Alligators and Algorithms A Spike Adams Mystery I had just lit up my fifth cigarette of the day when the phone bleeped. "Spike Adams, Internet Detective," I exhaled into the receiver. The man on the other end was blurting sentences in a steady stream. So I let him ramble and lit another cigarette. As the polysyllables flew by, I managed to swat a few. They were ugly as bright green flies: "algorithm . . . integers . . . compiled instructions . . . small program." Finally, I heard: "You've got to help me." Ah, the cry of distress, the gumshoe's siren song. It was sweeter to my ears than a slug of sipping whiskey. "Have you called the police?" I asked. "No, I don't want to." That seemed good enough reason to me. He explained that he was an amateur programmer who had gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd. He had spent several months working on a program only to find it deleted from his hard drive. Now, he wanted it back. "Do you have any proof that it's yours?" I asked. "Yes, I have some printouts." "Fax them to me, and fax me a list of the emails of your motley crew of pals." I explained to him I needed a credit card number, quoted my rates, and estimated that I would probably come up with something tangible within two or three days. A few minutes later, the fax machine hummed and spat out several pages of silly nicknames. I was off and running. Since the emails, at first glance, only revealed the names and locations of Internet Service Providers, I decided to use the Internet phone books to amplify my search. Most of the addresses were obsolete, but the others seemed to lead in the direction of MIT and Stanford University. Most likely, my client had stumbled onto research pursued by others who weren't keen to share. If knowledge is power -- I reflected -- it's also money, and money always calls for slicing up the pie. As I browsed around the Web, I came across some interesting sites, involving people who in another age would have been court magicians or members of the Royal Society. There was Donald Knuth of Stanford in the San Francisco area, the author of The Art of Computer Programming, now retired and completing his life work while devoting his leisure time to pipe organ music. There was also Marvin Minsky from MIT, for whom the mind is the ultimate machine, a society of bits and pieces harmonized by mathematical processes. For Knuth and Minsky, algorithms serve as the building blocks of thought, the programmed instructions that trigger intelligent behavior. I almost forgot, among my thoughts of algorithms, that I was on the trail of a few sluggish alligators, no match for the great minds of MIT and Stanford, but probably basking in their warmth like crocs on the shores of the Nile. Within hours, I got a bite. One of the nicknames on my list panicked and gave me the address of a File Transfer Protocol server in Boston. I emailed the location to my client. Minutes later, the phone trilled. "How did you do it?" he stammered. "A few calculated shots in the dark," I confessed. "If I had been dealing with truly intelligent creatures, I might not have been so lucky." I lit another cigarette while he signed off, and watched the blue smoke form alligators and algorithms as it wafted to the ceiling. December 2, 1998