The Broken Window

The CEO nodded. “Some hotshot journalist from one of the metro papers. He was doing an article on identity theft and decided we were the devil incarnate. Axciom and Choicepoint had the good sense not to let him into their headquarters. I believe in free press, so I talked to him… He went to the restroom and claimed he got lost. He came back here, cheerful as could be. But something didn’t seem right. Our security people went through his briefcase and found a camera. On it were pictures of trade-secret-protected business plans and even pass codes.”

O’Day said, “The reporter not only lost his job but was prosecuted under criminal trespass statutes. He served six months in state prison. And, as far as I know, he hasn’t had a steady job as a journalist since.”

Sterling lowered his head slightly and said to Sachs, “We take security very, very seriously.”

A young man appeared in the doorway. At first she thought it was Martin, the assistant, but she realized that was only because of the similarity in build and the black suit. “Andrew, I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Ah, Jeremy.”

So this was the second assistant. He looked at Pulaski’s uniform, then at Sachs. Then, as with Martin, when he realized he wasn’t being introduced he ignored everyone in the room except his boss.

“Carpenter,” Sterling said. “I need to see him today.”

“Yes, Andrew.”

After he was gone, Sachs asked, “Employees? Is there anyone you’ve had disciplinary problems with?”

Sterling said, “We run extensive background checks on our people. I won’t allow hiring anybody who’s had any convictions other than traffic violations. And background checks are one of our specialties. But even if an employee wanted to get into innerCircle it would be impossible for him to steal any data. Mark, tell her about the pens.”

“Sure, Andrew.” To Sachs he said, “We have concrete firewalls.”

“I’m not a technical person,” Sachs said.

Whitcomb laughed. “No, no, it’s very low-tech. Literally concrete. As in walls and floors. We divide up the data when we receive them and store them in physically separate places. You’ll understand better if I tell you how SSD operates. We start with the premise that data is our main asset. If somebody was to duplicate innerCircle we’d be out of business in a week. So number one-‘protect our asset,’ as we say here. Now, where does all this data come from? From thousands of sources: credit card companies, banks, government-records offices, retail stores, online operations, court clerks, DMV departments, hospitals, insurance companies. We consider each event that creates data a quote transaction, which could be a call to an eight hundred number, registering a car, a health insurance claim, filing a lawsuit, a birth, wedding, purchase, merchandise return, a complaint… In your business, a transaction could be a rape, a burglary, a murder-any crime. Also, the opening of a case file, selecting a juror, a trial, a conviction.”

Whitcomb continued, “Any time data about a transaction comes to SSD it goes first to the Intake Center, where it’s evaluated. For security we have a data masking policy-separating the person’s name and replacing it with a code.”

“Social Security number?”

A flicker of emotion crossed Sterling’s face. “Ah, no. Those were created solely for government retirement accounts. Ages ago. It was a fluke that they became identification. Inaccurate, easy to steal or buy. Dangerous-like keeping a loaded gun unlocked around the house. Our code is a sixteen-digit number. Ninety-eight percent of adult Americans have SSD codes. Now, every child whose birth is registered-anywhere in North America-automatically gets a code.”

“Why sixteen digits?” Pulaski asked.

“Gives us room for expansion,” Sterling said. “We never have to worry about running out of numbers. We can assign nearly one quintillion codes. The earth will run out of living space before SSD runs out of numbers. The codes make our system much more secure and it’s far faster to process data than using a name or Social. Also, using a code neutralizes the human element and takes the prejudice out of the equation. Psychologically we have opinions about Adolf or Britney or Shaquilla or Diego before we even meet them, simply because of their name. A number eliminates that bias. And improves efficiency. Please, go on, Mark.”

“Sure, Andrew. Once the name is swapped for the code, the Intake Center evaluates the transaction, decides where it belongs and sends it to one or more of three separate areas-our data pens. Pen A is where we store personal lifestyle data. Pen B is financial. That includes salary history, banking, credit reports, insurance. Pen C is public and government filings and records.”

“Then the data’s cleansed.” Sterling took over once again. “The impurities are weeded out and it’s made uniform. For instance, on some forms your sex is given as ‘F.’ In others, it’s ‘Female.’ Sometimes it’s a one or a zero. You have to be consistent.