The Oracle Year(58)

“Well, radio telescopes, but that’s essentially correct. Their search produces immense amounts of information—space noise, if you will. All that needs to be processed, to look for a potential signal, but it’s not simple. It requires a great deal of computer power—more processing than SETI’s budget can afford, by a long shot.

“So they appealed to the public. They offered a little piece of software for free to volunteers across the world. Once someone installed the software, SETI could use their computer as a node on their distributed network. Whenever the person wasn’t using their machine’s processing power, SETI did. It worked very well—SETI ended up with one enormous processor, in effect, able to solve problems just as fast as one of the supercomputers they couldn’t afford.”

The Coach nodded, blue eyes twinkling behind her glasses.

“I think I see where you’re headed with this, Doctor. You’re using the SETI network to crunch the numbers on the Oracle’s security that much faster.”

Staffman shook his head. He was getting excited. He licked his lips.

“No, no, I did better than that,” Staffman said. “The SETI network isn’t strong enough to get through the Oracle’s security. I had to use something else. I sent out a virus, something I designed a few years ago. I refined it a little bit to make use of flaws in Microsoft and Linux OSes—I decided not to hit Macs, although I could have, believe me. Maybe I should have. They’re about due to get knocked off their high horse.”

The Coach cleared her throat.

“Right,” Staffman said. “Sorry. Anyway, my virus lets me access every system it infects and utilize some of its unused processing power. Most computers don’t run at one hundred percent of their operating capacity. Oh, they might, for short periods of heavy activity, but most of the time it’s down at twenty percent or less. That leaves me an enormous amount of computing power to access. The whole thing, tied together, is called a botnet. As of right now, the virus has gotten to about three-quarters of the world’s systems in just under seventy-two hours. That’s a record, in case you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” the Coach said, her voice turning a bit frosty. “What do you say you cut to the chase here, Professor? I’d appreciate it.”

“A botnet lets me crack the Oracle’s systems much more quickly. This bar”—he indicated the third monitor—“shows how we’re doing. We’ve only been at it for about twenty-four hours, and we’re nearly at a hundredth of a percent. That’s remarkable progress for the level of encryption we’re trying to break. It should have taken months.”

“Dr. Staffman, if I understand you right, it means we won’t get this done for more than a year.”

The twinkle had vanished from the Coach’s eyes. Staffman swallowed. She had done some very quick math to come up with that figure, that absolutely correct figure.

“Coach, you have to understand how incredible it is that we can do this at all. We’re accelerating the procedure by a thousand times! I know it’s slow, but it’s the only way.”

“I need it faster. I need it now, Staffman.”

“It can’t be done. I’m already using a quarter of the world’s computing power as it is. What do you expect me to do?”

The Coach raised one dark eyebrow. Staffman wondered if she dyed them—her hair was a uniform silver gray.

“Why are you only using a quarter?”

“Let me explain the situation, Coach. Look at this map,” Staffman said, gesturing to the central monitor on his desk. “I’m having my team monitor the processing power my botnet is sucking up, to make sure that it doesn’t get too heavy in any one area. If we’re going to be in this for the long haul, we have to stay below the radar.”

“But you could use the rest, if you wanted to,” the Coach said, her tone thoughtful.

“Yes, I suppose, but . . . look. I might not be explaining myself very well. If I turn up the usage, then the virus would be noticed. People would take action. We’d have to stop.”

“But if you used it all, then you could get past the Oracle’s security that much faster. It wouldn’t matter if someone found us—we’d already be in,” the Coach said.

Staffman was beginning to get frustrated. He’d paid his dues in grad school as a teaching assistant—explaining concepts to laymen was never pleasant, and the worst were those with a little knowledge, enough to think they could second-guess him. The only problem was that he couldn’t exactly give the Coach a D-minus.

“The thing is, though,” he said, trying valiantly to keep any trace of sarcasm out of his voice, “the computer processing power we’d be stealing is being used for things right now. Air traffic, the Internet, military—and not just here, but all over the world. The entire globe would go haywire, Coach.”

“But you could do it.”

Staffman ran a hand through his hair. He adjusted his glasses. He looked across the room, to the window at the back. He let his gaze rest there for a moment, then shifted his eyes back to the Coach.

“Yes, I could do it,” he said.

“How much would it speed things up?”

“Exponentially. I could have your answer in a matter of hours.”

“So do it.”