TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Cryptography:

The whole plot of “Digital Fortress” revolves around cryptography. Cryptography is the practice of securing communication from third-party access or modification, typically through the use of codes or ciphers. The objective of cryptography is to ensure that the message can only be read by the intended recipient and that any changes made during transmission can be detected.

Cryptography has been used for thousands of years to protect sensitive information, from ancient hieroglyphics and secret codes used by Julius Caesar to modern-day encryption techniques used to secure computer systems and online communications.

There are several types of cryptographic techniques, including symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption, and hashing. Symmetric encryption uses the same key for both encryption and decryption, while asymmetric encryption uses a public key to encrypt a message and a private key to decrypt it. Hashing is a method of creating a unique digital fingerprint of a message, which can be used to verify its integrity and authenticity.

Cryptography plays a crucial role in modern society, particularly in the fields of finance, national security, and online privacy. It allows individuals and organizations to protect sensitive information and communicate securely over digital networks. As technology continues to evolve, so too will the field of cryptography, with new techniques and algorithms being developed to meet the growing demand for secure communication.

History of cryptography:

In “Digital Fortress,” the author discusses the history of cryptography. The history of cryptography dates back thousands of years, with evidence of secret codes and ciphers used by ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. These early cryptographic techniques were often simple, using methods such as transposition and substitution to hide the meaning of a message.

One of the most famous examples of early cryptography is Julius Caesar’s use of a simple substitution cipher, in which each letter in the message was replaced by a letter in a fixed number of positions down the alphabet. This technique, known as the Caesar cipher, was easy to implement but also relatively easy to break.

Over time, more sophisticated cryptographic techniques were developed, including the polyalphabetic cipher, which used multiple substitution alphabets to make the cipher more difficult to break. During World War II, the German Enigma machine was used to encrypt military communications, but it was ultimately broken by a team of codebreakers at Bletchley Park, including Alan Turing.

In the latter half of the 20th century, the advent of computers led to the development of new cryptographic techniques, including public-key cryptography and digital signatures. These techniques rely on complex mathematical algorithms to create and verify digital signatures, which are used to secure everything from online transactions to digital documents.

Today, cryptography plays a critical role in modern society, particularly in the fields of finance, national security, and online privacy. As technology continues to evolve, so too will the field of cryptography, with new techniques and algorithms being developed to meet the growing demand for secure communication.

A CRYPTOGRAPHER:

The plot centres around cryptographers Susan Fletcher, Ensai Tankado, and Greg Hale. The question is, what exactly is a cryptographer?

A cryptographer is a person who specializes in the study and practice of cryptography, the science of secure communication. Cryptographers use mathematical algorithms and techniques to create codes and ciphers that can be used to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or modification.

Cryptographers work in a variety of fields, including government agencies, military organizations, financial institutions, and technology companies. They are responsible for designing, implementing, and analyzing cryptographic systems, as well as identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in existing systems.

In addition to technical skills, cryptographers must also possess strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, as well as an understanding of legal and ethical issues related to cryptography. They must also stay up to date with the latest developments in the field, including new algorithms, attacks, and cryptographic protocols.

Overall, cryptographers play a critical role in ensuring the security and privacy of information in our increasingly digital world.

The Brute Force Attack

This term is used in the novel. ‘Brute force attack’ is a method used in cryptography to break encrypted messages by trying every possible combination of keys until the correct one is found. This technique is based on the idea that every encryption algorithm has a finite number of possible keys, and therefore it is theoretically possible to try them all until the correct one is found.

Brute force attacks can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, particularly for encryption algorithms with large key sizes. However, advances in computing power and the development of specialized hardware, such as graphics processing units (GPUs), have made brute force attacks more feasible for some encryption algorithms.

To protect against brute force attacks, encryption algorithms often use larger key sizes or additional security measures, such as salting or key stretching, to make it more difficult to guess the correct key. Additionally, some encryption algorithms are designed specifically to be resistant to brute force attacks, such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

Overall, the brute force technique is a powerful tool in cryptography, but it is not always practical or feasible, particularly for more secure encryption algorithms.

