Terminal Compromise, Winn Schwartau [sight word books txt] 📗

These names were a bit much, thought Scott, but might add a

sense of levity to his columns. “Captain Crunch?” Scott asked

with skepticism.

“Ya, Captain Crunch. He blew the plastic whistle from a Captain

Crunch cereal box into the phone,” the Flying Dutchman held an

invisible whistle to his lips. “And it opened up an inside line

to make long distance calls. Then he built and sold Blue Boxes

which recreated the tones to make free calls.”

“Phreaking and computer hacking, they’re the same?”

“Ya, ya, especially for the older hackers.” The Flying Dutchman

patted himself on the stomach. “You see hacking, some call it

cracking, is taking a system to its limit. Exploring it, master-

ing the machine. The phones, computers, viruses, it’s all hack-

ing. You understand?”

“Spook called hacking a technique for investigating new spontane-

ously generated lifeforms. He said a network was a living being.

We got into quite an argument about it.” Scott sounded mildly

derisive of the theory.

The Dutchman crossed his arms, grinned wide and rocked back and

forth on his heels. “Ya, ya. That sounds like the Spook.

Cutting to the heart of the issue. Ya, you see, we all have our

reasons why we hack, but ya, Spook is right. We forget sometimes

that the world is one giant computer, with thousands and millions

of arms, just like the brain. The neurons,” he pointed at his

head, “are connected to each other with synapses. Just like a

computer network.”

The Flying Dutchman’s explanation was a little less ethereal than

the Spook’s and Scott found himself anticipating further enlight-

enment.

“The neuron is a computer. It can function independently, but

because it’s capacity is tiny, a neuron is really quite limited

in what it can achieve alone. The synapse is like the network

wire, or phone company wiring. It connects the neurons or com-

puters together.” The Dutchman spoke almost religiously as he

animatedly drew wires and computers in the air to reinforce the

concept. “Have you heard of neural networks?”

“Absolutely,” Scott said. “The smart chips that can learn.”

“Ya, exactly. A neural network is modeled after the brain, too.

It is a very large number of cells, just like the brain’s cells,

that are only connected to each other in the most rudimentary

way.”

“Like a baby’s brain?” Scott offered.

“Ya, ya, just like a baby. Very good. So like the baby, the

neural net grows connections as it learns. The more connections

it makes, the smarter it gets.”

“Both the baby and the network?”

“Ya,” Dutchman laughed. “So as the millions of neural connec-

tions are made, some people learn skills that others don’t and

some computers are better suited to certain tasks than others.

And now there’s a global neural network growing. Millions more

computers are added and we connect them together, until any

computer can talk to any other computer. Ya, the Spook is very

much right. The Network is alive, and it is still learning.”

Scott was entering a world where the machines, the computers,

were personified, indeed imbued with a life of their own by their

creators and their programmers. A highly complex world where

inter-relatedness is infinitely more important than the specific

function. Connections are issue. Didn’t Spook remind him that

the medium is the message?

But where, questioned Scott, is the line between man and machine?

If computers are stupid, and man must program them to give them

the appearance of intelligence, then the same must be true of the

Network, the global information network. Therefore, when a piece

of the Network is programmed to learn how to plan for future

Network expansion and that piece of the Network calls another

computer on the Network to inquire as to how it is answering the

same problem for different conditions, don’t man and machine

merge? Isn’t the Network acting as an extension of man? But

then, a hammer is a tool as well, and no one calls a hammer a

living being.

Unto itself it is not alive, Scott reasoned. The Network merely

emulates the growth patterns and behavior of the cranial highway

system. He was ready to concede that a network was more alive

than a hammer, but he could not bring himself to carry the analo-

gy any further yet.

“That gives me a lot to think about,” Scott assured the Dutchman.

“Ya, ya, it does. Do you understand quantum physics?”

What the hell would make him ask that question, thought Scott.

“I barely passed Quantum 101, the math was too far out for me,

but, yes,” he laughed kindly, “I do remember the basics. Very

basic.”

“Goot. In the global Network there is no way to predict where

the next information packet will be sent. Will it start here,”

the Dutchman motioned to his far left, “or here? There’s no way

to know. All we can say, just as in physics, is that there is a

probability of data being transferred between any two points.

Chance. And we can also view the Network in operation as both a

wave and a particle.”

“Wait,” stopped Scott. “You’ve just gone over my head, but I get

the point, I think. You and your associates really believe that

this global Network is an entity unto itself and that it is

growing and evolving on its own as we speak?”

“Ya, exactly. You see, no one person is responsible for the

Network, its growth or its care. Like the brain, many different

regions control their own piece of the Network. And, the Network

can still function normally even if pieces of it are disconnect-

ed. The split brain studies.”

“And you’re the caretakers for the Network?” doubted Scott.

“No. As I said we all have our reasons. The common denominator

is that we treat the Network as an incredibly powerful organism

about which we know very, very little. That is our function – to

learn.”

“What is it that you do? For a living?”

“Ah, ya. I am Professor of Technological Sociology at the Uni-

versity of Amsterdam. The original proposal for my research came

from personal beliefs and concerns; about the way the human race

has to learn to cope in the face of great technology leaps. NATO

is funding the research.”

“NATO,” exclaimed Scott. “They fund hacking?”

“No,” laughed the Dutchman. “They know that hacking is necessary

to gather the raw data my research requires, so they pretend not

to notice or care. What we are trying to do is predict what the

Baby, the global Network will look and act like when it grows

up.”

“Isn’t crystal ball gazing easier?”

“Ya, it may be,” the Dutchman agreed. “But now, why don’t you

look around? I am sure you will find it most educational.”

The Dutchman asked again about the Spook. “Is he really here in

Amsterdam?” Yup! “And he said he’d be here today?” Yup! “The

Spook, at the conference? He hasn’t made an appearance in years.”

Well, that’s what he told me, he’d be here.

Scott profusely thanked his host and assured him that yes, he

would ask for anything he needed. Thank you. Kirk had been

vindicated, thought Scott who had expected a group of pimply

faced adolescents with nerd shirts to be bouncing around like

Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale.

Scott slowly explored the tables loaded with various types of

computer gear. IBM clones were the most common, but an assort-

ment of older machines, a CP/M or two, even a Commodore PET

proved that expensive new equipment was not needed to become a

respected hacker. Scott reminded himself that this group was the

elite of hackerdom. These were the Hacker’s Hackers.

In his discussions with Kirk, Scott figured he would see some of

the tools of the trade. But he had no idea of the level of

sophistication that was openly, and perhaps, illegally, being

demonstrated. Then again, maybe that’s why they hold their

Hacker Ho Downs in Amsterdam.

Scott learned something very critical early on.

“Once you let one of us inside your computer, it’s all over. The

system is ours.” The universal claim by hackers.

Scott no longer had any trouble accepting that. “So the securi-

ty guy’s job,” one short balding middle aged American hacker

said, “is to keep us out. I’m a cracker.” What’s that? “The

cracker is kind of like a safecracker, or lock picker. It’s my

job to figure out how to get into the computers.” Scott had to

stifle a giggle when he found out that this slight man’s handle

was appropriately Waldo.

Waldo went on to explain that he was a henpecked CPA who needed a

hobby that would bore his wife to tears. So he locked himself in

the basement, far away from her, and got hooked on computers. He

found that rummaging through other computers was an amusing

alternative to watching Honeymooner reruns while his wife

kvetched. After a while, he said he discovered that he had a

talent for cracking through the front doors of computers. On