Alexander Lazarevich - The Worm

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THE WORM

Alexander Lazarevich.

Part I.

1992: The Prince of Darkness.

I begin my story in the hope that you won't believe a

word of what I am going to tell you, since I don't want to

shock you, and disbelief might be your only protection

against the shock. Take this narrative for whatever you like

- a science fiction story, a legend, a fairy-tale - but not

for a single moment should you regard it as an actual fact.

I'll try to help you in this by supplying some hard-to-

believe fictitious details. But I don't think I need to go

very far in this - the story is unbelievable enough as it

is.

It's very easy to doubt it - the source is unreliable

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and there's no way of checking the facts. For all I know,

the story might have been born in a drunken delirium.

I heard it from an acquaintance of mine who had visited

an international workshop on systems software development.

There he befriended a famous western programmer, invited him

to his hotel room and treated him to a bottle of vodka.

After the third glass the celebrity became talkative and

unburdened himself of his harrowing secret.

While telling his story, he gave the impression of a

man laboring under the awareness of some horrible truth,

that, of all the people on earth, was disclosed to him alone

and separated him from the rest of mankind into terrible

loneliness. This, or the fact that the acquaintance of mine

also was not quite sober by that moment, might explain why

he was listening to it without any disbelief. While

listening, he had only one thought: to awaken next morning

remembering nothing of it. Because one cannot live on

knowing all this. No reason to.

Next morning he had a terrible headache. But despite

all the drink of the night before, the story of the last

night's guest sank deep in his mind and was festering.

The phone rang: "I'm sorry I've told you last night a

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bit more than I should have. May I ask a favor of you? I

understand I can' swear you to silence. You won't be able to

live alone with what you've learned for a long time. Sooner

or later you'll need to share it with somebody. So there's

only one thing I ask of you - don't disclose my true name.

If you need a name for me, let it be John Hacker."

"Hacker? Is this the slang word for programmers who

like you in your youth..."

"Yes, it is. But don't remind me about it anymore." And

he hung up...

In 1982 John Hacker was 18 and he was indeed quite a

hacker. Back then, there were not so many computers in the

world as nowadays, but the process of linking them together

into the global network had already begun. Even with a

primitive home computer linked through a modem to a

conventional phone line one could already access

supercomputers on the other side of the globe. To be sure,

computers containing confidential data were protected

against an unauthorized entry with various passwords and

data protection systems incorporating the ingenuity of the

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best programmers in the world. And it is here that the

strongest temptation and the greatest challenge to the young

minds lie. To outwit the wittiest programmers in the world -

is there a more tempting task for a youth longing to boost

his self-esteem? Such boys became hackers - computer fans,

who burned midnightdisplays in the hope to unlock one more

data bank with 'access denied'.

It was the hackers who invented the worms - the break-

in programs that use communication channels to worm their

way into protected computer systems where they breed and

then travel on through the networks to meet their new

victims. And victims they are, since the worms often have

computer viruses built into them - to leave for a keepsake

to the hospitable host computer.

In 1982 John Hacker finished his masterpiece. He gave

his worm a daunting name - "Prince of Darkness". That one

was not just a worm. That was The Ultimate SuperWorm! It was

the first worm that had the ability for self-perfection

built into it!

It was a memorable day for John when he inserted the

diskette with the finished worm into o the drive. For two

years he had been hacking away at it on his small PC with a

mere 128 KB of random-access memory, assembling on this drop

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of a memory the program that was destined to conquer the

oceans of memory contained in the huge supercomputers of the

entire world. He put the phone receiver on the modem and

typed: 'PRNCDKNS'. The old floppy disk drive screaked and

slowly began reading. Soon the acoustic modem started its

squeak and twitter: the worm, still residing in the home

computer, began its attempts to fit a key to the electronic

lock of his first victim. For a start, John set the worm up

with a phone list of a dozen of poorly guarded databanks.

Quite sufficient for an initial setup, and in the future,

when the worm exhausted the list, it would have to provide

for itself by intercepting phone calls to other users.

The twitter abruptly stopped - the worm had failed to

pass through the security barriers. The sound resumed in

half a second - the worm went on to the next phone number in

the list - and, suddenly, there was a new silence. "Failure

again?" John's heart sank, but at that very moment he heard

a renewed screaking of the drive. That could mean only one

thing: the worm's "head" had passed the security, and now,

operating from the remote end of the line, it was

downloading its "tail" from John's diskette. For another ten

seconds the red light on the drive was on and one could hear

the muted clicks of the heads moving. Then the drive went

dead, but the modem twittered on for two more seconds. And

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then there was total silence. The worm was gone.

