Digital Fortress Chapter 44

Phil Chartrukian stood fuming in the Sys-Sec lab. Strathmores words echoed in his head Leave now Thats an bon ton He kicked the trash can and swore in the empty lab.Diagnostic, my ass Since when does the deputy theatre director bypass metal gloves filters?The Sys-Secs were well paid to encourage the electronic ready reckoner systems at the NSA, and Chartrukian had learned that in that respect were barely two frolic requirements be utterly brilliant and exhaustively paranoid.Hell, he cursed, this isnt paranoia The fucking Run-Monitors reading eighteen hoursIt was a virus. Chartrukian could feel it. There was little uncertainty in his mind what was going on Strathmore had made a mistake by bypassing Gauntlets filters, and now he was trying to take it up with some half-baked falsehood about a diagnostic.Chartrukian wouldnt have been so championr so edgy had TRANSLTR been the only concern. simply it wasnt. Despite its appearance, the great decoding fauna was by no means an i sland. Although the cryptographers believed Gauntlet was constructed for the sole purpose of protecting their code- give-up the ghosting masterpiece, the Sys-Secs soundless the truth. The Gauntlet filters served a much high god. The NSAs main selective informationbank.The history behind the databanks complex body part had always fascinated Chartrukian. Despite the efforts of the section of Defense to keep the net in number to themselves in the late 1970s, it was too useful a tool not to attract the common-sector. last universities pried their way on. Shortly after that came the mercenary servers. The floodgates opened, and the public poured in. By the early 90s, the administrations once-secure Internet was a congested wasteland of public E-mail and cyberporn.Following a estimate of unpublicized, yet highly damaging computer infiltrations at the Office of Naval Intelligence, it became increasingly clear that government secrets were no all-night safe on computers connected to the burgeoning Internet. The President, in conjunction with the Department of Defense, passed a classify decree that would fund a new, exclusively secure government network to renew the tainted Internet and function as a link between U.S. wisdom agencies. To prevent further computer pilfering of government secrets, all sensitive data was relocated to one, highly secure location-the newly constructed NSA databank-the fortress Knox of U.S. intelligence data.Literally millions of the countrys nearly separate photos, tapes, documents, and videos were digitized and transferred to the immense storage facility and so the hard copies were destroyed. The databank was protected by a triple-layer power relay and a tiered digital backup system. It was also 214 feet tubing to shield it from magnetic fields and attainable explosions. Activities within the control room were designated illuminate Secret Umbra the countrys highest direct of security.The secrets of the country had n eer been safer. This solid databank now housed blueprints for advanced weaponry, attestator protection lists, aliases of field agents, detailed analyses and proposals for unrevealed operations. The list was endless. There would be no more b omit-bag jobs damaging U.S. intelligence.Of course, the officers of the NSA realized that stored data had value only if it was approachingible. The real coup detat of the databank was not getting the classified data off the streets, it was making it devilible only to the correct people. All stored information had a security rating and, depending on the level of secrecy, was main courseible to government officials on a compartmentalized basis. A submarine air force officer could dial in and check the NSAs most recent satellite photos of Russian ports, hardly he would not have access to the plans for an anti-drug mission in South America. CIA analysts could access histories of known assassins but could not access launch codes reserved for th e President.Sys-Secs, of course, had no dynamic headroom for the information in the databank, but they were prudent for its safety. Like all large databanks-from insurance policy companies to universities-the NSA facility was constantly under clap by computer hackers trying to plume a peek at the secrets waiting inside. But the NSA security programmers were the best in the world. No one had ever come close to infiltrating the NSA databank-and the NSA had no reason to weigh anybody ever would.Inside the Sys-Sec lab, Chartrukian broke into a sweat trying to decide whether to leave. untune in TRANSLTR meant trouble in the databank too. Strathmores lack of concern was bewildering.Everyone knew that TRANSLTR and the NSA main databank were inextricably linked. individually new code, once broken, was fired from Crypto done 450 yards of fiber-optic cable to the NSA databank for safe keeping. The quasi-religious storage facility had limited points of entry-and TRANSLTR was one of t hem. Gauntlet was supposed to be the impregnable threshold guardian. And Strathmore had bypassed it.Chartrukian could hear his own tone pounding. TRANSLTRs been stuck eighteen hours The thought of a computer virus entering TRANSLTR and then speed wild in the basement of the NSA proven too much. Ive got to report this, he blurted aloud.In a situation like this, Chartrukian knew in that respect was only one person to promise the NSAs senior Sys-Sec officer, the short-fused, 400-pound computer guru who had built Gauntlet. His soubriquet was Jabba. He was a demigod at the NSA-roaming the halls, putting out virtual fires, and ban the feeblemindedness of the inept and the ignorant. Chartrukian knew that as soon as Jabba heard Strathmore had bypassed Gauntlets filters, all hell would break loose. Too bad, he thought, Ive got a job to do. He grabbed the phone and dialed Jabbas twenty-four-hour cellular.