GRANT'S PET SHOP
by
Ron S. Nolan, Ph.D.
© 2008
Chapter 7
The file that Eiger handed the General carried a "Top
Secret,
Eyes Only" classification in bright red ink. The title stated
"An Improved Version of the SDI Early Warning System Nimbus IV
CC454."
Eiger said, "I think it can be done, General. This is
an
outline of how I plan to proceed and what I need to get started."
Of course as seriously hawkish as the report title
promised, that was
not at all what the file contained. The contents were much more
dangerous—exactly what the General wanted: a plan to build the
ultimate weapon of threat and destruction code named "ANX."
Smiling, the General slipped the file into the rear
compartment of
his leather briefcase, confident that even though the case would be
searched by security upon his departure, the inspectors would be
unable to distinguish the design of a modified Nimbus IV super bomb
from the design of his ANX—nor would they dare even open a file
carrying such a high level classification.
The General boomed, "I am happy to hear that. Coming
along, eh? Tell me
about it. How long, Professor?"
In a low halting voice Eiger replied, "Six
months...maybe
more...maybe a little less. It is a very difficult process. The
first step is make even more improvements in the CM—juice it up
further with still another generation of processors. But now I am
sure that ANX can succeed. I'll need more support though. The risk
is so great...and the cost...the cost will be high."
"I figured that already Professor. Let me worry about
the
money. Let's get going, we don't wanna keep the boys next door
waiting do we? And do I have a surprise for those pompous assholes,
Ha! Ha!"
ANX would consist of an Eiger/CM designed computer
program of nearly
infinite complexity—only Eiger's CM was capable of such a task. ANX
would possess an awesome potential to create havoc in any
computer-based defense system. Although it was merely a program, ANX
was more involved and complex than any computer science had ever
witnessed to date. ANX was analogous to a living virus., and like a
virus; it was capable of replicating itself and destroying its host
in the process. But in this case the host was RAM, random access
memory—the mind of a computer— and, like human viruses,
ANX was extremely dangerous and difficult to detect. There would be
no remedy or cure for a computer infected with ANX.
When first injected into a defenseless program, and
there would be no
defense possible, ANX would remain totally innocuous. Doing nothing
but waiting, the virus would be silent and undetectable. But at a
precisely timed sixty seconds after infection, ANX's internal clock
would initiate a propagation sequence causing the original code to
explode into hundreds of billions of identical segments—each a
gene containing a program with which to build more propagules. ANX
would being replacing the entire memory of an infected computer with
its own RAM-hungry offspring within only minutes of its activation
sequence. Neither computer nor operator would be able to halt the
process. All data and eventually even the operating software would
simply cease to exist. The computer would die.
If the infected computer was hooked to another
computer, which was
the case for every computer in the Government Defense Network, ANX
would spread quickly and effortlessly throughout the entire chain.
Since the computers in the GDN were dependent upon continuous
interactions with one another to perform their assigned duties,
disconnecting or shutting down the system was a physical
impossibility. Over 50,000 different GDN computers housed in the
offices of government officials and civilian contractors routinely
accessed one another in an intricate electronic web The same kind of
network was in place in the Soviet Union.
All of this was of course nothing new. In November
1988 a computer
virus absorbed memory space in a minor epidemic that nearly blazed
out of control. Many government agencies, Eiger recalled with
amusement that Livermore was among them, had been infected by the
viral program. The virus had been developed by a Harvard graduate
student, who according to his later testimony in court, was
conducting an experiment that had exceeded the control systems he had
relied upon to shut down its dispersal. Luckily this particular
strain of virus only haphazardly occupied a few vacant RAM sites—it
was sort of a milk toast sort of nuisance. If circumstances had been
different, the Harvard virus could have consumed years of important
and irreplaceable data and possibly might have jeopardized national
security.
