Since the author also requests remuneration, we would ask these

W >> Winn Schwartau >> Since the author also requests remuneration, we would ask these

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A terrified look crossed Taki's face that ceded into a facial
plead. His look said, "I can't speak so answer my
questions . . .you must know what they are. Where am I? What
happened? Where is my class?"

"I understand your name is Taki Homosoto?" the doctor asked.
"Your school identification papers . . ."

Taki blinked an affirmative as he tried to cough out a response.

"There is no easy way to tell this. We must all be brave. Ameri-
ca has used a terrible weapon upon the people of Japan. A spe-
cial new bomb so terrible that Hiroshima is no longer even a
shadow of itself. A weapon where the sky turns to fire and build-
ings and our people melt . . .where the water sickens the living
and those who seem well drop in their steps from an invisible
enemy. Almost half of the people of Hiroshima are dead or dying.
As I said, you are a lucky one."

Taki helped over the next days at the Communications Hospital in
what was left of downtown Hiroshima. When he wasn't tending to
the dying, he moved the dead to the exits so the bodies could be
cremated, the one way to insure eternal salvation. The city got
much of its light from pyres for weeks after the blasts.

He helped distribute the kanpan and cold rice balls to the very
few doctors and to survivors who were able to eat. He walked the
streets of Hiroshima looking for food, supplies, anything that
could help. Walking through the rubble of what once was Hiroshi-
ma fueled his hate and his loathing for Americans. They had
wrought this suffering by using their pikadon, or flash-boom
weapon, on civilians, women and children. He saw death, terrible,
ugly death, everywhere; from Hijiyama Hill to the bridges a cross
the wide Motoyas River.

The Aioi bridge spontaneously became an impromptu symbol for
vengeance against the Americans. Taki crossed the remnants of
the old stone bridge, which was to be the hypocenter of the blast
if the Enola Gay hadn't missed its target by 800 feet. A tall
blond man in an American military uniform was tied to a stone
post. He was an American POW, one of 23 in Hiroshima. A few
dozen people, women in bloodstained kimonos and mompei and near
naked children were hurling rocks and insults at the lifeless
body. How appropriate thought Taki. He found himself mindlessly
joining in. He threw rocks at the head, the body, the legs. He
threw rocks and yelled. He threw rocks and yelled at the remains
of the dead serviceman until his arms and lungs ached.

Another 50,000 Japanese died from the effects of radiation within
days while Taki continued to heal physically. On August 17, 9
days after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and 2 days after Emper-
or Hirohito's broadcast announcing Japan's surrender, a typhoon
swamped Hiroshima and killed thousands more. Taki blamed the
Americans for the typhoon, too.

Taki was alone for the first time in his life. His family dead,
even his little sister. Taki Homosoto was now a hibakusha, a
survivor of Hiroshima, an embarrassing and dishonorable fact he
would desperately try to conceal for the rest of his life.

* * * * *

Forty Years Later . . .
January, 1985, Gaithersburg, Maryland.

A pristine layer of thick soft snow covered the sprawling office
and laboratory filled campus where the National Bureau of Stand-
ards sets standards for the country. The NBS establishes exactly
what the time is, to the nearest millionth of a millionth of a
second. They make sure that we weigh things to the accuracy of
the weight of an individual atom. The NBS is a veritable techno-
logical benchmark to which everyone agrees, if for no other
reason than convenience.

It was the NBS's turn to host the National Computer Security
Conference where the Federal government was ostensibly supposed
to interface with academia and the business world. At this
exclusive symposium, only two years before, the Department of
Defense introduced a set of guidelines which detailed security
specifications to be used by the Federal agencies and recommended
for the private sector.

A very dry group of techno-wizards and techno-managers and tech-
no-bureaucrats assemble for several days, twice a year, to dis-
cuss the latest developments in biometric identifications tech-
niques, neural based cryptographic analysis, exponential factor-
ing in public key management, the subtleties of discretionary
access control and formalization of verification models.

The National Computer Security Center is a Department of Defense
working group substantially managed by the super secret National
Security Agency. The NCSC's charter in life is to establish
standards and procedures for securing the US Government's comput-
ers from compromise.

