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The Box :
A low level maintenance worker ( with a very high IQ and dysfunctional personality type ) at a government facility happens to come across a box that he inadvertently picks up to discard, as it is left unattended in an area where piles of other refuse is stacked to be discarded. While removing the garbage, a Red Alert goes out over the entire facility, but he is just in the act of leaving the parameter and gets out, right before the gates and building are sealed. Because the guards in that area were distracted by ( x ) just before the alarms went off, they didn't notice the maintenance vehicle leaving.
The next day, he hears about the incident. Apparently; One of the NSA agents, or Spy had somehow misplaced a portable decryption device, And if it fell into the wrong hands it could compromise many of our codes. A few days later; The box is still missing, and the government is required to scrap millions of dollars worth of encrypting protocols to switch to the next tier of coding conventions. Everyone at the facility is very upset. The agent that lost the box is found guilty of treason and shot.
The Maintenance worker hears about all this through the grape vine and doesn't piece it all together for weeks afterwards. He has kept the box, thinking that it is a radio or portable computer or calculator of some foreign kind, and is curious to see if he can figure it out. After he comes to understand that this is the box that caused all the confusion, he at first thinks that he should turn it in, but then when he hears that the agent that lost it was shot, he suspects that maybe he will be knocked off as a loose end that would have to be tidied up.
During this time; After he got it home, it was pretty dinged up, so he took out the battery pack and stored it in an old refrigerator, which is lined with lead. He hadn't done this to shield it, but merely because he was afraid that the battery may have been leaking, and he stored it there to keep it from being damaged until he had a chance to clean it, Then after a day or two, forgotten about it. All this while; NSA Satellites have been scanning the whole state looking for the transpondant signature of this box.
After a few more weeks; He finally gets about to looking at the box, and examines it carefully. He opens the back and knows enough about electronics to see that it has a transponder antenna, and measures its output. It's dead, but he also knows that A Microwave signal sent to it could bounce off it, like the antitheft tags on clothing at Walmart. He takes photos of the box and internal electronics, noting many internal numbers and codes on the many black boxes inside it, and then wraps it all in several layers of aluminum foil and puts it back into the refrigerator, which he now realizes is lead lined.
Over the next few days, he is extremely paranoid about any strange or odd looking trucks or vans in the neighborhood, but they seem to just be driving through. Actually; A signal was detected from that area, but the satellites couldn't localize it, and the signal was ambiguous anyway. An Effort to find the source of the stray signal was made, but then abandoned.
The Worker spends many hours at local used book stores, Army/Navy Surplus Stores, Junk Dealers and talking to drunks on skid row with military uniforms before getting a firm idea of what the box really is. He also finds an old Spy, that tells him many crazy stories, and how he had gotten too close to a flying saucer case. When he was discovered to have seen files that he shouldn't have, they were going to kill him, so using every trick he knew, he managed to disappear and get away. He left everything behind, except for a file of encrypted documents in a code that was used years previously. A code that the box would still work with. This was determined by comparing Coded labels on the black box’s inside, and Identification Stamps on The documents. Along with these were Other Stamps in Purple & Silver Ink; ( K ) SECRET / BUFFALO LEVEL CLASSIFICATION / EYES ONLY / DO NOT OPEN / DO NOT BREAK SEAL / Plus lengthy Penalty Warnings. The Spy tells him that this all means that the document is far above ordinary levels of TOP SECRET. This is a Highly Confidential Compartmentalized Departmental File. Even The President or Generals or Admirals with The Highest Levels of National Security Clearance couldn't see this document, unless they were cleared for this Departmental Program. It was Strictly Black Ops of Black Ops. Maybe Black Ops of Black Ops of Black Ops.
The Spy Then finds out about The Box and they examine it together. The Spy confirms that when it's operational, It will give off a unique electronic signal that satellites in orbit would be able to detect, So he helps construct a Faraday Cage to Shield This Signal, Then to be Doubly Sure; They hang cones of Aluminum from the ceiling and electrify the surrounding earth. Unfortunately; All This creates a highly distinctive Patch of electronic signal Anomalies which pop up on The NSA's Routine Satellite Surveillance Maps. These appear all over the country, and about 60% of the time there is a perfectly natural explanation for them, But each is investigated Anyways, At a low priority level. Typically; The Area is merely surveilled with a truck mounted unit and if it matches a signal configuration that they're familiar with, it's just ignored. This signal is right of the edge of being suspicious, So it is Noted, A secondary file is created, then ignored.
