Free Breakpoint by Richard A. Clarke

hangs up, breaks down, anybody can hack it, nothing can work seamlessly with it. Problem was almost all the PCs were running SofTrust and almost all the routers were Sytho. There was a monoculture. So somebody figured out two Zero Day worms, surprise attack hacks, and we got the Cyber Crash of 2009.”
    â€œAnd why isn’t Living Software going to be just like that? Won’t everybody use that and make it a monoculture? I don’t know much about it,” Susan was chagrined to confess.
    â€œShit, no. The Living Software kernel generates flawless code to do whatever it is you ask it to do. It’s software that writes software, flawlessly. None of the millions of mistakes like in SofTrust. And the kernel clones itself. So all the kernels talk to one another on the Net, so that they learn what has already been done. They learn, like in Open Software, and fix past mistakes. They know how to plug and play with each other’s work like its like one big organic code.” Soxster was definitely excited. He took another gulp of the Balvenie.
    â€œSo when Globegrid was connected, it would have been the smartest thing that ever existed. All that incredible processing power, working in parallel, with Living Software writing new code, monitoring what it wrote. Even if ninety percent of the Globegrid was working on studying reverse-engineering the human brain and the genome, with just ten percent running on the world’s software problems, they’d all have been fixed. All anyone has to do to be part of it is just buy a Living Software kernel. So we’ll still get there. Just take longer without Globegrid.”
    Susan rose and stepped closer to the fire, feeling its heat on her back. “Living Software, when paired with the Globegrid, would have put hackers out of business. You’re a hacker.”
    â€œYeah, it’s my hobby. Hacking means slicing and dicing computer code, not doing things that are illegal. The media uses hacker to mean cybercriminal, but few of us are. With flawless software available, I wouldn’t have to go ’round finding stupid mistakes in programs. I could ask the Living Software for new software to do all sorts of shit. Make the world a lot better place.” He looked out the window again. “Not only put hackers out of work. Woulda put a lot of government types out of work, too. How do you think all the electronic spy agencies around the world get in to systems? Through glitches in the software, mistaken or intentional. The same way I…” Soxster turned from Susan and looked to the window.
    Susan was taking notes on her PDA. “The world was about to change in a big way, and suddenly the computers that were going to do it, at least some of them, burn up. The fiber-optic connections that would have linked the supercomputers globally get cut. Then, just for extra measure, the satellites that might have been used as a backup disappear. Would China want to do that?” Susan asked.
    â€œMaybe. China has been trying to lace our computer networks with back doors for years, but they can’t keep up with some of it. Could have felt left out. Maybe they didn’t want a U.S. software monster taking over the world, again. But maybe it was NSA. Your own spy agency might not have wanted the world to have flawless software. How would they hack into places?” Soxster said, putting his glass down on the mantel. “Look, so why don’t we invite him in? He’s going to freeze to death out there.”
    â€œWho?” Susan asked.
    â€œThe big guy in the doorway across the alley. He’s with you, isn’t he?” Soxster said, parting the curtain. Susan stood next to him and saw Jimmy hovering across the narrow alley in the doorway of a dress shop.
    She bent over and cracked open the old window, shoving it up about a foot. “Foley, come on up. You’ll be frozen into a statue out there.”
    Two minutes later, Jimmy was