Digital Fortress
Three weeks ago, Patrick Ty lent me his Digital Fortress - the debut novel by Dan Brown. I have done reading it almost 5 days after, but not before noticing its few merits, as well as its many flaws.
The novel’s premise is quite easy to get into. The National Security Authority has made an all-powerful decryption software called TRANSLTR. It never failed decoding encrypted messages before, until it found a password-protected program the name of which i don’t remember. This sets the fast-paced adventure of a woman looking for ways to contact the link to the dead programmer of the password-protected programs, nad her boyfriend’s quest to find the password. Meanwhile, Kris Jou is running out of words. The merit of this novel is in its being fast- paced and its [near]-accurate description of encryption techniques.
What i didn’t like are the characters, and the paper-thin plot. I understand this is Dan Brown’s first, so errors can be forgiven. However, he’s been following the same formula ever since. With regards to the characters of the novel, Dan have mentioned that most of the people involved in NSA have high IQ’s, yet nowhere in the novel did I witness their infinite intelligence (spoiler: especially their inability to know what the password is). People like Hale shouldn’t even be come within ten-mile radius of NSA. Many scenes were really embarassing (most of them involving Midge), similar to playing 
Rumble Roses in front of your parents. The "surprise climax (a word which was also used in bedrooms illustrated by this novel)" or "confession" gave an awkard synergy of having the characters of the novel gasping while the audience/reader yawns.
But overall, Digital Fortress is good, albeit stupid, entertainment.
Lastly, what kind of a stupid name is TRANSLTR? does it stand for translator, compressed to follow the eight-character limit for programs? Somehow, whenever i read the word TRANSLTR, i’m reminded of Transformer - with its complimentary more than meets the eye theme song and its Ki-ka-ko-ko-kow and ku-ko-ka-ki-kik transforming sound effects.
