125. Six and ninety one
In August, ten days after the end of the guerrilla warfare, I was promoted to Corporal. One month later, on the evening of September 11th… After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, at the end of October, we received live bullet training for the first time since the establishment of our unit.
For reference, it is said that in early October, the Military Violence Eradication Committee under the direct control of the Minister of National Defense visited our unit and conducted an anonymous survey.
When the shooting training date was set, Eunseong said this with a look of anticipation.
“Five-! Because it is an agency directly under the Minister… It wasn’t blindfolded!”
Well, thanks to Eunseong (?), we were able to do live bullet shooting for the first time since the training center.
Time passed, and the year of the 2002 World Cup dawned.
In January, In-cheol and Eun-seong applied for a regular leave for corporal and private at the same time, and it is said that the two often hung out even while on vacation. If you look at it that way, In-cheol and Eun-seong get along well.
The first thing In-cheol, who returned from a 10-day vacation, saw me, was about INSCOM.
“Does the US military have INSCOM? There, the encryption system was completely changed.”
In-cheol is this guy… What the hell were you doing on vacation?
INSCOM (Intelligence & Security Command) is a unit in charge of intelligence-gathering activities of the US military, and it is true that the unit that In-cheol had bluffed about hacking in the past.
I nodded and said.
“The 911 terrorist attacks, of course, changed everything.”
Judging from my experiences in the United States in the past, what the United States is really good at is losing cattle and fixing the barn. Once an accident occurs, preventing the same type of accident from reoccurring is one of America’s greatest strengths.
Seeing In-cheol’s appetite again as if regretfully, I said with a smirk.
“Don’t buy and hit, America is helping in advance, man!”
In-cheol nodded and held out a piece of paper to me.
“Jeong-ho, take a look at this cryptographic formula.”
The moment I opened the paper, I couldn’t help but be amazed.
“what is this? Could this be… Did Yoon Seok-hyung tell you?”
Long ago, when I discovered a rejection function that disables the RSA cipher, Professor Park said to develop a new cipher system that can replace RSA.
At that time, I made several asymmetric cryptosystems (cryptosystems in which the locking key and the unlocking key are different).
However, the two formulas written on the paper Incheol now handed were none other than the formulas of the EXP encryption system.
When I asked if Yun-seok-hyung had informed me, In-cheol nodded and said.
“The boss told me to ask you directly.”
The EXP cryptosystem uses a prime number like RSA, the difference is that it uses several small prime numbers less than 100, not two huge prime numbers.
And these small primes are shuffled and put into an exponential function, hence the name EXP cipher. And in the process of mixing the order of a few, since the number of cases increases exponentially, hacking becomes difficult.
For example, if you use 4 prime numbers like 3, 5, 7, 11, the amount of computation for hacking increases according to the mixing order, 3 to 5 to 7 to 11, and so on. In other words, hacking becomes impossible.
In-cheol said in my explanation.
“But the boss said… You say you know how to hack?”
I nodded my head with a bitter expression.
“right. The value of the locking key E was released very easily.”
When a new cryptosystem is developed, the stability and hackability of the cryptosystem are checked in various ways. In fact, in this process, most cryptosystems fail to commercialize and are discarded.
The EXP encryption system was one of them, and the value of the key E, which locks in an absurdly simple way, was unlocked. If only the few log function values used were known, it was possible to predict the value of the locking key E only with mental arithmetic, let alone a calculator.
I showed the process of finding the value of E while doing the calculations on paper, and when my explanation was finished, Incheol nodded and said.
“So… You mean you can break the password with just the log table on the back of our high school standard book, right?”
As I nodded, the corners of Incheol’s lips rose slowly.
Time passed again, and in February Incheol was promoted to sergeant, and in March, ＜Just a feeling> by SES and ＜Forever> by Fin.
In April, I was promoted to sergeant, on May 1, Eunseong was promoted to Corporal, and on May 31… The World Cup has finally started.
June 4th at 8:30pm.
The first match against Poland has begun.
When the first goal was scored, the office literally became a melting pot of enthusiasm. We embraced each other, both sergeants and privates, and enjoyed the joy.
As soon as the first half was over, the roll call started, and at the strong request of the sergeants including In-cheol-i, the Iljik officer allowed him to watch TV after going to bed.
“instead! There is one condition.”
The commander of the platoon, who is a regular officer, looked around us and… He spoke in his characteristic hoarse voice.
“Even if there is a goal… Make no sound and watch quietly. Do you understand?”
“yes!! All right!!”
However, it was the platoon leader himself who broke the order not to speak.
As soon as an additional goal was scored in the second half, the administrative team woaah Because the platoon commander’s hoarse voice cheered and cheered even reached our office.
In this way, in the first match of the group stage, we got 3 points 2-0.
Our next match was against the United States.
The American game started at 3:30 pm on Monday, June 10, and the company commander adjusted our work schedule to watch the game.
For reference, the radio signals we intercept can be recorded, and in fact, radio signals in most frequency bands are recorded entirely and stored for a certain period of time and then destroyed.
This means that radio signals can be recorded and intercepted later. In particular, even if the decoding of the shortwave signal was delayed by an hour or two, there was hardly any problem.
However, this was not the case with the work of intercepting microwave radio signals. Because microwave radio signals contain communications from the North Korean military near the demarcation line, real-time monitoring was required, and if there were any unusual issues, information had to be delivered to the front forces immediately.
For this reason, a minimum number of people, i.e., four, must work in the monitoring room. This means that 4 people working in the first half and 4 people in the second half must be selected for a total of 8 people.