1985's high point was an award banquet with slightly ribald
speeches. Otherwise the conference was essentially a maze of
highly complex presentations, meaningless to anyone not well
versed in computers, security and government-speak. An attend-
ee's competence could be well gauged by his use of acronyms. "If
the IRS had DAC across its X.25 gateways, it could integrate
X9.17 management, DES, MAC and X9.9 could be used throughout.
Save the government a bunch!" "Yeah, but the DoD had an RFI for
an RFQ that became a RFP, specced by NSA and based upon TD-80-81.
It was isolated, environmentally speaking." Boring, thought
Miles Foster. Incredibly boring, but it was his job to sit,
listen and learn.

Miles Foster was a security and communications analyst with the
National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland. It was part of
the regimen to attend such functions to stay on top of the latest
developments from elsewhere in the government and from university
and private research programs.

Out of the 30 or so panels that Miles Foster had to attend, pro
forma, only one held any real interest for him. It was a mathe-
matical presentation entitled, "Propagation Tendencies in Self
Replicating Software". It was the one subject title from the
conference guide about which he knew nothing. He tried to figure
out what the talk was going to be about, but the answer escaped
him until he heard what Dr. Les Brown had to say.

Miles Foster wrote an encapsulated report of Dr. Brown's presen-
tation with the 23 other synopses he was required to generate for
the NSA. Proof of Attendance.

SUBJECT:
Dr. Les Brown - Professor of Computer Science, Sheffield Univer-
sity. Dr. Brown presented an updated version of his PhD thesis.

CONTENTS:
Dr. Brown spoke about unique characteristics of certain software
that can be written to be self-replicating. He examined the
properties of software code in terms of set theory and adequately
demonstrated that software can be written with the sole purpose
of disguising its true intents, and then replicate or clone
itself throughout a computer system without the knowledge of the
computer's operators.

He further described classes of software that, if designed for
specific purposes, would have undetectable characteristics. In
the self replicating class, some would have crystalline behav-
iors, others mutating behaviors, and others random behaviors.
The set theory presentations closely paralleled biological trans-
mission characteristics and similar problems with disease detec-
tion and immunization.

It became quite clear from the Dr. Brown's talk, that surrepti-
tiously placed software with self-replicating properties could
have deleterious effects on the target computing system.

CONCLUSIONS

It appears prudent to further examine this class of software and
the ramifications of its use. Dr. Brown presented convincing
evidence that such propagative effects can bypass existing pro-
tective mechanisms in sensitive data processing environments.
There is indeed reason to believe that software of this nature
might have certain offensive military applications. Dr. Brown
used the term 'Virus' to describe such classes of software.

Signed, Miles Foster
Senior Analyst
Y-Group/SF6-143G-1

After he completed his observations of the conference as a whole,
and the seminars in particular, Miles Foster decided to eliminate
Dr. Brown's findings from the final submission to his superiors.
He wasn't sure why he left it out, it just seemed like the right
thing to do.

****************************************************************

Chapter 1
August, 4 Years Ago.
National Security Agency
Fort George S. Meade, Maryland.

Thousands of disk drives spun rapidly, at over 3600 rpm. The
massive computer room, Computer Room C-12, gently whirred and
droned with a life of its own. The sublime, light blue walls and
specially fitted blue tint light bulbs added a calming influence
to the constant urgency that drove the computer operators who
pushed buttons, changed tapes and stared at the dozens of amber
screens on the computers.

Racks upon racks of foreboding electronic equipment rung the
walls of Room C-12 with arrays of tape drives interspersed. Rats
nests of wire and cable crept along the floor and in and out of
the control centers for the hundreds of millions of dollars of
the most sophisticated computers in the world. Only five years
ago, computing power of this magnitude, now fit in a room the
size of an average house would have filled the Pentagon. All of
this, all of this power, for one man.

Miles Foster was locked in a room without windows. It contained a
table, 4 chairs, and he was sure a couple of cameras and micro-
phones. He had been held for a least six hours, maybe more; they
had taken his watch to distort his time perception.

Within 2 minutes of the time Miles Foster announced his resigna-
tions as a communications expert with the National Security
Agency, S Group, his office was sealed and guarded by an armed
marine. His computer was disconnected, and he was escorted to a
debriefing room where he had sporadically answered questions
asked by several different Internal Affairs Security Officers.

