My GOD! There is a fossil in this meteorite! Not just a speck of bacteria or microbes, but an advanced life-form! Proof of life elsewhere in the universe!
My first encounter with Dan Brown’s work was his most recent installment ORIGIN. A book that fascinated the hell out of me. I remember going through those page after page, day and night. At that time, I was at my uncle’s house and for the first time, my aunt labeled me as a couch potato. To be honest, I don’t know what it is. My reading speed has never been good, but whenever I read a Brown, I can’t seem to remember how the pages are turning. When I was done, I felt fairly satisfied.
The Lost Symbol on the other hand, though filled with top-notched puzzles, was disappointing at the end. Which made me realized, maybe I need some time off from Brown. In the past week, however, the thirst for conspiracies stirred up in me, and Deception Point happened.
Deception Point was short and mostly depicted with Allan Hills 84001, Micro-bots, Delta force, and NASA. Brown’s second work gave a glimpse of what the USA and its national security are capable of. In a distant place of ice, where a discovery was found that could change the course of human understanding, unfolded a vast conspiracy as the protagonists were solving one mystery after another, that can affect the USA, politically and economically. Protagonists, because Robert Langden was replaced by Charles Brophy - a Canadian geologist, and Rachel Sexton was a "gister" for the NRO and Senator Sexton's daughter. But we will not get into that. Goodreads has enough good reviews to read. We will go a bit technical and will dig a little deeper.
In the story, we saw how the US white house use microbots to record people’s private affairs for blackmailing. Micro-bots were designed and were operational from the early 1990s. Nearly 30 years ago. For the book however which was released in 2001, the topic was fairly new. What are microbots you ask? Micro ElectroMagnatical System or MEMS or Microbots are remote control robots, which can fly or swim depending on their models and are used for surveillance. Do you know how small a grain of salt is? well, that’s how small the swimmer types are. They can be seen in the advance medical system, where the doctors inject them into you, navigate through your bloodstream to detect any artery blockage. The first flying microbot, designed by NASA had been several inches long. They could recharge themselves by standing beneath a bright light. The development of wireless connections, especially Wi-Fi has greatly increased the communication capacity of microbots, and consequently their ability to coordinate with other microbots to carry out more complex tasks, and nanotechnology had helped scientists to make them smaller. Nowadays they can be recharged just by standing a couple of inches away from a magnetic field. Like power outlets, computer monitors, cellphones, etc.
The next thing Brown worked on in his story was a meteorite that had contained microscopic fossils like the Allan Hills 84001 claimed in 1996. Allan Hills 84001 or ALH was a martial meteorite found in Antarctica in 1984. It was claimed that the fossils of the bacteria were from mars proving lifeform elsewhere in the universe. A discovery that then US president Bill Clinton addressed on national television, making it a worldwide debate. Brown deviously used this incident wholeheartedly and made a president of his own in this story who is keeping it close to his chest for his political advantage. Oops! was that a spoiler? Don’t worry, because the real plot twist is much more shocking. ALH84001 was thought to be one of the oldest Martian meteorites, proposed to have crystallized from molten rock 4.091 billion years ago. The only one from the time when Mars was moist and the surface contained water. Which makes it quite unique and an important subject for Elon Musk.
In April 2020, researchers reported discovering nitrogen-bearing organics in it.
But is it actually true? As many claims that NASA fabricates evidence to get their funding going. The notorious incident of the Apollo moon landing speaks for itself. Some folks actually believe NASA's whole function is not to explore space but to generate space-related hoaxes. People who believe this conspiracy, sometimes flagged with the hashtag "#NASAhoax" on social media, will say that amazing space pictures of Mars, Pluto, and even Earth are fake, computer-generated imagery (CGI). For example, The Black Knight satellite conspiracy theory claims that a spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin is in the near-polar orbit of the Earth and that NASA is covering up its existence and origin. This conspiracy theory combines several unrelated stories into one narrative. A photo taken during the STS-88 mission claimed by some to show the Black Knight satellite is cataloged by NASA as a photo of space debris and space journalist James Oberg considers it as probable debris of a thermal blanket confirmed as lost during the mission.
In my article on The Vast of Night, I found people’s theories on how NASA cover-up alien discoveries.
An aircraft with marvelous speed and stealth flew across the plot too.
The Aurora is one of those secret aircraft that nobody is supposed to know exists, but everyone does. Even the Discovery Channel has covered Aurora and its testing out at Groom Lake in Nevada. Whether the security leaks have come from the repeated “sky quakes” heard as far away as Los Angeles, or the unfortunate eyewitness sightings by a North Sea oil rig driller, or the administrative gaffe that left a description of Aurora in a public copy of the Pentagon budget, nobody will ever know. It hardly matters. The word is out: The U.S. military has an aircraft capable of Mach 6 flight, and it is no longer on the drawing board. It is in the skies overhead.
-Deception point
And last but not least The CIA Malware
Now there are tons of malware that were developed by the CIA and NSA in the shadows. The tip of which was leaked on the internet and subsequently was available to us. I can tell you about a couple of them for you to get a decent idea.
For iPhones, android, smart TV: "Weeping Angel" is developed by the CIA's Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones. It places the target TV in a 'Fake-Off' mode so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on. In 'Fake-Off' mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server. A similar unit targets Google's Android which is used to run the majority of the world's smartphones (~85%) including Samsung, HTC, and Sony. 1.15 billion Android-powered phones were sold last year. "Year Zero" shows that as of 2016 the CIA had 24 "weaponized" Android "zero days" which it has developed itself and obtained from GCHQ, NSA, and cyber arms contractors. These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide, and Cloackman by hacking the "smart" phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.
For windows, router: Air gap jumping viruses such as "Hammer Drill" which infects software distributed on CD/DVDs, infectors for removable media such as USBs, systems to hide data in images or in covert disk areas ("Brutal Kangaroo"), and to keep its malware infestations going.
CIA's Grasshopper framework is used by the CIA to build customized and persistent malware payloads for the Microsoft Windows operating systems. HIVE is CIA back-end infrastructure with a public-facing HTTPS interface used by CIA to transfer information from target desktop computers and smartphones to the CIA, and open those devices to receive further commands from CIA operators to execute specific tasks, all the while hiding its presence behind unsuspicious-looking public domains through a masking interface known as "Switchblade". “Pandemic” attack allows 20 files to be modified at a time, with a maximum individual file size of 800MB.
Pete Cashmore once said, Privacy is dead, and social media holds the smoking gun. Which is true. But it is not new to us. We all knew that when we started being online or had learned along the way.
Brown’s simple formula to stir up the controversy with a beautiful female protagonist and an all-knowing male protagonist who will enthusiastically find whatever dirt is buried inside an establishment and give form to a story with fast pace chase against the government’s interference… works every time. At least to me, it does. And when it was combined with the ever-lasting question that is GOD, it becomes a global phenomenon. Like what I heard, had happened with Angels and demons and with the DaVinci code. Brown’s books are not just mystery thrillers, they are informational. Truth or not, that is for the critics to decide. For us… for me… they are just freaking entertainment.