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

that they failed to recognize your

abilities and let your skills serve them. Yes, indeed, how

unfortunate.” Homosoto said somberly.

“So,” Miles said arrogantly as he retreated back to his seat,

“you seem to be asking a lot of questions, and getting a lot of

answers. It is your dime, so I owe you something. But, Mr.

Homosoto, I would like to know what you’re looking for.”

Homosoto stood up erect. “You, Mr. Foster. You. You are what I

have been looking for. And, if you do your job right, I am

making the assumption you will accept, you will become wealthier

than you ever hoped. Ever dreamed. Mr. Foster, your reputation

precedes you.” He sincerely extended his hand to Foster. “I do

believe we can do business.” Homosoto was beaming at Miles Fos-

ter.

“OK, ok, so if I accept, what do I do?” said Miles as he again

shook Homosoto’s weak hand.

“You, Mr. Foster, are going to lead an invasion of the United

States of America.”

Chapter 6 3 Years Ago Sunnyvale, California.

Pierre Troubleaux was staggered beyond reason. His life was just

threatened and he didn’t know what to do about it. What the hell

was this disk anyway? Military secrets? Industrial espionage?

Then why put it on the dGraph disks and programs? Did I just

agree? What did I say? I don’t remember what I said. Maybe I

said maybe.

Panic yielded to confusion. What is so wrong? This was just

some old Japanese guy who was making some veiled Oriental threat.

No, it was another one of those cultural differences. Like

calisthenics before work at those Japanese companies that satu-

rate the West Coast. Sure it sounded like a threat, but this is

OSO Industries we are talking about. That would be like the head

of Sony using extortion to sell Walkmen. Impossible. All the

same, it was scary and he had no idea what was on the disk. He

called Max.

“Max! What are you doing?” What he meant, and Max understood,

was ‘I need you. Get your ass up here now.’

“On my way Amigo.”

The next few minutes waiting for Max proved to be mentally ex-

hausting. He thought of hundreds of balancing arguments for both

sides of the coin. Be concerned, this guy is nuts and meant it,

or I misunderstood something, or it got lost in the translation.

He prayed for the latter.

“Yo, what gives?” Max walked into Pierre’s office without knock-

ing.

“Tell me what’s on this!” Pierre thrust the disk up at Max’s

large physique.

Max held the disk to his forehead and gazed skyward. “A good

start. Yes, a good start.” Max grinned.

Pierre groaned, knowing full well that the Kreskin routine had

to be completed before anything serious was discussed. Max

brought the disk to his mouth and blew on it so the disk holder

bulged in the middle. Max pulled out the disk and pretended to

read it. “What do you call 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the

ocean.” Pierre chuckled a half a chuck. He wasn’t in the mood,

but then he had no love for lawyers.

“Max! Please.”

“Hey, just trying new material….”

” . . .that’s 5 years old.” Pierre interrupted.

“All right already. Gimme a break. OK, let’s have a look.” They

went behind Pierre’s desk and inserted the disk in his IBM AT.

Max asked the computer for a listing of the diskette’s contents.

The screen scrolled and stopped.

C:a:

A:dir

FILE84.EXE 01/01/80 704 FILE85.EXE 01/01/80 2013 FILE86.EXE 01/01/80 1900 FILE87.EXE 01/01/80 567 FILE88.EXE 01/01/80 2981 FILE89.EXE 01/01/80 4324 FILE90.EXE 01/01/80 1280 FILE91.EXE 01/01/80 1395 FILE92.EXE 01/01/80 2374 FILE93.EXE 01/01/80 3912 93 Files 1457 Bytes Remaining

A:

“Just a bunch of small programs. What are they?” Max’s lack of

concern was understandable, but it annoyed Pierre all the same.

“I don’t know, that’s what I’m asking you. What are they? What

kind of programs?”

“Jeez, Pierre, I don’t know. Games maybe? Small utilities? Have

you used them yet?”

“No, not yet, someone just gave them to me. That’s all.” Pier-

re’s nervousness betrayed him.

“Well let’s try one, see what it does.” Max typed in FILE93.

That would run the program.

A few seconds later the disk stopped and the computer returned to

its natural state, that of the C:. “That one didn’t work.

Let’s try 92. H’mmmm. That’s curious, it doesn’t do anything

either. Looks like a bunch of crap to me. What are they sup-

posed to do?” Max shrugged his shoulders.

Max kept trying a few more of the numbered programs. “I don’t

know, really. Maybe it’s just a joke.”

“Some joke, I don’t get it. Where’s the punch line? Damn,

nothing.” Max punched a few more keys. “Let me have this. I wanna

take me a look a closer look,” Max said as he pulled the diskette

from the machine.

“Where are you going with that?”

“To my lab. I’ll disassemble it and see what’s what. Probably

some garbage shareware. I’ll call you later.”

At 4PM Max came flying through Pierre’s office door again. Pierre

was doing his magic . . .talking to the press on the phone.

“Where did you get this?” bellowed Max as he strutted across the

plush carpet holding the diskette in his hand.

Pierre waved him silent and onto the couch. He put up one finger

to indicate just a minute. Pierre cut the reporter short on an

obviously contrived weak excuse. He promised to call back real

soon. He meant that part. He would call back.

“Pierre, where did you get this?” Max asked again.

“Nowhere. What’s on it?” he demanded.

“Viruses. Lots of ‘em.”

“You mean it’s sick? Like contagious?” Pierre was being genuine.

“No you Frog idiot. Computer viruses.”

“What is a computer virus? A machine can’t get sick.”

“How wrong you are ol’ buddy. You’re in for a lesson now. Sit

down.” Pierre obliged. This was Max’s turf.

“Here goes. If I lose you, just holler, ok, Amigo?” Pierre had

grown to hate being called Amigo, but he had never asked Max to

stop. Besides, now wasn’t the appropriate time to enlighten Max

as to the ins and outs of nick name niceties. Pierre nodded

silent agreement.

“Computers basically use two type of information. One type of

information is called data. That’s numbers, words, names on a

list, a letter, accounting records whatever. The second type are

called programs, we tweaks call them executables. Executables

are almost alive. The instructions contained in the executables

operate on the data. Everything else is a variation on a

theme.”

“Yeah, so the computer needs a program to make it work. Everyone

knows that. What about these?”

“I’m getting there. Hold on. There are several types of executa-

bles, some are COM files, SYS and BAT files act like executables

and so do some OVR and OVL files. In IBM type computers that’s

about it. Apples and MACs and others have similar situations,

but these programs are for IBM’s. Now imagine a program, an

executable which is designed to copy itself onto another

program.”

“Yeah, so. That’s how dGraph works. We essentially seam our-

selves into the application.”

“Exactly, but dGraph is benign. These,” he holds up the disk-

ette, “these are contaminated. They are viruses. I only looked

at a couple of them, disassembly takes a while. Pierre, if only

one of these programs were on your computer, 3 years from now,

the entire contents of your hard disk would be destroyed in

seconds!” Pierre was stunned. It had never occurred to him

that a program could be harmful.

“That’s 3 years from now? So what? I probably won’t have the

same programs on my computer then anyway. There’s always some-

thing new.”

“It doesn’t matter. The viruses I looked at here copy themselves

onto other programs and hide themselves. They do nothing, noth-

ing at all except copy themselves onto other programs. In a few

days every program on your computer, I mean every one would be

infected, would be sick. Every one would have the same flu if

you wish. And then, 3 years from now, any computer that was

infected would destroy itself. And, the virus itself would be

destroyed as well. Kind of like Jap