BLOG ENTRY #09

Digital Fortress
Dan Brown

Digital Fortress is a technological thriller written by popular mystery-thriller novelist Dan Brown was published in 1998. It is based on a theme by government surveillance of electronically stored information, even on the private lives of citizens, and the possible ethical implications using such high end technology. The main story revolves around the NSA (National Security Agency) TRANSLATR, which is one of the greatest master piece of the NSA and was a capable in any code built to enforce the digital privacy secretly. 

About the Author:

Daniel “Dan” Brown was born on June 22, 1964. He was born to become a Mathematics Teacher and a church organist. He graduated at Amherst College and Philips Exeter Academy. He is also a writer some books like The Lost Symbol, Deception Point, Angels and Demons, Inferno, and his selling book was Da Vinci Code. In 2015, he was names as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine. 

Characters:

Chad Brinkerhoff- Fointaine’s Personal Assistant

Commander Trevor Strathmore- NSA Deputy Director of Operations and main antagonist

David Becker-  A Professor of Modern Languages and the fiancé of Susan Fletcher

Ensei Tankado- A disgruntled former NSA employee

Greg Hale- NSA Cryptographer

Jabba- NSA senior System Security Officer

Leland Fointaine- Director of NSA

Midge Milken- Fointaine’s internal security analyst

Phil Chartrukian- System Security Technician

Susan Fletcher- NSA Head Cryptographer and the story lead character

Summary:

NSA is America's top security agency. Its operations are so secret that it is aptly nicknamed “No such agency”. Top cryptographer genious Susan Fletcher, gets an urgent call from her boss, Commander Strathmore, to come to work on a holiday. She is given the shocking news that TRANSLTR, the NSA's incredibly fast and infallible code-breaking machine against which even the best computer encryption software is useless, is facing its nemesis. It is grappling with the Digital Fortress, an apparently unbreakable code created by an ex-NSA cryptographer, Ensei Tankado.

Tankado had threatened to make it available for public use if the NSA didn't make TRANSLTR's existence known to the general public. A potential deadly threat to the nation's security, this code has to be broken. Tankado was employed with the NSA on a work visa from Japan. He helped to build TRANSLTR but was outraged when he discovered that the NSA would be able to use the computer to read the emails of private citizens. Tankado saw the NSA's ability to read private emails as a violation of human rights. He quit his job and threatened to go public about the NSA's top-secret computer. Tankado's capture and deportation was widely publicized and his reputation was ruined. To ensure his safety, Tankado left Japan and gave a copy of his pass code to an anonymous third party known only as North Dakota. If anything should happen to Tankado, North Dakota is to publish the pass code, making it free to everyone. Strathmore informs Susan that he had just received word that morning that Tankado was found dead in Seville, Spain.

Ensei has a secret partner and Susan is entrusted with the job of finding him/her. Adding to her frustrations is that her boss has sent her boyfriend David, an ordinary university professor, on a dangerous mission to Spain to retrieve this unbreakable code's key.

David calls Strathmore and tells him about the ring. Strathmore orders David to find the ring, telling him it is a matter of national security. David finds the Canadian tourist, who tells him a German and his female escort took the ring. David locates the German and his escort. The woman tells David that she gave the ring to a young teenage girl in the park. David talks to a boy who knows the girl and he tells David the girl was trying to hock the ring to buy a plane ticket home.

Fletcher's fiancée, professor David Becker, is sent to Spain to collect Ensei Tankado's belongings. Tankado has died from a heart attack, and Becker has to find the pass-key to unlock the code before someone else does. Susan Fletcher, David Becker and NSA Commander Trevor Strathmore try to find the pass-key, and at the same time they have to keep the threat a secret from the rest of the world. Susan is one of the top Code breakers at the NSA. She monitors the use of the code breaking machine that can break all codes in less than 3 hrs. and is used by all forms of US intelligence. She is called in when a program is still running after 12+ hrs. At the same time her fiancé is sent to Spain to try and locate the "key" to stopping the release of a code program that will allow the NSA to break codes that Digital Fortress is used to protect. In Spain it becomes clear that someone is out to keep the key safe as people who have come in contact with it are killed. 

 As David is tracking down the ring in Spain and Susan is running a tracer on the email account that Strathmore had given her, a computer software entrepreneur in Tokyo receives a phone call from an American claiming to be Tankado's partner, North Dakota. The caller tells the business owner, Tokugen Numataka, that Tankado is dead and he can provide him with both pass codes for the same amount of money that Numataka has bid on Tankado's pass code. The caller tells Numataka that he will be in touch. Numataka grows impatient and has his switchboard operator trace the call, which turns out to be Strathmore's personal cell phone.

Hale knows Strathmore's plans. He takes Susan hostage in an attempt to get both of them away from

Strathmore and safely out of the building. Susan believes that Hale is going to hurt her. Strathmore knocks Hale unconscious, then ties him up. Believing that Hale is North Dakota, Strathmore tells Susan she needs to search Hale's computer for the pass code.

TRANSLTR begins to overheat and warning sirens begin to blare. Strathmore leaves the room to abort TRANSLTR. Susan is still searching Hale's computer when he regains consciousness. Hale proclaims his innocence but Susan still does not believe him. Then she discovers that North Dakota is a fake alias. Tankado was sending email messages to himself the entire time. There is no third party and Digital Fortress is a ruse.

At the same time Susan makes this discovery, Strathmore realizes that he is unable to abort, because he had bypassed TRANSLTR's filters and allowed a virus into the system. The virus was now heading for the main databank.

The Director of the NSA and his personal assistant bring Susan into the underground chamber where the main databank is located. The virus that Strathmore let into the system is actually a worm that will destroy the main databank's filters, allowing public access to classified government information. Everyone in the room is trying to figure out the kill-code that will stop the worm. Susan tells them that the pass code is engraved on a ring that belonged to Tankado, who was killed in Spain.

The Director orders a live video be streamed into the room. Two agents in a van begin to brief the room on the events that have been taking place in Spain. When Susan sees David and realizes he is alive, she is ecstatic. David hears her voice and regains consciousness.

David tells everyone in the room that he has the ring. He reads the inscription but it turns out to not be the pass code. Susan discovers a code in Tankado's program that turns out to be a puzzle. Seconds before the main databank's filters are destroyed, the puzzle is solved and the databank is saved.

The book was interesting to read because it took about the cryptographer, codes, and information security which being a technology. The book is written in a very expressive and adoptive language even though some words are hard to get. The suspension of the story is packed with twist and unpredictable that keeps the reader thinking and go page by page to get to know which would save the NAS’s Future. This is in the context that NSA refers to the guards here we claim to protect the world by cracking codes and letting out the important useful. This became an important centre of discussion of the book, since the NSA was keeping the dark secrete through the Strathmore’s strategy, which was under the danger getting disclosed to the entire word creating digital word and it is thus important to keep checking work and plans.  Thus, this book did help us in knowing about these topics and since it is a work of fiction. I am actually imagine what amount of work and breaching, hacking, codes and the code breaking must be going on the intelligence organization and how challenge can be. By this book, I got to know about things and how thus it used in real life and how they affect real life. Everything is possible and the things to be consider as impossible they are not impossible, it is just that one’s needs to wait for it is going to take some more time to become reality. Also, I got it to know about the existence of organizations like NSA and how they work and how much of the work has been done in the point of view of information security.

The author has achieved his goal in making the book very interesting and a real thriller packed with the latest technology and secrets of that time. It is help us to know how important is to maintain the information security and protect the important and confidential date for letting out to the outside world. 

Documentation:

Taken during her spare time at school