Free No One to Trust by Julie Moffett Page A

guys got something against cryppies? I’m no poser and I don’t work for Uncle Sam.
     
    What that really meant was I was not a government InfoSec guy pretending to get chummy with potential hackers or troublemakers in cyberspace so I could bust them later. To my relief, I saw Grok answer.
     
    Grok: So, how many distinct ciphers can you generate with no restrictions on shifting the alphabet?
     
    Jeez, they were testing me.
     
    CryptHead: 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
    Grok: Impressive.
    RawMode: Welcome, dude.
    CryptHead: That’s Dudette to you.
    Grok: Ooooh, we are not worthy, geek princess. You know, I thought about crypto myself. Maybe still will someday. What brings you to our site?
    CryptHead: I’ve got friends who frequent here. We got into a gabfest about the dangers of nanotech. They said I should read an article posted here by a dude named Darren Greening.
    RawMode: Yeah, I remember that. Last month I think. He’s some east coast techhead or something. Said molecular replicating assemblers and thinking machines pose a fundamental threat to humans.
    RawMode: Machines of Destruction.
    CryptHead: Whoa.
    Grok: Yeah, fully sentient machines, but without constraints.
    CryptHead: Created using nanotech?
    RawMode: On target. Some dudes are crying that since the development of cognizant, self-replicating machines is inevitable, scientists need to fully understand the technology to ensure a benign application.
     
    Heavy stuff, but not really new. That had been the gist of what I’d understood from Darren’s paper. Still it seemed odd to me that a man who founded a nanotech company and dedicated his life to furthering nanotechnology would have such a sudden change of heart.
     
    CryptHead: You guys agree with that?
    Grok: Course we agree. We’re here on the site, aren’t we?
     
    Like, duh , Lexi. “Think before you type, knucklehead,” I muttered to myself.
     
    CryptHead: So, you know anything else interesting about this Greening dude? Does he frequent this chat room? Maybe I could ask him directly about this stuff.
    RawMode: Couldn’t say if he comes here. It’s not like we use our real names anyway. For all you know, I could be Darren Greening.
     
    That stopped me cold. I thought for a minute before I resumed typing.
     
    CryptHead: So, are you?
    RawMode: Nah. Hahahaha.
     
    I rolled my eyes. Jeez, two geeks with a sense of humor. A dangerous combination. On any other day, I might have been amused, but not today.
     
    CryptHead: So, how close do you think we are to creating these self-replicating thinking machines?
     
    There was a long pause and I stared at the blinking cursor, wondering what they were thinking. Maybe I had asked a few too many pointed questions. Nonetheless, I waited patiently and finally saw a reply.
     
    Grok: Some say we’re already there, geek princess. Beta form, of course.
     
    Now that shocked me. Even at a beta or testing stage, creating conscious beings using nanotechnology was pretty astounding. I wondered whether this was a factor in Darren’s decision to disappear. But what did sentient machines have to do with the nanotech energy production that Darren was working on?
    Whatever the case, these guys had given me a lot to think about. I wasn’t sure this was what I logged on hoping to find, but it was enough for now and I didn’t want to put them off by being too pushy or curious.
     
    CryptHead: Well, thanks, dudes. Gotta go. Hope to see you here again soon.
    RawMode: Come back anytime, crypt princess.
     
    I logged off and then leaned back in my chair. Jeez. Machines of Destruction. It sounded spooky…no, surreal. I took a sip of my Diet Coke. As mind-boggling as all this might be, I was getting paid to figure out how, if at all, any of this information applied to Darren Greening, and for that matter, to me. And frankly, right now, I was seeing diddly as far as a connection between the three of us.
    I took an aspirin to ward off the headache that had started