Terminal Compromise - Winn Schwartau (fiction book recommendations TXT) 📗

tomorrow.

“Mr. Foster? Miles Foster?” Tyrone asked without pleasantries.

“Yeah,” Miles said haughtily.

“FBI,” Ty said flashing his badge. “You’re under arrest for

trafficking in stolen computer access cards and theft of serv-

ice.” Tyrone took a breath and waved a piece of paper in the

air. “We searched your apartment and found telephone company

access codes that . . . ”

“I want to call my lawyer,” Miles interrupted calmly. “Now,” he

commanded.

” . . . have been used to bypass billing procedures.”

“I said I want to call my lawyer,” Miles again said emphatical-

ly.

“I’ll be out in an hour,” he said aside to Stephanie and kissed

her on the cheek. His arrogance was unnerving; this wasn’t the

same Miles that Scott had known in Amsterdam. There, he was just

another misguided but well-intentioned techno-anarchist who was

more danger to himself than anyone else. But now, as Tyrone read

a list of charges against him, mostly arcane FBI domain inter-

state offenses, Miles took on a new character. A worldly crimi-

nal whom the FBI was arresting for potential terrorist activi-

ties.

“And those are for starters, Mister,” Tyrone said after reading

off a list of penal violations by code number. As if following a

script, Tyrone added, “you have the right to remain silent . . .”

He wanted to make sure that this was a clean arrest, and with

this many witnesses, he was going to follow procedure to the

letter. Mirandizing was one of the steps.

Scott Mason’s adrenaline flowed with intensity. Did he ever have

a story to tell now! An absolute scoop. He was present, coinci-

dentally, during the arrest of Miles Foster.

Front page.

“I want to call my lawyer,” Miles repeated.

“Make it quick,” said Tyrone. Miles rapidly dialed a number from

memory.

Miles turned his back on Tyrone and the others and spoke calmly

into the phone.

“It’s me.”

Pause.

“It’s me. I need assistance.”

Arrogance. Pause.

“A laundry list of charges.”

Disinterest. Pause.

“Had to happen, sooner or later, yeah,” Miles said happily.

Pause.

“I gotta dinner party. I don’t want to miss it.” He smiled at

Stephanie and blew a kiss. “Great. Make it quick.” Miles hung

up.

Miles turned to Tyrone and held his wrists out together in front

of him. “Let’s go,” Miles said still smiling cooly.

Tyrone gently snapped the cuffs on Miles and ushered him toward

the door.

“Back in an hour or so,” Miles defiantly said to Scott, Sonja and

Stephanie over his shoulder as the front door closed behind Miles

and his escorts.

Scott watched in disbelief. Miles, the Spook, ever so calm, cool

and collected. Not a fluster. Not a blush.

Who had he called? That was the question that bothered Scott

throughout the rest of the evening.

* The White House, Washington, D.C.

The President looked grim. The normally affable Republican had

won his second term by a landslide and had maintained unprece-

dented popularity. The Democrats had again been unable to con-

jure up a viable candidate after another string of scandals

rocked the primaries and the very foundation of the party itself

Their entire platform focused on increasing the Peace Dividend

beyond the aggressively reduced $180 Billion Defense budget. It

was not much of an attack on a President whose popularity never

fell below an astounding 65% approval, and the only ebb was due

to a minor White House incident involving a junior aide, the

junior aide’s boyfriend and the Lincoln Bedroom.

The recession that was started by the Iraqi situation in Kuwait

during the summer of 1990 was not as bad as it could have been.

The world wide militaristic fever, proper Fed Reserve response

and the Japanese all took credit for easing the problem through

their specific efforts. In fact, the recession was eased due in

part to all of their efforts as well the new Europe. The Presi-

dent was rewarded, ultimately, with the credit for renewing the

economy almost glitch-free.

But the President was still grim. America was again at war, and

only a handful of people in the upper echelons of the Government

even knew about it. It would be in the paper in the morning.

Chapter 26 Midnight, Tuesday, January 19 Scarsdale, New York

Scott Mason awaited Kirk’s midnight call.

Now that they had a deal, a win-win situation, Kirk and his

phriends had become gung-ho. Kirk agreed to help Scott in the

dGraph and Freedom situations if Scott would make sure that his

articles clearly spelled out the difference between the white-hat

and black-hat hackers.

Journalistic responsibility demanded fair treatment of all sides

and their respective opinions, and Scott attempted to bring

objectivity to his analyses. He did this well, quite well, and

still was able to include his own views and biases, as long as

they were properly qualified and disclaimed.

