Digital Fortress Chapter 10

Ensei Tankado is dead? Susan felt up a wave of naexercisinga. You killed him? I survey you said-We didnt touch him, Strathmore assured her. He died of a affectionateness attack. communications intelligence phoned too soon this morning. Their com layer flagged Tankados name in a Seville police log with Interpol.Heart attack? Susan looked doubtful. He was thirty years old.Thirty-two, Strathmore corrected. He had a congenital boldness defect.Id neer heard that.Turned up in his NSA physical. not something he bragged ab step up.Susan was having trouble accepting the serendipity of the timing. A defective heart could kill him-just like that? It seemed too convenient.Strathmore shrugged. Weak heart combine it with the lovingness of Spain. Throw in the stress of blackmailing the NSA.Susan was silent a moment. Even considering the conditions, she felt a pang of loss at the passing of such a brilliant fellow cryptographer. Strathmores gravelly voice interrupted her melodic themes.The only smooth-spoken lining on this whole fiasco is that Tankado was traveling alone. Chances are proper his partner doesnt know yet hes dead. The Spanish authorities said theyd analyze away the information for as long as viable. We only got the c completely because COMINT was on the ball. Strathmore eyed Susan closely. Ive got to rally the partner before he recoups out Tankados dead. Thats why I called you in. I need your help.Susan was confused. It seemed to her that Ensei Tankados timely demise had solved their entire problem. Commander, she argued, if the authorities are saying he died of a heart attack, were off the hook his partner will know the NSA is not responsible.Not responsible? Strathmores eyes widened in disbelief. Somebody blackmails the NSA and turns up dead a fewer days later-and were not responsible? Id bet big money Tankados mystery friend wont see it that way. Whatever happened, we look guilty as hell. It could easily stomach been poison, a rigged autopsy , any number of things. Strathmore paused. What was your commencement reaction when I told you Tankado was dead?She frowned. I thought the NSA had killed him.Exactly. If the NSA can put five Rhyolite satellites in geosynchronous orbit over the Mideast, I conceptualize its safe to assume we nourish the resources to pay off a few Spanish policemen. The commander had made his point.Susan exhaled. Ensei Tankado is dead. The NSA will be blamed. Can we find his partner in time?I value so. Weve got a honourable lead. Tankado made numerous public announcements that he was working with a partner. I think he hoped it would discourage software firms from doing him any harm or trying to steal his key. He threatened that if on that point was any unhealthful play, his partner would publish the key, and all firms would on the spur of the moment find themselves in disputation with free software.Clever. Susan nodded.Strathmore went on. A few times, in public, Tankado referred to his partner by name. He called him matrimony Dakota. north-central Dakota? Obviously an alias of some sort.Yes, besides as a precaution I ran an profits inquiry using North Dakota as a search string. I didnt think Id find anything, simply I turned up an email sexual conquesting. Strathmore paused. Of course I fictitious it wasnt the North Dakota we were looking for, but I searched the account just to be sure. Imagine my shock when I found the account was unspoilt of E-mail from Ensei Tankado. Strathmore raised his eyebrows. And the messages were full of references to Digital Fortress and Tankados plans to blackmail the NSA.Susan gave Strathmore a wondering(a) look. She was amazed the commander was letting himself be played with so easily. Commander, she argued, Tankado knows full well the NSA can snoop E-mail from the Internet he would neer use E-mail to conduct secret information. Its a trap. Ensei Tankado gave you North Dakota. He knew youd run a search. Whatever information hes s ending, he wanted you to find-its a false trail.Good instinct, Strathmore fired back, except for a couple of things. I couldnt find anything under North Dakota, so I tweaked the search string. The account I found was under a variation-NDAKOTA.Susan shook her head. Running permutations is measuring rod procedure. Tankado knew youd try variations until you hit something. NDAKOTAs far too easy an alteration.Perhaps, Strathmore said, scribbling words on apiece of paper and handing it to Susan. But look at this.Susan read the paper. She suddenly understood the Commanders thinking. On the paper was North Dakotas E-mail address.email protected It was the letters genus Ara in the address that had caught Susans eye. genus Ara stood for American Remailers Anonymous, a well-known nameless server.Anonymous servers were popular among Internet users who wanted to aliment their identities secret. For a fee, these companies protected an E-mailers privacy by acting as a middleman for electronic mail. It was like having a numbered post office box-a user could send and suck mail without ever revealing his true address or name. The bon ton received E-mail addressed to aliases and then forwarded it to the clients real account. The remailing company was rally by contract never to reveal the identity or post of its real users.Its not proof, Strathmore said. But its pretty suspicious.Susan nodded, suddenly more confident(p). So youre saying Tankado didnt care if anybody searched for North Dakota because his identity and location are protected by ARA.Exactly.Susan schemed for a moment. ARA services mainly U.S. accounts. You think North Dakota might be over here somewhere?Strathmore shrugged. Could be. With an American partner, Tankado could keep the two pass-keys separated geographically. Might