Ripples of Change
Yoo Jae-won had chosen to head to America earlier than planned, yet his demeanor remained relaxed. After landing at San Francisco International Airport, he didn't rush straight to Redmond in Seattle. Instead, he made his way first to the house in Sausalito. There were piles of luggage to unpack, and someone waiting for him.
The largest item among his belongings was instant ramen, followed by a few dried foods cleared for airplane baggage and some electronics purchased back in Korea. Naturally, the person waiting for him was Tiffany.
Since Yoo Jae-won had arrived on American soil in the early evening, a single phone call announcing his arrival brought her right over.
"So it's really selling now? Selling well, right?" Tiffany asked, clearly fascinated by the news that phones bearing her own name had officially launched in Korea.
"Of course. At least five thousand units have already gone out," Yoo Jae-won replied, puffing out his chest with pride. Of course, the Tiffany Phones sold to pilot service winners had been priced near cost for promotional purposes, with limited options, so it wasn't quite a full commercial release. During the pilot, anyone wanting to use TG Mobile had been required to use a Tiffany Phone, after all. Conversely, anyone wanting a Tiffany Phone had to subscribe to TG Mobile. Determining which factor appealed more to consumers would have to wait until the full commercial service launched.
In Yoo Jae-won's view, the biggest purchasing driver at this stage was mobile communication itself. Even the pilot service applications for Shinsedae Telecom, which didn't require a Tiffany Phone, had closed earlier than scheduled, though slower than TG Mobile's.
"When's the U.S. launch?" Tiffany asked.
"Hmm, probably sometime around mid-next year at the earliest, once approval comes through?" Once Korea's CDMA commercialization proved successful, American carriers would begin rolling out 2G services in earnest. Yoo Jae-won expected it wouldn't take long. Thanks to the technological acceleration he had triggered, computer technology was advancing rapidly and the information and communications infrastructure was expanding just as quickly. The foundation for launching 2G services was already in place; the only remaining task was confirming that CDMA technology worked as Qualcomm had promised.
To prepare for the U.S. market, Yoo Jae-won was also developing a GSM version of the Tiffany Phone. Looking at the global mobile phone market, only a minority of countries had adopted CDMA; most had chosen GSM. Switching required only minor changes to a few components and antenna settings, so it wasn't particularly complicated. The real challenge lay in securing supply contracts with American carriers. Just like in Korea, U.S. carriers handled phone distribution, making those contracts essential.
"By the way, is Android okay?" Tiffany asked. Of course she knew about the Android export ban incident. After all, Yoo Jae-won had originally told her he'd return to the U.S. around the end of July, yet he'd arrived five days early. The federal government's new digital security measures had been major news on American broadcast networks, and the resulting plunge in Android's stock price had been widely reported. Anyone paying even slight attention to current events would have heard about it.
"Yeah! Nothing to worry about. Who do you think I am? I've got it handled."
"Really?"
"Of course! Just wait a few days and the whole world will know."
Yoo Jae-won spoke with a confident expression, as if to say she could trust him completely. It might have come across as childish bravado in front of his girlfriend, and even he felt a twinge of embarrassment after saying it, but he knew actions would prove it soon enough.
The next day, Yoo Jae-won began his usual routine. He woke early, exercised briefly, then prepared breakfast. Afterward, he watched the morning news on television. There were quite a few interesting stories. With the 1994 U.S. World Cup heading into the finals, soccer coverage dominated the broadcast, which suited Yoo Jae-won's tastes perfectly. Checking how much the current World Cup differed from the one in his memories was one of his private pleasures.
"Bulgaria got knocked out in the semifinals again, just like before."
In the 1994 U.S. World Cup, Bulgaria had been the unexpected stars. A peripheral Eastern European nation, Bulgaria had often qualified for the World Cup but had never won a single match in the finals. This time, however, something had clicked. They crushed favored Argentina, dominated Greece to advance from the group stage, edged Mexico in the round of sixteen, and pulled off a stunning 2-1 comeback victory over defending champions Germany in the quarterfinals. Bulgaria's run ended in the semifinals against Italy.
