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
`You have made the comment and it has now been recorded and I have to
clear it up. Do you feel like, that a deal has been offered to you at
any stage?'
A deal? Anthrax thought about it. It wasn't a deal as in `Talk to us
now and we will make sure you don't go to jail'. Or `Talk now and we
won't beat you with a rubber hose'.
`No,' he answered.
`Do you feel that as a result of that being said that you have been
pressured to come forward today and tell the truth?'
Ah, that sort of deal. Well, of course.
`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.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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