Sun, 30 Apr 2006

Last Call

In his blog, Bruce Schneier is holding a Movie-Plot Threat Contest with entries due by the 30'th. I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone, making my monthly IronWriter contribution a movie plot with a terror threat.

On her sixteenth birthday Olivia got her first cell phone. It was a present from Mom and Dad. The phone was hers, but it had a string attached. She was old enough that they would allow her to hang out with her friends at the mall, but Olivia had to carry her new cell phone at all times. The phone had to stay turned on. Olivia had to call in regularly and respond to calls from Mom and Dad. They would pay the bill for the phone so long as Olivia did not exceed her allocation of minutes.

Although she had whined about the "catch", Olivia was secretly delighted with this gift. The phone was a tangible sign of her emerging independence. She took full advantage of it.

Most Fridays and Saturdays, along with assorted weekdays, Olivia could be found cruising one of the local malls with her friends. Sometimes they spent their time shopping for clothes, records, or taking in a movie. More often they just hung out. Occasionally they would flirt with cute guys they saw.

Olivia had a crush on a particularly cute guy who worked at the Internet cafe. He was a tall, swarthy, muscular, thirty-something and apparently unattached. People in the cafe called him Jason, but Olivia had learned Jason's real name was the unpronounceable "JahAngir MehrdAd". She spotted the name on a pay envelope the manager carelessly left on the counter. She guessed JahAngir was some sort of middle eastern sheik's name. In Olivia's fantasy, she would be his Shahrazad.

Unfortunately, Jason didn't reciprocate Olivia's flirting. Quite the contrary. He treated her with ambivalence at best, especially when she asked dumb-girl computer questions. At worst he looked at her tight fitting clothes and suggestive manners with what Olivia could only imagine was open disgust. She had heard that middle eastern men thought all western women dressed and acted like whores.

Playing "hard to get", Olivia thought, optimistically.

In hopes she would eventually break through his defenses, Olivia spent a good deal of her mall hours in or near the cafe, batting her eyes at Jason. She would often stand just outside, talking with her friends, pretending not to be looking at him.

So it was that on the last day of her life Olivia was standing outside the Linuxpresso Internet Cafe when her cell phone rang. It was her Mom, letting her know that she would soon be by to pick Olivia up. It was supper time. As Olivia tried to talk her Mom into another hour or two at the mall, she saw Jason through the window of the cafe. He was staring at her with a strange expression on his face as he typed on a computer.

Olivia smiled back. Jason continued staring at her, stone faced, for several seconds. Then, suddenly, his face broke into a broad, wicked grin.

Twenty years before Olivia raised that wireless birthday gift to her ear for the last time, Kathy McClellan also received a piece of wireless gear for her 16th birthday. It was a gift that linked Kathy with her friends, but the similarity ended there. Kathy never hung out in the mall. Occasionally she did like to shop for nice clothes, she often braided her long, black hair, and she had a weakness for kittens. Otherwise, Kathy had little in common with most of her female adolescent peers, and her gift was considerably different than Olivia's.

The gift Kathy received for sweet-16 was a Heathkit HW-16 ham radio transceiver. Rather than wasting time at the mall, Kathy liked to hang out on 21.105 MHz, chatting in Morse code with her ham radio friends around the world – mostly old, retired gentlemen – this being a time before today's irrational paranoia surrounding any sort of non-parent relationship between an adult and a child.

Kathy's eyes lit up when she saw the gift. It was from her favorite uncle, who was also a ham. It was a visit to her uncle's house, at the age of 11, that sparked Kathy's interest in radio and electronics. She had seen her uncle on the radio many times before, of course, but on that particular day something made her sit next to him and ask questions about it.

After that day, she couldn't get enough radio. She became a ham radio operator just a few months afterward. Her interest in radio broadened to a passionate interest in science, math, and electronics. By 13 she had won the state science fair. At 16 she was skilled enough to assemble a ham radio transceiver.

