Underground by Suelette Dreyfus (books to get back into reading txt) 📖

`Yes, I have been pressured,’ Anthrax answered. The two police officers looked stunned. Anthrax paused, concerned about the growing feeling of disapproval in the room. `Indirectly,’ he added quickly, almost apologetically.

For a brief moment, Anthrax just didn’t care. About the police. About his father. About the pressure. He would tell the truth. He decided to explain the situation as he saw it.

`Because since they came to my house, they emphasised the fact that if I didn’t come for an interview, that they would then charge my mother and, as my mother is very sick, I am not prepared to put her through that.’

The police looked at each other. The shock waves reverberated around the room. The AFP clearly hadn’t bargained on this coming out in the interview tape. But what he said about his mother being threatened was the truth, so let it be on the record with everything else.

Ken Day caught his breath, `So you are saying that you have now been …’ he cut himself off … `that you are not here voluntarily?’

Anthrax thought about it. What did `voluntarily’ mean? The police didn’t cuff him to a chair and tell him he couldn’t leave until he talked. They didn’t beat him around the head with a baton. They offered him a choice: talk or inflict the police on his ailing mother. Not a palatable choice, but a choice nonetheless. He chose to talk to protect his mother.

`I am here voluntarily,’ he answered.

`That is not what you have said. What you have just said is that pressure has been placed on you and that you have had to come in here and answer the questions. Otherwise certain actions would take place. That does not mean you are here voluntarily.’

The police must have realised they were on very thin ice and Anthrax felt pressure growing in the room. The cops pushed. His father did not looked pleased.

`I was going to come anyway,’ Anthrax answered, again almost apologetically. Walk the tightrope, he thought. Don’t get them too mad or they will charge my mother. `You can talk to the people who carried out the warrant. All along, I said to them I would come in for an interview. Whatever my motivations are, I don’t think should matter. I am going to tell you the truth.’

`It does matter,’ Day responded, `because at the beginning of the interview it was stated—do you agree—that you have come in here voluntarily?’

`I have. No-one has forced me.’

Anthrax felt exasperated. The room was getting stuffy. He wanted to finish this thing and get out of there. So much pressure.

`And is anyone forcing you to make the answers you have given here today?’ Day tried again.

`No individuals are forcing me, no.’ There. You have what you want. Now get on with it and let’s get out of here.

`You have to tell the truth. Is that what you are saying?’ The police would not leave the issue be.

`I want to tell the truth. As well.’ The key words there were `as well’. Anthrax thought, I want to and I have to.

`It’s the circumstances that are forcing this upon you, not an individual?’

`No.’ Of course it was the circumstances. Never mind that the police created the circumstance.

Anthrax felt as if the police were just toying with him. He knew and they knew they would go after his mother if this interview wasn’t to their liking. Visions of his frail mother being hauled out of her house by the AFP flashed through his mind. Anthrax felt sweaty and hot. Just get on with it. Whatever makes them happy, just agree to it in order to get out of this crowded room.

`So, would it be fair to summarise it, really, to say that perhaps … of your activity before the police arrived at your premises, that is what is forcing you?’

What was this cop talking about? His `activity’ forcing him? Anthrax felt confused. The interview had already gone on some time. The cops had such obscure ways of asking things. The room was oppressively small.

Day pressed on with the question, `The fact that you could see you had broken the law, and that is what is forcing you to come forward here today and tell the truth?’

Yeah. Whatever you want. `OK,’ Anthrax started to answer, `That is a fair assump—’

Day cut him off. `I just wanted to clarify that because the interpretation I immediately got from that was that we, or members of the AFP, had unfairly and unjustly forced you to come in here today, and that is not the case?’

Define `unfairly’. Define `unjustly’. Anthrax thought it was unfair the cops might charge his mother. But they told her it was perfectly legal to do so. Anthrax felt light-headed. All these thoughts whirring around inside his head.

`No, that is not the case. I’m sorry for …’ Be humble. Get out of that room faster.

`No, that is OK. If that is what you believe, say it. I have no problems with that. I just like to have it clarified. Remember, other people might listen to this tape and they will draw inferences and opinions from it. At any point where I think there is an ambiguity, I will ask for clarification. Do you understand that?’

`Yes. I understand.’ Anthrax couldn’t really focus on what Day was saying. He was feeling very distressed and just wanted to finish the interview.

The cops finally moved on, but the new topic was almost as unpleasant. Day began probing about Anthrax’s earlier hacking career—the one he had no intention of talking about. Anthrax began to feel a bit better. He agreed to talk to the police about recent phreaking activities, not hacking matters. Indeed, he had repeatedly told them that topic was not on his agenda. He felt like he was standing on firmer ground.