While Miles Foster was under virtual house arrest, not the pre-
ferred term, but an accurate one, the Agency went to work. From
C-12, a group of IAS officers began to accumulate information
about Miles Foster from a vast array of computer memory banks.
They could dial up any major computer system within the United
States, and most around the world. The purpose, ostensibly, of
having such power was to centralize and make more efficient
security checks on government employees, defense contractors and
others who might have an impact on the country's national securi-
ty. But, it had other purposes, too.

Computer Room C-12 is classified above Top Secret, it's very
existence denied by the NSA, the National Security Agency, and
unknown to all but a very few of the nation's top policy makers.
Congress knows nothing of it and the President was only told
after it had been completed, black funded by a non-line item
accountable budget. Computer Room C-12 is one of only two
electronic doors into the National Data Base - a digital reposi-
tory containing the sum total knowledge and working profiles of
every man, woman and child in the United States. The other
secret door that guards America's privacy is deep within the
bowels of the Pentagon.

From C-12, IAS accessed every bank record in the country in
Miles' name, social security number or in that of his immediate
family. Savings, checking, CD's. They had printouts, within
seconds, of all of their last year's credit card activity. They
pulled 3 years tax records from the IRS, medical records from the
National Medical Data Base which connects hospitals nationwide,
travel records from American carriers, customs checks, video
rental history, telephone records, stock purchases. Anything that
any computer ever knew about Miles Foster was printed and put
into eleven 6" thick files within 2 hours of the request from the
DIRNSA, Director, National Security Agency.

Internal Affairs was looking for some clue as to why a successful
and highly talented analyst like Miles Foster would so abruptly
resign a senior analyst position. While Miles was more than
willing to tell them his feelings, and the real reasons behind
his resignation, they wanted to make sure that there weren't a
few little details he wasn't telling them. Like, perhaps gam-
bling debts, women on the side, (he was single) or women on the
wrong side, overextended financial obligations, anything unusual.
Had he suddenly come into money and if he did, where did he get
it? Blackmail was considered a very real possibility when unex-
pected personnel changes occur.

The files vindicated Miles Foster of any obvious financial anoma-
lies. Not that he knew he needed vindication. He owned a Potomac
condominium in D.C., a 20 minutes against traffic commute to Fort
Meade where he had worked for years, almost his entire profes-
sional life. He traveled some, Caribbean cruises, nothing osten-
tatious but in style, had a reasonable savings account, only used
2 credit cards and he owed no one anything significant. There was
nothing unusual about his file at all, unless you think that
living within ones means is odd. Miles Foster knew how to make
the most out of a dollar. Miles Foster was clean.

The walls of his drab 12 foot square prison room were a dirty
shade of government gray. There was an old map on the wall and
Miles noticed that the gray paint behind the it was 7 shades
lighter than the surrounding paint. Two of the four fluorescent
bulbs were out, hiding some of the peeling paint on the ceiling.
Against one wall was a row of file cabinets with large iron bars
behind the drawer handles, insuring that no one, no one, was
getting into those file with permission. Also prominent on each
file cabinet was a tissue box sized padlock.

Miles was alone, again. When the IAS people questioned him, they
were hard on him. Very hard. But most of the time he was alone.
Miles paced the room during the prolonged waits. He poked here
and there, under this, over that; he found the clean paint behind
the map and smirked.

When the IAS men returned, they found Miles stretching and exer-
cising his svelte 5' 9" physique to help relieve the boredom.

He was 165 lbs. and in excellent for almost 40. Miles wasn't a
fitness nut, but he enjoyed the results of staying in shape -
women, lots of women. He had a lightly tanned Mediterranean
skin, dark, almost black wavy hair on the longish side but immac-
ulately styled. His demeanor dripped elegance, even when he wore
torn jeans, and he knew it. It was merely another personal asset
that Miles had learned how to use to his best advantage. Miles
was regularly proofed. He had a face that would permit him to
assume any age from 20 to 40, but given his borderline arrogance,
he called it aloofness, most considered him the younger. None-
theless, women, of all ages went for it.

