“No matter how cunning these guys are, you have what Snowden blabbed out the whole world about – the access to computers and smartphones from the back door, thanks to the cooperation of leading manufacturers of telecommunications equipment with us! Are you unable to take advantage of this? Billions taxpayer dollars to coerce leading Telecom firms to implement secret loopholes were simply wasted? Should I report this to the chief?”
“This is an unusual case, sir. We are faced with something non-standard, totally inexplicable.”
“Nonstandard? Ha. Such a word! Are you Nick still unaware that entrusted you department and very you personally, are supposed to solve exactly such ‘non-standard’ tasks? We pay out such a hefty salary just for cracking such problems. Those who can only do the standard ones do not drive the brand new Bentleys, like yours, they get along with second-hand Toyota cars. And they do not live in a mansion on the coast, like yours, but in a two-room apartment in a gloomy sleeping suburb. Do you want us to eliminate this discrepancy?”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but you should be aware that the department under my direction has up to now coped excellently with all tasks, including non-standard ones. But, I repeat, this is a special case, we just need more time.”
“Time is money! How much more do you need to crack the ‘Traceless Hero’?”
“We hacked into their computer system a long time ago, sir. We’ve infiltrated even their server. But there’s not even a hint of crypto keys anywhere”
Craig pondered over for a few seconds, and then ordered:
“Well, hell with their server then! Most likely, they keep the keys on removable media in a fireproof locked safe. Hack their clients’ computers! There must be at least some partial keys there, public or private – because they do encrypt with them somehow anyway!”
“Alas, sir, there are no keys either…, neither open public parts, nor close private ones,” Nick muttered.
“How so? How do they encrypt their messages then? ” Craig was taken aback.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out right now.”
This time, Craig fell into a silent stupor for several minutes, then smiled and exclaimed with the air of a connoisseur:
“Don’t waste your time figuring it out. Since you’ve already hacked their clients, I don’t understand why you even need these keys. After all, in order to enable their recipient to read the message with the eyes, the info has to be decoded on computer screen and appears as a normal text in English, Russian, Chinese or whatever other language. All you need to do is to simply intercept the already decrypted screenshot from the recipient’s computer screen. Also do the same with senders’ screen before they encrypt them. After all, this is exactly what we do with subscribers of recalcitrant providers like ‘Consonator’ and ‘DownUp?’ who haven’t yet agreed to cooperate with us, don’t we?”