Currently, there are a total of 40 troops excluding vacationers… One in five people will be on duty during a soccer game.
The day of the American war on June 10th.
As soon as lunch was over, we gathered in the 1st squad’s office, and as everyone gathered, the company commander laughed and said:
“ruler! I will call five people in order of rank, and the person whose name is called can go to the administrative group and do what the platoon commander says. Do you understand?”
“yes!! All right!!”
The company commander looked at the paper with our names on it and said with a surprised expression.
“uh? what? Choi In-cheol!”
“Yes.”
“Are you the king of our unit?”
At the words of the company commander, Incheol sighed and said.
“Company commander, you’re really talking too much. I also knew that the company commander was promoted to major next year… I was disappointed with the lieutenant colonel.”
At Incheol’s words, the company commander smiled and said.
“Man, I know it all! You are discharged at the end of August!”
“Yeah, exactly 79 days left.”
“After all, In-cheol’s military number has been released a lot. After all, the lucky guy is different no matter what. haha-!”
Saying that In-cheol’s military number has been released. It means that there are not many seniors in In-cheol. In particular, Sergeant Cho, who is just above Incheol’s senior in our office, was discharged 7 months ago, so Incheol put on the squad leader’s epaulettes as soon as the corporal was broken.
The company commander looked at the papers arranged by name, and called the names of a total of five people, from Incheol to I, and we headed to the administrative group.
As we entered the administrative group, the platoon leader held out a pencil case towards us.
There were five pencils of the same length in the pencil case, only the eraser end of the pencil was visible, and the inside of the pencil case was hidden. It was a lottery.
In order of rank, Sgt. In-cheol, Sgt. Park, Sgt. Lee, and Sgt. Kim drew their pencils in turn, and I picked up the last remaining one.
The pencil I picked up had a broken lead, and the other four had intact pencils.
Whoops—!
The four soldiers, except for me, left the administrative group with cheers, and I remained in the administrative team following the instructions of the platoon commander.
Soon after, the next group of soldiers came in and drew pencils in the same way, and when the last group finished drawing lots, there were a total of 8 soldiers, including myself, in the administrative group. During today’s football game against the United States, the workers were selected.
Eight of us started the second lot. This time, it was to distinguish between the first half workers and the second half workers.
I fervently prayed for a first half shift, but… In the end, I was hired to work in the second half.
3:30 pm.
The match against the US has begun.
When the United States scored their first goal in the 24th minute of the first half, the atmosphere in the office suddenly subsided, and whenever the camera caught a Korean player with blood dripping from his forehead, profanity was heard intermittently.
In the meantime, when Korea’s chance for a penalty kick was blocked by a save by the American goalkeeper, some soldiers smashed the floor in the office, regretting it.
The first half ended with a 0:1 lead, and I went down to the basement with three successors to do the wiretapping job.
Auditorium on the 1st basement floor.
When I sat down in front of the wiretapping computer after taking a shift with the workers in the first half, Corporal Kim, who is famous for her fine hair, pointed to the door of the wiretapping room and said:
“Sergeant Chae Jung-ho, why don’t you leave the door slightly open over there?”
If you score a goal, people in the office will scream, which means that you can know the news of the goal.
“Five-! That’s a good idea. After all, Myungho is smart!”
“haha-! thank you.”
So we started wiretapping, and about 30 minutes passed… The cheers of the soldiers on the second floor could be heard through the small gap in the door.
Corporal Kim next to me patted my arm and said.
“It looks like the equalizer has finally been scored.”
We at work gave each other high fives, and who put it in… I enjoyed the joy of a goal that I didn’t know how to get into.
A long time ago, team leader Kim Jeong-soo talked about the World Cup semifinals and said that the whole nation was crazy… Now those words seemed to make sense a little bit.
It is a 1:1 tie.
If there is a 1-1 tie in a 0:1 situation during a soccer match, the team that scored the tie has a whopping 61.7% chance of winning. In other words, the flow of the game is reversed. Besides, with the tremendous support from the home team, the atmosphere must be completely leaning towards us.
Time passed, and contrary to our earnest expectations, there was no sound of cheers announcing the comeback goal.
After finishing the wiretapping service at the end of the game, we reported back to work in the administrative team.
By the way… The atmosphere in the administrative class is unusual.
The platoon leader who received the report also had a dark face, and the poker-faced administrator also had a bad expression. Not only this. The administrative staff also let out a sigh.
ah… ! shit! You lost to America!
but… When Korea scores a goal, people scream, but when they score a goal, they remain silent.
How many more goals did you get?
Looking at the atmosphere of the administrative class right now… It looks like they lost by more than 3 points.
I left the administration group with a bitter expression and headed for the office, and I heard Sergeant Park, who is famous for his rough mouth, muttering to himself from the hallway.
“under–! U.S. Army, these XX XXX XXX bastards are real… Ugh!”
By the way… It’s ‘USA’, not ‘US Army’.
When I entered the office like that, as expected, the air in the office was calming down.
While I was taking off my work clothes and putting them in the office… I made eye contact with In-cheol, and In-cheol’s expression looking at me is unusual.
What? I don’t know for sure, but… In-cheol was looking at me with such worried eyes.
I said to Incheol.
“Why do you look like that? And how many units did you lose to the United States in football?”
In response to my question, Incheol opened his mouth with a short sigh.
“I didn’t lose soccer. It was a 1-1 draw.”
“really?”
Incheol nodded, and I looked around the successors in the office and said,
“Then why is the atmosphere in my office like this? what’s going on… Do you all look like you lost your country?”