Jeremy’s Little Corner Of The Web…

I finished reading another of Dan Brown's books today, called "Digital Fortress". In this book, it deals with crytography and the NSA, which has an extremely powerful computer called 'TRANSLTR', used to snoop into the email and data of people across the globe…

In the storyline, an ex-employee of the NSA, who disagreed with the use of TRANSLTR, releases what he dubs unbreakable encryption. The main character of the novel, Susan Fletcher, is called into work on a Saturday by her boss because he needs help dealing with this new form of encryption. At first, the story seemed quite straight forward, and I thought it would end with everyone jumping for joy that the encryption was broken, yada yada yada, but it seems Dan Brown had other things in mind. Needless to say, there are a number of twists and turns that make it very interesting to read. Another one of those books that you can't put down!

One of the main themes of the book is privacy, and the author does bring up some good points about it. The NSA (in the book) has an extremely powerful computer that is being used to break the encryption of emails and data sent between people, in order to prevent threats to the U.S. Through its use, TRANSLTR has prevented a number of terrorist and nuclear attacks, so it seems its use is legitimised. The deputy director in charge of the cryptography division, which TRANSLTR is run by, appears to be a man of high integrity, who would not use the machine to invade the privacy of normal people. Instead, it is only used to prevent these attacks on the U.S. On the surface, this seems pretty good. But what crops up in the book is, what happens when the management changes, or when the government decides that it DOES want to snoop into the conservations of people across the world? That would cause trouble. So, the question is, is it fair for one entity to hold that much power? A fitting quote used throughout the book is "Who will guard the quards?"

Overall, a great book, which seems to stick to Dan Brown's formula for success. (Can't fault him for that.)