Ray Whipple could have told them a lot about Pashley, but Whipple had gone off to visit some colleagues at Cal Berkeley’s Leuschner Observatory to get a first-hand look at some anomalous data collected by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. Pashley had assured him he would call him when needed and Whipple figured the FBI could do a better job of restraining Pashley than he could.
The net result was that Clueless Pashley was loose in Silicon Valley with the full force of the Federal Bureau of Investigation behind him.
Fourteen: Raiding on the Parade
Expert: Anyone more than 100 miles from home carrying a briefcase.
It is a truism well-known to lawyers that while the law may be uniform, all judges are not alike. It is a corollary equally well known to prosecutors that some judges are easier than others when it comes to search warrants and such. In San Francisco District Court, Judge David Faraday was what the local federal prosecutors privately-very privately-called a patsy. A law-and-order Nixon appointee, he could be counted on to grant search warrants on nearly any grounds.
So it was hardly surprising that FBI Special Agent George Arnold showed up in Judge Faraday’s office with Special Agent Clueless Pashley in tow to seek warrants to raid Judith’s apartment.
"And this person has been breaking into government computers?" Judge Faraday asked after looking over the papers Pashley and Arnold presented to him.
"Highly sensitive government computers," Pashley amended. "Your honor this is a major national security case."
Arnold nodded. "Your honor, if need be, we have a civilian expert on computer networks and security waiting outside who can testify to the importance of this warrant." Actually it was Ray Whipple cooling his heels in the outer office, but he was an expert in Pashley’s eyes and Arnold was following the lead of the bureau’s out-of-town "expert."
"I know about computer crime, Mr. Arnold," Judge Faraday said mildly. "I saw that movie, War Games." The judge scanned down through the pile of affidavits.
"Search warrant for subject’s apartment, wiretap on subject’s telephone, electronic surveillance of premises. Well, this seems in order," he said as he reached for his pen. "Very well, gentlemen, the warrants are granted."
Pashley managed not to cheer.
"Did you get it?" Ray Whipple asked as Pashley and Arnold emerged from the judge’s chambers. Pashley tapped his breast pocket significantly, even though the warrant was really in Arnold’s briefcase.
"When are you going to serve it?" Ray asked as soon as they were out in the corridor.
"I’d like to hold off on the search warrant for a week or so," Arnold said. "We’ll put the wiretap in place immediately and get a snooping van in the parking lot tonight to start executing the surveillance. That van can pick up the electromagnetic emissions from ordinary computers and decode them from five hundred feet away."
The astronomer gave a low whistle. "That’s scary."
"Oh, we’ve got our methods," Pashley assured him jauntily, missing the expression on Whipple’s face.
"We can lift information right out of a computer without the user knowing it," Arnold added. "If we listen for a few days we may get to watch this hacker in action before the bust goes down."
"When’s she going to do something?" Myron Pashley wondered aloud for roughly the eighth time that evening.
George Arnold squirmed around to get a better view of the readout. "So far she’s still watching television."
Pashley and Arnold were crammed into the surveillance van along with the regular operator and several racks of equipment. "Cramped" was too generous a word for conditions in the van. "Badly ventilated" didn’t really cover the subject either, especially since Pashley had found a Yemeni restaurant near the hotel and dined on a vegetarian dish that was mostly chickpeas and garlic. So far they had been sitting almost in each other’s laps for almost three hours and even Pashley was getting tired of it.
The directional antenna hidden in the van’s roof rack was pointed at Judith Conally’s apartment less than three hundred feet away. At that distance it could easily pick up electronic emanations from Judith’s apartment.
"Wait a minute," the technician said. "The television’s just gone off. Hold it, okay, she’s starting to work on the computer."
"Here we go!" Pashley crowed. For an awful instant Arnold thought Pashley was going to hug him.
"What’s she doing?"
"Looks like loading a program," the tech said, keeping his eyes fixed on the displays. "Okay, she’s just put a file up on the screen. I got it now."
Pashley, Arnold and the technician wriggled around until they could all see the display screen.
# include <iostream.h>
template <int T>
struct A{A(){A<T>>1>B;cout<<T%2;}};
struct A<O>{};
void main(){A<99>();}
"It’s screwed up," Arnold complained.
The tech checked the instruments. "No, that’s what’s on her screen all right."
"What do you make of this stuff?" Arnold asked.
"Code," Pashley assured him. "This is all in code. When we raid the place we’ll probably find a code book that translates all these code words."
Neither Pashley nor Arnold knew it, but it was indeed code they were looking at, although not in the sense they meant. Inside her apartment Judith was settling down to work on one of her private programming projects. Since for preference Judith used C and since her C style was both idiosyncratic and highly personal, it was hardly surprising that the FBI agents couldn’t make sense of it. Since the particular program Judith was laboring over was her entry in this year’s Obfuscated C++ Contest it was to be expected. Since one of the utilities Judith had developed to help her was an uglyprinter, which turned even the best-structured C code into an utter muddle, it was inevitable.
Judith Conally was playing relativistic Tetris when the knock came at the door.
"Damn!" she muttered as the distraction made her miss an especially intricate maneuver in the time direction. The rest of her carefully constructed edifice came tumbling down even before she was out of the chair to answer the door.
Judith had never met Myron Pashley, but as soon as she opened the door she knew what he was. For one thing he was wearing that dark-suit-narrow-tie-white-shirt outfit no one wore anymore but government agents and EDS employees. And EDS employees weren’t allowed to wear wrap-around sunglasses.
"Special Agent Pashley, FBI," the man announced, holding out his identification. "We have a warrant to search these premises." He thrust a paper into Judith’s hands and pushed her aside. "Stand out of the way, please."
He was followed into the apartment by six other men and a woman, all dressed in the same style if not the same clothing. Since Judith’s apartment was not large, it was suddenly very crowded. Judith found herself crammed back against a book case.