Digital Fortress
by Dan Brown
Digital Fortress is another of Dan Brown’s classic works. The Writer, known mostly for his controversial book’The Da Vinci Code’, has also written novels like’Angels and Demons’ and’Deception Point’.
In Digital Fortress, Dan Brown reveals one of the, probably the most secretive organization in the world, the NSA(National Security Agency). An organization so secret that only 3% of Americans are aware of it’s existence. The NSA is a computer based agency, and the world’s best cryptographers work there.
NSA is considered one of the most influential government agencies in the world. It had been gathering global electronic intelligence data and protecting U.S. classified information for over half a century. It’s headquarters are at Fort Meade, Maryland, covering an area of 86 acres. The NSA has master code breakers up their sleeve, when they see a potential asset; they get it, by hook or by crook. The NSA is the King of combating cyber crime, something which has helped them stop numerous terrorist attempts throughout the world. And how they do it, is a real stunner. But to know that one needs to know about ciphers and encryption, so I’ll give you a rough idea.
(I’m so generous)
Suppose you are sending an e mail to someone, naturally you don’t want anyone to see it, right?
Well, the e mail service providers, (e.g. Yahoo, MSN, Google etc), have a neat way of protecting the data.
The method that was created is known as Public Key Encryption.
All one had to do was send the e mail through an encrypting software and it would come out totally illegible. The only way to unscramble the message was to enter the sender’s "pass-key"-a secret series of characters that functioned much like a PIN number at an automatic teller. The pass-keys were generally quite long and complex; they carried all the information necessary to instruct the encryption algorithm exactly
what mathematical operations to follow to re-create the original message. In the beginning the pas keys were simple, suppose a pass key had 10 digits. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.
(Glad to see you can count)
How many numbers can you make using these 10 digits?
Now, now don’t start counting.
It’s simple, you can have 10! that’s factorial of 10 to you.
What’s that, you may ask?
Well, that means the number of combinations will be
1X2X3X4X5X6X7X8X9X10= 3628800.
For the mathematically confused, that means any combination from 0000000000 and 9999999999 will be the pass key.
Quite a dilemma if you are trying to guess the pass key.
However in the 1990’s encryption keys became over fifty characters long. The only way to break it was to try every combination possible, a process known as a brute force attack, it was sure to work, as the process was mathematically correct. But the process was extremely time consuming and long encryptions took years to crack.
The NSA decided that the only way around it was to build a machine that could break the code really fast, and that meant a really fast computer.
The NSA made TRANSLTR, the first universal code breaking machine, a computer that had three million processors, and it could break a 64 bit code in 10 minutes, compared to 20 years which a super computer would take. That meant NSA could read any e mail in the world. Privacy had been blown to the wind.
However, the NSA completely denied the existence of TRANSLTR.
The real deal starts when the NSA gets a code from a former employee who claims that he has made an UNBREAKABLE CODE. And he will release the algorithm of that code to the world unless the NSA admits the existence of TRANSLTR. That means any one with a modem can build an unbreakable code, and that’s just what terrorists need.
The NSA pulls out all stops to get the code, but will they succeed? Will the secret code be revealed to the world? Will the terrorists get the code and destroy the world?
Read the book to find out.
(Boy, do I sound corny or what?)
Character List:(Only the main 3, revealing the rest will ruin the story)
Susan Fletcher: The Heroine of the story, a member of NSA’s crypto department, a top level cryptographer with a top level figure, and an IQ of 170.
David Becker: The Hero, Susan’s lover and fiancée. The youngest full professor at Georgetown University and a brilliant foreign-language specialist.
Ensei Tanakdo: Former employee of the NSA, a Japanese man crippled due to the effect of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Claims to have made an unbreakable code.
Overall, Digital Fortress is a novel filled with excitement, suspense, mind boggling twists and turns and facts that will blow your socks off.(So make sure you wear socks while reading) Brilliantly woven together by Brown’s simple and lucid style, this in an unputdownable for sure.