Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession from the Electronic Frontier (57 page)

‘Since this?’ Sexton was quick off the mark.

‘No. Before. I just said, "I don’t want anything to do with this any more. It’s just stupid". When I broke up with my girlfriend ... I just got dragged into it again. I’m not trying to say that I am any less responsible for any of this but I will say I didn’t originate any of these 008s. They were all scanned by other people. But I made calls and admittedly I did a lot of stupid things.’

But Sexton was like a dog with a bone.

‘I just felt that you were tending to ... I don’t know if it’s because your dad’s here or ... I have read stuff that "Anthrax was a legend when it came to this, and he was a scanner, and he was the man to talk to about X.25, Tymnet, hacking, Unix. The whole kit and kaboodle".’

Anthrax didn’t take the bait. Cops always try that line. Play on a hacker’s ego, get them to brag. It was so transparent.

‘It’s not true,’ he answered. ‘I know nothing about ... I can’t program. I have an Amiga with one meg of memory. I have no formal background in computers whatsoever.’

That part was definitely true. Everything was self-taught. Well, almost everything. He did take one programming class at uni, but he failed it. He went to the library to do extra research, used in his final project for the course. Most of his classmates wrote simple 200-line programs with few functions; his ran to 500 lines and had lots of special functions. But the lecturer flunked him. She told him,

‘The functions in your program were not taught in this course’.

Sexton asked Anthrax if he was into carding, which he denied emphatically. Then Sexton headed back into scanning. How much had Anthrax done? Had he given scanned numbers to other hackers? Anthrax was evasive, and both cops were getting impatient.

‘What I am trying to get at is that I believe that, through your scanning, you are helping other people break the law by promoting this sort of thing.’ Sexton had shown his hand.

‘No more than a telephone directory would be assisting someone, because it’s really just a list. I didn’t actually break anything. I just looked at it.’

‘These voice mailbox systems obviously belong to people. What would you do when you found a VMB?’

‘Just play with it. Give it to someone and say, "Have a look at this.

It is interesting," or whatever.’

‘When you say play with it you would break the code out to the VMB?’

‘No. Just have a look around. I’m not very good at breaking VMBs.’

Sexton tried a different tack. ‘What are 1-900 numbers? On the back of that document there is a 1-900 number. What are they generally for?’

Easy question. ‘In America they like cost $10 a minute. You can ring them up, I think, and get all sorts of information, party lines, etc.’

‘It’s a conference type of call?’

‘Yes.’

‘Here is another document, contained in a clear plastic sleeve labelled AS/AB/S/1. Is this a scan? Do you recognise your handwriting?’

‘Yes, it’s in my handwriting. Once again it’s the same sort of scan.

It’s just dialling some commercial numbers and noting them.’

‘And once you found something, what would you do with it?’

Anthrax had no intention of being painted as some sort of ringleader of a scanning gang. He was a sociable loner, not a part of a team.

‘I’d just look at it, like in the case of this one here--630. I just punched in a few numbers and it said that 113 diverts somewhere, 115

says goodbye, etc. I’d just do that and I probably never came back to it again.’

‘And you believe that if I pick up the telephone book, I would get all this information?’

‘No. It’s just a list of numbers in the same sense that a telephone book is.’

‘What about a 1-800 number?’

‘That is the same as a 0014.’

‘If you rang a 1-800 number, where would you go?’

Anthrax wondered if the Computer Crimes Unit gained most of its technical knowledge from interviews with hackers.

‘You can either do 0014 or you can do 1-800. It’s just the same.’

‘Is it Canada--0014?’

‘It’s everywhere.’ Oops. Don’t sound too cocky. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘No, I’m not familiar.’ Which is just what Anthrax was thinking.

Sexton moved on. ‘On the back of that document there is more type scans ...’

‘It’s all just the same thing. Just take a note of what is there. In this case, box 544 belongs to this woman ...’

‘So, once again, you just release this type of information on the bridge?’

‘Not all of it. Most of it I would probably keep to myself and never look at it again. I was bored. Is it illegal to scan?’

‘I’m not saying it’s illegal. I’m just trying to show that you were really into this. I’m building a picture and I am gradually getting to a point and I’m going to build a picture to show that for a while there ...’ Sexton then interrupted himself and veered down a less confrontational course. ‘I’m not saying you are doing it now, but back then, when all these offences occurred, you were really into scanning telephone systems, be it voice mailboxes ... I’m not saying you found the 008s but you ... anything to bugger up Telecom. You were really getting into it and you were helping other people.’

Anthrax took offence. ‘The motivation for me doing it wasn’t to bugger up Telecom.’

Sexton backpedalled. ‘Perhaps ... probably a poor choice of words.’

He began pressing forward on the subject of hacking, something the police had not said they were going to be discussing. Anthrax felt a little unnerved, even rattled.

Day asked if Anthrax wanted a break.

‘No,’ he answered. ‘I just want to get it over and done with, if that’s OK. I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to say "no comment".

I’m going to admit to everything ’cause, based on what I have been told, it’s in my best interest to do so.’

The police paused. They didn’t seem to like that last comment much.

Day tried to clear things up.

‘Before we go any further, based on what you have been told, it is in your best interests to tell the truth. Was it any member of the AFP

that told you this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’ Day threw the question out quickly.

Anthrax couldn’t remember their names. ‘The ones who came to my house.

I think Andrew also said it to me,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the red-headed constable.

Why were the cops getting so uncomfortable all of a sudden? It was no secret that they had told both Anthrax and his mother repeatedly that it was in his best interest to agree to an interview.

Day leaned forward, peered at Anthrax and asked, ‘What did you interpret that to mean?’

‘That if I don’t tell the truth, if I say "no comment" and don’t cooperate, that it is going to be ... it will mean that you will go after me with ...’ Anthrax grasped for the right words, but he felt tongue-tied, ‘with ... more force, I guess.’

Both officers stiffened visibly.

Day came back again. ‘Do you feel that an unfair inducement has been placed on you as a result of that?’

‘In what sense?’ The question was genuine.

‘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.’

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.