WEBVTT 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:28.000 Every night for over seven hundred years, the exact same thing has happened at the Tower of London. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:34.240 In the dark, the chief yeoman warder walks to the outer gates. 00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:38.560 Challenges are called out into the night air. 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:41.119 Passwords are exchanged. 00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:46.880 The heavy wooden doors are locked, and the keys are secured until morning. 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:49.679 It has happened through plagues. 00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:53.679 It has happened while bombs fell during the Blitz. 00:00:53.679 --> 00:00:57.920 The ritual has never been skipped. 00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:03.520 We do this because humans have always understood something about security. 00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:12.799 Certain things require a ritual, not just because the ritual makes us safe, but because it makes trust visible. 00:01:12.799 --> 00:01:21.680 Back in 2008, a security researcher named Dan Kaminsky realized that the internet's core directory was unprotected. 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:31.760 It was a well without a lid, vulnerable to anyone who wanted to secretly poison the water and redirect the world's digital traffic. 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:40.879 He forced the architects of the web to build a heavy cryptographic lid to protect the directory from poisoning. 00:01:40.879 --> 00:01:44.719 A master key to lock the internet's route. 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:48.640 That story is its own episode and it's worth your time. 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:55.519 But a master key creates a new terrifying problem. 00:01:55.519 --> 00:02:00.079 If you give it to one person, they become a target. 00:02:00.079 --> 00:02:05.519 If you give it to a single government, it becomes a weapon of politics. 00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:11.120 So they broke the key apart and scattered the fragments. 00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:17.599 I'm Daina Bouquin, and this is Lore in the Machine. 00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:26.639 There are only 14 people in the world who hold the title crypto officer. 00:02:26.639 --> 00:02:29.840 They are not spies or government agents. 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:45.840 They are trusted volunteers, like Swedish internet expert Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder, who stored a piece of the key on a long metal chain inside a wooden puzzle box with a hidden lock. 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:49.360 Her son made the box in his workshop. 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:52.000 He also made furniture. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:03:06.159 Four times a year, a handful of crypto officers pack their bags, get on airplanes, and travel to a secure facility in either Culpeper, Virginia, or El Segundo, California. 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:09.840 They go there to perform a ritual. 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:22.000 If you were to dream up a ritual to protect the global internet, you might imagine a sci-fi fortress, an unassailable tower with an arsenal. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:24.800 But the reality is much stranger. 00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:32.240 It is a bureaucratic fever dream pieced together from mathematics, paranoia, and plastic. 00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:36.960 Imagine walking into the El Segundo facility. 00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:40.240 The walls are beige and unremarkable. 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:43.120 You hand over your government ID. 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:47.280 Your bag is searched and you are given a badge. 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:49.680 Then you enter a man trap. 00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:53.840 It's a small room with doors at both ends. 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:56.960 Only one door can open at a time. 00:03:56.960 --> 00:04:01.120 To get through, you need a pin, a card, and your hand. 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:04.080 To exit, you need them again. 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:09.360 Now you wait in a sterile space where lunch is being served. 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:12.879 It looks like a doctor's waiting room. 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:16.319 But it has an Atari arcade machine. 00:04:16.319 --> 00:04:27.199 The people who designed this ceremony actually wrote a 5% "dishonesty rate" into its mathematical specifications. 00:04:27.199 --> 00:04:38.720 There are over 100 highly scripted actions, and the entire system is built on the assumption that someone in this room is secretly a traitor. 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:43.519 When it's time, the ceremony begins. 00:04:43.519 --> 00:04:50.800 There are no passwords exchanged at the door, no challenges called out into the air. 00:04:50.800 --> 00:04:54.560 It's more like a heist movie run in reverse. 00:04:54.560 --> 00:05:03.199 To enter the hallway, a staff member swipes an access card and presses their palm against a scanner. 00:05:03.199 --> 00:05:10.000 To enter the main room, they lean into the red glow of a retina scanner. 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:23.759 When the heavy door clicks shut behind you, you are standing inside a Faraday cage, an enclosure that shields its interior from external electric fields and electromagnetic radiation. 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:27.519 The entire room is completely signal proof. 00:05:27.519 --> 00:05:30.079 Nothing can enter or leave. 00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:37.839 Inside this room, there is a large metal cage containing two heavy safes. 00:05:37.839 --> 00:05:45.199 Once the safe controllers are brought in, the steel door of the first safe is pulled open. 00:05:45.199 --> 00:05:54.160 Inside are safe deposit boxes, each requiring two physical metal keys to be turned at the exact same time. 00:05:54.160 --> 00:05:57.519 Inside the box is a smart card. 00:05:57.519 --> 00:06:03.680 It rests in a hard plastic case, sealed inside a tamper evident bag. 