Her math and science grades pinned the needle at A+ and remained there through college and grad school. At age 26 she left academia with a PhD in Electrical Engineering, her thesis work on ultra-sensitive radio receivers having been done at Arecibo. She took a job at Lucifer Technology in Allentown, PA as a design engineer in their Cellular telephone division. Ten years in industry, and now a beautiful woman of 36, Kathy had become one of the world's foremost authorities on the innards of the cellular telephone. Most of the phones in the world held microchips that Kathy had helped design.

As one of the company's top experts, whenever there was an unusual problem with a cell phone, news of the glitch found its way to Kathy's desk. Normally these turned out to be minor service issues, but occasionally a problem of some significance piqued her interest, usually because it challenged her skill at diagnosis. Kathy enjoyed puzzling out these glitches, and it helped her close the loop on her designs, making the next design even better.

But today's problem was far more than a routine glitch.

Three people stood around the large conference room table. Kathy was the only woman. She was wearing a suit, as were the two men. This was not normal attire for her. At Lucifer she usually wore sweaters or company t-shirts and comfortable pants, with her long, jet-black hair tied back in a loose pony tail. Today, however, she was dressed formally and her hair was in a tidy french braid. She was at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington DC.

Her boss had received the urgent call just yesterday. The government had become aware of a security issue involving cellular phones. Could Lucifer send its top cell-phone expert to Washington immediately? That expert was Kathy. She agreed to go, and here she was, facing two, dour looking men. The shorter of the pair, a somewhat stocky fellow with a salt and pepper beard reached out his hand to Kathy, introducing himself.

"I'm Craig Bleven, DHS," he said, squeezing Kathy's hand firmly. "Along with me is Agent Hank Richter of FBI."

Richter was a big man with sandy brown hair. He enveloped Kathy's hand in his huge paw and shook it with a simple, "Hello." The four sat themselves around the conference table. There was a file folder on the table in front of Richter.

"Dr McClellan, I'm told that you are an expert on cellular phones," said Bleven, "and that you are quite skilled at diagnosing subtle problems that they can sometimes have. Is that fair to say?"

"Well," said Kathy, "I've worked on many of the current generation chipsets. When you shepherd them from design, to prototype, to production, you tend to see pretty much any way they misbehave, ten times over."

Bleven looked over at the FBI man. Richter met Bleven's eyes for a moment, then leaned forward. He looked straight at Kathy with a cold gaze that made her shrink back in her seat.

"Can a cell phone kill someone?" asked Richter.

Taken aback for a moment, more from Richter's intensity than from the question itself, Kathy paused before answering. This was very serious, she thought. She needed to be careful, but this question had an easy answer.

Bleven broke in first. "What Hank is asking is if somebody, a criminal, could make a cell phone kill somebody by, say, exploding, if they tried hard enough."

"Absolutely not with a standard phone," she said. "First of all, the phones are designed conservatively, with safety always in mind. And second of all, Lucifer does extensive testing on all our phones, both internally and at certified product testing labs. We design against long lists of bad things, like choking babies, allergic reactions, and yes, explosions. Then we test to prove our design. Part of that testing is to try, try very hard, to make the phones misbehave. They may drop your calls, erode your privacy, or drain your bank account, but so sir, they cannot explode unless you strap them to a bomb."

"Then perhaps you might care to conjecture what explanation there might be for these," said Richter. He opened the file and withdrew three 8x10 glossy photos that he placed before Kathy.

The photos were shocking. Kathy turned away at first, but after seeing her own reflection in the glass door beside her seat – a pale look of horror on her face that scared her more than the photos – she forced herself to look at them again.

Each was a photo of a person sprawled on the ground, holding a cell phone. All were quite obviously dead. On what remained of each of the victim's faces there was an twisted expression of severe pain. There was an odd look to their heads that reminded Kathy of something.

The most horrifying picture was of a teenage girl. She was sprawled, face up, on a shiny marble floor at what looked like a shopping mall. The girl probably had been good looking. Long, shapely legs, hips, her bare middle showed a trim belly. Breasts not more than a few years old swelled, straining the buttons of her blouse.

And a head – with what undoubtedly once was a pretty face – now distorted, waxy, ruptured, just like... Kathy suddenly realized the similarity as she felt her lunch rise in her throat. The head was like a pumpkin in January. Rotted, collapsed into itself.