TRANSLTR

TRANSLTR is a non-living character in the novel “Digital Fortress”, more important than the protagonists, Susan Fletcher and David Becker. The whole story of the novel revolves around TRANSLTR.

TRANSLTR, was the single most expensive supercomputer in the world. NSA hide this machine from the world and swore there was no existence of any machine of this kind. Only the NSA elite knew the truth–TRANSLTR was there and already cracking hundreds of codes every day.

It took five years, half a million man-hours, and $1.9 billion to build TRANSLTR. It contained three million, stamp-size processors, connected in parallel, and kept in a  ceramic shell.

TRANSLTR was installed in the main building of NSA called Crypto. The primary chamber was a large circular hall that climbed for a total of five levels. Its ceiling was a clear dome that reached a height of 120 feet at its highest point in the center. The Plexiglas dome had a polycarbonate mesh placed inside of it so that it could resist an explosion of two megatons.

TRANSLTR popped from the center of the floor, arching twenty-three feet in the air before sinking back into the floor below. It was curved and smooth, as if a massive killer whale had been frozen in mid-breach in a freezing sea.

The machine, like an iceberg, buried 90 percent of its mass and power beneath the surface. Its secret was hidden in a six-story-deep ceramic silo with a rocket-like shell encircled by a tortuous maze of catwalks, wires, and hissing exhaust from the freon cooling system. There were power generators at the bottom that emitted a constant low-frequency hum, giving Crypto’s a dead, ghostly quality.

Its three million processors would all work in tandem, adding up at lightning-fast speeds and attempting every new variant as they went. The hope was that even codes with unfathomably large pass-keys would be vulnerable to TRANSLTR’s perseverance. This multibillion-dollar masterwork would guess pass-keys and break codes by utilizing the power of parallel computing as well as certain highly classified improvements in clear text evaluation. Its power would come not just from its massive number of processors, but also from recent breakthroughs in quantum computing–a new technique that allowed information to be stored as quantum-mechanical states rather than binary data. Its three million processors produce so much heat that they will easily burn it down in minutes. To cool this, a giant Freon cooling system is used. Freon is utilized as a refrigerant in air conditioning systems since it is a non-flammable gas. In order to produce cool air that can be distributed throughout the system, this freon goes through an evaporation process multiple times.

Why was TRANSLTR built?

TRANSLTR, like many other ground-breaking, innovative discoveries, arose from a compelling need. The NSA witnessed a communications revolution in the 1980s—public access to the Internet—that would forever change the face of intelligence reconnaissance. To be more particular, the introduction of e-mail.

Spies, terrorists, and criminals who were tired of having their calls monitored jumped at the chance to use this new worldwide communication system. The speed of the telephone and the privacy of regular mail were combined in the invention of e-mail. Since the transfers occurred via underground fiber-optic wires and never entered the airways, it was believed that they could not have been intercepted in any way.

Actually, for the NSA’s computer experts, intercepting email as it flew across the Internet was a piece of cake. Most people’s assumptions about the Internet’s significance as a home computer innovation were wrong. It was a vast network of computers that the Department of Defense had built three decades earlier to ensure safe government communication in the event of a nuclear war. The NSA relied on seasoned Internet professionals as its eyes and ears. People involved in unlawful dealings via email soon discovered their communications were not as discreet as they had believed. The FBI, DEA, IRS, and other U.S. law enforcement agencies experienced a flood of arrests and convictions thanks to the NSA’s team of clever hackers.

Naturally, there was an outcry from the world’s computer users when they learned that the U.S. government had free access to their email. Even casual pen pals who only use email for chatting found the lack of privacy disconcerting. Innovating coders from all around the world set out to make email safer. Public-key encryption was born after they swiftly located a solution.

The idea of using public keys for encryption was both ingenious and straightforward. Easy-to-use desktop software that completely obfuscates private electronic mail was all there was to it. If a user were to type a letter and then run it through the encryption program, the resulting text would appear to be completely random and unintelligible. Anyone who managed to eavesdrop on the communication saw just incomprehensible, jumbled text.

A “pass-key” (similar to a PIN at an ATM) unique to the sender is required in order to decipher the message. In most cases, the pass-keys were extremely lengthy and complicated, and they contained all the information the encryption algorithm needed to know in order to reverse-engineer the original message using mathematical operations.

