Keys

“Ha-ha-ha!? Do not fantasize, please.”

The interrogator nodded to the goon, which made a sudden blow to Antony’s chin. Antony overturned to the flow along with the chair, but quickly jumped on back to his feet:

“Hmm, I naively believed that in your democratic country, prisoners are not beaten… as in such countries, like Syria.”

“Guantanamo does not fall under the jurisdiction of the United States, as it is outside their territory,” the interrogator stated in a steel voice.

“Will you torture me by flooding?”

A new blow from the goon, aimed at Antony’s head, hit the block – Antony’s boxing skills has worked. The force of the blow threw him away almost to the front door, but he stayed on his feet. The goon approached him again, but the door to the room suddenly opened and Antony heard a sharp command from behind:

“Stop! Both – leave the room immediately!”

The goon and the interrogator reluctantly obeyed.

The newcomer walked over to the table and sat down in the place of the interrogator. He was in the uniform of a major from the National Security Agency. He was accompanied by a pretty lady, about thirty, in civilian clothes, with firm buttocks under a tight skirt. New comers greeted Antony, but, unlike the previous two, did not reveal their names. With his sixth sense, Anthon sensed an information technology specialist in the lady. To himself he dubbed her Nerda – the female version of the nickname of computer nerds. Nerda lifted a fallen chair and politely invited Antony to sit down again. He did. The major nodded to Nerda and she resumed the interrupted interrogation in a silky voice:

“We apologize for our colleagues. Them are from the CIA, what else can we expect from them?”

“Nothing, apart from medical tests,” Antony translated the Russian joke into English, knowing that the NSA and the CIA dislike each other to say the least.

The silence reigned for a few seconds and then both Major and Nerda burst into loud laughter at once. The atmosphere was discharged. The translation was close enough.

“So, you say that the keys are stored only on the clients’ computers?” Nerda continued still smiling.

“At the clients, but not on the computers, rather in the communicators.”

Upon hearing such news Nerda turned in surprise on the chair and leaned her body closer to Antony, incidentally crushing her bust on the table, which sharply increased the level of testosterone in Antony’s blood.

“Communicator? What it really is? ” she asked.

“It looks like a helmet for astronauts.”

“Helmet?” the major and Nerda both stretched their necks because of surprise.

“Well, yes, helmet. Soundproofed, with external microphone and speakers, internal microphone and speakers, external video camera and display, plus internal visor.”

“What kind of visor?” the major muttered, having noticed that the Russian was staring at his colleague.

“Type of virtual reality gaming glasses, only easier – you don’t need a gyroscope, tracker, accelerometer and other sensors. In terms of functionality, it replaces the internal display and camera.” Antony replied, glancing at Nerda out of the corners of his eyes.

“Your communicators work through the Internet, which means through all sorts of modems, cellular smartphones, ordinary computers, notebooks, netbooks, tablet computers et cetera. So, do these helmets still somehow pass the keys over to computers or devices alike for encryption and decryption?” Nerda asked with genuine professional curiosity.

“No. Encryption occurs only in the communicators themselves. Neither computers nor phones encrypt or decrypt anything. They just pump information through themselves in an already encrypted form and that’s all.”

Antony winked imperceptibly at Nerda. She pretended not to notice and continued in an emphatically formal tone:

“Already encrypted? Well. But in order to transmit encrypted information to or from a computer or smartphone, the communicator still has to somehow connect to that gadget, right? Why haven’t we detected any connected communicators on your clients’ devices then?”

“The communicator does not connect to the computerized devices in any way. In terms of its identification and interaction with the computer, it behaves as a passive device – it reports nothing about itself to no one,” Antony replied slowly, looking at her cleavage.

“Passive? But how then does it all work then?” Nerda tensed under his gaze and straightened up the blouse on her chest.