Kathy took a deep breath. "The phones look like our model 9900. They look mostly intact," said Kathy as she gathered her composure. "This one here in the girl's hand..." Kathy took another deep breath, blinking away tears, "...looks a little charred, but it clearly didn't explode. What happened in these pictures?"

"We don't know completely," said Bleven. "As you can see, these people died while using their cell phones. The exact cause is what we are trying to find out."

"Why ask me, Mr. Bleven? I'm not a forensic pathologist. Why not ask the coroner?"

"Please, Dr McClellan, you can call me Craig," said Bleven. "And be assured that we are not seeking to blame Lucifer Technology for some sort of product liability issue. This is DHS, not CPSC."

"The coroner says their brains were cooked, Dr McClellan," Richter said. "They were cooked with with microwave radiation – just like a summer squash in a microwave oven. Can a cell phone produce enough radiation to kill like this?"

Kathy stared back at Richter. All of a sudden she smiled, then broke into a nervous giggle. "You had me going there for a minute," she said. "Agent Richter, and, umm, Craig, you can't be serious. Cell phones produce less than a tenth of a percent of the power that a microwave oven produces. People have been trying to find a link between cell phone use and brain cancer for years with no conclusive evidence. Surely if cell phones were actually cooking brains, either rare or well done, it would have been noticed. Is this some sort of a joke?"

"I assure you, Dr McClellan, this is deadly serious," said Richter. He drew out two more photos – close ups of the phone in the girl's hand. "We can get you the actual phones to inspect just as soon as the crime lab finishes with them, but from these photos you can see that the plastic case is cracked and melted in certain spots. See how it melted into the girl's hand? I don't think she could let go. Look at this burn mark on the front. The lab tells us this brownish mass here is a piece of skin and hair from her temple"

Kathy, fascinated is spite of her growing nausea and terror, studied the close ups. She recognized the exact design of the model 9900 phone instantly and brought to mind its internal structure, visualizing the locations of the power amplifier, battery, and antenna. This model had the extra powerful battery. And yes, indeed, the burn marks and heat stress on the case seemed to correspond to a phone that had suddenly transmitted a thousand times more power than usual.

"We are guessing that something triggered the phone to release all its stored battery energy in a single, high power burst," said Richter, echoing Kathy's same thought. "This is a new model PCS phone, is it not? These phones use almost exactly the same frequency as a microwave oven."

"Yes, but the frequency is irrelevant," said Kathy, "it's a question of power handling. Phones aren't ovens. There must be another explanation. The chips in these phones would self destruct if they produced even just a few times their normal power. No, a normal phone can't do this. Could you tell if the phone had been altered?"

"Nothing is irrelevant till we catch the bastard that did this," Richter said with a malevolent glare.

"We believe it was not altered," said Bleven. "We compared these phones to identical models we bought at retailers. As far as we can tell, they are exactly the same. Of course, we will appreciate your opinion on that question once you get a chance to examine the phones."

"If the phone wasn't altered, it could not have done this."

Richter reached into his jacket and brought out a cell phone – a model 9900. He gave it a shove and it slid across the glossy tabletop, coming to rest just in front of Kathy. "Can you be that sure, Dr McClellan?" he asked.

"Yes, Agent Richter, I can," Kathy said confidently. "It's a question of physics – of thermal mass, RF losses, and heat flow. The antenna and power amp in this phone simply could not have survived long enough to kill these people with RF energy."

"You wouldn't be afraid to use that phone?"

"No, I wouldn't," she replied. "In fact, I have a 9900 series phone myself." She reached into her jacket and brought out her phone, setting it down on the table next to the one he had slid over. They were the same.

Richter took one more item from the folder, a sheet of paper, and handed it to Kathy. "Then you think it would be safe for the United States government to ignore this Internet post as a hoax – what did you call it – some sort of a joke?" he said.

