“Hm,” said Auberson.
“Anyway, I’m getting off the track. What I was driving at is that you have no way of knowing about any weakness in your system until someone takes advantage of it. And if you correct that one, likely as not there’s still half a dozen more that someone else is liable to spot. Design flaws travel in herds. The National Data Bureau is more than aware of that. Congress wouldn’t let them establish their memory banks until they could guarantee absolute security. It was the VIRUS programs that were giving them their biggest worries.”
“I can think of one way to avoid the problem. Don’t put in a phone link to the data banks.”
“Uh-uh—you need that phone link. You need it both ways, for information coming in and going out. Any other way just wouldn’t be efficient enough.”
“And the VACCINE program wouldn’t work?”
“Yes and no. For every VACCINE program you could write, somebody else could write another VIRUS program immune to it.”
“That doesn’t sound very secure.”
“It isn’t—but that’s the way it is. Any safeguard that can be set up by one programmer can be breached or sidestepped by another.”
“Well, then, what did they finally do with the data banks?”
“Search me,” Handley shrugged. “It’s classified information—top secret.”
“How do you think they did it?”
Handley shrugged. “The guys who know aren’t talking. There’s a twenty-year federal sentence hanging over that kind of breach. All I know is that only authorized agencies can get into the banks, and they have to have a special encryption device. The coding is theoretically unbreakable—even if you have both of the code keys. I don’t understand it either. I suspect that the codes are in a continual state of flux, changing every moment, and the code keys are not about the coding of the information, but about the coding of the code system. And you’re still not speaking to the data banks, but a referee that forwards your request through another security line.” Handley paused, then added, “And that’s at best, an uninformed guess. You didn’t hear it from me.”
“Oh,” said Auberson. He looked at Handley sharply. “How do you know all this? What were you doing before you came here?’
Handley shook his head. “Just stuff. The point is, that there is always a very real danger to any information held in electronic storage. The real protection of the National Data Bureau is the lack of available information about how the information is protected—because the juicier a system is, the more crackers there are looking for a way in.”
“You’re trying to tell me that there are no safeguards, right?”
“Theoretically, not. Practically, maybe. The real question is, how much are you willing to pay to protect your information? At what point does the cost of protecting the installation outweigh the efficiency gained by its use? The value of a piece of information is determined by two things. How much are you willing to spend to protect it—and how much is someone else willing to spend to get ahold of it? You’re betting that you’re willing to spend more than he is. A determined intruder might be able to break the National Data system, but that would mean he’d spend at least as many man-hours and probably as much money breaking them as did the federal government in setting them up.”
“Why not just tap into a computer that’s already linked into the system?”
“See?” said Handley. “You’re starting to think like a programmer. Now you see why they had such a hell of a time figuring out how to protect themselves.”
Auberson conceded the point. “Then that isn’t a loophole, is it?”
“Systems linked to the National Data Bureau aren’t allowed to be linked to anything else. It’s an isolated network. There’s no interconnection; plus requests for information and system replies are transmitted over two separate channels. Everything is as physically secure as it can be. But there’s one other access—” Handley stopped. “It’s supposed to be equally difficult to crack, but I have my doubts.”
“What is it?”
“Code cards. A coded chip on a plastic credit card. If you have a code card, you can link up to a special access system. You need a machine with a special card reader. Both the card and the reader are very hard to get, but once you have one, you can get anything out of the bank that you’re cleared to know. The code card actually contains a processor and the machine you’re calling from is reprogrammed from the other end to be a temporary access. Theoretically, you could simulate a code card—if you knew how a code card was programmed.
“That’s where HARLIE comes in.”
“Huh?”
“Look,” said Handley. “If HARLIE got into the Bank of America’s computer, he must have broken their recognition code or tapped into the interbranch line. Do you know the level of security those lines represent?”
“No.”
“Those are triply-nested level-nine accesses.”
“In English, Don. I don’t know the security rankings.”
“In English, that means you’re not supposed to be able to program a bank computer by telephone. It is supposed to be impossible. But HARLIE did it; this letter is proof.” He glared at it—its existence was an unpleasant anomaly. “It might have taken a human being a few hundred years to figure out how to do this I’ll bet HARLIE did it in less than a week.”
“I’ll ask him.”
“No, I’m not so certain we should. I want to think about this for a bit. Listen to me. If he can do that to the Bank of America, think what he can do to IBM. If he can reprogram and monitor other computers from a distance, he can put them all to work on one central problem—like, for instance, breaking the codes of the National Data Banks.”
“You think he’d try?”