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:06.720 The plastic case was added to the ceremony. 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:16.399 After someone realized that a phantom thief could theoretically slip a microscopic needle through the plastic bag to manipulate the card without leaving a tear. 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:20.240 The second safe is opened next. 00:06:20.240 --> 00:06:23.519 Inside is the master lockbox. 00:06:23.519 --> 00:06:26.079 It is designed to self-destruct. 00:06:26.079 --> 00:06:34.720 If someone tries to cut it, freeze it, heat it, or even shake it too hard, it will instantly wipe its own memory. 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:37.279 Next to it is a laptop. 00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:39.759 This laptop has no hard drive. 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:41.680 It has no battery. 00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:44.399 It has no memory of its own. 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:50.240 It's completely air gapped, ensuring the master key can never ever touch the internet. 00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:55.199 It doesn't even have a tiny backup battery to keep its internal clock running. 00:06:55.199 --> 00:07:05.519 When it's plugged into the wall, the time has to be set manually using an isolated drifting wall clock that has been hanging in the room for over a decade. 00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:18.240 The ceremony script actually refers to this clock as the quote, "reasonably accurate clock visible to all in Tier 4 (Key Ceremony Room)". 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:24.800 These are hyper serious security measures that border on hallucination. 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:29.199 But because they're performed by humans, they're imperfect. 00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:38.800 During a ceremony in 2014, a security controller accidentally slammed the door of the safe too hard. 00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:43.759 It triggered a seismic sensor, which immediately triggered the automatic door locks. 00:07:43.759 --> 00:07:49.199 The administrators and the key holders were suddenly trapped inside the metal cage. 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:57.279 They stood there in quiet panic for six minutes until someone finally triggered an evacuation alarm. 00:07:57.279 --> 00:08:01.279 The sirens blared and everyone piled into the hallway. 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:04.959 They ate Oreos and Cheez-Its until the system reset. 00:08:04.959 --> 00:08:11.600 In 2020, the sophisticated lock on one of the safes simply broke. 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:22.560 A certified locksmith had to be called in, and the people holding the keys to the internet had to sit around for over 20 hours while a guy with a drill tried to bust open the door. 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:27.120 There are also backup key holders. 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:38.399 People entrusted with smart cards containing a fragment of code needed to rebuild the key generating machine from scratch in case something calamitous happens. 00:08:38.399 --> 00:08:48.000 Once a year, these people take a photograph of themselves holding their key next to that day's newspaper, just to confirm that all is well. 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:54.240 The room also needs to be kept clean, but cleaners aren't allowed inside. 00:08:54.240 --> 00:09:03.360 Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder was known for meticulously vacuuming the room with a $20 dustbuster. 00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:10.559 After the room is clean and the cage is unlocked, everything is laid out on a table. 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:12.799 Cameras are recording. 00:09:12.799 --> 00:09:20.000 The encrypted requests are loaded via a USB drive. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:22.320 The smart cards are inserted. 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:25.519 This process takes time. 00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:30.320 In all, the ceremony usually takes roughly four to five hours. 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:35.600 But then it's time for the final command. 00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:39.759 The Ceremony Administrator types a single letter. 00:09:39.759 --> 00:09:42.159 Y for yes. 00:09:42.159 --> 00:09:48.240 With that single keystroke, the dramatic portion of the ceremony ends. 00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:52.240 The root of the internet is cryptographically signed. 00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:54.879 The directory is authenticated. 00:09:54.879 --> 00:09:59.200 And the digital world is secured for a few more months. 00:09:59.200 --> 00:10:02.960 The logs are printed. 00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:08.240 The smart cards are sealed back into new tamper-evident bags. 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:11.679 The heavy safes clang shut and are locked. 00:10:11.679 --> 00:10:17.600 And the crypto officers scatter back across the globe, returning to their normal lives. 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:23.200 We like to think the internet is a machine. 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:29.759 An indestructible web built on software, mathematics, and fiber optic cables. 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:31.759 But it isn't. 00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:36.240 It is a fragile thing held together by strangers. 00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:48.960 Strangers who pack their bags four times a year, who fly across oceans to sit in a windowless room, who submit their eyes to scanners, and turn metal keys in unison. 00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:53.440 They don't do it because the code requires an audience. 00:10:53.440 --> 00:10:55.519 They do it because we do. 00:10:55.519 --> 00:11:05.519 Because we need to know that someone is out there in the dark, calling out the passwords and making sure the gates are locked until morning. 00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:12.080 I'm Daina Bouquin, and this is Lore in the Machine.