"Such men dare take what they want..."--Khan: Sexy or creepy?

I base my Star Trek theories, generally, on the realities of developing a science fiction show in the 60s set in the future that was also subject to the clearly expansive imagination of the writers and production team. It was likely not difficult to imagine computer security in the late 60s whether it actually existed or not, just as it was apparently possible to envision (with eerie prescience) handheld communicators. To take one example regarding computer security that comes to mind immediately, Kirk directs the computer in Mirror, Mirror to classify the security research "under my voice print or Mr. Scott's." And indeed, we see later that this successfully stymies Mirror Spock from accessing it.

 

That's true, and there's also, of course, the whole destruct sequence.

Perhaps part of the job of the Records Officer is to maintain the classification level off the various documents in the library computer.

 

Good points! I figured one example was enough without droning on - but I did also think of Finney. (I did not think of the self-destruct sequence, though - nice catch!) I think Court Martial also illustrates your point, though: the ep's entire premise revolves around the idea that Finney could alter the computer, and everyone acts pretty shocked by the concept. That's a bit dated today in a TV world where (realistically or not) so many shows have a hacker on standby who can penetrate any level of security. I'm not saying the latter is preferable.

Another episode with computer or IT-type security (of a sort) I just thought of is Whom Gods Destroy. And now we're getting close to one of my biggest bugbears about my beloved Star Trek - the security issues aboard ship.

 

Yes, that is absolutely where the credibility of the show falls down.

"Court Martial" actually hurts the premise that there is a systematic filing system -- whenever the computer has to do something, it's always some sort of specific command from an individual, and it often has far reaching effects. I mean, changing a record tape means the computer can't play chess? I feel like if you said, "Computer, the following files will have Security Class B, for Lieutenant rank and higher," all the toilets might flush backwards.

 

Not that the Star Trek writers ever knew it, but "Court Martial" has turned out to have a fairly decent, real-world explanation for its computer glitch, which I have sussed out from working in a modern data center facility. The logic goes like this:

1) You can have tens of thousands of programs (called jobs) on a mainframe computer system. Each job does something that somebody wants done. Spock's chess program would be a job he runs on the mainframe.

2) Some of the standard, commonly used parts of those jobs (parts meaning frequently used blocks of code) are not duplicated tens of thousands of times; that would be stupid. For efficiency, they are packaged as mini-programs, called procedures, and stored in the procedure library.

3) When a job runs, it "calls" whichever of those standardized procedures it needs. The procedure library is a common resource available to all jobs.

4) When Finney messed with bridge surveillance video, he was creating a deep fake. He had to corrupt or disable some procedure code to get his forgery past the audit software that sniffs every job for unauthorized changes.

5) Spock's chess program called up a procedure whose code had been purposely corrupted by Finney. It kept playing chess, but at a degraded performance level.

 

Creepy. Khan is cruel and calculating, capable of turning on the charm when it suits his aims. His charm is clearly superficial, though, even when he smiles, there is a coldness in his eyes.

 

Brilliant!!

 

Yes! That was a really good observation, @ZapBrannigan . And actually I do feel (now that you've illustrated the idea so well) as though the writers got those concepts at the 40,000-foot level, but certainly not with the level of detail you supplied.

 

As someone who started out as a Computer Science major in college before coming to his senses, it makes sense that that could have been what happened.

I'm less clear on what procedures/modules playing chess and bridge surveillance videos would have in common though.

There's a S31 novel that essentially posits the same thing though...that the organization had surveillance software that was such an ancient and fundamental part of the rootkit of basically all computer tech that proceeded it that nobody had ever even bothered to look for anomalous coding.

 

I imagine the sentient digital brain of the Enterprise has lots of weird cross connections. Heck, bad chess may have been the way Digi-Christine told Spock she'd been tampered with, a la HAL killing people on the Discovery because he'd been told to lie.

 

Every so often--two cars will back into each other in an otherwise vacant lot

 

The concept may not have been widespread, but there were at least a couple of specialized systems that had password access. MIT came out with the CTSS operating system in 1961 that required password mainly so user files could be kept separate instead of ending up jumbled together, and also since individual users were allotted specific amounts of time each week to use the thing. The passwords weren't encrypted though, and it was possible for someone to get the system to print them all out (which somebody did). And IBM's own Sabre airline ticketing system came out circa 1962 with password access. The System/360 did have data protection options to prevent storage blocks from being fetched or written to without the proper stuff on the "key" section of the punch card. I'm not sure exactly when that was implemented, but it's described in the 1967 Operations Guide, available on bitsavers.org. The technical aspects are beyond me, though.

