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

class="calibre1">“How bad is that?” asked Chambers.

“Let’s put it this way,” said Marv. “In the last 14 years, of

the viruses that have been confirmed, the longest gestation

period, from release to detonation . . .was eight months. And

that one was discovered a couple of weeks after they were re-

leased. What Foster counted on was the fact that if software

behaved normally, it wouldn’t be suspect. And if it became

popular, it was automatically above suspicion. He was right.”

“I’ve heard that every computer is infected?”

“At the minimum, yes.” Jacobs turned the pages of his dossier.

“To continue, one of Foster’s most important tools was the con-

struction of road maps.”

“Road maps?” questioned Phil.

“Connections, how it all ties together. How MILNET ties to

INTERNET to DARPANET to DockMaster, then to the Universities.”

Marv wove a complex picture of how millions of computers are all

interconnected. “Foster knew what he was doing. He called this

group Mappers. The maps included the private nets, CompuServe,

The Source, Gemini, Prodigy . . .BBS’s to Tymenet . . .the lists

go on forever. The road maps, according to Foster, were very

detailed. The kind of computer, the operating system, what kind

of security if any. They apparently raked through the hacker

bulletin boards and complied massive lists of passwords for

computers . . .”

“Including ours?” asked Quinton Chambers.

“Quite definitely. They kept files on the back doors, the trap

doors and the system holes so they could enter computers unde-

tected, or infect the files or erase them . . .take a look at

Social Security and the IRS. Martin?”

Treasury Secretary Royce nodded in strong agreement. “We got hit

but good. We still have no idea how many hundreds of thousands

of tax records are gone forever, if they were ever there. So far

it’s been kept under wraps, but I don’t know how long that can

continue. The CDN has been nothing but trouble. We’re actually

worse off with it than without it.”

“How can one person do all of that?” Chambers had little knowl-

edge of computers, but he was getting a pretty good feel for the

potential political fallout.

“One person! Ha!” exclaimed Jacobs. “Look at Page 16.” He

pointed at his copy of the Secret documents. “According to

Foster he told Homosoto he needed hundreds of full time mappers

to draw an accurate and worthwhile picture of the communications

and networks in the U.S..”

“That’s a lot of money right there,” added Royce.

“It’s obvious that money wasn’t a consideration.” Phil spouted

the current political party line as well as it was understood.

“Retaliation against the United States was the motivation, and to

hell with the cost.”

“Homosoto obviously took Foster’s advice when it came to Propa-

ganda,” Marv continued. “The FBI, I believe, saw the results of

a concentrated effort at creating distrust in computers. We’ve

got a team working on just finding the blackmailers. Their

version of a disinformation campaign was to spread the truth, the

secret undeniable truths of those who most want to keep their

secrets a secret.”

“That’s also where the banks got hit so hard,” offered Henry

Kennedy. “Tens of thousands of credit card numbers were spirited

away from bank computers everywhere. You can imagine the shock

when tens of millions of dollars of purchases were contested by

the legitimate credit card holders.”

“It’s bad,” agreed Royce.

“And we haven’t even seen the beginning yet, if we believe Fos-

ter. There were other groups. Some specialized in Tempest-Bust-

ing . . .”

“Excuse me?” asked Quinton Chambers.

“Reading the signals broadcast by computers,” Marv said with some

derision. The Secretary of State should know better, he thought.

“It’s a classified Defense program.” He paused while Chambers

made a note. “Others used stolen EMP-T bomb technology to blow

up the Stock Exchange and they even had antennas to focus

HERF . . .”

“HERF?” laughed Phil.

“HERF,” said Marv defensively. “High Energy Radiated Fields.

Pick a frequency, add an antenna, point and shoot. Poof! Your

computer’s history.”

“You’re kidding me . . .”

“No joke. We and the Soviets did it for years; Cold War Games,”

said Kennedy. “Pretty hush-hush stuff. We have hand held

electric guns that will stop a car cold at a thousand yards.”

