Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown – Digital Fortress is a techno-thriller novel written by American author Dan Brown and published in 1998 by St. Martin’s Press. The book explores the theme of government surveillance of electronically stored information on the private lives of citizens, and the possible civil liberties and ethical implications of using such technology.
When the United States National Security Agency’s code-breaking supercomputer TRANSLTR encounters a revolutionary new code, Digital Fortress, that it cannot break, Commander Trevor Strathmore calls in head cryptographer Susan Fletcher to crack it. She discovers that it was written by Ensei Tankado, a former NSA employee who became displeased with the NSA’s intrusion into people’s private lives. If the NSA doesn’t reveal TRANSLTR to the public, Tankado intends to auction the code’s algorithm on his website and have his partner, “North Dakota,” release it for free if he dies, essentially holding the NSA hostage. The agency is determined to stop Digital Fortress from becoming a threat to national security.