“Good to see a man with a decent appetite. Now, where was I?” Sir Clive said, breaking off the corner of a poppadom and dipping it in a cucumber and yogurt source.
“You were about to try and impress me with some scary facts.” Jack replied, deadpan. Sir Clive crunched on the poppadom. Such cynicism, he thought, wondering idly what Jack’s generation would do if the country ever faced another World War.
“Cyber terrorism,” he said quietly. “The primary threat to UK security. A web-based attack on our IT infrastructure, targeted and highly organised, could take out public institutions, power stations, hospitals, banks. Hell, even a sewage works if they were so minded.” He stopped, the waiters had arrived with the food, filling the table with bowls of yellow and red radio-active looking sauces, pinky-white pilau rice.
“Cyber terrorism.” Jack said, “That’s it?” he helped himself to most of the contents of each bowl. “Here’s a radical idea, why don’t you just turn off the computers?”
Sir Clive sighed. “Come now Jack. Don’t play dumb, I’ve read your CV. You’re studying Computer Science. You know full well how vulnerable IT systems are to abuse, to malicious code. All it takes is one hacker with a lot of time on their hands. Only last year someone hacked into the Pentagon’s secure database.”
“Yeah I read about that. Made me laugh. You know how he did it, Sir Clive?” Jack asked, waving a fork in his direction. “Pentagon staff hadn’t re-set the password from its default setting. Which was of course ‘Password.’ So he could just march on in and take a look at whatever he felt like. Someone like that isn’t a threat. There’s no big ideology behind them, no political agenda, just a lonely man engaged in a painful piece of attention seeking.” He chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of korma, it wasn’t half-bad.
“An IT system is only as secure as the people who use it,” he continued, warming to his theme. “You want to guard against Cyber Terrorism, try teaching your staff to change their password on a regular basis.” He could feel his strength coming back with the food, he was starting to feel more bolshie.
Sir Clive picked at his madras. It wasn’t up to the usual standard.
“There’s more to it than that, Jack. Estonia last year. Defence websites brought to a standstill. A highly co-ordinated attack by a network of high-jacked computers. A botnet. Zombie machines.”
Jack sat back in his chair. He could feel his belly expanding, seemed to be pulling against the stitches. Maybe he’d have to save the bharji for later. “Botnets?” He said thoughtfully. Sir Clive sensed he’d got his attention.
“I wrote a paper on the topic last year.” Jack said, “they’ve been around for a while, but no one really knows how many are out there. Malicious code is downloaded as part of an innocent-looking app, then lies dormant in a home PC awaiting an order. People don’t even realise they’re part of a high-jacked network. So easy with all the kids file sharing.”
Sir Clive relaxed a little, satisfied Cambridge still appeared to be teaching its students something useful.
“Exactly. Once the malicious code is installed, it simply waits to be told what to do, and then…” He paused, “and then you’ve got yourself a problem.” He pushed his plate away, dissatisfied at the mildness of the dish. “But you know what the real problem is in preparing for Cyber war?” Sir Clive asked, pausing for effect.
“No, but I suspect you’re about to tell me.” Jack replied.
“You can never be certain who’s attacking you. Impossible to trace who set up the servers, who wrote the code. A network of zombie machines in China can be programmed to send an attack from anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world. Does that mean the Chinese are behind it? Of course not. Could be anyone.”
“If it could be anyone then it could be the Chinese,” Jack said belligerently. Sir Clive laughed, shook his head. “You’re right, good to be suspicious. Coffee and a brandy?”
“Why not?” Jack replied, watching Sir Clive, sensing he might finally be about to get to the point. Sir Clive leaned in close, drew a deep breath.
“It was a carefully planned operation, Jack. You and the other nine patients. The implanted devices. A careful set-up, a steady leak of information from our side, a couple of servers not quite as secure as they should be, discussing a new project. We knew the concept would be irresistible. Once the word was out about the devices we’d developed they’d be queuing up to try and steal them. The price of a thing like that on the open market would be astronomical. All we had to do was set up the clinical trial then sit back and watch who blundered in. See who they tried to sell it to. Of course, we didn’t imagine they’d be quite so brutal,” he added as an afterthought.
The brandies arrived, along with two luke-warm coffees. Jack picked up the bell glass, swirled the contents round and breathed in the aroma. Sir Clive’s story was beginning to hurt his head. He downed the double measure in one swift swallow.
“Two questions, Mr. Clive,” Jack said. He’d never been a particularly patient person and wasn’t sure how much more of the night he wanted to spend listening to the man, he had better things to be doing, comforting Amanda for one. He looked Sir Clive square in the eye.
“What does the device do, and what do you want with me?”
16
Sir Clive pulled a clear plastic container from his jacket pocket and dropped it casually on the table. There it was. Transparent pinkish outer skin, tiny circuits inside. Exactly as Jack remembered. He couldn’t help but shudder.
“You ask what the device does. Well,” Sir Clive rubbed his chin, “Hard to put into words. Try and think of this as a nuclear bomb. For the Internet.” Jack frowned, picking up the perspex container, getting a closer look at it.
“We’ve developed 10 micro computers, circuits grown within organic matter, you were one of the hosts. The idea was to create a cell-based structure capable of out-sequencing the most powerful computers. The largest networks. A series of devices that, if used together, could generate so much code, so much malicious data they’d corrupt even the most powerful, heavily-protected network on the planet.” He paused, making sure he had Jack’s full attention. “A black hole blasted in the virtual world, IT systems collapsing under the weight of their own data, sucking in billions and billions of gigabytes of information in the process, whole technology infrastructures, whole countries. Imagine it Jack, Banking systems destroyed. No proof of how much money anyone has, how much money any business has, who owns what. Satellite control centres knocked off balance, armies unable to communicate, weapons systems useless.”
Jack was listening carefully, noting Sir Clive’s deliberate choice of words, try and think of this as a nuclear bomb…imagine it, Jack. It was easy enough to assume the worst looking at the device, it was so alien, so unpleasant. But did that mean it really had those capabilities? Would MI6 really be prepared to let something as powerful as he was suggesting fall into the hands of a terrorist, a rogue state?
Nothing in his teaching at Cambridge had prepared him for something like this, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. He knew the government still managed to siphon off the best minds, the best researchers to plug away at outwardly incomprehensible ideas in their laboratories at GCHQ.
Sir Clive opened the perspex container, picked up the device carefully, holding it to the light, looking at it speculatively.
“Looks convincing, doesn’t it?” He said. “The world might have gone high-tech but human psychology remains the same. People still believe what they want to believe, whatever suits their cause.” The device slipped out of his hands and splashed into his coffee cup. He fished it out and gave it a quick wipe with a serviette.