129. Seven all twenty seven
In November of last year, for the first time since the establishment of our unit, there was a shooting training, and the shooting training was conducted for a total of four days by squad.
A day before our squad’s shooting training, Eun-seong applied for an interview with the company commander. I don’t know the details of the interview, but it seems like Eunseong has revealed to the company commander the fact that she is ＜Silver Castle>.
The shooting range the next day.
When the soldiers finished firing their rifles, the company commander allowed Eun-seong to fire a K5 pistol together with the other officers. And with Eun-seong’s strong insistence, I was selected as Eun-seong’s assistant shooter and entered the shooting range with Eun-seong.
As I entered the shooting range, Eunseong asked me a favor, and that was to remember the sound of bullets being loaded when the pistol bolt was retracted or advanced by hand.
“The sound of bullets being loaded? Why?”
Eunseong answered my question with a serious expression.
“If you read a spy novel… They say that when you load the pistol, you hear bullets bite. I wonder if there really is such a thing.”
Oh yeah… I’m curious about everything.
I tilted my head and said.
“Well… I’m pretty confident with the image, but I don’t know if I can remember the sound accurately… ?”
“But give it a try. Understand? I will beg you.”
“Yeah, it’s not that difficult, I’ll give it a try.”
After shooting training, we returned to the barracks and started importing firearms (disassembling and cleaning firearms before and after shooting).
By the time gun imports came to an end… Eunseong came to me with a K5 pistol that had finished importing firearms, and sat next to me, retreating and advancing the bolt of the empty gun.
“What do you think? Is the reloading sound different now than before?”
I said to Eunseong’s question.
“Try it again.”
Eunseong retracted and advanced the bolt again with a ‘click’ sound, and I nodded and said.
“It is definitely different. But I don’t think this is the sound of a bullet being bitten… In the case of the empty gun, there is a slight metallic vibration, maybe… I think it’s resonating in the barrel of the gun.”
* * *
As Sergeant Philip Kim loaded the pistol, I knew his gun was empty.
Also… ! these people… I don’t have solid evidence. He’s trying to scare me to make sure I’m the real culprit.
As my mind calmed down, I recalled the advice of Myung-soo, the president of the data field a long time ago.
It was advised to wear a mask. The advice was to pick the person who is most likely to handle the situation and wear that person’s mask if you are faced with a difficult person.
Mask or persona.
As a theory of analytical psychology proposed by the master of psychology Carl Jung, when a person is placed in a certain situation, he puts on a mask (persona) suitable for that situation and acts, and it is said that this is done in the realm of the unconscious.
According to analytic psychology, unlike archetypes in the relatively deep unconscious (collective unconscious), personas are in the relatively shallow realm of the unconscious (personal unconscious), thus controlling the unconscious through repeated self-suggestion and training and putting on the desired mask. This is said to be possible.
So, it is said that some famous actors perform a given role in this way. In other words, it is not acting, but actually acting as the character of the character.
The mask I need now. It’s a shameless, bold mask. And the first person that came to mind was none other than… He was a small reporter.
I felt a strong reluctance to write the name So-jung, but… He is now detained in a basement, and his life is in danger. In order to get out of this place on foot, I decided to become a reporter for a while.
Counting from one to five, she took off Chae Jeong-ho’s mask, and counting backwards from five to one, she put on the mask of reporter So-jung.
I looked at the man in the black suit sitting in front of me, followed by Sergeant Philip Kim.
not. So-so-jeong reporters would have called them this way.
Bald, and a black-haired alien.
Without realizing it, I laughed and laughed, and I spoke to my bald head in English.
“(Yes, I did.)”
The two people in front of me both had bewildered expressions, and I continued to speak while staring at their bewildered expressions.
“(Maybe… I broke through the U.S. Department of Defense and the White House, don’t you think I did this alone? If you guys get rid of me, will my colleagues really stand still?)”
“(Are you saying there’s a behind-the-scenes thing?)”
I said with a smirk.
“(Behind the scenes? If there was such a person as you think, would you have quietly withdrawn INSCOM from Korea and ended it with one prank letter saying that the first lady was visiting?)”
After a moment of silence, I said with a displeased expression.
“(You dare point a gun at me… I can’t seem to figure out whether I’m an ally or an enemy. Sheesh—!)”
I leaned back on the chair, folded my arms, and continued.
“(I’m going to tell you an important story from now on, so tell your boss to come here.)”
The bald man said at my words.
“(I am in charge. If you have something to say, do it to me.)”
I said, pointing to the dark-haired foreigner.
“(I don’t think it’s a story that non-commissioned officers will hear? I’m going to start with the story of the US hacking incident in Okinawa two years ago.)”
The man in a suit who brought me here a while ago had pretty long hair. That means I’m not a soldier.
This means that the bald guy who is wearing a similar suit now is not a soldier, but he is definitely a high-ranking official in the US government who specializes in hacking cases, although he does not know his affiliation.
If so, it was a piece of cake I threw in the thought that I would be well aware of the hacking incident that In-cheol took place two years ago.
At my words, the bald man’s expression was seriously distorted.
Also… ! asked for rice cakes.
