Expecting The Unexpected

I had asked Rachel Levi, my I.T. specialist, to encrypt and send off some notes Sir Harry had requested on the Norwegian tragedy. The response team taking 90 minutes to arrive an arrest the perpetrator was ludicrous, and Norway is going to have to invest in creating mobile tactical squads that are armed, along with one or two helicopters that can actually get off the ground. Surely NATO could part with a couple of Black Hawks? At least get on the phone to Hillary. I mean, this was a lone psychopath, and should have been stopped in his tracks much sooner than he was. The attack, however, was unexpected, and there is the rub of the question.

[An aside: The incident in Norway was horrible, but the man was, finally, stopped. Other countries which didn't stop such psychopaths paid a terrible price -- Hitler in Germany, Pol Pot in Cambodia, and anyone with the surname Kim in North Korea.]

Once the material was sent to Sir Harry, I began a heated discussion with Rachel. We were in what used to be a cozy basement den, but,given the variety of computer equipment it now housed, the place now resembled the tracking room at NORAD.

The root of our discussion concerned the WRAITH software, developed by Rachel, and smuggled out of Israel because Rachel had doubts about the use of the software by the Likud Party presently in power. The situation had been smoothed over, helped by Sir Harry of MI6, but Rachel was still very much a persona non grata as far as Likud was concerned.

What the software did was very simple; how it did it was complexity itself. In short, Rachel could take over another computer system without the users of that system being aware that anything was amiss. An example. Before we began our conversation, Rachel had been happily transferring amounts of money ($100.000 a pop) from certain accounts and sending them to a number of NGO's concerned with the ghastly famine now present in the Horn of Africa.

"I just thought," said Rachel, "that countries such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, and businesses such as Exxon and Goldman Sachs, should be doing more to help. And to them, $100.000 is more of a rounding figure than anything else. Surely you would agree?"

I admitted I could not find fault with her approach. "But Rachel, I continued, "it really has to stop. At least for a time."

"Why?' she countered. "The system's foolproof --"

"No system is ever foolproof. And your efforts are attracting attention, and, worse, these efforts are beginning to focus on this location. Or so I am informed."

"By whom?" asked Rachel, a note of petulance in her voice.

"Not germane to the discussion," I replied. (Actually, it was Matilda Hatt of the CIA who had given me the heads up.) "And you, Rachel, of all people, should know that there are some very capable techies out there, and sooner or later you would be traced, hacked, and your software protocol fall into some very dubious hands. If you will, it is in line with the analysis I asked you to send to Sir Harry."

"The 'Expect The Unexpected' thingy?"

"Right. That's the point. Just because you expect your software to be safe, doesn't mean that it is. The unexpected can and does occur."

"As you wrote in the Norway stuff."

"As I wrote in the Norway stuff."

Rachel sighed. "Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted. But I would ask for one more favour. I can create a phantom --"

"What?"

"A phantom server. This will attract, at least temporarily, any hacker trying to locate WRAITH. Thought of the perfect place, too."

"Where?"

"Beijing. The Chinese are already under suspicion in the I.T. area, so this would make sense. Gets you off the hook too."

"Always nice to avoid hooks. Something I share with Peter Pan."

"Who?"

I just stared at her. That's the trouble with specialists. They specialize.

Discuss among yourselves.