The Turing Test Page 3

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  “It’s just the way we’re organized. We hand our findings and data off to another team of specialists. Their job is to integrate it with data from other sources and then look for patterns and clues. Whatever they find, they share with the appropriate agencies, like Homeland Security.”

  “Ah.”

  “You look disappointed,” Shannon said.

  “I guess I am. The how is interesting but not nearly as much as the why and the who. If we knew what the goal behind the attacks was, it would be easier to guess who was behind them and where he might strike next.”

  “But we still need to figure out the how so we can stop them from doing it again,” Shannon said.

  “Fair enough. I guess I just like to work on the whole puzzle, not just a piece of it.”

  “From what I understand, you’ve got the freedom to go wherever you want on this project,” Shannon said. “Mind if I join you?”

  * * *

  The late afternoon sun broke through the clouds, flooding the parking lot in bright light. Clay Chambers readjusted his camera settings for the third time. It was bad enough crisscrossing the state every day to film boring local events. They could at least start on time now and then. He checked his watch. The sun would set in half an hour, and he hadn’t brought any lights.

  He picked up his handheld video camera and re-checked his angle and field of view. The TV station would catch hell if viewers could tell no one was listening to the governor except the mayor and a few oil company executives and newspaper photographers. Okay! They were finally getting started. He hefted the camera to his shoulder and started recording.

  A SandPro Oil vice president stepped up to a podium positioned so the huge new refinery would provide an effective backdrop. Chambers had to admit it was a good one. Glittering lights dotted exhaust stacks rising above a maze of vertical and horizontal pipes, and the setting sun was giving a warm, orange glow to the steam venting from the stacks. It looked like the perfect marriage of progress, technology, and the future. Okay, the guy was about to start speaking. Microphone on, and now … here we go.

  “It’s a great pleasure to welcome everyone here on this exciting occasion. As you know, we’ve been looking forward to this day for a very long time. Fifteen years ago this last Monday, in fact. That’s when we finalized the route for the pipeline that’s about to deliver tar sands oil for the first time to the new, state-of-the-art refinery you see behind me. It took most of that time to buy the land and get the permits, and then, of course, we had to build the pipeline itself – all twelve hundred and forty-three miles of it – from Canada to where we’re standing today.

  “But those weren’t the only challenges. Coming up with the technology to process tar sand oil was also a major achievement. And then, of course, there were the environmentalists. They tried to stop us every step of the way. But we persevered. That’s why, today, I can invite Governor Buddy Sandow to step forward and turn the valve that will allow oil to travel the last hundred yards to our brand-new refinery. When he does, you’ll see it spin up into action, and we’ll be off to the races.

  “Governor, it’s a great honor. If there are some thoughts you’d like to share first, we’d be honored to hear them.”

  Sandow strode into camera view, beaming broadly and waving to the crowds who weren’t there. He had less hair and more girth than during his college days. But he still looked enough like the state university football star he’d once been to appeal to voters.

  “Thanks very much, Glenn. And sure, just a few words. I know you guys are champing at the bit to get that oil flowing. So, I’ll just say that we’re mighty pleased you chose our great state as the destination for your new pipeline and the site for this terrific refinery. And I must add I’m as proud as I can be I played a major part in bringing over six hundred and fifty great, high-paying jobs to this hardworking community. Six hundred and fifty jobs! These are good people here, and they deserve those jobs. This is the kind of decisive action I promised the voters, and by golly, that’s what my administration and I are delivering right here today. So, what do you say, let’s go put those people to work!”

  “You bet!” the vice president said. “Let’s do it!” He escorted the governor to a large control wheel; a burly pipeline worker was standing next to it, ready to help Sandow. Chambers panned his camera out to get more of the refinery into the picture as the governor placed his hands on the wheel and struck a pose.

  “Everybody ready now?” the vice president asked. “Okay, Governor! Take it away!” With a flourish, Sandow followed along as the pipeline worker spun the wheel.

  The lights on the refinery went dark. The venting steam diminished, too. Within a few seconds, it disappeared entirely.

  Sandow was still smiling, wondering why the newspaper photographers weren’t taking his picture. Then he realized from their expressions that something was wrong. Turning around, he saw that far from spinning up, the refinery had gone dark. Everything turned dull and dead as the sun dropped below the horizon.

  Chambers grinned, video camera still recording. This had turned out to be a shoot worth waiting for.

  * * *

  “So, what do you think?” Frank asked Shannon as they left the latest incident briefing. “Impressed?”

  “For sure,” she replied. “Eighteen major refinery complexes taken down. And if the U.S. ones are typical of those abroad, the attacker hit the biggest ones in the world. How long do you expect it will take to get them up and running again?”

