The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [38]
Van had invented a solid program for his new career. Since he had to be a potted plant anyway, he’d be a cactus. Think tough, look tough, talk tough. Real security pros were never chatty, chummy guys.
Van listened awhile, glaring at people at random, while caressing the keys of his laptop. Then he lost interest. They were obviously blue-skying it, these people. They weren’t making progress; they were sounding each other out and trying to cover their butts. They clearly had no idea what the hell was really going on. They were scared for themselves and their futures. They were politicking. Because this was Washington. There was nothing Van could do but put up with that.
After two agonizing hours, Jeb confronted the subject of the CCIAB’s own hardware. The mood in the room shifted instantly. Everyone in the room, without exception, was very interested in the subject of computer hardware. Obviously, an outfit whose business was coordinating computer security for the rest of the federal government would need an internal system that was top-end, heavy-duty, and very impressive indeed.
At this point, Van, who had been feeling sorry for himself and was badly missing his infant son, perked up a little.
As a professional computer researcher, Van secretly hated computer security. It was boring and beneath his true talents. Making him work on security was like asking a top Olympic cyclist to make bicycle locks and bicycle chains.
Nevertheless, this was now his duty. Plus, Van kind of liked the idea of building a genuinely advanced, secure system, from the ground up, from sound theory and practice rather than implementation hacks, and without any absurd interference by stupid market vendors. If he got to do that job by himself, that would be pretty okay. Van knew he could do it, it was honest work if dull, and at least he could set a good example.
Now he had to tell a room full of people how this was going to work. Van struggled with his stage fright. Stage fright was a very old demon for Van. He knew how to beat it, though: he beat his demon with confidence tricks.
Like pretending that they were just another Stanford undergraduate class. But they sure as hell weren’t. Or pretending they were all wearing red underwear. Beltway bandits in expensive suits were not exactly a red underwear crowd.
He could reach into his shoulder bag, and stick ’em up with his grandfather’s ray gun. A titanium ray gun! Leveled right at their heads! The very last thing in the world they would ever expect!
That thought did it for Van. He was just fine now. Van opened his laptop. “Well,” he told them, “Jeb says we should be frank.”
He threw up a colorful PowerPoint screen to keep them happy. Then he read aloud from his script. “As this shows you, today’s security industry will tell you certain very predictable things. They will tell you that a federal agency needs to buy their products. Secure servers, secure routers, firewalls, crypto, authentication, all brand-new out of the box . . . That is the conventional wisdom.”
Van switched PowerPoint screens, to a nicer one with a lot of colored bars and arrows. “But even for us, a small coordinating bureau, those purchases would set us back sixteen million dollars. We don’t have that money.”
Another screen. “In the CCIAB, we can’t wait the standard eight months to install conventional secure equipment. We need to be up and running, effective yesterday. We can’t afford the time and money for security products. But we do have to meet a very serious security need. You reconcile those two vectors, and that means only one thing.”
Van switched screens. This new screen took a while to refresh. To his vast relief, PowerPoint did not crash. “We have to create a brand-new breakthrough system. Thinking way outside