But the threat had been real. Defense Department
computer engineers
and programmers became aware for the first time of just how
vulnerable their computers were to sabotage. The potential
consequences of a terrorist viral act had finally struck home. After
the “Big Scare,”as it became known by experts in the
electronic security business, Eiger had led an LLL team to develop
safeguards to protect the GDN from viral infection. The major
obstacle that Eiger and his team faced in the development of
preventive measures against computer saboteurs was that the viral
threat was continually changing. A smart hacker could quickly change
the characteristics of his virus, especially the ones that detection
software was designed to detect. If a preventative vaccine was on
the lookout for a virus with a specific configuration, a slightly
modified virus might easily be overlooked.
Eiger turned to medical science for the solution. In
living systems
antibodies generated by "T" cells in the immune system
constantly survey their surroundings in search of alien particles
known as antigens. Antibodies determine the "alienness" of
a particle by chemically checking key locations called "identifier
loci." If identifier loci are present, the antigen will be
destroyed. As antigens change through natural selection, so do the
antibodies. There are also antibodies that function as generalists.
Their antigen recognition pattern is less precise than those or more
specialized antibodies. The immune system always lags behind the
offensive system because the antigens get there first. Then the
antibodies are produced in number to handle the invasion. Therefore,
a healthy immune system is one that can adapt to an ever-changing
melange of intruders.
An adaptable vaccine program was exactly the kind of
computer immune
system that Eiger developed. The strategy was to flood the zone of
immune defense, the RAM itself, with hundreds of millions of
independently mutating sentries that would continuously search and
destroy any alien virus within nanoseconds of contamination. Eiger
was astonished to later discover that the pharmaceutical industry had
committed millions of dollars on a similar approach to provide
immunization against the common cold. After the Eiger Vaccine was
introduced into the Government Defense Network, it spread plague-like
to every computer in the system. Within the short span of six weeks,
the new vaccine had become irreversibly entrenched into each and
every software program in the ever-increasingly-connected digital
world. A new fact of life for programmers was that each new piece of
software which they painstakingly crafted was immediately
contaminated by the very computer used to conceive the program. There
was no way to eradicate the Eiger Vaccine, but it did its job. The
threat of viral attack had been eliminated.
Naturally there was a cost for such protection. The
Eiger Vaccine
occupied twenty percent of the RAM of the vaccinated computer. As a
consequence, the planet suffered a cumulative loss of twenty percent
of its global computing power. In time international outrage
subsided and the loss of RAM eventually became regarded as merely
part of the cost of doing business in a highly unethical and
distrustful world. Eiger received considerable acclaim for
viral-proofing the computers of the world. At General Houston's
insistence, he had even appeared on several of the most popular
network newscasts and had become somewhat of a celebrity in computer
circles.
However the "Big Scare" had left an indelible crack in
the
confidence of the CIA and FBI. In order to make certain that no
radical, newly developed virus was ever developed that could somehow
defeat the Eiger Vaccine, LLL was commissioned to establish a host
computer to serve as bait. Amateur hackers and seasoned programmers
were challenged to defeat the Eiger Vaccine. As an incentive to
crack the system, a standing reward of $250,000 was offered. The
host computer was even accessible by toll free number and, since its
inception five years ago, had received tens of thousands of attempts.
With all of this traffic and the inherent risk of transmittal if a
new virus was successful, the host computer was heavily
quarantined—after all it was an electronic guinea pig
compliantly receptive to any and all kind of coded malignancies. Any
virus that broke through the Eiger barrier was to be greatly feared. If
there was a winner, alarms would immediately notify LLL, trace the
successful invader and shut down all pertinent lines of
communication. The "pig" was secretly located in a natural
haven far removed from civilization. It lived on its own little
island called Runit on an atoll known as Eniwetok.
ANX was to be Eiger's greatest achievement—the defeat
of his
own heralded and impenetrable vaccine. With ANX in his arsenal, the
General would undoubtedly seize a position of world power, but that
was of no concern to the Professor. The huge challenge looming ahead
and Eiger's ever-present consuming fear of the general were all that
mattered to him any longer.
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