaled loudly. “What else do you have?”
“That’s it,” Blundin said. “All we know right now is what happened.”
“I don’t give a shit about what happened,” Gibbs cursed. “I want to know how it happened, why it happened and who the fuck made it happen.” With the last phrase, Gibbs threw the report across the desk, where it fanned out and crashed into Blundin’s prominent gut.
Blundin rubbed his neck. He was sweaty and grimy after such a long day and ready to lash out. But that would just make for a longer night. He plucked the report from his lap and placed it back on the desk, out of Gibbs’ reach, then pulled a dented pack of Marlboros from his breast pocket.
He drew one out and stuck it between his lips. Two flicks of the lighter and the tip was glowing red. Only after a long drag on the cigarette did he begin to reply.
“Look,” he said, white smoke billowing from his mouth. “I can tell you how it was probably done. I can even tell you when it was probably done, but that doesn’t help us with the who, because it could have been anybody on the network, either inside this building or out.”
Gibbs leaned back, looking pleased for the first time all night. “Let’s start with how.”
“Fine,” Blundin said. “We can start there, but we’re going to end up right back where we are now.” He exhaled another cloud of carcinogens and reached for an ashtray to lay the cigarette on. “It all starts with the codes. Our system uses a matrix code generated from a set of prime numbers and then exercised through a complex algorithm.”
Gibbs seemed lost already, which came as no surprise to Blundin. Maybe this was why he hadn’t listened in the first place.
Blundin leaned forward, demonstrating with his hands. “Just think of it like a combination lock. If you don’t know the combination you can eventually figure it out by checking every number against every other possible combination of numbers. You know, one, one, one, then one, one, two, then one, one, three — until eventually you get to thirty-six, twenty-six, thirty-six and it finally opens. Only in our case, we’re not talking about forty numbers or whatever you have on one of those locks, we’re talking about a massive set of possibilities.”
“How massive?”
“Try a one with seventeen zeroes after it,” Blundin said. “So many numbers that if you counted a thousand a second it would take you a hundred years just to count that high.”
Blundin eased back in his chair. “And that’s just to count them. To crack the code, each number would have to be checked against every other number, and then tested to see if it worked.”
By the look on his face, Gibbs seemed to understand. “What about the vendor, the manufacturer who sold us this encryption?”
“No,” Blundin said. “The illegal entries were made using an inactive master code reserved by the computer in case the system locks up.”
“What about an ex-employee?” Gibbs asked. “Someone who might know the system, but quit or got fired.”
“I already checked. No one higher than a receptionist has left Atlantic Safecom since we installed the system.”
“And here?”
“Every time one of our employees leaves, their code and profile are scrubbed from the system — and like I already said, it wasn’t an employee code, it was a master code.”
Gibbs pounded a fist on the desk. “Well, goddamnit, how the hell did they get the master code? That’s what I’m asking you. I mean, they didn’t fucking guess it, did they?”
“Actually,” Blundin said, “in a way, they did.”
Gibbs’ eyes narrowed, which Blundin took as a veiled threat that if he didn’t become more forthright, there would be repercussions.
“They made a lot of guesses,” Blundin said. “Over three hundred and fifty quadrillion.”
Gibbs’ face went blank. “That doesn’t even sound like a real fucking number.”
“It is,” Blundin assured him. “That’s what it takes to crack the code. That’s what I’ve been warning you about for the past year.”
Gibbs was silent, no doubt recalling Blundin’s requests to de-link from Research Division and his claims that the code could be vulnerable to a special type of computer-assisted probing. “The hacker problem,” Gibbs said finally. “Using a supercomputer or something. Is that how this was done?”
Blundin shifted in his chair. “Under normal circumstances, I would say no. Because even a supercomputer basically does things in series, checking one number against another, raising them by a single exponent and running them through a single algorithm. Even at the speed of your average Cray or Big Blue you’re still talking too many numbers and too much time.” Blundin paused and did some calculations in his head. “Might take a year or two of continuous, uninterrupted operation.”
Gibbs tapped his pen on the desktop. “You said ‘under normal circumstances.’ Am I to assume we’re firmly in the abnormal realm now?”
Blundin wiped his brow. “There’s a different type of programming out there,” he said. “In some cases, entering its third and fourth generation. It’s called massive parallel processing. It’s used to link computers together, everything from regular PCs to servers and mainframes. And it can turn those units into the equivalent of a supercomputer … or ten. Aside from NASA and the Defense Department, not too many people even use it, because no one needs that kind of power. But it’s out there and it’s faster than anything you can imagine.”
“How fast are we talking about?”
“Exponentially faster. In other words, four linked units aren’t four times faster, they’re sixteen times faster. A hundred linked processors can be ten thousand times faster. Instead of a one-lane highway for your information to roll down, you now have a fifty-lane highway, or a thousand-lane highway or even a million-lane highway. The numbers get checked in parallel, instead of series. A sophisticated program could run a hundred teraflops per second. That is a hundred trillion calculations every second. And like I’ve been trying to tell you, this type of programming makes systems like ours vulnerable.”
The director appeared shocked. “Our system is the same one used by the FBI, even the CIA. You’re telling me their files are unsecured?”
Blundin shook his head. “Aside from a few criminals, nobody gives a shit what the FBI has in its files. You can’t make any money off what the FBI has in its files. And the Agency system is a pure standalone. Unless you drill a hole in the wall and plug in, there is no way to link up. But we’re attached to Research Department and they’re hooked up all over the fucking place — universities, member corporations, affiliates. It’s like Grand fucking Central. And if you steal one of their projects — or one of ours — you’ve saved years of research for your company, and hundreds of millions in R and D. What the hell do you think we’re all about? It’s the same thing we do to the other side.”
Gibbs looked ill and Blundin thought, If he’s sick now he’s going to puke when I tell him the rest. “It gets worse,” he said.