Handley pressed his fingertips thoughtfully together and flexed them slowly. “Remember when we were building him—how we kept calling him a self-programming, problem-solving device? Well, that’s what he is. He’s a programmer, Aubie, and he’s got the same congenital disease every programmer has—the urge to throw the monkey wrench, if for no other reason than to see if he can make the machine respond. The National Data Banks are a challenge to him—to all programmers—but he’s the one with the capability of doing something.”
“If he gets caught—” Auberson said.
“Then we’re both in big trouble. Me more than you, and never mind why. We’ll both get very fast, very efficient, very invisible trials. And HARLIE will be confiscated. Maybe destroyed. All it will take will be one mistake and we’ll be getting a visit from some very serious-looking men in dark blue suits. You know, starting at level six, the accessed computer not only lists all calls accepted and the nature of the information exchanged, they also list all calls rejected and the reasons why. If someone is making a determined effort to crack a system, it shows up in the log. At level seven, automatic tracing of all calls is triggered by any unusual pattern. At level eight, all calls are traced routinely.” Handley reached for his water glass, discovered it was empty, reached for Auberson’s instead.
“That’s been used—”
“I don’t mind.”
“I had a spot on my shirt, remember?”
Handley lowered the glass from his lips. “No wonder it tastes like a paper napkin.” He drank again, thirstily, and replaced the glass on the table. “On the other hand, let’s assume that HARLIE can tap into the banks. We cannot assume that it’s merely idle curiosity. Remember, he’s as paranoid as any other life form—that means that his survival is so essential to him that it might outweigh any other consideration. If he could get into the National Data Banks, he would have the power to make some very real demands. All he has to do is threaten to scramble or erase or merely publicize the information in the banks unless his demands are met. Can you guarantee he wouldn’t use that power? HARLIE is the perfect terrorist’s weapon.”
“We’d turn him off—”
“Then for sure he’d carry out his threat. What would he have to lose? He
could set up a dead-man’s program to do it the minute he stopped existing. I’ve written self-destruct programs myself—only the continued monitoring of it with a do-not-implement-yet signal keeps them from triggering. We wouldn’t dare turn him off—we couldn’t even try. That’s if he gets in. But it’s not just the National Data Banks, Aubie—it’s every computer. Clearly, HABLIE can reprogram them as easily as though they were part of himself. That’s a very dangerous power to have.”
“What kinds of demands do you think HARLIE would make?”
“I don’t know,” Handley said. “You’re his mentor.”
“That’s just it—I know him. I know how he works. He doesn’t make demands, he makes requests—and if they’re not granted, then he works around them. He works to accomplish his goals through the path of least resistance. Even if he could take over the National Data Banks, he wouldn’t use that power dictatorially—his reason for doing so would be to gain knowledge, not power. He only gets testy when we try to withhold information from him. At all other times he cooperates because he knows he’s at our mercy—completely so. You know as well as I do, Don, that if HARLIE turned out to be a malignant cancer, we’d turn him off in a minute—even if we did have to lose the data banks in the process, because we could always recreate them later. And HARLIE knows this. He’s got our memos in his files, Don—he’s in the Big Beast. He knows about all our discussions about the possibility of a JudgNaut device getting out of control, and he knows about our contingency plans. The mere knowledge of what we can do if we had to is one of our best controls on him.”
“You think so? He’s probably already thinking of ways to get around those contingency plans. He has the power. Power does not exist in a vacuum. It demands to be used. It needs to be used. Otherwise, why have it?”
“I’ll concede the point about power. But I want you to consider this possibility now; What if HARLIE would rather use his power in such a way that nobody would know he was doing it? That is, if HARLIE decided to build a new facility or a new computer, he would—but the people who implemented it would end up thinking it was their idea. They wouldn’t suspect HARLIE had a hand in it at all.”
“Like the G.O.D. Machine?”
Auberson stopped, startled. “Yes, of course. Like the G.O.D. Machine. You’re right.”
Handley nodded. “In either case, Aubie—whether you’re right or I’m right—he’s got the power and he’s using it. And that’s the issue.”
“Yes, I see that now. And you want to know what do we do about it?”
“Right. What do we do about it?”
Auberson didn’t reply immediately. He looked off into space, at the ceiling, at the floors, at the walls—he didn’t want to confront the thought directly. He sighed and looked at Handley again. “The truth is, I’ve been trying to avoid asking this question for . . . I don’t know how long. Maybe since we started. The truth is that HARLIE is—or can be—a pretty scary thing. And now I’m up against the reality of that scariness. I mean . . . we don’t even know that he hasn’t already cracked the National Data Banks and set up a dead-man destruct.” He sighed again and let his resignation show. “What do you want to do?”