  “When? How about if?”

  “If? How could it be if?”

  “Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. From what we just learned, they didn’t just shut the refineries down – they erased all their software and their data, too. And by all their software and data, I mean ALL their software and data. On-site, in the cloud, backup copies – the works. The refinery process control systems, the security software, the operating history and performance records – everything. A lot of those programs, particularly for the older refineries, were custom software or heavily adapted for the location. And without the historical operating data to work from, it’s going to be trial and error getting some parts of an operation up and running again.

  “That’s a pretty impressive hack,” he mused. “Whoever is behind these attacks is world class.” Then he frowned. “And I still don’t have a clue who it could be.”

  3

  Click!

  Frank flipped through the incident data for the umpteenth time. There had been more waves of attacks, all presumably perpetrated by the same actor. But all they had in common was that all the targets had something to do with energy and all the damage was severe.

  Historically, hackers bent on serious mischief had usually launched “dedicated denial of service” attacks. That meant directing massive amounts of traffic against their victims’ websites to overwhelm them. While that sort of attack was troublesome, it was easy to get everything up and running again as soon as the attack ended. Not so with these new exploits. It would take months, and even years, to make the necessary repairs. Frank drummed his fingers in annoyance.

  Shannon looked up from her computer. She’d gotten in the habit of working at the SCIF whenever Frank was there. “No light bulb yet?”

  “No light bulb. How about you?”

  “No, but remember, that’s not my assignment. I’m reviewing and associating incident data for others to work with.”

  “Will you know if the NSA comes up with a motive for the attacks or a guess who’s behind them?”

  “Sure, and so will you. Maybe not immediately, but yes. That’ll be shared with the team.”

  “Hmm.” He went back to focusing on his screen.

  “Not good enough?” Shannon asked.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear
it will filter down to us. What’s really bugging me is that no pattern or obvious goal is jumping out at me other than disrupting the energy supply.”

  “Why isn’t that enough?”

  “Because there’s got to be more to it. Why the specific countries? They’re literally all over the map. And why the specific targets? Attacking each one requires a different strategy and exploiting a different vulnerability. And why cause the least disruption rather than the most?”

  He went back to staring at the screen and then stood up.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  When he came back, he set a cup next to her and immediately began frowning at his computer again.

  “Thanks,” she said. And then “thanks” again. Still no response. She made a megaphone with her hands and intoned, “Earth to Mars; Earth to Mars; calling Commander Adversego.”

  Startled, he turned her way. “What did you say?”

  She laughed. “Doesn’t matter. I was just curious what you were thinking.”

  “Oh. Well, while I was making the coffee, it struck me that maybe trying to figure out what the incidents have in common is looking at the problem backwards. Maybe I should be looking at what they don’t have in common.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Well, I’ve been focusing only on what’s been hit. Maybe something would become clear if I looked at what wasn’t hit, but just as easily could have been.”

  “Interesting. Any examples?”

  “Sure. The attacker hit a lot of different types of targets in more than a dozen countries. But there are other kinds of power infrastructure – like high-voltage transmission lines – he hasn’t. Why not those? And while he’s hit a lot of different power plants in some countries, same observation – there are far more he hasn’t touched. Why not? If I can’t figure out what’s the same about the targets he has hit, maybe there’s something the rest have in common that could provide a clue.” He frowned and turned to look at his computer screen again.

  She would have asked him another question, but she could see he was once again somewhere else. She watched him frowning, reading, and typing away for a while before she got back to work.

  * * *

  Frank never accepted dinner invitations. That policy had succeeded brilliantly, with the result that he hadn’t received any during the current century, except from his only daughter, Marla. Those he accepted with pleasure, which was how he found himself eating dinner with her and her husband, Tim, the following Saturday night.

  “Well, I think the guy’s a walking disaster,” Frank’s daughter Marla said.

  “No kidding,” Frank said. “It makes no sense that the guy keeps rising in the polls. You can guess what my theory to explain that would be.”

  “Of course. But let’s say this time he wins. The number of policies and programs he could change would be huge. Huge! Just to give one example, he’s never said one way or another whether he believes in climate change. If he wants to, he could walk away from the new Berlin Accords, where the commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are binding instead of voluntary. And the process isn’t working very well as it is.”

  “You mean countries are backing out?” Tim asked. “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “Not backing out. But they’re not all stepping up to the plate the way they should, either. Look at China. They were making a lot of progress switching over to renewable energy and nuclear power. But now, to get people working again, they’re recommissioning some of the coal-fired power plants they shut down not long ago. And the latest estimates say the increase in global greenhouse gas emissions isn’t slowing down as much as hoped.”

