Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [111]
In 2007, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the agency responsible for funding the original Internet, endeavored to create a new, more secure version of the Internet: InterneXt or Internet 2.0. Working secretly with several handpicked scientists, they undertook to study whether data could be stored and transferred—not on magnetic computer chips—but in human memory cells. The basic idea was to determine whether the expanse of human memory space might be used to encode information, unbeknownst to the carrier. Farfetched as it sounds, the prospective uses could be extraordinary, such as: having an unsuspecting civilian (child/old person) carry data across enemy lines; having someone encrypted with launch codes or mission critical information but who could not be hacked via a computer; eventually developing the ability to “program” fallow human memory centers with vast stores of data.
Unwitting human hard drives. The ultimate mobile storage devices.
I was one of the scientists involved in the project. At the time that I began working for Chuck Taylor, his intentions were not clear to me. I believed that we were exploring technology that might strengthen human memory capacity, not overwrite it.
I hope that I have met you in person. If so, you probably didn’t have cause to discover this file and read it (because I’ve told you the important parts and you’ve already written a front-page scoop).
If we haven’t met and you’re reading this, I’m probably dead.
I have discovered the extent of the project and its real purposes. I have learned that Chuck plans to send a group of Vietnam and Iraq War veterans to China. The reason given for the trip is the Pan-Asian Games taking place over Thanksgiving. Unknowingly, the vets will be carrying secure data. I am not certain if this is encoded information for mere testing purposes or if Chuck is actually transferring important military data to the Chinese.
I don’t know if any of this will make sense to you. It doesn’t have to. What I need from you are two things: expose the perpetrators and then destroy this file.
Without the information in this file, Chuck and his partners cannot reproduce their efforts. Herein are the scientific protocols that dictate how computers must be programmed to stimulate memory loss and to overwrite it. This is the only copy. All others have been destroyed.
Why am I including them here?
It is possible that you can use this information to undo damage done to your grandmother. I am sorry for what happened to her. Her adventurous mind and eagerness to hunt for new information and experiences made her hippocampus particularly susceptible to manipulation.
This was extremely unfortunate and it did not even constitute a success for Chuck’s purposes. He and whoever his partners are need people whose memories can be compromised but who remain functional. For their purposes, a nearly obliterated memory—a neurological wildfire—effectively renders the host useless.
But for my purposes, she appears to have retained sufficient communication skills. That is why I’ve encrypted inside of her the password that protects this file.
I am sorry also that I have made things so difficult for you to discover. Given Chuck’s seemingly limitless resources and capacities, I did not know where to turn. I tried to encrypt my clues in a way only you could discover.
Once you’ve brought the conspiracy to light, please destroy this file. The science included here, while still in its early stages, is among