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

Tyrone a piece of red glass,

“is a piece of a high energy ruby laser.”

Tyrone turned the curios over and over in his hands. “So?” he

asked.

“By driving the output of the laser into a High Energy Static

Capacitive Tank, the energy can be discharged into the super

coil. The instantaneous release of energy creates a magnetic

field of millions of gauss.” Scott snapped his fingers. “And

that’s more than enough to blow out computer and phone circuits

as well as erase anything magnetic within a thousand yards.”

Tyrone was now ignoring the football action. He stared alternate-

ly at Scott and the curious glass and ceramic remnants. “You’re

bullshitting me, right? Sounds like science fiction.”

“But the fact is that the Stock Exchange still isn’t open. Their

entire tape library is gone. Poof! Empty, thus the name EMP-T.

It empties computers. Whoever did this has a real bad temper.

Pure revenge. They wanted to destroy the information, and not

the hardware itself. Otherwise the conventional blast would have

been stronger. The Cemex was used to destroy the evidence of the

EMP-T device.”

“Where the hell do these bombs come from.”

“EMP-T technology was originally developed as part of a Top

Secret DARPA project for the DoD with NSA guidance a few years

back.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“I did the documentation for the first manuals on EMP-T. Nothing

we got from the manufacturer was marked classified and we didn’t

know or care.”

“What was the Army going to do with them?” asked Tyrone, now with

great interest.

“You know, I had forgotten all about this stuff until the other

night, and then it all came back to me,” Scott said mentally

reminiscing. “At the time we thought it was a paranoid joke.

Another government folly. The EMP-T was supposed to be shot at

the enemy to screw up his battlefield computers and radar and

electronics before the ground troops or helo’s went it. As I

understand it, EMP-T bombs are made for planes, and can also be

launched from Howitzers and tanks. According to the manufactur-

er, they can’t be detected and leave a similar signature to that

of a conventional nuclear blast. If there is such a thing as a

conventional nuke.”

“Who else knows about this,” Tyrone asked. “The police?”

“You think the NYPD would know what to look for?” Scott said

snidely. “Their bomb squad went home after the plastic explosive

was found.”

“Right. Forget where I was.”

“Think about it,” Scott mused out loud. “A bomb that destroys

all of the computers and memory but leaves the walls standing.”

“Didn’t that asshole Carter want to build a nuke that would only

kill people but leave the city intact for the marauding invaders?

Neutron bombs, weren’t they?”

“There’s obviously nothing immoral about nuking computers,” Scott

pontificated. “It was all part of Star Wars. Reagan’s Strategic

Defense included attacking enemy satellites with EMP-T bombs.

Get all of the benefits and none of the fallout from a nuke.

There’s no accompanying radiation.”

“How easy is it to put one of the empty-things together?” Tyrone

missed another 49’er touchdown.

“Today?” Scott whistled. “The ones I saw were big, clumsy

affairs from the 70’s. With new ceramics, and such, I would

assume they’re a lot smaller as the Stock Exchange proves. A

wild guess? I bet that EMP-T is a garage project for a couple of

whiz kids, or if the government orders them, a couple hundred

thou each.” Scott laughed at the absurdity of competitive bid-

ding for government projects. Everyone knew the government paid

more for everything. They would do a lot better with a VISA card

at K-Mart.

“I think I better take a look,” Tyrone hinted.

“I thought you would, buddy. Thought you would.” Scott replied.

They returned to the game 12 seconds before half time. The gun

went off. Perfect timing. Scott hated football. The only

reason in his mind for the existence of the Super Bowl was to

drink beer with friends and watch the commercials.

“Shit,” declared Tyrone. “I missed the whole damned second quar-

ter.” He grabbed another beer to comfort his disappointment.

“Hey,” Scott called to Tyrone. “During the next half, I want to

ask you something.”

Tyrone came back into the Music Room snickering. “What the hell

is that in your bathroom?”

“Isn’t that great?” asked the enthused Scott. “It’s an automatic

toilet seat.”