One peculiar trait made women and girls find Miles irresistible.
He had an eerie but conscious muscular control over his dimples.
If he were angry, a frown could mean any number of things depend-
ing upon how he twitched his dimples. A frown could mean, "I'm
real angry, seriously", or "I'm just giving you shit", or "You
bore me, go away", or more to Miles' purpose, "You're gorgeous, I
wanna fuck your brains out". His dimples could pout with a
smile, grin with a sneer, emphasize a question; they could accent
and augment his mood at will.

But now. he was severely bored. Getting even more disgusted with
the entire process. The IAS wasn't going to find anything. He
had made sure of that. After all, he was the computer expert.

Miles heard the sole door to the room unlock. It was a heavy, 'I
doubt an ax could even get through this' door. The fourth IAS
man to question Miles entered the room as the door was relocked
from the other side.

"So, tell us again, why did you quit?" The IAS man abruptly
blurted out even before sitting in one of the old, World War II
vintage chairs by the wooden table.

"I've told you a hundred times and you have it on tape a hundred
times." The disgust in his voice was obvious and intended. "I
really don't want to go through it again."

"Tough shit. I want to hear it. You haven't told me yet." This
guy was tougher, Miles thought.

"What are you looking for? For God's sake, what do you want me
to say? You want a lie that you like better? Tell me what it is
and I'll give it back to you, word for word. Is that what you
want?" Miles gave away something. He showed, for the first
time, real anger. The intellect in Miles saw what the emotion
was doing, so his brain quickly secreted a complex string of
amino acids to call him down. Miles decided that he should go
back to the naive, 'what did I do?' image and stick to the plan.

He put his head in his hands and leaned forward for a second. He
gently shook and looked up sideways. He was very convincing.
The IAS man thought that Miles might be weakening.

"I want the fucking truth," the IAS man bellowed. "And I want it
now!"

Miles sighed. He was tired and wanted a cigarette so bad he
could shit, and that pleasure, too, he was being denied. But he
had prepared himself for this eventuality; serious interrogation.

"O.K., O.K." Miles feigned resignation. He paused for another
heavy sigh. "I quit 'cause I got sick of the shit. Pure and
simple. I like my work, I don't like the bureaucracy that goes
with it. That's it. After over 10 years here, I expected some
sort of recognition other than a cost of living increase like
every other G12. I want to go private where I'll be appreciated.
Maybe even make some money."

The IAS man didn't look convinced. "What single event made you
quit? Why this morning, and not yesterday or tomorrow, or the
next day, or next week. Why today?" The IAS man blew smoke at
Miles to annoy him and exaggerate the withdrawal symptoms. Miles
was exhausted and edgy.

"Like I said, I got back another 'don't call us, we'll call you'
response on my Public-Private key scheme. They said, 'Not yet
practical' and set it up for another review in 18 months. That
was it. Finis! The end, the proverbial straw that you've been
looking for. Is that what you want?" Miles tried desperately to
minimize any display of arrogance as he looked at the IAS man.

"What do you hope to do in the private sector? Most of your work
is classified." The IAS man remained cool and unflustered.

"Plenty of defense guys who do crypto and need a good comm guy. I
think the military call it the revolving door." Miles' dimpled
smugness did not sit well with IAS.

"Yeah, you'll probably go to work for your wop friends in
Sicily." The IAS man sarcastically accused.

"Hey - you already know about that!" That royally pissed off
Miles. He didn't appreciate any dispersion on his heritage.
"They're relatives, that's it. Holidays, food, turkey, ham, and
a bunch of booze. And besides," Miles paused and smiled,
"there's no such thing as the Mafia."

By early evening they let him relieve himself and then finally
leave the Fort. He was given 15 minutes to collect his personal
items, under guard, and then escorted to the front gate. All
identification was removed and his files were transferred into
the 'Monitor' section, where they would sit for at least one
year. The IAS people had finally satisfied themselves that Miles
Foster was a dissatisfied, underpaid government employee who had
had enough of the immobility and rigidity of a giant bureaucratic
machine that moves at a snails pace. Miles smiled at the end of
the interrogation. Just like I said, he thought, just like I
said.