I decided to toss another rice cake.
“(Is the United States preparing for another war? The scheduled start date is the end of March next year, but shall we talk about this now?)”
It was October 12, a week ago.
I was watching the news in my office, and the news came that the US Senate had passed a bill called the Iraq Resolution. It was a bill that gave the President of the United States the power to wage war on Iraq.
Although it may take the form of UN approval, it was in effect decided for the US invasion of Iraq.
In fact, on March 20, 2003, five months after his last life, the US launched an attack on Iraq using weapons of mass destruction as an excuse.
Even talking about the Iraq war made his bald forehead narrower, and he spoke to the dark-haired foreigner.
“(Sergeant Kim waits outside.)”
“(all right.)”
When the dark-haired foreigner got up from his seat and went out, I opened my mouth toward the bald head.
“(By the way, are you really in charge?)”
He nodded slowly, and I opened my mouth again.
“(Affiliation, rank, and name?)”
I smiled at his displeased expression.
“(I’m going to give you a lot of information right now, but you don’t have to know who to give it to.)”
“(I am Andrew Jackson, Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency of the United States Department of Defense.)”
I nodded, and Director Jackson continued with a serious expression.
“(How the hell do you know?)”
I said, waving my hands.
“(Whoa—! Don’t be so hasty.)”
I paused for a moment and then opened my mouth.
“(Two years ago? I heard an interesting story from a Japanese colleague. There is a fatal weakness in the US military and INSCOM computer networks in Japan.)”
“(What… a weakness?)”
“(I can’t tell you that. If I tell you this, personal information about my Japanese colleague may be exposed.)”
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Naturally, there is no such thing as a Japanese colleague. It’s all In-cheol’s work.
I was talking.
“(When I heard the news, I checked, and the secret statement cipher system was all changed. It’s a new cipher, not RSA cipher. Was the cipher name PAI-13…?)”
The official name of the EXP cipher was PAI-13. The name of the company that owns the patent for the cryptographic algorithm is Pennsylvania Information, and the PAI seems to have been derived from it.
The bald head nodded at my words, and I continued.
“(So I did some research on the PAI-13, and it has one fatal flaw. So I was just trying to tell the US about that weakness.)”
Director Jackson shook his head and said.
“(PAI-13 has no weaknesses. Compared to 4000-bit RSA, PAI-13 is 70,000 times more secure.)”
I don’t know where the number 70,000 came from, but Yoon Seok-yi hyung and I had a similar story a long time ago. Even if quantum computers come out in the future, they won’t be able to break the EXP cipher.
The bald man continued speaking with a grim expression on his face.
“(Don’t be fooled, tell me how you got the encryption key! Again, as long as we find out that you are a threat to the United States of America, we can get you out of here!)”
I said, crossing my legs with a casual expression.
“(If you can’t believe that PAI-13 has a weakness, why not test it here?)”
“(what?)”
“(Bring the PAI-13 ciphertext. Then I’ll prove it.)”
After a few more conversations, Director Jackson summoned a subordinate with a dreadful threat to kill me on the spot if I couldn’t prove it.
5 minutes later.
An officer in a military uniform came into the room, and the bald man took a piece of paper from him and handed it to me.
The top line of the paper handed to me had six numbers written on it.
＜13, 7, 47, 23, 19, 31>
The EXP ciphers were prime numbers defining the value of the key D.
Below these prime numbers, a sequence of 284 numbers was printed, and at the same time as checking the sequence, an encrypted sentence was calculated in my head.
I smiled slightly and opened my mouth.
“Eighth United States Army is America’s Pacific Guardians of Freedom.”
It means “Eighth U.S. Army is the Pacific Peace Guard of the United States,” and it is probably the slogan of the USFK unit.
The officer who brought the cipher text to my words mumbled in a low voice.
“What the fuck… … .”
General Jackson looked at the officer, and the officer nodded towards him.
Director Jackson said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“(I knew that PAI-13 could not be hacked….)”
The officer in uniform had to deliver two more ciphertexts, and when I cracked the third ciphertext, Director Jackson’s attitude toward me changed 180 degrees.
I said with a sly smile.
“(Now it seems that the Pia is clear. Again, I did not hack the Pentagon and the White House with malicious intent. I just wanted to let the United States know that the PAI-13 has serious weaknesses.)”
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Now a lot of lies come out.
“(If so… can you tell me exactly what PAI-13’s weaknesses are?)”
“(Well… I think the fact that PAI-13 has a weakness would be enough? And I’m sorry….)”
I spoke with a sad expression on my face.
“(From here on, it’s a paid service.)”
At my words, Director Jackson said with a puzzled expression.
“(What? Paid service?)”
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Now the hilt has passed to me.
Currently, there is no place in the US administration where PAI-13 is not used. However, Ledger Jackson just saw with his own eyes that the PAI-13 cipher was broken only by mental arithmetic.
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Now he will have to figure out what PAI-13’s weaknesses are. We need to stop the US administration from using PAI-13 because we can’t do it without knowing what its weaknesses are.
Director Jackson pulled a chair toward me and sat down, and opened his mouth in a cautious tone.
“(Then… How much do you want?)”