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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"Sure," said Scott. Vinnie rolled a large track ball built into
the keyboard and the head on the screen slowly stretched in
height and width. The changes didn't help Scott much he but
asked Vinnie to stop at one point anyway.

"Don't worry, we can change it later again. How about the eyes?"

"Two," said Scott seriously.

Vinnie gave Scott an ersatz dirty look. "Everyone does it," said
Vinnie. "Once." He grinned at Scott.

"The eye brows, they were bushier," said Scott.

"Good. Tell me when." The eyebrows on the face twisted and
turned as Vinnie moved the trackball with his right hand and
clicked at the keyboard with his left.

"That's close," Scott said. "Yeah, hold it." Vinnie froze the
image where Scott indicated and they went on to the hair.
"Longer, wavier, less of a part . . ."

They worked for an hour, Vinnie at the computer controls and
Scott changing every imaginable feature on the face as it evolved
into one with character. Vinnie sat back in his chair and
stretched. "How's that," he asked Scott.

Scott hesitated. He felt that he was making too many changes.
Maybe this was as close as it got. "It's good," he said without
conviction. There was a slight resemblance.

"That's what they all say," Vinnie said. "It's not even close
yet." He laughed as Scott looked shocked. "All we've done so
far is get the general outline. Now, we work on the details."

For another two hours Scott commented on the subtle changes
Vinnie made to the face. Nuances that one never thinks of; the
curve of the cheek, the half dozen angles of the chin, the hun-
dreds of ear lobes, eyes of a thousand shapes - they went through
them all and the face took form. Scott saw the face take on the
appearance of the Spook; more and more it became the familiar
face he had spent hours with a few days ago.

As he got caught up in the building and discovery process, Scott
issued commands to Vinnie; thicken the upper lip, just a little.
Higher forehead. He blurted out change after change and Vinnie
executed every one. Actually, Vinnie preferred it this way,
being given the orders. After all, he hadn't seen the face.

"There! That's the Spook!" exclaimed Scott suddenly.

"You sure?" asked Vinnie sitting back in the plush computer
chair.

"Yup," Scott said with assurance. "That's him."

"O.K., let's see what we can do . . ." Vinnie rapidly typed at
the keyboard and the picture of the face disappeared. The screen
went blank for a few seconds until it was replaced with a 3
dimensional color model of a head. The back of the head turned
and the visage of the Spook stared at them both. It was an eerie
feeling and Scott shuddered as the disembodied head stopped
spinning.

"Take a look at this," Vinnie said as he continued typing. Scott
watched the head, Spook's head, come alive. The lips were mov-
ing, as though it, he, was trying to speak. "I can give it a
voice if you'd like."

"Will that help?" Scott asked.

"Nah, not in this case," Vinnie said,"but it is fun. Let's make
sure that we got the right guy here. We'll take a look at him
from every angle." The head moved to the side for a left pro-
file. "I'll make a couple of gross adjustments, and you tell me
if it gets any better."

They went through another hour of fine tuning the 3-D head,
modifying skin tones, texture, hair style and a score of other
subtleties. When they were done Scott remarked that the image
looked more like the Spook than the Spook himself. Incredible.
Scott was truly impressed. This is where taxpayer's money went.
Vinnie called Tyrone and by the time he arrived, the color photo-
graphs and digital maps of the images were ready.

Scott followed Tyrone down one corridor, then another, through a
common area, and down a couple more hallways. They entered Room
322B. The innocuous appearance of the door did not prepare Scott
for what he saw; a huge computer room, at least a football field
in length. Blue and tan and beige and a few black metal cabi-
nets that housed hundreds of disparate yet co-existing computers.
Consoles with great arrays of switches, row upon row of video and
graphic displays as far as the eye could see. Thousands of
white two by two foot square panel floors hid miles of wires and
cables that interconnected the maze of computers in the under-
ground control center. There appeared to be a number of discreet
areas, where large computer consoles were centered amidst racks
of tape or disk drives which served as the only separation be-
tween workers.

"This is Big Floyd," Tyrone said proudly. "Or at least one part
of him."

"Who or what is Big Floyd?"

"Big Floyd is a huge national computer system, tied together over
the Secure Automated Message Network. This is the most powerful
computer facility outside of the NSA."

