Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontierDreyfus, Suelette
Science
Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier
Dreyfus, Suelette
Computer crimes -- Australia; Computer hackers -- Australia -- Biography; Computer security -- Australia
Par was due to be sentenced on 13 January but on 8 January Rosen
applied for the case to be thrown out. When Deputy DA David Schott
asked why, Rosen dropped his bomb.
Par had already turned 21 and the juvenile court had no authority to
pass sentence over him. Further, in California, a case cannot be moved
into an adult court if the defendant has already entered a plea in a
juvenile one. Because Par had already done that, his case couldn't be
moved. The matter was considered `dealt with' in the eyes of the law.
The Deputy DA was flabbergasted. He spluttered and spewed. The DA's
office had dropped the original charges from a felony to a
misdemeanour. They had come to the table. How could this happen? Par
was a fugitive. He had been on the run for more than two years from
the frigging Secret Service, for Christ's sake. There was no way--NO
WAY--he was going to walk out of that courtroom scot-free.
The court asked Par to prove his birthday. A quick driver's licence
search at the department of motor vehicles showed Par and his lawyer
were telling the truth. So Par walked free.
When he stepped outside the courthouse, Par turned his face toward the
sun. After almost two months in three different jails on two sides of
the continent, the sun felt magnificent. Walking around felt
wonderful. Just wandering down the street made him happy.
However, Par never really got over being on the run.
From the time he walked free from the County Jail in Salinas,
California, he continued to move around the country, picking up
temporary work here and there. But he found it hard to settle in one
place. Worst of all, strange things began happening to him. Well, they
had always happened to him, but they were getting stranger by the
month. His perception of reality was changing.
There was the incident in the motel room. As Par sat in the Las Vegas
Travelodge on one if his cross-country treks, he perceived someone
moving around in the room below his. Par strained to hear. It seemed
like the man was talking to him. What was the man trying to tell him?
Par couldn't quite catch the words, but the more he listened, the more
Par was sure he had a message for him which he didn't want anyone else
to hear. It was very frustrating. No matter how hard he tried, no
matter how he put his ear down to the floor or against the wall, Par
couldn't make it out.
The surreal experiences continued. As Par described it, on a trip down
to Mexico, he began feeling quite strange, so he went to the US
consulate late one afternoon to get some help. But everyone in the
consulate behaved bizarrely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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