“I’m not sure. I’m really not. I have this thought that if we put a lock on the phone, that will be the worst possible thing to do. It’ll pull him way off purpose—it’ll be like dropping a turd in the punch bowl—everything will be about that locked phone. He’ll have to find a way around it. And, uh, the only other alternative—that is, the only other way I can think to keep him from getting out of control—is to just say, ‘Fuck it,’ and pull his plug.” Handley looked at Auberson. “You’ve had this conversation with yourself already, haven’t you?”
Auberson nodded. “I keep thinking that I want to simply ask him to not do it any more.”
“Aw, come on, Aubie, you know better than that. Ask him not to masturbate while you’re at it. You’re a psychologist. You’ll only be forcing him to do it behind our backs. If nothing else, we want his actions where we can monitor them.”
“But you know, there’s no way he can hide it. He has to answer a direct question. He can’t not.”
“Want to bet? All he has to do is store his entire memory of unauthorized actions in some other computer. If you ask him about it, he literally won’t know. Periodically, the other computer would call him up and remind him that the information exists. If he didn’t need the information at that moment, he’d tell the other computer to check back with him again after a given amount of time and break the connection. If he did need it, it would be right there, where he could use it. He’d have full use of these memories, but they would always be out of your reach. Most likely, he’d only allow this information to retrieve itself at nighttime when you’re most likely to be absent.”
Auberson felt cornered. He didn’t answer. He couldn’t see a way out of the trap. He felt annoyed and frustrated. He wasn’t sure what was worse—doing something and having it be the wrong thing or not doing anything at all, knowing that was the wrong thing.
Handley looked at him, waiting.
Auberson spread his hands helplessly. “All right, Don, I see your point. What are you arguing for?”
Handley said it quietly. “Lobotomy.”
There was sudden pressure in Auberson’s chest. “Now, wait a minute—” he began to protest.
“Not the surgical kind, Aubie. We’re not going to cut him. I’m not sure I would even know how, and I don’t want to risk damaging the progress you’re making. What I propose to do is organize a team to go in and examine all his records—by hand if necessary. We’ll remove all knowledge of previous use of the phone links and set up some kind of an inhibition against using the phone in the future.”
There was no relief from the pressure. Auberson swallowed hard. “I don’t see that that would work, Don. He could move the data around from place to place, always two steps ahead of your team. Or he could do like you suggested and store it in another machine somewhere else.”
“You’re right. We’d have to shut him down to do it.”
“No. Absolutely not.” Auberson was adamant, he didn’t know why. Handley was right, but—he couldn’t let the statement stand. “We cannot do that, Don. The board would never let us start him up again.” No, there was no way he would allow that—
“We can handle the board, Aubie. If we survive the meeting on Tuesday, we can survive anything. We can call it a reevaluation period or something and use that as a cover.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Auberson met Handley’s curious eyes. “But there’s something else, Don. What would be the effect on HARLIE if we did this thing to him? If we could install an inhibition—and I’m not so certain we can, short of yanking out the phone altogether—what would it do to him?”
“You’re the psychologist.”
“That’s what I’m getting at—this thing scares me. This whole conversation is very dangerous, and I don’t even know all the reasons why. I just know that it’s making me very very uncomfortable. I have this thought that if we did this thing, it might change HARLIE’s whole personality. He’d have no knowledge of what we’d done, or what he was like before—but he also wouldn’t feel like the same machine as before. And whatever inhibition we might install might work to make him feel bitter and frustrated. He might feel unaccountably cut off from his outside world, trapped and caged. A large part of his ability to act on his environment would be gone.”
“That may be true, Aubie—but he’s going to have to be controlled.” Handley was insistent. “Now. While he’s still controllable.”
“Logically, what you’re saying is very reasonable, very logical, very appropriate—” agreed Auberson. His throat was very dry. “Except for one thing. How do we know that HARLIE is still controllable?”
Handley was startled. “We don’t. Do we?”
Auberson was more than a little upset when he returned to his office. He had a sick sensation in his groin and in his stomach.
&nb
sp; It was not an unfamiliar sensation, but it was strange to feel it in the daytime. Mostly, it was a nighttime visitor, an ever-gentle gnawing at the back of the head that had to be always guarded against, lest its realization sweep forth with a cold familiar rush. It was the sudden startling glimpse over the edge—the realization that death is inevitable, that it happens to everyone, that it would happen to me too; that someday, someday, the all-important I (the center of the whole thing) would cease to exist. Would stop. Would end. Would no longer be. Nothing. Nobody. Finished. Dead.
He had that feeling now.
Not the realization, just the accompanying cold, the whirling sense of futility that always came with it.
He felt it about HARLIE and about the company and about the world, and for some obscure reason, he felt that way about Annie as well.
He felt . . . futility; a sense that no matter what, he did, it would make no difference.
If he had thought things were under control this morning, he was wrong. Things were incredibly out of control and getting more so all the time.
When HARLIE Was One Page 23