The very thought of what was to happen next gave John

the creeps. Somewhere over there, on the other end of the

line, the computers with enormous memories and huge storage

devices were installed. The cables and satellite channels of

unbelievable throughput link them with other giant computers

all over the world. Taken all together, they make up an

information space, almost as infinite as the universe, and

as dangerous as jungle. From now on his worm was to live in

this jungle. He would be the big game for anti-virus

programs and he would have to fight through the multiple

security barriers that divide this space up.

In order to survive, it would have to actively breed,

filling up all the free memory in the infiltrated computer

with copies of itself, just as many other worms do. The

novelty introduced by John Hacker was that most of these

copies were not to be quite identical to the original one.

Each copy would be a somewhat random variation on the

previous one and some of them might prove to be fitter for

survival in the 'computer jungle' than others. It would be

these specimens that would worm their way into new data

banks to find a new living space for themselves and their

progeny. So, the fittest would survive in full accordance

with Darwin's Theory of Evolution, accumulating over

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generations useful traits and producing more and more

perfect specimens.

Except for this variability, there was nothing special

about the initial copy of John's worm. In fact, some other

hackers made more intelligent worms that were capable of

breaking electronic locks of far greater sophistication. But

those worms were not capable of self-perfection and John

expected that, in due time, his worm (or, rather, worms -

since the evolution may take many paths at once) would

surpass all the competitors. And when they had infiltrated

into all the networks in the world, John Hacker would sign

on and type the password: THE_PRINCE_OF_DARKNESS. This would

activate the worm's special mutation-proof subroutine

resident in the host computer of the network. Communications

with the worms in other networks would be instantly

established and computers all over the world would display

the same message: "John Hacker is World's #1 Whiz!"

Such were the plans of John Hacker, but they did not

come to pass. Not once in the next three years did John type

the password with any response. The worm was absent, at

least in the networks John Hacker signed on. After three

years of unsuccessful hallooing in the computer jungle, John

decided he had to face the facts: the worm was dead,

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probably eaten by an anti-virus. There was nothing to do but

to forget all about it...

Ten years later, in the early 1992 there was an

emergency alert in a military base. The computer controlling

nuclear missiles suddenly started the countdown. For three

minutes the nuclear war seemed inevitable, but two seconds

to the launch, the countdown stopped just as unexpectedly as

it had begun. The military experts conducted thorough

investigation. No software or hardware faults were found. It

was decided to seek an independent opinion...

The call from the Defence Department found John Hacker,

a systems software consultant of high renown, in a

supermarket. John took the cellular phone out of his pocket.

"We've just downloaded one thing to your home computer by

phone." - said a voice in the receiver - "Have a look at it.

We would like to have your opinion as soon as possible. It's

important."

- "O.K.. Going home right away." But before starting

his automobile, he had dialed his home number followed by a

few additional digits - the instructions for his home

computer to warm up the supper. In a second, the knob on his

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gas-stove had been turned by a remotely controlled actuator,

and the next moment the gas was ignited by an electric

spark. When he came home, the supper was ready. After a

light meal he sat at his computer...

...One look at the source code was enough for John to

sense that there was something wrong about it. Of course, as

far as pure logic was concerned, everything was all right:

the program compiled from this code ran without a hitch. The

only thing that was wrong was wholly immaterial to the

computer but was important for a human eye: the text layout.

It looked like the source code had been written by somebody

who couldn't see what he was writing on the display.

"A blind programmer?" - wondered John, but he discarded

the thought almost at once. The task of writing such a

program without seeing it would have required a superhuman

power of mind. More likely, this text must have been the

product of some other program of a higher level. John tried

to imagine the level of complexity of a system that could be

given the instruction: "Take such and such program and

rewrite it so that one could interfere in the computer

operation through the communication channels without being

noticed." It must have been an extremely complex system. It

would have been insane to develop it for the above purpose

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only, which might have been more easily achieved by a human

programmer. It MUST be universal. But in that case, this

system must equal in intelligence the human mind.

"But this is absurd!" - thought John - "even at the

present level of microminiaturization, it would have taken a

skyscraper of a computer to simulate human intelligence. A

computer that big just doesn't exist!"

But at that moment a crazy idea crossed his mind. It

was preposterous, of course, but he might try it just as

well. Smiling in self-justification for his apparent lunacy

he signed on and typed the half-forgotten words:

PRINCE_OF_DARKNESS. He had little hope to see the two

characters -"OK", the worm's acknowledgment of the password

- appear on the display. He expected the screen to remain

blank.

That's why he was startled when some characters did

begin to emerge on the screen. A first one, a second, a

third... There were too many of them - it was what struck

him even before he had time to realize the meaning of the

message being displayed. But when he did realize it, he was

suddenly overwhelmed with a vertiginous free-fall feeling.

The writing on the screen read: "Who calls me?"

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THEWORM by AlexanderLazarevich. PartI. 1992:ThePrinceofDarkness. 1. Ibegin mystory inthehopethatyouw...

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