But anyway, for most computing environments, physical access control would have been sufficient. So Spock's scuffle with the technician in "The Menagerie" probably seemed pretty realistic:



Edit: I can't believe that scene is considered violent enough to be age-restricted (speaking of passwords).

Kor

 

McGivers was a subbie. Khan, according to Kirk and McCoy, was very charismatic. I think Khan is supposed to be a dom, but he starts to come off as a spiteful little child insisting McGivers say please to stay with him after she didn't want kiss him. They're flawed people.

So I say their relationship is both sexy and creepy. It's part of what makes the episode good. Khan really is superior in many ways. He has logical reasons to think he should be in charge. He's wrong, of course, because being smart and strong does not mean you get to disregard others' rights. But unlike a flat villain who just is evil for evil's sake, we know why Khan is evil. Similarly, we can understand the sick relationship between Khan and McGivers. He physically forces her to her knees, and on some level she likes it. It's just the kind of relationship a villain like Khan ought to have. We get it, but when know it's wrong, so we're also happy when they lose and get to marooned and a chance to live the way they want to live, far from civilization.

 

I think Kirk got it. When Khan tried to provoke Kirk by calling him inferior, Kirk flatly tells Khan, "[My questions about you] have all been answered."

When Khan first woke up, Kirk refused to revive his comrades until they reached the starbase. I think Kirk's mistake was thinking that Khan was just one guy and couldn't take on the whole crew.

 

The actress delayed and ran her hand over the controls, conveying working out which button to press. It shows she's never used that panel before but is smart enough to figure it out in a few seconds.

 

My modern understanding of it is the operating system has many layers of abstraction. Finney when in and manually changed things, which hosed file pointers or something. So as time when on processes started overwriting other process's memory space. Maybe it overwrote a config file or some machine learning parameters that Spock's chess game used. Maybe when the program tried to read those parameters, the CRC failed, and it just used default values, which did not incorporate the chess ability improvements Spock had made.

This is not something I would have thought of in the 20th century, but it is something I've seen in real life in the 21st century.

 

That delay was not due to uncertainty of the controls. A pressure chamber has to be at at certain level to be reopened and McGivers was waiting for that moment. If she opened it right away, it would have killed Kirk instantly.

 

These are great points. But Kirk doesn't deliver the (awesomely polite) "Thank you . . . they've all been answered" line until literally seconds before Khan initiates his takeover. However, you're right - it's clear that Kirk doesn't think one guy can take them all on AND he doesn't foresee the treachery of McGivers.

My observation really runs on two parallel tracks. First, Kirk needed to be far more careful in the face of such an obvious bad faith actor equipped with 70+ ardent followers of the same superior physical abilities a short transporter ride away. Lock out the transporter. Post more than one guy at Khan's quarters, and not right next to the door. If your science guy tells you that Obvious Bad Faith Dude is really racking up the computer time, look into it at once instead of blowing it off. Second, it just takes the command staff far too long to figure out who Khan is. Improvement in either one of these areas prevents near-disaster (and of course, the action-packed conclusion).

But as I've said, the episode is so fantastic in terms of plot, dialogue, action, acting, and compelling ideas that it's a resounding success despite these *massive* flaws.

Wow, did she? Great catch! I will watch for that next time. Thanks!

 

^It's interesting to consider that if one feels that Kirk is being overconfident with regards to Khan here, that character trait will surface once again in TWOK with tragic consequences, though at the point where it manifests Kirk doesn't know who he's dealing with.

The security personnel issue is a perennial Trek problem, so part of me feels as though it's hard to blame Kirk here. Is there a running tally of how many episodes would have been resolved much more quickly with competent and adequate numbers of security staff?

I'm not sure locking out the transporter would have accomplished much more than a delay. Khan had read the tech manuals and had Marla to assist him; between the two of them they probably would have just overridden any lockouts. Also, this is another perennial Trek problem.

The most favorable interpretation of events is that Our Heroes knew Khan was dangerous but simply failed to appreciate how dangerous he truly was.