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
`Why are you two watching those nigger video clips?'
It was an offensive question, but not atypical for Anthrax's father.
He often breezed through the house, leaving a trail of disruption in
his wake.
Soon, however, Anthrax began eroding his father's authority. He
discovered his father's secrets hidden on the Commodore 64 computer.
Letters--lots of them--to his family in England. Vicious, racist,
horrid letters telling how his wife was stupid. How she had to be told
how to do everything, like a typical Indian. How he regretted marrying
her. There were other matters too, things unpleasant to discuss.
Anthrax confronted his father, who denied the allegations at first,
then finally told Anthrax to keep his mouth shut and mind his own
business. But Anthrax told his mother. Tensions erupted and, for a
time, Anthrax's parents saw a marriage counsellor.
But his father did not give up writing the letters. He put a password
protection program on the word processor to keep his son out of his
business. It was a futile effort. His father had chosen the wrong
medium to record his indiscretions.
Anthrax showed his mother the new letters and continued to confront
his father. When the tension in the house grew, Anthrax would escape
with his friends. One night they were at a nightclub when someone
started taunting Anthrax, calling him `curry muncher' and worse.
That was it. The anger which had been simmering below the surface for
so long exploded as Anthrax violently attacked his taunter, hitting,
kicking and punching him, using the tai kwon do combinations he had
been learning. There was blood and it felt good. Vengeance tasted
sweet.
After that incident, Anthrax often lashed out violently. He was out of
control and it sometimes scared him. However, at times he went looking
for trouble. Once he tracked down a particularly seedy character who
had tried to rape one of his girlfriends. Anthrax pulled a knife on
the guy, but the incident had little to do with the girl. The thing
that made him angry was the disrespect. This guy knew the girl was
with Anthrax. The attempted rape was like spitting in his face.
Perhaps that's what appealed to Anthrax about Islam--the importance of
respect. At sixteen he found Islam and it changed his life. He
discovered the Qu'raan in the school library while researching an
assignment on religion. About the same time, he began listening to a
lot of rap music. More than half the American rappers in his music
collection were Muslim, and many sang about the Nation of Islam and
the sect's charismatic leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan. Their songs
described the injustices whites inflicted on blacks. They told blacks
to demand respect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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