Quiet conversations punctuated the hum of the disk drives and the
clicks of solenoids switching and the printers pushing reams of
paper. The muted voices could not be understood but they rang
with purpose. The room had an almost reverent character to it;
where speaking too loud would surely be considered blasphemous.
Scott and Tyrone walked through banks and banks of equipment,
more computer equipment than Scott had ever seen in one location.
In fact the Federal Square computer center is on the pioneering
edge of forensic technology. The NSA computers might have more
oomph!, but the FBI computers have more purpose.

Tyrone stopped at one control console and asked if they could do
a match, stat. Of course, anything for Mr. Duncan. "RHIP,"
Tyrone said. Scott recognized the acronym, Rank Has Its Privi-
lege. Tyrone gave the computer operator the pictures and asked
him to explain the process to Scott.

"I take these pictures and put them in the computer with a scan-
ner. The digitized images are stored here," he said pointing at
a a rack of equipment. "Then, we enter the subject's general
description. Height, physique and so on." He copied the infor-
mation into the computer.

"Now we ask the computer to find possible matches."

"You mean the computer has photos of everyone in there?" Scott
asked incredulously.

"No, Scott. Just the bad guys, and people with security clear-
ances, and public officials? Your Aunt Tillie is safe from Big
Brother's prying eyes." The reason for Ty's sarcasm was clear to
Scott. Tyrone was not exactly acting in an official capacity on
this part of the investigation.

"How many do you have? Pictures that is?" Scott asked more diplo-
matically.

"That's classified," Tyrone said quickly.

"The hackers say you have files on over a hundred million people.
Is that true?" Scott asked. Tyrone glared at him, as if to say,
shut the fuck up. Scott took the non-verbal hint and they
watched in silence as the computer whirred searching for similar
photo files in its massive memory. Within a couple of minutes
the computer said that there were 4 possible matches. At the end
of the 10 minute search, it was up to 16 candidates.

"We'll do a visual instead of a second search," said the man
behind the keyboard. "We'll start with the 90% matches. There
are two of them." A large monitor flashed with a picture of a
man, that while not unlike the Spook in features, was definitely
not him. The picture was a high quality color photograph.

"No, not him," Scott said without pause. The computer operator
hit a couple of keys, a second picture flashed on the monitor and
Scott's face lit up. "That's him! That's the Spook!"

Tyrone had wondered if they would find any matches. While the
FBI data base was probably the largest in the world, it was
unlikely that there was a comprehensive library of teen age
hackers. "Are you sure?" Tyrone emphasized the word, 'sure'.

"Positive, yes. That's him."

"Let's have a quick look at the others before we do a full re-
trieve," said the computer operator. Tyrone agreed and fourteen
other pictures of men with similar facial characteristics to the
Spook appeared on the screen, all receiving a quick 'no' from
Scott. Spook's picture as brought up again and again Scott said,
"that's him."

"All right, Mike," Tyrone said to the man running the computer,
"do a retrieve on OBR-III." Mike nodded and stretched over to a
large printer on the side of the console. He pushed a key and in
a few seconds, the printer spewed out page after page of informa-
tion. OBR-III is a super-secret computer system designed to
fight terrorism in the United States. OBR-III and Big Floyd
regularly spoke to similar, but smaller, systems in England,
France and Germany. With only small bits of data it can extrapo-
late potential terrorist targets, and who is the likely person
behind the attacks. OBR-III is an expert system that learns
continuously, as the human mind does. Within seconds it can
provide information on anyone within its memory.

Tyrone pulled the first page from the printer before it was
finished and read to himself. He scanned it quickly until one
item grabbed his attention. His eyes widened. "Boy, when you
pick 'em, you pick 'em." Tyrone whistled.

"What, what?" Scott strained to see the printout, but Tyrone held
it away.

"It's no wonder he calls himself Spook," Tyrone said to no one in
particular. "He's ex-NSA." He ripped off the final page of the
printout and called Scott to follow him, cursorily thanking the
computer operators for their assistance.

Scott followed Tyrone to an elevator and they descended to the
fifth and bottom level, where Tyrone headed straight to his
office with Scott in tow. He shut the door behind him and showed
Scott a chair.