Confidence in one’s email security is no longer an issue. The message could only be read by its intended recipients, even if the transmission were intercepted.

The NSA instantly felt the effects of this. Computer-generated hash functions using chaos theory and numerous symbolic alphabets to scramble communications into seemingly hopeless randomness replaced the basic substitution cyphers that could be cracked with pencil and graph paper.

In the beginning, the pass-keys used were simple enough for the NSA’s computers to “guess.” A machine was set up to test every combination between 0000000000 and 9999999999 if the requested pass-key was ten digits long. The machine was certain to find the right sequence sooner or later. This process of guessing until success was achieved was characterized as a “brute force attack.” Though laborious, its success was statistically assured.

Longer and longer pass-keys were implemented when people became aware of brute-force code-breaking’s effectiveness. As more time passed, it took years for a computer to “guess” the right key.

In the 1990s, pass-keys typically exceeded fifty characters in length and made use of all 256 of the available ASCII characters. It was estimated that there were somewhere around 10120 possible outcomes. It was almost as probable that a person would randomly select the right grain of sand from a three-mile beach as it was that they would correctly guess a pass-key. An estimated nineteenth years would pass before even the NSA’s fastest computer, the top-secret Cray/Josephson II, could crack a conventional sixty-four-bit key using a brute-force attack. Once the computer guessed the key and decoded the message, the information contained within would be obsolete.

Trapped in a virtual intelligence blackout, by the approval President of the United States, the NSA set out to create the first universal code-breaking machine in history. Many engineers believed the NSA’s planned code-breaking machine would be difficult to develop, but the NSA stuck to its motto: “Everything is possible.” The impossible simply takes longer,” and turned it into a reality.

It took five years to build TRANSLTR and the cost was about $1.9 billion. Three million, stamp-size processors process the data in parallel. Although the secret internal workings of TRANSLTR were the product of many minds and were not fully understood by any one individual, its basic principle was simple: Many hands make the work light.

Does TRANSLTR really exists?

In fact, the computer named TRANSLTR described in Dan Brown’s novel Digital Fortress is a fictional device and does not exist in reality. In the book, the National Security Agency (NSA) describes the TRANSLTR as a highly sophisticated supercomputer that can decrypt any encrypted message, regardless of how advanced the encryption. However, such a decryption machine is purely fictional and has not been developed in the real world.

National Security Agency (NSA)

Since its establishment by President Truman in 1952, the National Security Agency (NSA) has been the most secretive intelligence agency in the world. The NSA’s seven-page inception doctrine outlined a very concise agenda: to defend U.S. government communications and to intercept foreign powers’ communications. Currently, the NSA has twenty-six thousand employees and a twelve billion dollar budget.

Over 500 antennas, including two gigantic radomes* that resembled enormous golf balls, were strewn across the roof of the NSA’s main operations building. The structure itself was enormous, measuring more than two million square feet—double the size of the CIA headquarters. There were 80,000 square feet of permanently sealed windows and eight million feet of telephone wiring within. The organization’s branch of worldwide reconnaissance, known as COMINT, was a confusing network of wiretaps, satellites, listening sites, and spies. Every day, the NSA intercepted thousands of communications and conversations, sending each one to its experts for decryption. The NSA’s intelligence was used by the FBI, CIA, and U.S. foreign policy advisers to inform their choices. The intercepted transmissions were typically encrypted and decoded by NSA cryptographers.

* A radome is a dome-shaped enclosure that protects a radar antenna from weather and other environmental elements. Radomes are made of transparent materials, such as plastic, that allow radio waves to pass through while also concealing the antenna’s electronic equipment. They must also be able to withstand wind loads and pressure differences. 

Crypto

Crypto is the main section of the NSA where codes were broken by the cryptographers and this was the place where TRANSLTR was built.