Meanwhile; The Spy and Maintenance Worker continue to research the box and how to operate it. They find a manual in Russian that they found on the internet. It was in a box of USSR, SMERSH ( A Real Spy Organization ! ) Documents that were discarded after The USSR Fell. This Manual was created as an analysis of The Box they had. The Russians ( The Maintenance Worker Speaks a Little Russian, and then finds a native Russian Girl to Help with The Translation of it ) were able to tear one apart and outlined how all the components worked, including the functionality of each of the black boxes, but the actual protocol of how to implement The Controls on The Box and Translate something that Eluded them. It was determined to be of little use, As The Codes were being changed regularly anyways, and if they were interested in something, they would simply buy a clean document from a mole, of which there were thousands, working inside the US government. Taking this lead; They found a listing of many of these moles that were active during the time of their document's creation. Then they located one locally, An Old woman that provided them ( for sex, money and evenings spent watching old movies from Netflix with ) with many of The Catch Phrases & Technical Jargon that would allow them continue researching The Box.
At About this time; The Boys also discovered that when The Box was turned on, It would Normally Emit A Carrier Wave that was like a Siren to Tell The NSA Satellites where it was. They already knew this, sort of, but this was A Defeating Blow to them. They had anticipated that A Perfectly Ordinary Electronic Signal, A Unique Signal, would be Leaked when the device was operating, but this was different. In the later case, The NSA Satellites would have to be carefully listening for this signal, But The Prior Case would be like The Box Calling The NSA Person to Person to Let them Know Where it Was. The Tiniest Hole in their Faraday Cage would betray them. They were sunk. Then The M-Worker had a Tremendous Insight into this Problem. They Discovered That this Alert Signal normally lasted about 2 Seconds because of Hand-shaking & Hash Codes to Verify that The Alert Signal was Valid. All They had to do was Interrupt this Cycle, So that it was never Completed. Although they didn't understand The Electronics Thoroughly enough to disable this feature, they were able to Operate the Signal Processor in Single Increments. That is; When The Box was Normally Operating, you would simply turn it on, Key in a Input Character, Then Press; DECRYPT, ( A Blue Button with a Aztecean Pictoglyph on it ) And The Decrypted Character would be added to a Plain Text Buffer, Along with The Character appearing in a window. Much of The Box was Mechanical, and not Electronic, So that this window consisted on a metal wheel that would rotate under the window. They Discovered that they could completely disconnect the main battery power supply, Add a hand Crank Generator, and one Twist of The Generator's Handle would be enough to Process one Character of Code, then the unit would go dead again. This cycle lasted just less than one second, much less than The Alert Flash.
After considerable fooling around and trail & error; They manage to decrypt a line of the document. It is indeed about something to do with the operation of a captured flying saucer & something else. But then the next line won't decode. ( ? ) !
They go back to The Old Woman, have more sex with her, watch several movies, and she suggests that The Code is using a Staggering Slip Key. This is Somewhat unusual, but not insanely so. They merely have to find The Slip Sequence for The Document. These Sequences were assigned rather sloppily, and Many Documents from A particular Era or Year or Month, would all use the same Slip Progression. This would essentially A PseudoRandom Generation Algorythm that would tell the code operator how much to shift The Decryption Key for each line.
While they were researching these Slip Progressions; The M-Man decided to use the computers at the library, because they were faster, and The Spy had moved in and was using his computer to play frustratingly difficult children's games on. At The Library; After typing in Slip String, Slip Chain, Slip Series into Google. The NSA Computers that monitor All of Google's Search Terms, immediately recognized these Phrases as Hot Buttons! They dispatched a team to the library, where several men in black scuba costumes stormed into the library, shot a girl at the station that they mistakenly thought was the unit making this search, then planted a large orange slab of plastic explosive on the monitor, ran back outside, through a large plate glass window, where they attached themselves to hanging cables which pulled them into round holes especially designed for such extractions, on the bottom of an all black, eerily silent helicopter, as it swooped away. Moments after it left, witnesses reported that it changed color to sky blue, effectively making it nearly invisible! Then The bomb went off, severely injuring dozens of library patrons. Amazingly; The M-Man had ducted behind a pillar and was one of the few in that vicinity to suffer only minor burns to the sides of his arms as the fire ball rushed past his position. The Next Day; The local paper reported that the library would be closed for 2 weeks while the carpeting was being cleaned.
