Binary code: Mystery number one

Ruthra noticed how attentively his audience was listening. Clearly they had not expected this. Of course, the audience included employees and officials with high security clearances.

– No sooner had the public digested the information about metadata than Snowden bombarded them with a story about another area of the NSA's work, labeled US-984XN. Every search platform, every source of raw intelligence information gets its own designation and code name. The SIGAD US-984XN service is known by the oft-mentioned code name PRISM. The PRISM system is the collection of digital photographs, files stored somewhere and sent somewhere, emails, chats, videos, and video conversations. This information is being seized from nine leading internet companies. The schemes made public by Snowden show that the NSA, among other things, uses real-time surveillance tools in its operations. The agency's analysts can receive alerts when a user connects to a service or sends an email, or logs into a particular chat room. Snowden published a top-secret report that described software that could look at hundreds of different databases. It is now no longer a secret that these programs allow the lowest level analyst to interfere unchecked with other people's information sharing processes. The report gives examples such as, "My client speaks German but is in Pakistan. How do I find him?" or "My client uses Google Maps to find his targets. Can I use this information to determine his email address?" The described program allows, having asked one such question, to simultaneously search through 700 servers scattered all over the world.

Ruthra was silent for a moment and then continued. He described the various schemes of the tracking systems and gave examples.

– Among other things, the NSA itself is asking other agencies to help. So-called information-sharing cooperation. The essence is that, for example, the German intelligence agency BND, commissioned by the NSA, conducts surveillance of targets throughout Europe. Intelligence activities are carried out in accordance with a list of tens of thousands of criteria for information retrieval. These include IP addresses, phone numbers, social media accounts, and email domains.

Ruthra fell silent, then looked at the lecturer who had invited him and said:

– I'm done. Thank you for your attention.

The audience clapped approvingly. The audience tried to get through to Rutre, who was being hurried away by Zhidkov. They were followed by the lecturer, who, in English, suggested that Rutra give periodic lectures as part of the existing arrangements for the exchange of experience. Vasilievich nodded approvingly, arching his eyebrows. The latter nodded back. Rutra did not quite understand the meaning of this gesture, but he noticed that he had made an impression on everyone.

After passing through the guarded secret library, in front of which Zero's security zone was thoughtfully located (the guards wore FSO uniforms), they silently began to descend by elevator. Both of them were thinking, pondering.

The first to break the silence was the chief:

– Now, after all this information flows into our center that no one can know about. Center Zero. Why is it located in Russia? Because it is easier to create a center closed from the public in Russia than in any other civilized country.

***

A general meeting was scheduled for Monday morning. Yuri Vasilievich gave the speech.

– The reason I've gathered you here is the Perimeter system, or rather, a malfunction that was miraculously eliminated. It's lucky that we identified it at all, although, frankly speaking, there have been rumors about the system's "waywardness" for a long time. All right, esteemed employees. This is a very important part of our work, but it should not be to the detriment of other duties. That's the first thing. Second: Rutre Tigrovic is in charge of the investigation. He will do the main work. You'll gather material for him. Third: I'll introduce you to the system in general terms, the rest you'll learn on your own.

Everyone listened to the announcement in silence, glancing around, though some showed no reaction.

– So, what are we dealing with, what is the problem: the Perimeter system is known in Europe and the United States as the "dead hand". It is a complex of automatic control of a massive retaliatory nuclear strike, created in the USSR at the height of the Cold War. It is designed for guaranteed delivery of combat orders from higher levels of control to command centers and individual launchers of strategic missiles on alert, in case of emergency, when communication lines may be damaged. The Perimeter system is an alternative command system for all branches of the armed forces with nuclear weapons. It was created as a backup communications system in case key nodes of the Kazbek command system and communications lines are destroyed by a first strike in accordance with the U.S. concept of "limited nuclear warfare." Let me tell you about the Kazbek system right away. It is known to the general public thanks to the Cheget subscriber complex, or nuclear suitcase. The Cheget subscriber complex is a retaliatory strike tool. It is activated only after receiving a signal of a missile attack on Russia. First, a signal is received from the early warning system about a missile attack. It is checked by the duty general of the command center in Solnechnogorsk. Only then is the Kazbek system put into combat mode. The suitcase contains communication equipment with the General Staff and the command of the Strategic Missile Forces. Hereinafter I will use the abbreviation RVSN. Roughly speaking, it is a telephone, but the information is transmitted not by voice, but by encrypted symbols. It is impossible to block communication. There are three Chegetas on permanent duty: the Head of State, the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff. There are also duplicate ones. "The main button" in the suitcases is there – it transmits to the command centers of the Strategic Missile Forces a code authorizing the use of nuclear weapons. But missiles will be launched only if commands to do so are received from all three consoles. As I said, the total number of suitcases is more than three, the system is duplicated, but only a very narrow circle of people know about it. In addition, they are changed, checked, repaired. How many of them there are, only Department "C" knows.