"There's no way I should be telling you this, but I owe you, I
guess, and, anyway, maybe you can help." Tyrone rationalized
showing the information to Scott - both a civilian and a report-
er. He may have questioned the wisdom, but not the intent.
Besides, as had been true for several weeks, everything Scott
learned from Tyrone Duncan was off the record. Way off. For
now.

The Spook's real name was Miles Foster. Scott scanned the file.
A lot of it was government speak and security clearance inter-
views for his job at NSA. An entire life was condensed into a a
few files, covering the time from when he was born to the time he
resigned from the NSA. Scott found much of his life boring and
he really didn't care that Miles' third grade teacher remembered
him as being a "good boy". Or that his high school counselor
though he could go a long way.

"This doesn't sound like the Spook I know," Scott said after
glancing at the clean regimented life and times of Miles Foster.

"Did you expect it to?" asked Ty.

"I guess I never thought about it. I just figured it would be a
regular guy, not a real spook for the government."

"Shit happens."

"So I see. Where do we go from here?" Scott asked in awe of the
technical capabilities of the FBI.

"How 'bout a sanity check?" Tyrone asked. "When were you in
Amsterdam?"

"Last week, why?"

Tyrone sat behind his computer and Scott noticed that his fingers
seemed almost too fat to be of much good. "If I can get this
thing to work, let's see where's the Control Key?" Scott gazed
on as Tyrone talked to himself while working the keyboard and
reading the screen. "Foster, Airline, Foreign, ah, the dates,"
he looked up at a large wall calendar. "All
right . . .shit . . .Delete . . . OK, that's it."

"What are you doing?" asked Scott.

"Just want to see if your boy really was in Europe with you."

"You don't believe me!" shouted Scott.

"No, I believe you. But I need some proof, dig?" Tyrone said.
"If he's up to something we need to find out what, step by step.
You should know that."

"Yeah, I do," Scott resigned. "It's just that I'm not normally
the one being questioned. Know what I mean?"

"Our training is more . . .well, it's a moot point now. Your
Mr. Foster flew to Amsterdam and then back to Washington the next
day. I believe I have some legwork ahead of me. I would like to
learn a little more about Mr. Miles Foster."

Scott talked Tyrone into giving him a copy of one of the images
of Miles aka Spook. He was hoping that Kirk would call him
tonight. In any case, Scott needed to buy an image scanner if
Kirk was going to be of help. When he got home, he made room on
his personal nightmare, his desk, for the flatbed scanner, then
played with it for several hours, learning how to scan an image
at the right sensitivity, the correct brightness and reflectivity
for the proper resolution. He learnd to bring a picture into the
computer and edit or redraw the picture. Scott scanned the
picture of the Spook into the computer and enjoyed adding mous-
taches, subtracting teeth and stretching the ears.

At midnight, on the button, Scott's computer beeped. It was
Kirk.

WTFO

You got my message.

SUBTLETY IS NOT YOUR STRONG POINT

I didn't want to miss.

GOTCHA. YOU RANG.

First of all, I want a better way to contact you, since I assume
you won't tell me who you are.

RIGHT! AND I'VE TAKEN CARE OF THAT. CALL 212-555-3908. WHEN YOU
HEAR THE BEEP, ENTER YOUR NUMBER. I'LL CALL YOU AS SOON AS I
CAN.

So you're in New York?

MAYBE. MAYBE NOT.

Ah, call forwarding. I could get the address of the phone and
trace you down.

I DON'T THINK YOU WOULD DO THAT.

And why not may I ask?

CAUSE WE HAVE A DEAL.

Right. You're absolutely right.

NOW THAT I'M RIGHT, WHAT'S UP?

I met with the Spook.

YOU DID????????

The conference was great, but I need to know more. I've just
been sniffing around the edges and I can't smell what's in the
oven.

WHAT ABOUT THE SPOOK? TELL ME ABOUT IT.

I have picture of him for you. I scanned it.

VERY GOOD, CLAP, CLAP.

I'll send you SPOOK.PIX. Let me know what you think.

OK. SEND AWAY.

Scott chose the file and issued the command to send it to Kirk.
While it was being sent they couldn't speak, and Scott learned
how long it really takes to transmit a digital picture at 2400
baud. He got absorbed in a magazine and almost missed the mes-
sage on the computer.