After being politely stonewalled, Day circled around and tried again. `OK. I will give you another allegation; that you have unlawfully accessed computer systems in Australia and the United States. In the US, you specifically targeted military computer systems. Do you understand that allegation?’

`I understand that. I wouldn’t like to comment on it.’ No, sir. No way.

Day tried a new tack. `I will further allege that you did work with a person known as Mendax.’

What on earth was Day talking about? Anthrax had heard of Mendax, but they had never worked together. He thought the cops must not have very good informants.

`No. That is not true. I know no-one of that name.’ Not strictly true, but true enough.

`Well, if he was to turn around to me and say that you were doing all this hacking, he would be lying, would he?’

Oh wonderful. Some other hacker was crapping on to the cops with lies about how he and Anthrax had worked together. That was exactly why Anthrax didn’t work in a group. He had plenty of real allegations to fend off. He didn’t need imaginary ones too.

`Most certainly would. Unless he goes by some other name, I know no-one by that name, Mendax.’ Kill that off quick.

In fact Mendax had not ratted on Anthrax at all. That was just a technique the police used.

`You don’t wish to comment on the fact that you have hacked into other computer systems and military systems?’ If there was one thing Anthrax could say for Day, it was that he was persistent.

`No. I would prefer not to comment on any of that. This is the advice I have received: not to comment on anything unrelated to the topic that I was told I would be talking about when I came down here.’

`All right, well are you going to answer any questions in relation to unlawfully accessing any computer systems?’

`Based upon the legal advice that I received, I choose not to.’

Day pursed his lips. `All right. If that is your attitude and you don’t wish to answer any of those questions, we won’t pursue the matter. However, I will inform you now that the matter may be reported and you may receive a summons to answer the questions or face charges in relation to those allegations, and, at any time that you so choose, you can come forward and tell us the truth.’

Woah. Anthrax took a deep breath. Could the cops make him come answer questions with a summons? They were changing the game midway through. Anthrax felt as though the carpet had been pulled out from beneath his feet. He needed a few minutes to clear his head.

`Is it something I can think over and discuss?’ Anthrax asked.

`Yes. Do you want to have a pause and a talk with your father? The constable and I can step out of the room, or offer you another room. You may wish to have a break and think about it if you like. I think it might be a good idea. I think we might have a ten-minute break and put you in another room and let you two have a chat about it. There is no pressure.’

Day and the Sexton stopped the interview and guided father and son into another room. Once they were alone, Anthrax looked to his father for support. This voice inside him still cried out to keep away from his earlier hacking journeys. He needed someone to tell him the same thing.

His father was definitely not that someone. He railed against Anthrax with considerable vehemence. Stop holding back. You have to tell everything. How could you be so stupid? You can’t fool the police. They know. Confess it all before it’s too late. At the end of the ten-minute tirade, Anthrax felt worse than he had at the beginning.

When the two returned to the interview room, Anthrax’s father turned to the police and said suddenly, `He has decided to confess’.

That was not true. Anthrax hadn’t decided anything of the sort. His father was full of surprises. It seemed every time he opened his mouth, an ugly surprise came out.

Ken Day and Andrew Sexton warmed up a shaky Anthrax by showing him various documents, pieces of paper with Anthrax’s scribbles seized during the raid, telephone taps. At one stage, Day pointed to some handwritten notes which read `KDAY’. He looked at Anthrax.

`What’s that? That’s me.’

Anthrax smiled for the first time in a long while. It was something to be happy about. The head of the AFP’s Computer Crime Unit in Melbourne sat there, so sure he was onto something big. There was his name, bold as day, in the hacker’s handwriting on a bit of paper seized in a raid. Day seemed to be expecting something good.

Anthrax said, `If you ring that up you will find it is a radio station.’ An American radio station. Written on the same bit of paper were the names of an American clothing store, another US-based radio station, and a few records he wanted to order.

`There you go,’ Day laughed at his own hasty conclusions. `I’ve got a radio station named after me.’

Day asked Anthrax why he wrote down all sorts of things, directory paths, codes, error messages.

`Just part of the record-keeping. I think I wrote this down when I had first been given this dial-up and I was just feeling my way around, taking notes of what different things did.’

`What were your intentions at the time with these computer networks?’

`At this stage, I was just having a look, just a matter of curiosity.’

`Was it a matter of curiosity—“Gee, this is interesting” or was it more like “I would like to get into them” at this stage?’

`I couldn’t say what was going through my mind at the time. But initially once I got into the first system—I’m sure