The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella (3 page)

"Marco wait, c'mon we are old friends,"
Dallas clearly stated. "If you do not recognize the title of the
document why did you take my call?"

"Because we are old friends, and the title
of the document was intriguing."

"Do you recognize the title from another
department's work?"

"No. Like I said, I do not even understand
the meaning."

"Can you recommend someone I can talk to
about this policy?"

"The Department of Race and Gender
Bias?"

"You mean the entire federal
government?"

"Funny. But no, I mean talk to whoever you
want but not to me because I'm a busy man."

"Marco...Mr. Director, these documents were
clearly written following FedSec's policy template. I recognize the
style."

"Well there's an interesting skill."

"I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who
has mastered the ability to determine the difference between
documents produced by the various government departments. If I show
this document around town, other people will tell me the style is
FedSec."

Dallas perceived a contemplative pause
emanating from the other end of the secure landline. After an
extended moment, Marco slowly stated, "Dal, do not show documents
around town that you are claiming were written by FedSec. I'm sure
the assertion would be a violation of one of our national security
directives, and we do not want you to get into trouble."

Stunned, Dallas asked, "A violation of a
directive? If the documents are not yours and I speculate they are,
you'll just have a misled journalist in your midst. Why would my
actions be an issue?"

The silence returned, but after a minute,
Marco acquiesced. "All right, I'll take a look at these documents
you have. Before you show the files to anyone else, bring them to
me and I'll do the vetting."

"Great, thank you, but are you saying the
documents could be yours?"

"No. You said the files were written using a
FedSec template. I might be able to determine if another department
has copied our template. And you should research on your side if a
think tank or university is claiming knowledge of these topics. You
are still going to have to figure out who created the
documents."

"You're certain these policies were not
prepared by FedSec?"

"Yes I'm certain."

"Do all FedSec policy papers go through your
office?"

"Yes, I'm the director. An employee cannot
claim FedSec has a policy on an issue unless I approve the content
first."

"How does your approval process work?"

Marco sighed. "The short version is everyone
has a specific mandate, an employee proposes research in an area,
the research is approved, the work is completed, the document comes
to me and I sign off."

"So if these are FedSec documents, you
signed off?"

"You are not holding FedSec documents."

"But if I were..."

"Dal, I do not have time for this back and
forth. I'll send a team to pick you up, and you can bring me the
documents and show me the information you claim came from this
department."

"Wait. What? You'll send a team for me?"

"Yes."

"Why? What team?"

"I'm the director of FedSec, Dal. You cannot
walk in here to have a chat. Electronic devices have to be vetted,
you have to be vetted. A team is coming for you. When I
authenticate digital devices, we move over to a more secure
location."

"More secure? Why can't we meet in your
office?"

"What did I just say? Civilians do not walk
into FedSec and hand documents to the director. We will meet in a
secure location."

"Just a second, Marco," Dallas pleaded, her
voice rising in panic. "Do not put me through some weird secret spy
stuff. Let's meet like normal people."

"I'm not normal people, Dal. Who did you
think you were calling?"

"I know who I called."

"Good. You want me to authenticate documents
on an electronic device, you have to follow my security protocols.
The team will be with you in about an hour, and I'll be able to
give you ten minutes. Someone will contact you. Cooperate and I
promise the process will work smoothly."

"Marco, you're kind of...kind of scaring me
here."

"Don't worry, that's not my intention. Wait
for the team and I'll see you soon."

*

"What do you mean a reporter may have the
2100 policy files?" United States Secretary of State Julia
Davenport demanded to Marco over a secure phone line between their
Washington, D.C. offices.

"As I said," Marco replied. "I am not 100%
sure, but she had the full name of the discrimination file, you
know the title invoking Dr. King and Ms. Steinem."

"Yes, yes I know the title. But how could
she have learned about the file?"

"I'm going to find out."

"Isn't bringing her to meet you at Horizon a
little suspicious?"

"No, she will have no idea about the
location's actual use."

"The location is actually used for a
non-existent organization."

"I am aware."

"We do not take reporters there."

"I will for checking a suspicious flash
drive. I cannot speak to her in my FedSec office or at my home or
worse, in a public place. As you are well aware, very few people
know I have two jobs. FedSec by day, GCS by every other minute of
the day."

"I also have two jobs, Marco," Julia dryly
noted. "I'm in charge of State and GCS. But Global Cyber Security
is the primary role dominating my life right now. We need a global
cyber security defense, and this government will never have the
mandate or the ability to deliver as our private interests
can."

"I know," Marco responded. "I am completely
with you. We have to work around our own government, or face the
ruin of our economy and the destruction of our national
security."

Both the State Department and FedSec had the
immediate need for a steadfast cyber security action plan near the
top of their issues list. But Julia and Marco's collective decision
to continue as federal government cabinet ministers while
moonlighting in the veiled outsider organization known as GCS,
underscored the core struggle between measured government and
impatient influencers focused on parallel goals. GCS was a
secretive global group with its own resources, which could ignore
the government's plodding legislative approach to an omnipresent
cyber threat, and focus on managing the demands of its financial
backers who did not trust nor wait for governments to implement
valuable directives in an efficient, rapid or permanent manner.
With the option to work within the bureaucracy or outside with
private interests, Julia and Marco chose both, and aligned to face
the task of building a permanent cyber security blanket using every
resource available. They intimately knew the nation desired a
standing cyber defense force against online terrorists to
functionally match the vigilance performed by physical soldiers
guarding the air, sea and ground. At the same time, they recognized
GCS's intent to create an infrastructure for maintaining an
independent cyber security umbrella shielding America, and other
valuable global markets, from internal and external saboteurs.
Together, they determined to definitively accomplish the latter
more accessible goal while managing the former with
dissatisfaction.

