nervously.
The men tied Imran Shah Malik's hands behind his back and covered his head with a black cloth and retreated to their position.
The automatic tracking MT tripod of the camera spun, following the direction of the four men and focused at the firing squad. They inserted the magazine, placed the selector at the automatic middle position, pressed the stock latch, aimed at the sight and rested their fingers on the triggers.
The camera slowly swivelled and zoomed in. The focus was on Imran Shah Malik. The stunning valley resounded with the sound of the bullets.
From the high cliff, Imran's body fell into a deep gorge. The cool current of the river quickly swept him into the gushing water cascades of an almost vertical waterfall. His body hit an outcrop of a hard rock and the impact tossed him up in the air. Once again he plummeted down, scrapping against the mossy rocks. A funnel-shaped whirlpool pulled him inward into a deep constricted bore.
Several copies of the video recording were made and sent to T.V. Stations and newspaper offices. The ruins of a Buddhist Stupa and monasteries clearly visible in the backdrop confirmed that the incident was recorded on the banks of the Swat River.
Reuters got a special message, " No one dares to deal a deathblow to our tribal council."
A senior ISI officer visited Nausheen to convey the condolences of the present ISI Chief. Many of Imran Shah Malik's colleagues, relatives, and friends from the neighbourhood assembled at the house, expressing their deepest grief. A heart broken Nausheen was inconsolable. At that time, the grief-stricken woman just wanted one person beside her - her son, Aban.
A few hundred miles away, Sundaram Iyer watched the video in silence and remembered the chilling words, "Never ever dare to ask too many questions. Implement whatever the Aka of Qaeda tells you."
Encryption
As Siddhartha Rana watched the cold-blooded murder of Imran Shah Malik, he was both rattled and alarmed. He needed to go to the USA as quickly as he could. He asked the systems expert to reach his office immediately and left for the office himself. The System Expert was waiting for him. "Did you download everything from Lahore?"
"Yes sir."
"The password?"
"Yes. Our keylogger captured each of the keystrokes."
"Good. Did you check the mails and files?"
"There is not much except one large file."
"What's that?"
"It would not open. It's password protected."
"Did you take a crack at it with our brute password breaker program?"
The system expert pointed his finger to a small window on the screen, "See the progress bar, sir. It's been almost ten hours and still our supercomputer has no idea of the secret code."
"Our system can decode even a 256-bit encryption. Why is it failing?"Siddhartha was vexed. "Did you try Õ, the big O notation, the big theta Θ or the big omega Ω?"
"The computer made several exhaustive key searches and every possible combination that it could, without a single hit. This is the first time that a password has failed this system. Frankly speaking, this is a unique system of password protection, and in my view, it's completely unbreakable."
"Why is that?"
"Instead of the alphanumeric keywords, the file seems to be protected by an image password made up of several smaller images."
"Image password!"Siddhartha was surprised. "I know people are trying to develop doppelgänger, where a ghost password remains on the cloud and never remains inside the computer. One has to download it with sophisticated Unix commands and only then does the system boot. However, I've never heard of an image password."
"The National Institute of Standard and Technology of the US Department of Commerce has developed this. It is a very recent system, where the ' secret words ' are a combination of images, each of which should be dragged into a grid. Once the correct images fill up the grid, it turns into a theme. The procedure is known as salting. The file unlocks after
The men tied Imran Shah Malik's hands behind his back and covered his head with a black cloth and retreated to their position.
The automatic tracking MT tripod of the camera spun, following the direction of the four men and focused at the firing squad. They inserted the magazine, placed the selector at the automatic middle position, pressed the stock latch, aimed at the sight and rested their fingers on the triggers.
The camera slowly swivelled and zoomed in. The focus was on Imran Shah Malik. The stunning valley resounded with the sound of the bullets.
From the high cliff, Imran's body fell into a deep gorge. The cool current of the river quickly swept him into the gushing water cascades of an almost vertical waterfall. His body hit an outcrop of a hard rock and the impact tossed him up in the air. Once again he plummeted down, scrapping against the mossy rocks. A funnel-shaped whirlpool pulled him inward into a deep constricted bore.
Several copies of the video recording were made and sent to T.V. Stations and newspaper offices. The ruins of a Buddhist Stupa and monasteries clearly visible in the backdrop confirmed that the incident was recorded on the banks of the Swat River.
Reuters got a special message, " No one dares to deal a deathblow to our tribal council."
A senior ISI officer visited Nausheen to convey the condolences of the present ISI Chief. Many of Imran Shah Malik's colleagues, relatives, and friends from the neighbourhood assembled at the house, expressing their deepest grief. A heart broken Nausheen was inconsolable. At that time, the grief-stricken woman just wanted one person beside her - her son, Aban.
A few hundred miles away, Sundaram Iyer watched the video in silence and remembered the chilling words, "Never ever dare to ask too many questions. Implement whatever the Aka of Qaeda tells you."
Encryption
As Siddhartha Rana watched the cold-blooded murder of Imran Shah Malik, he was both rattled and alarmed. He needed to go to the USA as quickly as he could. He asked the systems expert to reach his office immediately and left for the office himself. The System Expert was waiting for him. "Did you download everything from Lahore?"
"Yes sir."
"The password?"
"Yes. Our keylogger captured each of the keystrokes."
"Good. Did you check the mails and files?"
"There is not much except one large file."
"What's that?"
"It would not open. It's password protected."
"Did you take a crack at it with our brute password breaker program?"
The system expert pointed his finger to a small window on the screen, "See the progress bar, sir. It's been almost ten hours and still our supercomputer has no idea of the secret code."
"Our system can decode even a 256-bit encryption. Why is it failing?"Siddhartha was vexed. "Did you try Õ, the big O notation, the big theta Θ or the big omega Ω?"
"The computer made several exhaustive key searches and every possible combination that it could, without a single hit. This is the first time that a password has failed this system. Frankly speaking, this is a unique system of password protection, and in my view, it's completely unbreakable."
"Why is that?"
"Instead of the alphanumeric keywords, the file seems to be protected by an image password made up of several smaller images."
"Image password!"Siddhartha was surprised. "I know people are trying to develop doppelgänger, where a ghost password remains on the cloud and never remains inside the computer. One has to download it with sophisticated Unix commands and only then does the system boot. However, I've never heard of an image password."
"The National Institute of Standard and Technology of the US Department of Commerce has developed this. It is a very recent system, where the ' secret words ' are a combination of images, each of which should be dragged into a grid. Once the correct images fill up the grid, it turns into a theme. The procedure is known as salting. The file unlocks after
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