bore his name. He looked remarkably sharp and unperturbed following a day of briefings and testimony on Capitol Hill.Today’s session had, no doubt, added a few more gray hairs to his otherwise blue-black mane.
Kirsch placed several pink message slips on Barnett’s desk and collected a small stack of classified files from his out-basket for a return trip to the file room.
Barnett rose to greet his guest. Both men, who had started from humble beginnings,were in their early fifties and nearing the pinnacle of their careers.
‘Can I get you a drink, Phillip?’ Barnett asked as he poured himself a scotch and soda.
‘Sure, just splash a little scotch over some ice. Keep the water.’
Barnett brought the drinks over and sat in a brown leather chair opposite Moy. He sipped on his drink, then loosened his tie, signaling an end to any formality for this meeting. ‘How are things going with the Gatekeeper Project?’
‘We’re still on schedule, so far. Our initial tests show the device is capable of monitoring all the signal traffic moving over a major computer network without degrading that network’s performance. The defensive aspects of the Gatekeeper appear to be equally impressive.’
‘I’m glad to hear that. Lord knows that we need to get those units in place ASAP. Just last week, some kid broke through an Internet server into one of the Pentagon’s low-level computers.’ Barnett took a hard swallow of scotch and smacked his lips, sighing.
‘She spoofed the router, a real nice hack. It was dumb luck she got caught.’Moy noticed Barnett’s eyebrow arch slightly. ‘Professional admiration, Jackson—the young lady has talent.’
‘Maybe you should hire her.’
‘She’d fit right in. Some of my best and brightest programmers have a similar wild, inventive streak. I just give them a constructive way to express their creativity. It’s a good thing she wasn’t working for someone else, like Ames.’
Barnett nodded in agreement, recalling as if it were yesterday the arrest of the CIA counterintelligence officer on charges of spying for the Soviets. By exploiting the weak internal security on Langley’s computer network, Ames used his office PC to steal dozens of files classified beyond his clearance. It was in the aftermath of the Aldrich Ames affair that Moy’s security projects with the government began.
‘We’ve come a long way since the early nineties, but the memory of Ames won’t soon be forgotten.’
‘I understand and share your concerns, Jackson. The Gatekeepers will provide our government’s computers with the security they need.’
Moy was a firm believer in the Gatekeeper vision, a strategy for protecting the government’s vast computer networks by providing those machines with the tools necessary to thwart a computer-based attack and pursue the attacker.The Gatekeeper vision was born from a fortunate accident in the Moy Electronics research labs. Almost a year earlier, a group of engineers working on a method to increase the flow of information inside a new type of parallel-processing computer hit an impasse. Unlike traditional computer designs, which relied upon a single chip to perform each instruction one after another, the new design linked hundreds of individual chips together like the oarsmen of a Roman galley. Each chip in the new design would tackle just a piece of a larger problem, allowing the team of small processors to outperform the massive single processor of a supercomputer.
The problem the engineers encountered was a simple matter of communication. The faster they tried to run the team of parallel processors, the more tangled the flow of information among individual chips became. They were ready to start over, when the project leader of the parallel-processing team had a discussion about their problems with the young woman who led Moy Electronics’ most esoteric group of researchers—the neural and cognitive sciences team.
Over a two-hour lunch, the two project leaders brainstormed an idea that later evolved into the Gatekeeper, an artificially intelligent device capable of learning and adapting itself to its host computer’s environment.
It was a giant step in programming, giving the Gatekeeper the ability to determine from where a user was calling and if the user was legitimate. In its current form, the device could discover a hacker trying to break into its host computer and trace the connection back to its source. Like taking a picture of a burglar in your house, Moy’s Gatekeeper could follow the electronic trail to the hacker’s computer and even strip evidence from the intruder’s machine. The hacker wouldn’t know he had been traced until the police showed up at the front door.
‘Phillip, I’ve been thinking about something since you first explained these neural-network systems to me. Given that a Gatekeeper is capable of learning everything about the computer environment that it’s attached to—and I believe you said that includes every machine that it comes into contact with—can it be taught to look for other things while it’s out there?’
Moy arched an eyebrow at his friend as he thought about the question. ‘You want to turn my Gatekeeper into a hacker?’
Barnett nodded and took another sip of his drink as Moy settled back a little farther into the soft leather chair to consider the idea. He didn’t disturb his colleague, knowing that Moy’s outward calm belied the furious pace of thought within. True geniuses, he mused, seemed to possess a remarkable ability to block out distractions and focus their minds completely. While different thoughts floated in and out of his consciousness, Barnett knew that Moy’s mind was racing through the possibilities posed by his question. After a few quiet moments, Moy looked up from his swirling glass with a mischievous smile.
Barnett broke the silence. ‘Judging from that look on your face, I assume you’ve found an answer. Can you program your Gatekeeper to break into another computer?’
‘Of course, the tools are already there.’ To Moy, the technical issues seemed trivial. ‘The Gatekeeper is driven to learn about its computer environment in order to protect that environment. This includes the host computer and every system within its network. Each time another computer comes into contact with the Gatekeeper, it becomes a learned part of the Gatekeeper’s experience. This mutant Gatekeeper would share a similar thirst to learn, but the intentions behind its actions would be markedly different.’
‘Give me an example, Phillip.’
‘Okay,’ Moy replied, relishing his role as computer villain. ‘Say I wanted to break into the network here at Langley.Your high-security computers aren’t on the Net, so I can’t hack my way in.And breaking into this building is obviously a little more difficult than getting into the English Department at Podunk State University.’
‘Obviously,’ Barnett agreed, playing along.
‘If I wanted to get into your information, and I had one of these devices, I would find out where the CIA buys their personal computers and laptops. Then I would get a job at that company, say testing the computers before they get delivered. As soon as an order for the CIA came through, I’d plant my device in one of your computers and ship it. With any luck, that computer would be connected to the information that I’m interested in. The odds are also very high that the CIA’s well-protected intranet has at least one dedicated phone line to the outside world. My device would find that line and stealthily contact me for further instructions.’
Barnett was intrigued by the hacker-Gatekeeper scenario Moy proposed. ‘Could such a device be easily detected?’
Moy shook his head. ‘I envision