All ( ! ) they would have to do, was find a low level ( merely Secret or Confidential ) document that was encrypted at about the same time as their document, in both Its Encrypted & Decrypted forms, and then use a home computer ( A super computer compared to when the document was made ) to back step the pseudorandom generator algorythm. This would probably take about a week.
Using The Freedom of Information Act; They obtain dozens of Confidential Interoffice memos from the time that The Spy thinks that this document was produced. They get the necessary software from a local computer club for the local Junior High School, and set to work. After only 4 months of trying memo after memo and then trying The Discovered Slip Chains on Their Document, They are back in business. Only to hit a snag again on the second of 17 sections. Apparently the sections were encrypted at different times, so they have to keep trying different Slip Series and Initial Key Points, that should be Revealed in The Encoded Text Itself, but it appears that The Encryption Technician may not have known exactly what they were doing, So they have to consider how The Encryption Process was misused. Even if The Document was being Decrypted by A Trained Box Operator, It might be Very Frustrating. If it were being Decrypted on a Main Frame, Presumably The Software would have made allowances for this sort of misuse and worked around it. This Handheld Box was meant for Well Encoded Short Field Messages, Not 200 page Documents with Illustrations & Photographs!
( This idea of Slip Codes is based on Two Sources in Real Life. One is something like this was used in Dan Brown's _Puzzle Palace_ The first Dan Brown book that i read, And The other is that The HP48's Internal Firmware Code is Staggered About half way through, to prevent anyone from simply downloading its proprietary software. This wasn't much of a security door, as we were able to simply take this into consideration when hacking into it, and moving the bit map over one notch when it suddenly stopped making sense. )
At about this Same Time; The NSA Satellites where detecting two anomalies at the site of The Boy's Workshop. One as a Regular Bleep of Partial Alert Codes, in Fragmented Form, Which are expected to occur from everything electronic, diesel trucks, arc lamps & welding equipment, static discharges at carpet factories, car crushers at junkyard's, electrocutions at state prison's, firework's displays & old refrigerators. But his was showing a Pattern. The NSA had an underground facility in West Virginia that was The Size of Kansas City, that was filled with The Latest & Near Latest Computers that were specifically designed to look through random noise for patterns of any kind whatsoever. The Second thing was another anomaly that would easily be overlooked, except that this one was right on top of the other. And that was an Electronic Hole in Their Neighborhood. Nowadays; Everyone has a shitload of Electronics in their home, and each house is like a lightbulb of microwave radiation shining into space, night & day. But Right there, where they were, Their Enhanced Faraday Cage was blocking out all of their electronic signature.
A Truck was sent out to Investigate this spot.
The Team in The Truck knew that this probably had a prosaic explanation was not expecting to have to blow anything up, but after sitting all afternoon across the street in a carpeting van, they decided to enter the house with scanning equipment. The Faraday cage was located in the basement, and due to their paranoia, long before the library incident, they had hidden the door to the basement behind a carefully crafted bookcase, which when opened, would lead to a hidden enclave that contained stacks of pornography. This tiny room would feature another false wall which lead to The furnace room, which had a trap door that led to their secret burrow.
Curiously; The NSA Subcontractors didn't find the bookcase door, instead they focused on the old refrigerator that was located right over the spot that the spy was working The Box at That moment. They Ran their scanners over the very noisy refrigerator several times, pulling it away from the wall, and kicking the filthy motor sticking away from the back. It clearly wasn't the one that it was originally designed to use and they swore like drunken sailors as then pulled it out onto the back lawn and blew it up. Because the commotion upstairs, The Spy stopped using The Box. Which corresponded with The Refrigerator having it's cord pulled from the wall.
They left, Mission Accomplished.
The M-Man & Spy then redoubled their efforts to create wave canceling electronics that removed any trace of The Alert Signal, And also, based on comments that the team that had invaded their home had made, carefully crafted just the right amount of 'normal' EM Pollution that the NSA expected.
Fortunately; The NSA computers & Satellites weren't quite smart enough to spot areas that were 'normal' that shouldn't be. The NSA computers considered 'Normal' good and benign and tended not to double think these things.
After all this; The Boys were able to continue Decrypting the Documents fairly straightforwardly.
Then they discover why it was so Secret. The real reason why the government is so hysterically fanatical about contributing so much disinformation to The UFO/Flying Saucer Phenomena.
( ? )
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