THAT'S NOT THE SPOOK!!!!

Yes it is. I met him.

NO, IT'S NOT THE REAL SPOOK. I'VE MET HIM. HE'S PARTIALLY BALD
AND HAS A LONG NOSE AND GLASSES. THIS GUY'S A GQ MODEL

C'mon, you've got to be putting me on. I travel 3000 miles for
an impostor?

I GUESS SO. THIS IS NOT THE SPOOK I KNOW.

Then who is it?

HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW?

Just thought I'd ask . . .

WHAT'S GOING ON REPO?

Deep shit, and I need your help.

GOT THE MAN LOOKING OVER YOUR DONKEY?

No, he's not here, honest. I have an idea, and you're gonna
think it's nuts, I know. But I have to ask you for a couple of
favors.

WHAT MAY THEY BE?

The Freedom League. I need to know as much about it as I can,
without anyone knowing that I want the information. Is that
possible?

OF COURSE. THEY'RE BBS'ERS. I CAN GET IN EASY. WHY?

Well that brings up the second favor. dGraph. Do you own it?

SURE, EVERYONE DOES. LEGAL OR NOT.

Can't you guys take apart a program to see what makes it tick?

REVERSE ENGINEERING, YEAH

Then I would like to ask if you would look at the dGraph program
and see if it has a virus in it?

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

Chapter 24

Wednesday, January 13
New York City

No Privacy for Mere Citizens
by Scott Mason.

I learned the other day, that I can find out just about anything
I want to know about you, or her, or him, or anyone, for a few
dollars, a few phone calls and some free time.

Starting with just an automobile license plate number, the De-
partment of Motor Vehicles will be happy to supply me with a name
and address that go with the plate. Or I can start with a name,
or an address or just a phone number and use a backwards phone
book. It's all in the computer.

I can find more about you by getting a copy of the your auto
registration and title from the public records. Marriage
licenses and divorces are public as well. You can find out the
damnedest things about people from their first or second or third
marriage records. Including the financial settlements. Good way
to determine how much money or lack thereof is floating around a
healthy divorce.

Of course I can easily find all traffic offenses, their disposi-
tion, and any follow up litigation or settlements. It's all in
the computer. As there are public records of all arrests, court
cases, sentences and paroles. If you've ever been to trial, the
transcripts are public.

Your finances can be scrupulously determined by looking up the
real estate records for purchase price, terms, cash, notes and
taxes on your properties. Or, if you've ever had a bankruptcy,
the sordid details are clearly spelled out for anyone's inspec-
tion. It's all in the computer.

I can rapidly build an excellent profile of you, or whomever.
And, it's legal. All legal, using the public records available
to anyone who asks and has the $2.

That tells me, loud and clear, that I no longer have any privacy!
None!

Forget the hackers; it's bad enough they can get into our bank
accounts and our IRS records and the Census forms that have our
names tied to the data. What about Dick and Jane Doe, Everyman
USA, who can run from agency to agency and office to office put
together enough information about me or you to be dangerous.

I do not think I like that.

It's bad enough the Government can create us or destroy us as
individuals by altering the contents of our computer files deep
inside the National Data Bases. At least they have a modicum of
accountability. However, their inattentive disregard for the
privacy of the citizens of this country is criminal.

As a reporter I am constantly amazed at how easy it is to find
out just about anything about anybody, and in many ways that
openness has made my job simpler. However, at the same time, I
believe that the Government has an inherent responsibility to
protect us from invasion of privacy, and they are derelict in
fulfilling that promise.

If the DMV needs to know my address, I understand. The IRS needs
to know my income. Each computer unto itself is a necessary
repository to facilitate business transactions. However, when
someone begins to investigate me, crossing the boundaries of
multiple data bases, without question, they are invading my
privacy. Each piece of information found about me may be insig-
nificant in itself, but when combined, it becomes highly danger-
ous in the wrong hands. We all have secrets we want to remain
secrets. Under the present system, we have sacrificed our priva-
cy for the expediency of the machines.

I have a lawyer friend who believes that the fourth amendment is
at stake. Is it, Mr. President?

This is Scott Mason, feeling Peered Upon.

