Computer security -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Privacy, Right of -- Fiction; Records -- Access control -- Fiction
"Listen. My affairs are my affairs. I am grateful for the
services, but I do like to keep my personal life just that. Per-
sonal." Miles was polite, but firm. Homosoto nodded in under-
standing.
"Of course, Mr. Foster, I understand completely. It is merely
for the sake of the young woman that I mention it. There is no
offense intended. It is shall we say . . .a cultural
difference?"
Miles didn't believe in the cultural difference to which he
referred, but he didn't press the point. He merely nodded that
the subject was closed. A pregnant pause followed before Homo-
soto interrupted the silence.
"So, Mr. Foster. I really did not expect to see you for another
few weeks. I must assume that you have made some progress in
planning our future endeavors." Homosoto wore a smile that
belied little of his true thoughts.
"You bet your ass, I did." Homosoto winced at the colorful
language. It was Miles' way of maintaining some control over the
situation. His dimples recessed even further as he enjoyed
watching Homosoto's reaction. "It turned out to be simpler than
even I had thought."
"Would you be so kind as to elaborate?"
"Gotcha." Miles opened his briefcase and brought out a sheath of
papers with charts and scribbles all over them. "Basically the
technology is pretty simple. Here are the fundamental systems to
use in the attack, there are only four of them. After all,
there are no defenses, so that's not a problem."
"Problem?" Homosoto raised his eyes.
"Ok, not problem. As you can see here, putting the technical
pieces together is not the issue. The real issue is creating an
effective deployment of the tools we create." Miles was matter
of fact and for the first time Homosoto saw Miles as the itiner-
ant professional he was capable of being. The challenge. Just as
Miles promised earlier, 'give me a challenge, the new, the undone
and I will be the best.' Miles was shining in his own excel-
lence, and his ego was gone, totally gone. His expertise took
over.
"I have labeled various groups that we will need to pull this
off."
"Pull off? Excuse me . . ."
"Oh, sorry. Make it work? Have it happen?"
"Ah yes, So sorry."
"Not at all." Miles looked at Homosoto carefully. Was there a
mutual respect actually developing?
"As I said, we will have to have several groups who don't even
know about each other's existence. At NSA we call it contain-
ment, or need to know."
Homosoto cursorily examined the printouts on the table in front
of him, but preferred to address Miles' comments. "Could you
explain, please? I don't see how one can build a car if you
don't know what it's going to look like when you're done. You
suggest that each person or group functions without the knowledge
of the others? How can this be efficient?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account