One result made Yoo Jae-won tilt his head in confusion.
"Huh? They lost 1-0?"
In his memory, Bulgaria had lost 2-1. This time it was 1-0. That detail made him slightly uneasy. After all, he hadn't exerted any meaningful influence on the future trajectories of either Bulgaria or Italy. ID Group hadn't entered either country directly; it merely supplied products through European distributors. Both nations ranked very low on the priority list for new product releases. Software localization was slow, and new products like NewEgg 2 launched later than elsewhere. Yet history had still diverged.
Even the other semifinal between Brazil and Sweden had changed. Sweden hadn't managed to upset the powerhouse Brazil, but the match had ended 1-1 before Brazil advanced on penalties.
"No major changes through the quarterfinals, but suddenly everything shifts in the semifinals?"
Yoo Jae-won couldn't pinpoint the cause no matter how much he thought about it. The only explanation that came to mind was that young players who enjoyed computer games might have been distracted by the titles he'd released, throwing off their conditioning. But portable game devices were rare, and few players would have hauled bulky computers to their accommodations. That theory didn't hold much water either. The root cause remained a mystery.
What was certain was that the accuracy of the sports results stored in his Memory Palace had taken a significant hit. Betting his entire fortune on sports lotteries based on those memories would now be a fast way to lose everything. From now on, he had no choice but to focus entirely on his core business. Of course, Yoo Jae-won wasn't the type to enjoy gambling anyway. Still, if even the world of sports—completely unrelated to IT—was changing, what did that mean for other fields? In computing, comparing timelines had already become meaningless.
"Hmm. So for non-IT fields, I need to tread carefully, but in IT I can stir things up as much as I want."
Regardless of how he'd arrived at that interpretation of the discrepancies, Yoo Jae-won had reached a rather extreme conclusion. One thing was clear: the federal government's digital security measures had played a major role.
When the clock on the television showed 8 a.m., Yoo Jae-won turned it off and rose without hesitation. It was time to head to Redmond.
"I'm sorry for causing you concern, Mr. Chairman."
At Android's Redmond headquarters, President Kevin Johnson offered his usual apology the moment they met. The apology carried multiple layers of meaning. First, the Android issue had prevented Yoo Jae-won from completing his schedule in Korea. Second, he hadn't detected the federal government's moves in advance, forcing ID Group to absorb the blow without deploying its full lobbying power.
"It's fine. What's done is done. We need to focus on damage control now."
Yoo Jae-won accepted the apology coolly. Even with capable people on ID Group's intelligence team, it remained a corporate-level operation. Anticipating the National Security Agency's moves was simply impossible.
"I'll handle this matter personally, so you can focus on running the company, President Johnson. I'll personally assure the shareholders that we're resolving the issue, and that the next global Android release will proceed on schedule without disruption."
Yoo Jae-won began issuing specific instructions.
"Ah, so you're accepting the federal government's position on the Secure Area encryption method?"
"No. We'll use at least 128-bit encryption."
Yoo Jae-won shook his head firmly at Kevin Johnson's question. If they set it to DES and vulnerabilities were discovered years later, who would take responsibility when it got cracked wide open? Users would immediately demand compensation from Android Inc. Then ID Group would have to take the federal government's directive to court and argue that the NSA had forced DES upon them—an argument with very low odds of success. Besides, suing the government was burdensome enough on its own, let alone targeting the NSA.
"Looking at the memo, it hasn't been officially designated as an export-controlled item yet."
America ran on systems. Even the export ban that had upended Android Inc. had originated from a mid-level Department of Homeland Security official acting on personal initiative. It hadn't been formally approved. Only the National Security Council or Congress could give it legal force.
"I've already called President Clinton."
"The President?"