* * * * *

Wednesday, January 13
Atlanta, Georgia

First Federal Bank in Atlanta, Georgia enjoyed a reputation of
treating its customers like royalty. Southern Hospitality was
the bank's middle name and the staff was trained to provide
extraordinary service. This morning though, First Federal's
customers were not happy campers. The calls started coming in
before 8:00 A.M.

"My account is off $10," "It doesn't add up," "My checkbook
won't balance." A few calls of this type are normal on any given
day, but the phones were jammed with customer complaints. Hun-
dreds of calls streamed in constantly and hundreds more never got
through the busy signals. Dozens of customers came into the
local branches to complain about the errors on their statement.

An emergency meeting was held in the Peachtree Street headquar-
ters of First Federal. The president of the bank chaired the
meeting. The basic question was, What Was Going On? It was a
free for all. Any ideas, shoot 'em out.

How many calls? About 4500 and still coming in. What are the
dates of the statements? So far within a couple of days, but who
knows what we'll find. What are you asking people to do? Double
check against their actual checks instead of the register. Do
you really think that 5000 people wake up one morning and all
make the same mistakes? Do you have any other ideas? Then
what? If they don't reconcile, bring 'em in and we'll pull the
fiche.

What do the computer people say? They think there may be an
error. That's bright. If the numbers are adding up wrong, how do
we balance? Have no idea. Do they add up in our favor? Not
always. Maybe 50/50 so far. Can we fix it? Yes. When? I don't
know yet. Get some answers. Fast. Yessir.

The bank's concerns mounted when their larger customers found
discrepancies in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars.
As the number of complaints numbered well over 10,000 by noon,
First Federal was facing a crisis. The bank's figures in no way
jived with their customer's records and the finger pointing
began.

The officers contacted the Federal Reserve Board and notified
them. The Board suggested, strongly, that the bank close for the
remainder of the day and sort it out before it got worse. First
Federal did close, under the guise of installing a new computer
system, a lie that might also cover whatever screwed up the
statements. Keep that option open. They kept answering the
phones, piling up the complaints and discovering that thus far
there was no pattern to the errors.

By mid-afternoon, they at least knew what to look for. On every
statement a few checks were listed with the incorrect amounts and
therefore the balance was wrong. For all intent and purpose, the
bank had absolutely no idea whose money was whose.

Working into the night the bank found that all ledgers balanced,
but still the amounts in the accounts were wrong. What are the
odds of a computer making thousands of errors and having them all
balance out to a net zero difference? Statistically it was
impossible, and that meant someone altered the amounts on pur-
pose. By midnight they found that the source of the error was
probably in the control code of the bank's central computing
center.

First Federal Bank did not open for business Thursday. Or Fri-
day.

First Federal Bank was not the only bank to experience profound
difficulties with it's customers. Similar complaints closed down
Farmer's Bank in Des Moines, Iowa, Lake City Bank in Chicago,
First Trade in New York City, Sopporo Bank in San Francisco,
Pilgrim's Trust in Boston and, as the Federal Reserve Bank would
discover, another hundred or so banks in almost every state.

The Department of the Treasury reacted quickly, spurred into
action by the chairman of Riggs National Bank in Washington, D.C.
Being one of the oldest banks in the country, and the only one
that could claim having a personal relationship with Alexander
Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, it still carried
political weight.

The evening network and local news stations covered the situation
critically. Questions proliferated but answers were hard to come
by. The largest of the banks and the government announced that
a major computer glitch had affected the Electronic Funds Trans-
fers which had inadvertently caused the minor inconsistencies in
some customer records.

The press was extremely hard on the banks and the Fed Reserve and
the Treasury. They smelled a coverup, a lie; that they and the
public were not being told the truth, or at least all of it.
Only Scott Mason and a couple of other reporters speculated that
a computer virus or time bomb was responsible. Without any
evidence though, the government and the banks vigorously denied
any such possibilities. Rather, they developed a convoluted
story of how one money transaction affects another and then
another. The domino theory of banking was explained to the
public in graphs and charts, but an open skepticism prevailed.

Small businesses and individual banking customers were totally
shut off from access to their funds. Tens of thousands of auto-
matic tellers were turned off by their banks in the futile hope
of minimizing the damage. Estimates were that by evening, almost
5 million people had been estranged from their money.