The page was a printout from a web site. There was a letter in what looked like Arabic, with a translation typed below. It read as follows:

"Rejoice, community of Muslims. The heroic mujahedeens today conducted a demonstration attack on three citizens in the United States. We cursed these infidels with the devil's own tools. The Cellular phone now does the blessed work of the nation of Islam. All of America and the world will cringe in fear. They cannot escape in the north, the south, west and east. We've warned the US government and people time and again. We've kept our promise and have carried out a blessed military operation."

"We continue to warn the governments of America and Europe and all other crusader governments. We demand that all countries pull their troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Thousands upon thousands will fall screaming in agony as their brains are cooked in their skulls. Thus will be our vengeance against the Zionist crusader governments of the West."

The letter was signed: "Secret Organization – Al Qaida of the air."

Kathy looked up from the letter, speechless. Bleven had an apologetic look on his face. Richter's face was a mask of bitter anger. Bleven spoke first.

"Let's walk over to the lab," he said. "Maybe they can let you have a look at them now."

In the days that followed, Kathy applied every test imaginable to the charred phones. She had been given the go-ahead from her boss (who had received authorization from the CEO himself) placing all of Lucifer Technology's vast resources at her disposal.

After detailed photographs and X-rays were taken, the phones were subjected to comprehensive non-destructive in-circuit probing, followed by gradual disassembly, with each tiny part investigated for signs of misdeeds – investigated as thoroughly as congress will investigate a supreme court nominee.

All three phones were identical 9900's and all three showed definite signs of RF power overload. The antennas and transmitter power circuits were in ruins – exactly as if they had been the source of intense microwave radiation, far beyond their capacity. Almost everything was consistent with the conjecture that the phones had generated the power that killed their victims. Everything pointed that way except one important detail: the batteries.

Although the batteries themselves were melted, ruptured, and completely discharged when they reached Kathy, in two of the three phones, the microchip battery monitor was still intact. Technicians at Lucifer were able to extract the chip from the caustic chemical mess and download its data, a complete historical record of the battery's use.

With her desk phone, Kathy dialed the number on Richter's business card. She soon heard his harsh "Richter, FBI" hello. She explained to him what they had found.

"It's hard to tell how 'full' a rechargeable battery is," she said. "Merely measuring its voltage really doesn't give you a good idea. As you probably know, most battery charge indicators, often just simple voltmeters, are notoriously bad at giving warning that a battery is almost finished."

"Cops know all about batteries dying in their phones and radios at inopportune moments," said Richter. "Go on."

Kathy continued. "The 9900 phone is different. The batteries in the model 9900 contain a microchip to keep a complete record of battery use so the computer in the phone accurately report the remaining talk time."

"So you know the power drain from the phone batteries during the attacks?" asked Richter.

"Yes, I do. But power drain is not the correct term."

"With all due respect to science, who cares what the correct term is, Dr McClellan."

"Well, you see, Agent Richter. According to the monitor, during the exact time of the attacks – and there can be no doubt about the exact time, by the way, cell phone clocks are all synchronized to the atomic standard..."

"Yes, yes, we know the time for sure," interrupted Richter, impatiently. "What about the battery?"

"...um, yes. As I was saying, during the exact time of the attacks the batteries were actually charging slightly. That's why power drain isn't the right word."

"Charging? How is that possible?" said Richter. "These phones weren't plugged in. The people were talking on them – holding them in their hands."

"Yes, we can see from the data that they were in active use at the time, and that the charger was not attached. Never less, the current indicator showed that the battery was taking on charge during the attack."

"Impossible."

"Agent Richter. Now you are sounding like me," Kathy chided. "I didn't realize you were a cell phone expert too."

"Point taken, Dr McClellan," Richter sighed, "but what could explain it?"

"It's easy to explain," said Kathy. "The microwave power that killed these people did not come from their phones. It came from somewhere else. That power killed the people and fried the RF sensitive electronics in their phones. As it did so, a little of that power was rectified and leaked into the batteries, charging them slightly."

"But where could that power come from, if not the phones?" asked Richter, now somewhat befuddled.

"If you don't mind, Agent Richter, I would like to know more about the crime scenes," said Kathy. "Maybe I can help you answer that question."

Posted Apr 30, 2006 at 17:14 UTC, 3433 words,  [/dan]  Permalink