Kevin Johnson couldn't hide his surprise at Yoo Jae-won's connections. He hadn't realized they were on personal calling terms. To be fair, Yoo Jae-won hadn't made any public displays of closeness since attending Clinton's inauguration. Most of the favors ID Group had needed from the U.S. government—such as the hiring of ID Office staff—had already been secured during the Bush administration. There had been no need to leverage Clinton's influence publicly. But the AES-256 export ban was different. It was a highly political matter, so the solution would have to be political as well.
Yoo Jae-won had made the call to President Clinton while en route to Redmond.
"Don't expect too much, though. He said he'd look into it and get back to me."
The Clinton administration had positioned IT as America's growth engine, and concrete support measures were already underway. As a result, dozens of new venture companies were being born every day, not just in Silicon Valley but across the entire country. Even an administration as friendly to IT as Clinton's had to tread carefully when national security was involved.
"Still, having the President ask questions will create significant pressure."
Yoo Jae-won agreed with Kevin Johnson's assessment. Within the broader federal government, the NSA director held a rank roughly equivalent to a colonel. The President, by contrast, commanded generals adorned with multiple stars. When the President inquired, those generals would move, and enormous pressure would naturally follow. But the U.S. military was an inherently conservative institution, and it could easily decide that weakening PC security was acceptable in the name of national defense.
"Even so, we can't just sit back and rely on a phone call."
Kevin Johnson's expression grew puzzled at Yoo Jae-won's words. Since Yoo Jae-won had rejected adopting DES, that meant he intended to use AES encryption—which would directly violate the federal government's directive. If President Clinton didn't accept Yoo Jae-won's objection and rescind the DES requirement, the situation could escalate into something far more serious.
"The memo makes it clear the issue is exports. So we just flip it."
What the NSA wanted was mandatory adoption of DES. But since they couldn't say that outright, they'd used the language of export restrictions. They knew full well that forcing DES on products sold domestically would be overreach.
"Flip it?"
"Imports. We import 256-bit encryption technology and install it. Simple."
More than two years had passed since AES had been announced through Yoo Jae-won. In that time, numerous copycat systems had emerged. While ID Technology held the patents on AES itself, preventing outright copying, several similar symmetric encryption schemes had been published that followed the same basic framework.
"Of course, we can't accept just anyone. We'll select reliable products by region and install them in the Android operating systems released in those countries."
"That's an excellent idea."
Kevin Johnson, a capable executive, nodded at Yoo Jae-won's proposal. It was the simplest way to maintain the originally designed security standards. But the drawbacks were immediately obvious.
"That means we'll have to share some profits with those companies. And we might earn the NSA's lasting displeasure."
"They started this fight. They announced it without consulting us first. I'm even planning to approve third-party vendors accessing not just the Secure Area but the entire Android security system."
Yoo Jae-won's words meant allowing capable security companies' management programs to access core security systems like the Secure Area and firewalls. Until now, third-party programs had been limited to basic antivirus functions—memory-resident software that detected and removed viruses from applications. Now he intended to open up certain kernel-level access as well.
The NSA's move was like striking a protruding nail. By creating many other companies that would share the blow, ID Group wouldn't have to bear it alone. Consumers would gain more choices, and foreign governments curious about citizens' private lives would have to expend far more time and effort trying to break through.
"That's quite a bold decision."
Kevin Johnson didn't object to Yoo Jae-won's daring move. Some losses would be inevitable, but the gains would far outweigh them. Yet Yoo Jae-won wasn't finished.
"And I've heard there have been quite a few interview requests because of this incident?"
"Yes. Your secretariat must have been swamped, but we've been flooded with calls as well."
Kevin Johnson nodded as he answered, a look of realization dawning on his face.
"Yes. I'd like you to arrange some time for me, President Johnson. There's a Korean saying: if the words you send are beautiful, the words that return will be beautiful as well."
The proverb made it clear to Kevin Johnson that Yoo Jae-won intended to sharpen his blade against whoever had orchestrated this situation. The opponent was the NSA itself, yet his faith in Yoo Jae-won ran deeper. Kevin Johnson felt his heart race with anticipation for what would come next.