Additionally, Kirk wanted assurances of total anonymity and that

Scott would not attempt to identify his location or name. Scott

also had to agree to keep his Federal friends at a distance and

announce if they were privy to the conversations.

In exchange for fair portrayals in the press, privacy and no

government intervention, Kirk promised Scott that the resources

of Nemo would be focussed on finding defenses to the virus at-

tacks in dGraph and Freedom software. If Kirk and Homosoto were

right, millions of computers would experience the electronic

equivalent of sudden cardiac arrest in less than two weeks.

The Times, Higgins and Doug agreed to the relationship but added

their own working caveats. In order to treat Kirk as a protected

source, they pretended he was a personal contact. Instead of

reporter’s notes, Scott maintained an open file which recorded

the entirety of their computer conversations. There were no

precedents for real-time electronic note taking, but Higgins felt

confident that the records would protect the paper in any event.

Besides, Supreme Court rulings now permit the recording of con-

versations by hidden devices, as long as the person taping is

actually present. Again, Higgins felt he had solid position, but

he did ask Scott to ask Kirk’s permission to save the conversa-

tions on disk. Kirk always agreed.

At midnight, Scott’s computer beeped the anticipated beep.

WTFO

I heard a good one.

JOKE?

Yeah, do they work over computer?

TRY ME.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were in Europe and

got to meet the Pope. Dopey really wanted to asked the Pope a

few questions. “Mr. Pope, Mr. Pope. Do you have pretty nuns?”

“Of course we do, Dopey.” “Mr. Pope, do you have fat ugly nuns?”

“Why, yes, Dopey, we do.” “And I bet, Mr. Pope, that you have

some tall skinny nuns, too.” “Yes, Dopey we do.” “Mr. Pope? Do

you have nuns in Chicago?” “Yes, Dopey, we have nuns in

Chicago?” “And in San Francisco and New York?” “Yes, Dopey.”

“And do you have nuns in Africa and Australia and in France?”

“Yes, Dopey. We have nuns everywhere.” Dopey took a second to

think and finally asked, “Mr. Pope? Do you have nuns in Antarc-

tica?” “No, Dopey, I’m sorry, we don’t have any nuns in Antarc-

tica.” The other six dwarfs immediately broke out into a laugh-

ing song: “Dopey fucked a penguin. Dopey fucked a penguin.”

HA HA HA HA HA!!! LOVE IT. REAL ICE BREAKER. HA HA.

Facetious?

NO, THAT’S GREAT. IS YOUR RECORDER ON?

You bet. No plagiarism. What have you got?

MORE THAN I WISH I DID. DGRAPH FIRST. WE HAVE IDENTIFIED 54

SEPARATE DGRAPH VIRUSES. I HAVE A FILE FOR YOU. IT LISTS THE

VIRUS BY DETONATION DATE AND TYPE, SYMPTOMS AND THE SIGNATURES

NEEDED FOR REMOVAL. ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO PRINT IT ALL?

Daily. Our science section has been expanded to every day from

just Tuesday. I have all the room I need.

YOU MIGHT MAKE ME RECONSIDER MY OPINION OF THE MEDIA.

Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.

HA HA. WE’VE JUST TOUCHED THE SURFACE ON FREEDOM, BUT THE WORD’S

OUT. FREEDOM WILL BE AS GOOD AS DEAD IN DAYS. THE NUMBER OF

VIRUSES MUST NUMBER IN THE HUNDREDS. IT’S INCREDIBLE. I’VE SEEN

A LOT OF VIRUSES, BUT NONE LIKE THIS. IT’S ALMOST AS THOUGH THEY

WERE BUILT ON AN ASSEMBLY LINE. SOME ARE REAL CLOSE TO EACH

OTHER, EVEN DO THE SAME THINGS, BUT THEIR SIGNATURES ARE DIFFER-

ENT MAKING IT EXTRA HARD TO DETECT THEM. EACH ONE WILL HAVE TO

BE DONE INDIVIDUALLY.

I suggest we start with the dGraph viruses. You said 54, right?

SO FAR.

Send me the file and I still may have time to get it into tomor-

row’s paper. They usually leave a little room.

I’LL SEND DGVIRUS.RPT. IT’S IN ASCII FORMAT, EASY TO READ INTO

ANY FILE YOU’RE WORKING WITH.

I think I can handle it.

* DGRAPH VIRUS LIST by Scott Mason

The dGraph Virus Crisis has set the computer industry into