The NSA’s operation at Oak Ridge goes by the less-than-descriptive name of the Multiprogram Research Facility, but everybody there just calls it Building 5300. The team at Building 5300 works primarily on code-breaking. In today’s world, that means throwing maximum computing power at encrypted data until it whines like a puppy and gives up its secrets.
My specialty is different: I try to analyze computer software of unknown origin and either eradicate or neutralize it. The Oak Ridge boys (and girls) specialize in decryption, so I hadn’t had much to do with them in the past. But once they began showing me their toys, ideas began to flow.
In a nutshell, Building 5300 houses what may well be the world’s largest and fastest computer. It’s so massive that it fills an area the size of a warehouse and requires a tremendous cooling capacity to keep it from frying itself. And did I mention fast? The current iteration of their baby is an exascale computer, which means it can perform ten-to-the-18th power calculations per second. Even 128-bit encryption can’t stand up to that.
What intrigued me was the idea of turning that kind of power loose on viruses, worms and Trojan horses. The hackers who write this stuff have their own style, their own way of solving problems. It occurred to me that it might be possible to identify who wrote a piece of malware by the way they wrote the code. “I get it: kind of like a linguist can tell where a text comes from and when it was written by the choice of words, spellings and phrases,” the head techie said excitedly. “All we’d need would be enough samples so we could identify patterns and tendencies.”
I was pretty pleased with myself at that idea and vowed to present it to my boss as soon as I got back to Fort Meade. Businesses and governments were coming under increasing numbers of cyber-attacks. This might be a way to identify who had launched the attack and where it had come from.
About that time I heard a grunt from behind me and I turned around to see Henry looking at his watch. He’d been patiently and silently following me all day, and now he was not-so-subtly letting me know that it was quitting time. I checked my phone and was surprised to realize just how late it had gotten.
That evening Henry drove me into the city of Oak Ridge and took me to Dean’s Restaurant for dinner. The place wasn’t much to look at – a converted pharmacy – but the fried catfish Henry ordered was delicious. “I might turn into a Southerner if everything is this good,” I told him. He just snorted.
When I got back to my room at the motel, I turned on my cellphone and discovered that I had a voicemail from Ginny. My sudden “business trip” was unusual, and she was both surprised and annoyed, especially since I hadn’t told her when I’d be back. “I guess I’m making it hard for her to arrange her next liaison with Ameer,” I thought bitterly, and started to erase her message. Instead I replayed it so I could listen to her voice more closely. It was strange: her voice sounded like it always did, but I couldn’t stop hearing the lascivious tone she’d used with her lover. How could she be so recognizable and so unfamiliar at the same time? Finally I shut off the phone and flopped back on the bed.
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