be a smart move.Susan considered it. She doubted Tankado would have shared his pass-key with anyone except a very close friend, and as she recalled, Ensei Tankado didnt have many frien ds in the States.North Dakota, she mused, her cryptological mind mulling over the possible meanings of the alias. What does his E-mail to Tankado sound like?No idea. COMINT only caught Tankados outbound. At this point all we have on North Dakota is an anonymous address.Susan thought a minute. Any chance its a decoy?Strathmore raised an eyebrow. How so?Tankado could be sending bogus E-mail to a dead account in hopes wed snoop it. Wed think hes protected, and hed never have to risk communion his pass-key. He could be working alone.Strathmore chuckled, impressed. Tricky idea, except for one thing. Hes not using any of his usual home or business Internet accounts. Hes been dropping by Doshisha University and logging on to their mainframe. Apparently hes got an account there that hes managed to keep secret. Its a very well-hidden account, and I found it only by chance. Strathmore paused. So if Tankado wanted us to snoop his mail, why would he use a secret account?Susan contemplated the question. perchance he used a secret account so you wouldnt suspect a ploy? Maybe Tankado hid the account just deep enough that youd stumble on to it and think you got lucky. It gives his E-mail credibility.Strathmore chuckled. You should have been a field agent. The ideas a good one. Unfortunately, any letter Tankado sends gets a response. Tankado writes, his partner responds.Susan frowned. Fair enough. So, youre saying North Dakotas for real. aghast(predicate) so. And weve got to find him. And quietly. If he catches wind that were onto him, its all over.Susan now knew exactly why Strathmore had called her in. Let me guess, she said. You want me to snoop ARAs secure database and find North Dakotas real identity?Strathmore gave her a tight smile. Ms. Fletcher, you read my mind.When it came to discreet Internet searches, Susan Fletcher was the woman for the job. A year ago, a senior White House ex officio had been receiving E-mail threats from someone with an anonymous E-mail add ress. The NSA had been asked to locate the individual. Although the NSA had the clout to petition the remailing company reveal the users identity, it opted for a more subtle method-a tracer.Susan had created, in effect, a directional beacon disguised as a piece of E-mail. She could send it to the users phony address, and the remailing company, performing the duty for which it had been contracted, would forward it to the users real address. Once there, the computer program would record its Internet location and send word back to the NSA. thence the program would disintegrate without a trace. From that day on, as far as the NSA was concerned, anonymous remailers were nothing more than a minor annoyance.Can you find him? Strathmore asked.Sure. Why did you wait so long to call me?Actually-he frowned-I hadnt planned on calling you at all. I didnt want anyone else in the loop. I tried to send a copy of your tracer myself, but you wrote the damn thing in one of those new hybrid languages I couldnt get it to work. It kept returning nonsensical data. I finally had to second the bullet and bring you in.Susan chuckled. Strathmore was a brilliant cryptographic programmer, but his repertory was limited primarily to algorithmic ruleic work the nuts and bolts of less terrific secular programming often escaped him. What was more, Susan had written her tracer in a new, crossbreed programming language called LIMBO it was understandable that Strathmore had encountered problems. Ill take care of it. She smiled, turning to leave. Ill be at my terminal.Any idea on a time frame?Susan paused. Well it depends on how efficiently ARA forwards their mail. If hes here in the States and uses something like AOL or CompuServe, Ill snoop his ascribe card and get a billing address within the hour. If hes with a university or corporation, itll take a little longer. She smiled uneasily. After that, the rest is up to you.Susan knew that the rest would be an NSA strike aggroup, cutting powe r to the guys house and crashing through his windows with stun guns. The team would probably think it was on a medicine bust. Strathmore would undoubtedly stride through the rubble himself and locate the sixty-four-character pass-key. Then he would destroy it. Digital Fortress would languish forever on the Internet, locked for all eternity.Send the tracer carefully, Strathmore urged. If North Dakota sees were onto him, hell panic, and Ill never get a team there before he disappears with the key.Hit and run, she assured. The moment this thing finds his account, itll dissolve. Hell never know we were there.The commander nodded tiredly. Thanks.Susan gave him a soft smile. She was always amazed how correct in the face of disaster Strathmore could muster a quiet calm. She was convinced it was this ability that had defined his career and lifted him to the upper echelons of power.As Susan headed for the door, she took a long look down at TRANSLTR. The existence of an unbreakable algorith m was a concept she was still struggling to grasp. She prayed theyd find North Dakota in time.Make it quick, Strathmore called, and youll be in the Smoky Mountains by nightfall.Susan froze in her tracks. She knew she had never mentioned her trip to Strathmore. She wheeled. Is the NSA tapping my phone?Strathmore smiled guiltily. David told me about your trip this morning. He said youd be pretty ticked about postponing it.Susan was lost. You talked to David this morning?Of course. Strathmore seemed puzzled by Susans reaction. I had to truncated him.Brief him? she demanded. For what?For his trip. I sent David to Spain.