“Now just what the devil is an automatic toilet seat? It pulls it

out and dries it off for you?” He believed that Scott was kid-

ding with some of his half baked inventions. That Scott subject-

ed any of his guests to their intermittent functioning was cruel

and inhuman punishment according to Tyrone.

“You’re married with girls. Aren’t they always on your case

about the toilet seat?”

“I’ve been married 26 years,” Tyrone said with pride. “I con-

quered toilet seats on our honeymoon. She let me know right then

that she was boss and what the price of noncompliance was.”

“Ouch, that’s not fair,” Scott said in sympathy. “I sleep-piss.”

He held his hands out in front. “That’s the only side effect

from too much acid. Sleep pissing.”

Tyrone scrunched his face in disgust.

Scott spoke rapidly and loudly. “So for those of us who forget to

lower the seat after use, for those who forget to raise the seat;

for those who forget to raise the lid, Auto-Shit.” Ty had tried

to ignore him, but Scott’s imitation of a hyperactive cable

shopping network host demanded that one at least hear him out.

Ty’s eyes teared.

“Make that woman in your life happy today. No more mess, fuss or

or morning arguments. No more complaints from the neighbors or

the health department. Auto-Shit. The toilet that knows your

needs. The seat for the rest of us. Available in 6 designer

colors. Only $49.95, Mastercard, VISA, No COD. Operators are

standing by.”

Tyrone fell over on his side laughing. “You are crazy, man.

Sleep pissing. And, if you don’t know it, no one, I mean no one

in his right mind has five trash compactors.” Tyrone waved his

hand at Scott. “Ask me what you were gonna ask me.”

“Off the record, Ty,” Scott started, “how’re the feds viewing

this mess?”

Tyrone hated the position he was in, but Scott had given him a

ltoe recently. It was time to reciprocate.

“Off?”

“So far off, so far off that if you turned the light “On” it

would still be off.”

“It’s a fucking mess,” Tyrone said quickly. He was relieved to

be able to talk about it. “You can’t believe it. I’m down there

to watch a crisis management team in action, but what do I find?”

He shook his head. “They’re still trying to decide on the size

of the conference table.” The reference caught Scott’s ear.

“No, it’s not that bad, but it might as well be.”

“How is this ECCO thing put together? Who’s responsible?”

“Responsible? Ha! No one,” Tyrone chuckled as he recounted the

constant battles among the represented agencies. “This is the

perfect bureaucratic solution. No one is responsible for shit,

no one is accountable, but they all want to run the show. And,

no one agency clearly has authority. It’s a fucking disaster.”

“No one runs security? In the whole government, no one runs

security?”

“That’s pushing it a little, but not too far off base.”

“Oh, I gotta hear this,” Scott said reclining in the deep plush

cloth covered couch.

“Once upon a time, a super secret agency, no one ever spoke the

initials, but it begins with the National Security Agency, got

elected by the Department of Defense to work out communications

security during the Cold War. They took their job very seriously.

“Then along came NIST and IBM who developed DES. The DOD formed

the Computer Security Initiative and then the Computer Security

Evaluation Center. The DOD CSEC became the DOD Computer Security

and then after NSA realized that everybody knew who they were, it

became the NCSC. Following this?”

Scott nodded only not to disrupt the flow.

“Ok, in 1977, Carter signed a bill that said to NSA, you take

over the classified national security stuff, but he gave the

dregs, the unclassified stuff to the NTIA, a piece of Commerce.

But that bill made a lot of people unhappy. So, along comes

Reagan who says, no that’s wrong, before we get anything con-

structive done, let me issue a Directive, number 145, and give

everything back to NSA.

“That pissed off even more people and Congress then passed the

Computer Security Act of 1987, stripped NSA of what it had and

gave NIST the unclassified stuff. As a result, NSA closed the

NCSC, NIST is underbudgeted by a factor of 100 and in short, they

all want a piece of a very small pie. That took over 4 years.

And that’s whose fault it is.

“Whose?”

“Congress of course. Congress passes the damn laws