Cryptonomicon

The lights come back on, sun waxes through the windows, the screens disappear silently into the ceiling, and everyone's mildly surprised to see that the sultan is on his feet. He is approaching a large and (of course) ornate and expensive-looking Go board covered with a complex pattern of black and white stones. "Perhaps I can make an analogy to Go--though chess would work just as well. Because of our history, we Kinakutans are well-versed in both games. At the beginning of the game, the pieces are arranged in a pattern that is simple and easy to understand. But the game evolves. The players make small decisions, one turn at a time, each decision fairly simple in and of itself, and made for reasons that can be easily understood, even by a novice. But over the course of many such turns, the pattern develops such great complexity that only the finest minds--or the finest computers--can comprehend it." The sultan is gazing down thoughtfully at the Go board as he says this. He looks up and starts making eye contact around the room. "The analogy is clear. Our policies concerning free speech, telecommunications and cryptography have evolved from a series of simple, rational decisions. But they are today so complex that no one can understand them, even in one single country, to say nothing of all countries taken together."

The sultan pauses and walks broodingly around the Go board. The guests have mostly given up on the obsequious nodding and jotting by this point. No one is being tactical now, they are all listening with genuine interest, wondering what he's going to say next.

But he says nothing. Instead he lays one arm across the board and, with a sudden violent motion, sweeps all the stones aside. They rain down into the carpet, skitter across polished stone, clatter onto the tabletop.

There is a silence of at least fifteen seconds. The sultan looks stony. Then, suddenly, he brightens up.

"Time to start over," he says. "A very difficult thing to do in a large country, where laws are written by legislative bodies, interpreted by judges, bound by ancient precedents. But this is the Sultanate of Kinakuta and I am the sultan and I say that the law here is to be very simple: total freedom of information. I hereby abdicate all government power over the flow of data across and within my borders. Under no circumstances will any part of this government snoop on information flows, or use its power to in any way restrict such flows. That is the new law of Kinakuta. I invite you gentlemen to make the most of it. Thank you."

The sultan turns and leaves the room to a dignified ovation. Those are the ground rules, boys. Now run along and play.

Dr. Mohammed Pragasu, Kinakutan Minister of Information, now rises from his chair (which is to the right hand of the sultan's throne, naturally) and takes the conn. His accent is almost as American as the sultan's is British; he did his undergrad work at Berkeley and got his doctorate at Stanford. Randy knows several people who worked and studied with him during those years. According to them, Pragasu rarely showed up for work in anything other than a t-shirt and jeans, and showed just as strong an appetite for beer and sausage pizza as any non-Mohammedan. No one had a clue that he was a sultan's second cousin, and worth a few hundred million in his own right.

But that was ten years ago. More recently, in his dealings with Epiphyte Corp., he's been better dressed, better behaved, but studiously informal: first names only, please. Dr. Pragasu likes to be addressed as Prag. All of their meetings have started with an uninhibited exchange of the latest jokes. Then Prag inquires about his old school buddies, most of whom are working in Silicon Valley now. He delves for tips on the latest and hottest high-tech stocks, reminisces for a few minutes about the wild times he enjoyed back in California, and then gets down to business.

None of them has ever seen Prag in his true element until now. It's a bit hard to keep a straight face--as if some old school chum of theirs had rented a suit, forged an ID card, and was now staging a prank at a stuffy business meeting. But there is a solemnity about Dr. Pragasu's bearing today that is impressive, verging on oppressive.

Those Chinese guys across the table look like the Maoist Mt. Rushmore; it is impossible to imagine that any of them has ever smiled in his life. They are getting a live translation of the proceedings through ear pieces, connected through the mysterious table to a boiler room full of interpreters.

Randy's attention wanders. Prag's talk is dull because it is covering technical ground with which Randy is already painfully familiar, couched in simple analogies designed to make some kind of sense even after being translated with Mandarin, Cantonese, Nipponese, or what-have-you. Randy begins looking around the table.