Officially, within the State Department,
cyber security obligations expanded in context with world events,
which were upended each day whenever news of a cyber attack was
announced. To address the subject with immediacy, in the quiet
reaches of a somber Washington away from the lights of the media's
issue-of-the-day publicity, a half dozen policy representatives
focused exclusively on recommendations for the continuous update
and redesign of the nation's cyber security requirements. But
similar to the country's last century determination to build an
interstate highway system transcending a vacationer's desire for a
road-trip; the interstate cyber security system had national
commerce, global trade, defense, judicial, internal security,
employment, and consumer implications. And when policy suggestions
touched every inch of the domestic agenda, all federal government
departments jostled to weigh in on the proposed solutions. The
cyber protection list grew from managing the federal government's
digital infrastructure to include; helping private businesses avoid
cyber attacks; monitoring online businesses operating in regulated
industries or providing government services; utilizing personal
digital information in law enforcement; and creating legislation
for online privacy and use.

After each external attack on government or
business servers, technical investigators would converge on the
damaged site and try to identify the vulnerabilities. But no
overall comprehensive approach existed to compare the attacks and
share findings across industries. Threat assessments were guesses
based on the business's global profile and national prestige. The
wealthier the company's resources, the more high profile the chief
executive, the more envied the employees...the greater the chance
of a backlash from independent hackers displaying their skill, not
to impress the world, but to overwhelm one another with their
daring. All law enforcement agencies struggled to learn more about
cyber criminals who were out of reach from traditional
investigative tactics, and working far-removed from their targets.
But with each development forward, a setback emerged, sending the
crime fighters scrambling for more information, answers and
solutions where only questions remained.

Unofficially, outside the parameters set by
government departments, unelected private GCS interests were in a
relentless search for those who aligned with their intentions and
sought to build their own confidential teams from the ranks of
government, business, academia, non-government, and science
specialists who were willing to assist in defining control for
their own preparation against cyber terror. People who were
promising strivers in every field could facilitate the
implementation of their plans. Several individuals focused
exclusively on finding like-minds and invited them to join the
group's efforts, not through a meeting, but with demonstrating
capability by accepting a task that if done correctly, solidified a
position for the way forward. The invitation was not subtle. The
selected knew the opportunity they were being offered could be a
conflict-of-interest with the public role they held, but all
accepted, because they also knew the world was in desperate need of
cyber security leadership transcending the sound-bite demands of
the evening news. For this group, the fact politicians had to play
politics made elected leaders ineffectual for managing the volatile
cyber threats of the future. They viewed politicians only as
temporary representatives popularly elected to a manufactured seat
of power from which their mandate was limited to one-liners
addressing emotional societal issues. But the GCS group considered
their self-proclaimed directive to be a more demanding task - to
maintain the very fabric upon which those societal issues could be
addressed.

Cyber security lay before them as an
immediate issue requiring a long-term solution, one elected
governments could not enact within their limited terms. Domestic
dependency on the Internet provided enemies with a weapon of
destabilization affecting government, businesses and individuals
alike. A forerunner to GCS identified the struggle before cyber
attacks became daily news headlines, and began strategizing on
options for reversing the impact hackers and cyber criminals had
already made on the nation's digital infrastructure. And to meet
their goal, they embarked on a secretive global cyber security
project, to develop a surveillance tracking and data management
system with much broader objectives than a single government had
the time to imagine.

To accomplish their task, GCS moved directly
into the U.S. government's fields of operation. As each federal
government department released a paper or policy or draft
legislation on a cyber security issue, a cadre of well-placed GCS
operatives monitored developments to determine if a potential
segment would have an impact on their clandestine project.
Unofficial activities did not directly overlap official work, but
functioned efficiently within the scope of government outreach. The
group's covert participation emerged through a deliberate
convergence of presentations at conferences as subject matter
experts, fact-finding lunch meetings across government and business
lines, requests for information from diligent journalists, and
draft agendas developed by one-cause organizations and lobbyists.
To the delight of the embedded outsiders, as the publicly offered
details began to synthesize for more organizations and interests,
one government official after another began unobtrusively asking if
the time had come to strengthen the cyber security process by
uniting across department lines and developing a more organized
plan.

Two of those officials were Julia and Marco
who were diligent undercover developers of GCS's plan. The group
treasured the value the two emergent thinkers in areas of influence
could bring to their operation, and lured them to the table with
the promise of aligning with other objective-oriented achievers who
had written their own success stories through hard-work and trained
brains. As a businesswoman who started and ran her own investment
firm, Julia was recognized for her strength and singular focus, as
well as contacts in financial circles around the world. As a
soldier trusted in military Intelligence, Marco was seen to have a
loyal operational brain trained to protect American interests. GCS
was not restrained in defining its mandate to the two rising stars.
More specific than the imaginings of media and Internet conspiracy
theories about an entitled establishment working outside the ropes
of democracy, the group was strategic and productive in its intent
to ensure its definition of economic survival. Members knew exactly
how to operate when bounds were created by government and the
populace, and how to re-arrange limits to adjust in their favor.
The broader society outside their circle had no consideration in
their activities. If others benefited from the accomplishment of
their objectives, no credit was taken. And if not, no negative
recognition was acknowledged.