“The caller says the words inside the helmet, as usual. The internal microphone picks up the voice, digitizes and encrypts it. An encoded voice, resembling the cry of a pterodactyl, is played out by a speaker outside the helmet. It is this sound that goes into the phone or smartphone of the recipient. At the other end, everything happens in reverse order: the encrypted sound from the phone through the external microphone of the helmet is sent for decryption and is reproduced by the speakers inside the helmet as an ordinary human voice. Obviously, that is possible only if both communicators do get corresponding open and closed parts of keys beforehand and do not exchange them never later.”

“In other words, wearing helmets, interlocutors communicate as usual, but if you eavesdrop on their conversation, you will hear the screams of pterodactyls? Brilliant! And how does the video communicator work? ” Nerda looked at the major who did not share her enthusiasm.

“Likewise. Just a video camera is used instead of an external microphone and an internal visor display (in helmet) instead of internal speakers. The surreal encrypted image is read from the computer’s or helmet’s screen by the communicator’s camera. Then, after decryption, it is displayed on the visor inside the helmet in its original form.”

Nerda seemed to have a deep understanding of computer technology, so she froze with her mouth slightly open in surprise. Her exposed white teeth were the same shade of blue as that of the fairy in Antony’s dream! He was fascinated by them.

“Why haven’t we seen the helmets when we’ve intercepted the images from your clients’ computer cameras?” the major snapped.

“On the front of the helmet there is a holder in the form of a pin, on which the computer camera is attached and then focuses so that the boundaries of camera’s view do not go beyond the boundaries of the screen on helmet, thus leaving the helmet virtually invisible.”

The major ran out of questions. He bent over a prepared sheet of his notes. At this time, Nerda threw a lock of her red hair behind her right ear and Antony noticed a mole in front of her earlobe – like that of a Fairy from a dream! There was no wedding ring on her hands. Their eyes met and Antony sent her a bold air kiss. This time, she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t noticed and blushed shamefacedly. To buy herself time, she coughed several times. Then she asked in as flat voice as she could manage:

“It’s no secret that professional cryptographers sometimes manage to crack even theoretically unbreakable ciphers. Why was your communicator proved too hard for them? Did the long key length play the major role here?”

“Only partially. Cryptographers need leads. In classical encryption, they do have them, since the entire file is encrypted, along with the so-called descriptive header, where the file type (Excel, Word, graphics, video, music, etc.), and other technical info are specified in strictly defined positions. Therefore, hackers have a clue – they compare the encrypted file header with the standard unencrypted one. This greatly simplifies their task, as it makes the cipher and key already partially cracked. We do not encrypt the entire file, including its header. We encrypt only file’s content. That is, we do not hide the type of file that we transmit: video, image, sound or text. Our encrypted files outwardly look like ordinary unencrypted files, with the only difference that inside they contain surreal daubs, pterodactyl screams, or gibberish. Since the content is changeable and non-standard, then there is nothing for hackers to catch on to.”

Nerda listened as if mesmerized, with her mouth open again:

“Brilliant! Is this your idea?”

”No, it was of our other employee,” Antony smiled.

“That’s what our compatriot Daniel is doing there, isn’t he?” the major broke in.

Antony hesitated for a second, but it was pointless to hide this fact – they certainly knew it:

“Yes, your former compatriot.

“Why doesn’t he show his nose from Russia?” Nerda asked in a Russian phrase in English and smiled radiantly.

Antony was puzzled. How could this American woman know such specifically Russian aphorism? Or those words had come out of her mouth by chance? Antony decided to find it out and launched another Russian proverb:

“God keeps safe those being kept safe. Daniel clearly sees how USA is trying to capture Snowden and Asange. Definitely, those guys would be more precious to you, but, alas be content with me, ha.”

“Come on, let Daniel take care of himself there further. You are even more suitable for us,” Nerda’s voice was already filled with undisguised sympathy.

The Major frowned.

“How do you know Russian proverbs and sayings?” Antony asked Nerda directly.

“My great-great-grandmother was originally from Russia. The family immigrated here during the revolution – did not accept the collectivization. But I’m not Russian anymore; I have more American blood in me.”

“Anyone with at least one drop of Russian blood remains Russian one hundred percent,” Antony joked confidently.