“Okay. If I agree to help, then I want something in return,” Mr. Henry said.
“Name it,” Agent Appleton said.
“A favor of my choosing.”
“We have a deal, Mr. Henry. You have my word! Before we start, I need to read you in.”
Agent Appleton produced a small tablet from his pocket and handed it to Mr. Henry for signature confirmation. After a few swipes and taps, Mr. Henry handed the tablet back to Agent Appleton.
“Show me what you have.”
Agent Appleton opened his briefcase and took out a small laptop. On the screen appeared to be a group of ciphertext.
“At first, we thought it was a standard algorithm, like SHA-512 or AES-256, but none of the agents that I know have ever seen this,” Agent Appleton said.
“Can you give me a copy?”
Agent Appleton copied the file on a spare flash drive and handed it to Mr. Henry. Mr. Henry uploaded the file to his decryption workstation.
“In recent years, I have developed code to allow the decryption of a file or a piece of ciphertext in a distributed manner,” Mr. Henry explained. “In other words, I can use many computers all around the world to help with the process.”
“How many computers do you have?”
“About fourteen servers here in Milford, another ten in data centers in Los Angeles and New York, and another hundred elsewhere I can spin up on demand.”
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Agent Appleton looked shocked. “I had no idea that this could be done. I mean, privately.”
“Parallel processing hasn’t been fully realized by individuals until recently,” Mr. Henry explained.
The file was less than 1 percent decrypted. Mr. Henry frowned.
“Now I will introduce the remaining twenty-three servers to aid in the decryption process.”
Mr. Henry typed rapidly.
“There! Let’s see how long this takes. My decryption program is like piecing together a puzzle; I have sent the output of the decrypted file in progress to another monitor.”
Mr. Henry pointed to large screen on the other side of his office, on which zeros and ones appeared.
“Looks like computer gibberish.”
“Ahh, but it’s not. Let me translate.”
Mr. Henry pulled out a blank sheet of paper and began writing furiously. He wrote “192.168.1.0” and handed it to Agent Appleton.
“Do you understand how transport layer security works?” Mr. Henry asked.
“I don't. That is why I need your help.”
“In layman's terms, each computer that participates on a network needs an IP address, which can either be 32- or 128-bit. The most common is an IPv4 address, which is usually a series of numbers like this with periods between them. I'm sure you've seen them before.” He pointed to the paper. “We can trace the IP address back to a physical address, as well. Do you have a suspected IP address?”
After a moment, Agent Appleton recited the IP address of 32.210.193.52 from his notes. Mr. Henry brought up an IP locator tool.
After a few more clicks, Mr. Henry was able to give Agent Appleton the address to 302 Sycamore Lane, Milford.
"Consider this an address of interest," Mr. Henry said. “What else do you need help with?”
“I need to understand how these code patterns work. How can I find out who wrote a particular piece of code?”
“Wait here.”
Mr. Henry left the office for several minutes, then returned with a red USB flash drive.
“I’ve developed a scanner that will identify these unique patterns, but doing the leg work is up to you.”
Mr. Henry provided a brief demonstration of how his program worked, then handed it to Agent Appleton.