Tetraktys

International computer security expert Ari Juels brings his extraordinary talents to fiction in a literary thriller that spans the centuries. Cryptographer and classicist Ambrose Jerusalem is a UC Berkeley graduate student with a beautiful girlfriend and a comfortable future, until the National Security Agency recruits him to track a strange pattern of computer break-ins. Individually, they might not mean much a State Department official discovers a peculiar series of incriminating appointments in her computer calendar dating back to 18th century France; a corrupt president of the International Monetary Fund is startled by an oracular voice from his computer charging him with crimes against divine numerology and God but together, they provide disturbing evidence that someone has broken RSA encryption, the security lynchpin protecting the world s computer systems. Even more bizarre, a secret cult of latter-day followers of Pythagoras, the great Greek mathematician and philosopher who believed reality could be understood only through a mystical system of numbers, appears to be behind the attacks. With his deep knowledge of both cryptography and classical antiquity, Ambrose is the government s best chance to uncover the cult. Soon Ambrose discovers he is not only the hunter but the hunted, and the game is not simply code-breaking, but a deadly plan to alter the fate of the world. Cryptographer and classicist Ambrose Jerusalem is a UC Berkeley graduate student with a beautiful girlfriend and a comfortable future, until the National Security Agency recruits him to track a strange pattern of computer break-ins. Individually, they might not mean much--a State Department official discovers a peculiar series of incriminating appointments in her computer calendar dating back to 18th century France; a corrupt president of the International Monetary Fund is startled by an oracular voice from his computer charging him with crimes against divine numerology and God--but together, they provide disturbing evidence that someone has broken RSA encryption, the security lynchpin protecting the world's computer systems. Even more bizarre, a secret cult of latter-day followers of Greek mathematician/philosopher Pythagoras appears to be behind the attacks. But soon Ambrose discovers he is not only the hunter but the hunted, and the game is not simply code-breaking, but a deadly plan to alter the fate of the world.--From publisher description