  “Well, at least it’s slowing down some,” Tim said.

  “That’s not good enough,” Marla replied. “If any of the big CO2 emitters miss their targets, other countries might slack off, too. That would be bad. But if one of the big five countries backs out of the treaty completely, it would be a disaster even if every other country stayed in line.”

  “So, who are the big five?” Tim asked. “The U.S., China … I’m guessing India would be next, plus who – Germany and Great Britain?”

  “Good guesses, but they’re a bit farther down the list. The other two are Russia and Japan.”

  “Interesting,” Tim said. “I should have thought of Japan, but I would have guessed Germany was in the top five.”

  “Don’t forget Russia has close to twice as many people,” Marla said. “And Germany’s got an up-to-date industrial base, not to mention one of the most aggressive programs to convert to renewable energy. A lot of factories in Russia are left over from the Soviet era, and Russia doesn’t have clean air regulations like they do in Europe.”

  “Now you’ve got me curious,” Tim said. “I wonder who the next worst countries are?” He fetched his smartphone and Googled up a table of the global warming emissions of every country.

  “Wow – only a few other countries emit more than even one half percent of the global total each. Most release under a tenth of one percent! So, let’s see how much the big five add up to … it looks like China generates a little over twenty percent of the total; shame on us, we contribute almost eighteen; Russia is next with about seven and a half; India produces just over four; and Japan is at almost four. So, in all, that adds up to … looks like about 52%. That’s even more than I thought – five countries produce more than half of all the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.”

  “Just as I said,” Marla replied. “So, if any of them slack off or, worse yet, walks on the deal, we’re in big trouble.” She turned to her father. “You’re awfully quiet for a change. Cat got your tongue?”

  4

  By George, I Think He’s Got it!

  “So, you think whoever is behind the attacks is trying to stop global warming single-handed?” Shannon asked.

  “That’s right,” Frank replied. “It seems to fit the facts perfectly. Once I started looking at the data from that perspective, everything fell into place. And there’ve been enough attacks now to start drawing some conclusions.”

  “What made you think of global warming?”

  “Remember the first incident? The one where the generators at the power plants were destroyed? The countries involved besides the U.S. were China, India, Japan, and Russia. Those four countries, along with us, produce more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions. And if you look at the number of attacks per country, the data supports the same conclusion: five plants shut down in China, four in the U.S., two in Russia, and one each in Japan and India. That’s roughly in proportion to the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions each of those countries produces.”

  “Interesting, but couldn’t that be just a coincidence?”

  “Standing alone, yes. But there’s more. First off, every single one of those power plants was coal fired.”

  “I agree that’s consistent with your theory. But it’s still a big leap to say that whoever is doing this is trying to save the world single-handed.”

  “Why not? They clearly weren’t trying to create havoc – just the opposite. If they were trying to make a statement to motivate action, they’d cause as much disruption as possible, and then go public and threaten to keep attacking unless countries get more serious about stopping climate change. Right?”

  “Well, okay, I guess so. But just because that could be the answer doesn’t mean it is.”

  “Very true. But how about this? Each time there’s been an attack, it’s coincided with news of some sort relating to climate change. Just before the first power plant event, an international meeting between the same five countries that might have led to accelerating reductions fell apart. The latest set of attacks hit China the same day it came to light that the Chinese government was recommissioning a bunch of coal-fired power plants.
And how about this: the impact of every event was always severe. A power plant can’t use any coal while its generators are down, and a refinery without software can’t handle any oil.

  “If we pool the emissions data from all the attacks and analyze it from this perspective, I bet they’ll show each wave of attacks was scaled to offset whatever the latest bad climate change news was.”

  “So, I assume that’s what you’d like to do?” Shannon said. “See how strongly the data supports your theory?”

  “You bet. Can you help me access the resources at the NSA I’ll need to do that?”

  “Sure. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Excellent! So, here’s what I’m going to need …” Shannon took notes enthusiastically as he rattled off items as they came to him.

  “Yes!” Frank crowed two days later when he reviewed the data Shannon had compiled. The matching of announcements to responses was just as he’d predicted: the combined greenhouse gas output of the targets disabled in each wave of attacks was roughly equivalent to the emissions impact of whatever announcement or event had triggered the assault.

  He and Shannon wrote up their findings and requested a meeting with Jim Barker, their project manager.

  * * *

  Barker finished reading the executive summary of their report, and looked up.

  “If your research supports your conclusions, that would be pretty interesting. How compelling is the data?”

  “Considering the amount of information we have, it’s pretty good. That said, we’ve only had so many waves of attacks, so it’s still possible we’re looking at coincidence rather than proof. But the odds of that seem very low. Take a look at some of the tables farther on.”