There was no record in his psychological profiles, those from the
Agency shrinks, that suggested Miles meant anything other than
what he claimed. Let him go, they said. Let him go. Nowhere in
the records did it show how much he hated his stupid, stupid
bosses, the bungling bureaucratic behemoths who didn't have the
first idea of what he and his type did. Nowhere did Miles'
frustration and resultant build up of resentment and anger show
up in any file or on any chart or graph. His strong, almost
overbearing ego and over developed sense of worth and importance
were relegated to a personality quirk common to superbright
ambitious engineering types. It fit the profile.

Nowhere, either, was it mentioned that in years at NSA, Miles
Foster had submitted over 30 unsolicited proposals for changes in
cryptographic and communications techniques to improve the secu-
rity of the United States. Nowhere did it say, they were all
turned down, tabled, ignored.

At one point or another, Miles had to snap. The rejection of
proposal number thirty-four gave Miles the perfect reason to
quit.

* * * * *

Miles Foster looked 100% Italian despite the fact his father was
a pure Irishman. "Stupido, stupido" his grandmother would say
while slamming the palm of her hand into forehead. She was not
exactly fond of her daughter marrying outside family. But, it was
a good marriage, 3 great kids, or as good as kids get and Grand-
mama tolerated the relationship. Miles the oldest, was only 7
when his father got killed as a bystander at a supermarket rob-
bery.

Mario Dante, his homosexual uncle who worked in some undefined,
never mentioned capacity for a Vegas casino, assumed the pater-
nal role in raising Miles. With 2 sisters, a mother, an aunt and
a grandmother all living under the same roof with Miles, any
male companionship, role model if you will, was acceptable.
Mario kept the Family Honor, keeping his sexual proclivities
secret until Miles turned 18. Upon hearing, Miles commented,
"Yeah, so? Everyone knows Uncle Mario's a fag. Big deal."

Mario was a big important guy, and he did business, grownup
business. That was all Miles was supposed to know. When Miles
was 13, Mario thought it would be a good idea for him to become
a man. Only 60 miles from Las Vegas lived the country's only
legal brothels. Very convenient. Miles wasn't going to fool
around with any of that street garbage. Convention girls. Miles
should go first class the first time.

Pahrump, Nevada is home to the only legalized prostitution in the
United States. Mario drove fast, Miles figured about 130mph, in
his Red Ferrari on Highway 10, heading West from Vegas. Mario
was drinking Glen Fetitch, neat, and he steered with only one
hand, hardly looking at the road.

The inevitable occurred. Gaining on them, was a Nevada State
Trooper. The flashing lights and siren reminded Mario to slow
down and pull over. He grinned, sipped his drink and Miles
worried. Speeding was against the law. So was drinking and
driving. The police officer walked over to the driver side of the
Ferrari. Uncle Mario lowered the window to let the officer lean
into the car. As the trooper bent over to look inside the
flashy low slung import, Mario pulled out a handgun from under
the seat and stuck it into the cop's face.

Mario started yelling. "Listen asshole, I wasn't speeding. Was I?
I don't want nothing to go on my insurance. I gotta good driving
record, y'know?" Mario was crazy! Miles had several strong urges
to severely contract his sphincter muscles.

"No sir, I wanted to give you a good citizenship citation, for
your contributions to the public good." The cop laughed in Uncle
Mario's face.

"Good to see you still gotta sensa'humor." Uncle Mario laughed
and put the gun back in his shoulder holster. Miles stared,
dumbfounded, still squeezing his butt cheeks tight.

"Eh, Paysan! Where you going so fired up? You know the limit's
110?" They both guffawed.

"Here!" Mario pointed at Miles. "'Bout time the kid took a ride
around the world, y'know what I mean?" Miles wasn't sure what
he meant, but he was sure it had to do with where he was going to
lose his virginity.

"Sheeeee-it! Uptown! Hey kid, ask for Michelle and take 2 from
Column B, then do it once for me!" Even though they weren't, to
a 13 year male Italian virgin, Mario and the cop were making fun
of him. "I remember my first time. It was in a pick up truck,
out in the desert. Went for fucking ever! Know what I mean?
The cop winked at Miles who was humiliated. To Miles' relief,
Mario finally gave the cop an envelope, while being teasingly
reprimanded. "Hey, Mario, take it a little easy out here, will
yah? At least on my watch, huh?"