NODE-3

Just off the main level, Node-3 was the cryptographers’ secret, soundproofed portion. A two-inch pane of curved one-way glass provided the cryptographers with a view of the Crypto floor while preventing anyone from seeing inside. Twelve terminals sat in a perfect circle at the back of the vast Node-3 chamber. The circular arrangement was meant to foster intellectual interaction among cryptographers, to remind them that they were part of a bigger team. Node-3, nicknamed the Playpen, lacked the sterility that pervaded the rest of Crypto. Plush carpets, a high-tech sound system, a fully stocked fridge, a kitchenette, and a Nerf basketball hoop make it feel like home. The NSA has a Crypto philosophy: don’t invest a couple of billion dollars in a code-breaking computer unless you can entice the finest of the best to stick around and use it.

Bergofsky Principle

The principle stated unequivocally that if a computer tried enough keys, it would eventually locate the correct one. It wasn’t that the secret to a secure code couldn’t be found; rather, it was that most people wouldn’t bother trying.

Cleartext

Cleartext data or information is data or information that has not been encrypted or hidden in any way. Anyone with access to it can read and understand it without any extra decryption or decoding techniques. Ciphertext, on the other hand, refers to material that has been changed into a coded or encrypted format to prevent unauthorized access or interception.

Rotating Cleartext

The Digital Fortress algorithm is unstoppable because it employs a rotating cleartext function. Josef Harne, a Hungarian mathematician, introduced the concept of a rotating cleartext function in an obscure paper published in 1987. Harne proposed an encryption algorithm that, in addition to encrypting, shifted decrypted cleartext over a time-variable, because brute-force computers broke codes by examining cleartext for recognisable word patterns. In theory, the perpetual mutation would ensure that the assaulting computer never identifies recognisable word patterns and therefore never knows when it has discovered the correct key. Intellectually, the concept was conceivable, but it is currently well beyond human capability. Neither Harne nor the concept of “rotating clear text” exist, of course!

Explanation:

A code (password) changes every fixed minute, and the authorized person receives that password via a pager-like device. So, imagine an intruder attempting to hack into your account (assuming he/she has already gotten beyond the security) and using a brute-force algorithm to crack your password. This brute force technique now tries every conceivable combination (for example, for a four-digit password, from 0000 to 9999). If your password was a fixed one, he or she would have cracked it eventually. However, in a system where your password is always changing, he may not be able to crack it.

Example:

Assume the machine is now testing number 1234, but your password is 4321. Your password will be changed to 1000 when the machine reaches 4321 from 1234. Because the system has already tried that combination, it will not try it again and so will fail to crack the password.

Gauntlet

The novel “Digital Fortress” revolves around the NSA’s GAUNTLET security measure, which protects highly sensitive data. The GAUNTLET is a succession of increasingly tough security measures required to access the NSA’s main computer systems. Each security procedure is increasingly complicated and prevents unauthorized access. The GAUNTLET, the “NSA’s final defense,” can only be passed by a few. In the novel, NSA Deputy Director Strathmore bypassed this security system to execute the Digital Fortress algorithm in TRANSLTR, infecting it.

NSA Data-bank Command Center

The command center of the NSA’s main databank resembled a scaled-down NASA mission control. The chamber was 214 feet down, where it would be completely immune to flux bombs and nuclear blasts. It was built with around 250 metric tonnes of earth removed.

At the far end of the room, a dozen computer workstations confronted a thirty-foot by forty-foot TV wall. Numbers and diagrams flashed on the screen in quick succession, appearing and disappearing as though someone was channel surfing. A small group of technicians dashed from station to station, trailing long sheets of printing paper and barking commands.

La Giralda

In Dan Brown’s novel “Digital Fortress,” Giralda refers to the Giralda Tower of Seville Cathedral in Seville, Spain. This 419-foot tower features a spiral staircase and plays a significant role in a critical scene of the book, despite the real tower not having such stairs, only ramps. It was built as the minaret for the Great Mosque of Seville in al-Andalus, during the reign of the Almohad dynasty, is now the bell tower of Seville Cathedral in Spain. It offers stunning views of Seville from its summit. Here, Hulohot plays a cat-and-mouse-game with David Becker to kill him, but he himself gets killed by Becker.

INTRODUCTION THEMES AND MOTIFS CURIOSITY & SUSPENSE PLOT SUMMARY

CRITICAL ANALYSIS IMPORTANT CHARACTERS CLIFFHANGERS IN THE NOVEL