“Phasers?” asked Chambers.

“Sort of, Quinton,” chimed in Phil.

“Foster’s plan also called for moles to be placed within strate-

gic organizations, civilian and government.” Marv continued.

“They were to design and release malicious software from inside

the company. Powerful technique if you can find enough bodies

for the dirty work.”

“Again, according to Foster, Homosoto said that there was never a

manpower problem,” Marv said. “He’s confident that an Arab group

is involved somewhere. The MacDonald’s accident was caused by

Arabs who . . .”

“And we still can’t get shit out of the one who we’re holding.

The only one that’s left. Troubleaux was shot by an

Arab . . .the FBI is working hard on that angle. They’ve given

themselves extraordinary covers.” Phil was always on top of those

things that might have a political cause and/or effect. “How

extensive an operation was this?”

Marvin Jacobs ruffled through some notes in his files. “It’s hard

to be sure. If Homosoto followed all of Foster’s plan, I would

guess 3 – 5,000 people, with a cost of between $100 – $300 Mil-

lion. But mind you, that’s an uneducated guesstimate.”

Quinton Chambers dropped his pen on the table. “Are you telling

us that one man is bringing the United States virtually to its

knees for a couple of hundred million?” Marv reluctantly nodded.

“Gentlemen, this is incredible, more than incredible . . .does

the President know?”

Even Phil Musgrave was antsy with the answer to that question.

“Not in any detail, but he is very concerned. As for the cost,

terrorism has never been considered expensive.”

“Well thank you Ron Ziegler, for that piece of information,”

scowled Chambers. “So if we know all of this, why don’t we pick

‘em all up and get this over with and everything working again?”

“Foster claims he doesn’t know who anyone other than Homosoto is.

He was kept in the dark. That is certainly not inconsistent with

the way Homosoto is known to do business – very compartmental-

ized. He didn’t do the recruitment, he said, and all communica-

tions were done over the computer . . .no faces, no names. If it

wasn’t for Mason, we wouldn’t even know that Foster is the Spook.

I consider us very lucky on that point alone.”

“What are we going to do? What can we do?” Royce and Chambers

both sounded and looked more concerned than the others. Their

agencies were on the front line and the most visible to the

public.

“For the government we can take some mandatory precautions. For

the private sector, probably nothing . . .”

“Unless.” Phil said quietly.

“Unless what?” All heads turned to Phil Musgrave.

“Unless the President invokes martial law to protect the country

and takes control of the computers until we can respond.” Phil

often thought out loud, even with his extremist possibilities.

“Good idea!” said Jacobs quickly.

“You think that public will buy that?” asked Chambers.

“No, but they may have no choice.”

Tuesday, January 26 PRESIDENT DECLARES WAR ON COMPUTERS By Scott Mason

Support for the President’s Sunday night call to arms has been

virtually unanimous by industry leaders.

According to James Worthington, Director of Computing Services at

First National Life, “We take the threat to our computers very

seriously. Without the reliable operation of our MIS systems,

our customers cannot be serviced and the company will suffer

tremendous losses. Rates will undoubtedly rise unless we protect

ourselves.”

Similar sentiments were echoed by most industry leaders. IBM

announced it would be closing all of its computer centers for

between two and four weeks to effect a complete cleansing of all

systems and products. A spokesperson for IBM said, “If our

computers are threatened, we will take all necessary steps to

protect our investment and the confidence of our customers. IBM

prefers a short term disruption in normal services to a long term

failure.”

Well placed persons within the government concur that the NSA,

who is responsible for guiding the country through the current

computer crisis, is ideally suited for managing the situation.

Even agencies who have in the past been critical of the super-

secret NSA are praising their preliminary efforts and recommenda-

tions to deal with the emergency.

In a several page document issued by the NSA, a series of safe-

guards is outlined to protect computers against many of the

threats they now face. In addition, the NSA has asked all long

distance carriers to, effective immediately, deny service to any

digital communications until further notice. Despite high marks

for the