Yuri Vasilyevich thought for a couple of seconds and said:

– The only time Cheget was used was on January 25, 1995, after the world's largest meteorological missile, the Black Brant XII, was launched from an island off the coast of Norway. Its flight trajectory resembled that of an American Trident ICBM fired from a submarine. Its final destination could have been a high-altitude nuclear explosion, disabling Russian missile warning radars. The Norwegians' notification of the missile launch got lost in the Foreign Ministry, and the next day Boris Yeltsin said that for the first time he used his briefcase for emergency communication with military advisers. This is a very interesting story in terms of why this happened. I will tell you about it separately, because, as one knowledgeable general said, it was a surprise only for Boris Yeltsin. By the way, I can say that if anyone thinks that such situations are funny, he is very mistaken. To give you an example, let me tell you about some of these situations. Do you remember those very radio sockets in old apartments that broadcast two programs? They were of great importance as a stand-alone, power-independent civil defense warning system in the USSR. There was a similar system in the U.S., and it was regularly tested to make sure it worked. All radio and television stations sent out test messages with alarm codes to check the operability of communications. This was and is handled by a special center at NORAD, i.e. the North American Aerospace Defense Command. At 9:33 a.m. on a February Saturday morning in 1971, a teletype operator at the National Civilian Warning Center ran an erroneous message into the system accompanied by the code Hatefulness, which meant a real emergency, not a drill. 5,000 radio stations and 800 television transmission centers received a message that read, "Attention! This is an emergency message coming directly from the President of the United States. Immediately cease normal broadcasting and begin broadcasting emergency messages beginning with the appropriate code. Stand by for further instructions." Panic broke out across the country and lasted for nearly 40 minutes until a retraction was issued.

Those gathered continued to listen intently.

– Here's another similar incident. Once at 8:50 a.m. computers in three U.S. command centers at once – in NORAD, in the Pentagon and in the Reserve Command Center in Maryland – sounded the alarm: "The United States has been subjected to a massive nuclear strike by the USSR. For the next six minutes, the fate of the world was decided. A Threat Assessment Commission consisting of senior officers from all three centers was immediately convened. ICBM launch sites received advance warning of the strike and instructions to prepare a retaliatory strike. Ten fighter-interceptors took to the air on alert, while others prepared for immediate departure. A so-called "doomsday plane" even took to the air, intended for the high command and the president, who would be able to command troops even if all ground command centers were destroyed.

The Threat Assessment Commission worked quickly and smoothly: all reports were cross-checked and data from long-range radar stations and space satellites were received, none of which confirmed the launch of even one Soviet missile. The system was rebooted and the alarm was declared false. The investigation revealed that the cause of the false alarm was a mistake by an Air Force command center officer who ran a training program simulating a full-scale Soviet attack on a computer included in the NORAD unified command system, which caused the general alarm. This possibility was later eliminated by physically separating the training and combat systems.

Yuri Vasilyevich spoke without stopping, confidently and clearly.

– Another similar case, again related to the NORAD center. One day, in the middle of the night, the computers of the Strategic Air Command and the Pentagon received messages from this center about the launch of missiles on U.S. territory. The counter of launched missiles suddenly changed its value and began to show 002 or 200 attacking missiles. The duty officers were alarmed, and an alert was declared. Pilots took their places in the bombers, the engines were started, the launching points of missiles "Minuteman" received instructions for a retaliatory strike. Minutes counted. A decision from the Risk Assessment Commission was required to launch a retaliatory attack. And the counter continued to go crazy – the "zeros" and "twos" kept changing places. This raised doubts about its serviceability. Then the control messages from the early detection stations were checked, which showed no threat. The alarm was canceled and the counter was reset. Three days later, the situation was exactly the same, and then the Commission was able to find the cause – it was a defective microchip in the computer system NORAD, costing only 46 cents, which arbitrarily changed the values of the counter because of a failure in its own electronic circuit. So a penny electronics could have destroyed the entire humanity… The point of my digression is to emphasize once again that the world is fragile, people are emotional, computer systems are imperfect.

There was another case on the subject of the nuclear suitcase. It was 1991, during Yeltsin's hunting trip to Zavidovo near Moscow. When we were sailing on a boat on the lake, one foreign guest kept looking at a black suitcase at the bottom of the boat. He thought it was nuclear. He tried to stay away from the suitcase, trying to sit on the edge of the boat. When they opened the suitcase on the island and took out two bottles of vodka and pickles, the guest laughed for a long time.

Some of the staff, hearing the story for the first time, chuckled. The colonel was silent for a moment and continued: