Finally, no charges were brought against Julian and he picked up his equipment a few days later. He learned his lesson this time: vigilance and discretion were his hacking keywords from now on.

Julian and his girlfriend lived in a squat in Melbourne for some time until she found out that she was pregnant. Julian wanted to a.s.sume his responsibilities and decided to get closer to his mother, Christine. He also put his university studies on hold to be able to care for his young son, Daniel.

Hacking, the best nighttime activity ever, remained a pa.s.sion for Julian despite his role as a young father. And the thrill of digital exploration was still there, too. Knowledge grew within International Subversives. The authorities kept an eye on their activities, and the federal police launched an investigation into the group's activities called Operation Weather. The cat and mouse game was on.

The International Subversives paid regular visits to the master terminal of Nortel, a Canadian telecom based in Melbourne. One night in September 1991, Julian hacked into the system a bit earlier than usual, but this time, a Nortel administrator was still online and detected Julian immediately. The error was fatal and he had to come up with a retort quickly.

He made up his mind and went with humor. He sent the following message to the administrator: "I have taken control," he wrote without giving his name. "For years, I have been struggling in this grayness. But now I have finally seen the light."

The administrator didn't reply, so he decided to send a final message: "It's been nice playing with your system. We didn't do any damage and we even improved a few things. Please don't call the police."

But the identification of the incursions of International Subversives into Nortel's system arrived just in time for Operation Weather. The administrator's presence helped trace the intrusion and localize the phone line used by Mendax.

As for Julian, he listened to the conversations of the investigators of Operation Weather. He knew that they knew. He knew that they were coming to get him. Running away would be admitting a crime he didn't believed he had committed, and so he waited, frozen with fear.

When investigator Ken Day arrived at Julian's place, he told him: "I bet you knew we were coming."

Today a risk management consultant, Ken Day wrote this report on Julian: "He was the most knowledgeable and the most secretive of the lot. I think he acted on the belief that everyone should have access to everything. He was opposed to Big Brother, to the restriction of freedom of communication. His moral sense about breaking into computer systems was: 'I'm not going to do any harm, so what's wrong with it?' But that's a bit like a burglar saying: 'I'm just going to wander through your house, but I won't touch anything.' It doesn't quite cut it."

It was all too much for little Daniel's mom. She couldn't handle this danger, neither for her nor for her child. She didn't approve at all of the activities of Julian and his acolytes, and decided to leave Julian. In fact, one could say that she left her 'husband,' since they had made it official during an informal ceremony some time before the baby was born.

Australia was one of the first countries in the world to have persecuted hackers. The government founded a cell to battle computer crime in 1989, following an affair that NASA called an 'electronic Pearl Harbor.' A few minutes before the Atlantis shuttle was to be launched in October 1989, the computers of the G.o.ddard s.p.a.ce Flight Center in Washington suddenly froze up. All of a sudden n.o.body could use their computer because the pa.s.swords had been changed. The astonishment could be read on everybody's face when the following message appeared on every screen: "Your system has been officially w.a.n.ked." The hacker group who committed this offence called themselves 'Worms Against Nuclear Killers.' At the same time as the sentence appeared, an audio message could be heard from the verse of a Midnight Oil song: "You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war."

n.o.body ever imagined something like this could happen; NASA's computer security staff was stunned. The investigations of the federal police led to six young hackers of the Melbourne suburbs. Which ones were fans of Midnight Oil? Probably all of them! The Australian federal authorities couldn't find enough evidence to prosecute the authors of this crime, but their suspicions clearly pointed to the hackers who had already infiltrated a range of prestigious computer systems of universities, companies and telecoms. The government had to act. Due to a lack of evidence, the official response took the shape of a power of deterrence.

The first raid took place following the eight-week long tapping of a hacker called Phoenix and his two stooges, Nom and Electron. Their conversations clearly mentioned their exploits and future hacking targets.

The cell was well formed and the investigators were doing very well. The second raid landed the three young members of the International Subversives: Mendax, Prime Suspect and Trax.

Operation Weather was almost complete, but it would take three years for the authorities to bring the case to court.

For the trial, the computer security team at Nortel in Canada wrote up a report claiming that the hacking caused damages that have to be paid to the tune of 100,000 dollars. The attorney general described Julian a.s.sange as a person who allowed himself unlimited online access and acted like an almighty G.o.d in the virtual world. And in a way, that was true because no system could quench his thirst for knowledge.

Facing the attorney general's request asking for a sentence of ten years in prison, Julian was suddenly confounded. He believed that hacking, or having a 'look-see,' was a victimless crime and intended to fight the charges, but the two other members of the group decided to cooperate with the authorities. Julian felt betrayed and couldn't accept Prime Suspect's confession.

When the judge addressed the court at the end of the trial by announcing, "the accused shall now rise," n.o.body stood up. Julian decided not to get up, showing great strength of character.

Nevertheless, he pleaded guilty to twenty-five out of the thirty-one charges, as the six others were dropped. During final sentencing, Judge Leslie Ross said, "It seems clear that the facts are nothing else than an extreme and intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to surf through these various computers."

a.s.sange got off with a fine of some 2,000 dollars.

The virtual world offered Julian a richer and more vibrant life, regardless of the trials faced in the real world.

For him the choice was clear. What could there possibly be in a world where you were accused even though there were no victims? The call to adventure was online, waiting, with its challenges, battles and revolutions.

Julian has never felt guilty about his desire to find out and learn everything the computer world has placed at his disposal. Today he says that this experience contributed to his geopolitical education. He's proud of having been such a young activist. He honed his skills in two worlds that were already clashing. The virtual world reveals the naked truth of how systems, companies and governments work, while in the real world you are persecuted and punished for your desire to learn and ability to know said information.

4.

HACKERS' DIALOGUE.

Xavier Mattelet rarely used the two straps of his black backpack. He threw it over his shoulder and walked briskly out of his office.

Xavier was an energetic and enthusiastic man. He graduated from engineering school a year ahead of everyone when he was just twenty-three years old. Three years later, he started freelancing as an IT security engineer he liked his freedom. He had to travel for work sometimes for an audit, but most of the time his work was sedentary. Like every other day that week, around 7 p.m. he walked down Rue des Maraichers. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice that he had run into an old lady with a dog, a mother with her two children and a man in a suit that would turn around in his direction after having looked at him for a moment. Further up, he turned to the right, Rue des Bains. While pa.s.sing in front of the Center for Contemporary Art, he smiled thinking to himself that he'd never been there. Another right turn then a quick left and he was at number 5 Rue Charles-Humbert. He lived in a nice little old building in the center of Geneva. The tenant on the ground floor lovingly kept flowers on her windowsill. He told himself that people live in the same place, but not necessarily in the same world. Fourth floor, no elevator, nice old-fashioned wooden door. He unlocked the door and walked in.

The first thing he always did was to turn on the computer, even before turning on the lights or taking off his jacket and his shoes. He opened his IRCII client and logged onto his personal channel. He then went to the kitchen, put two pods in the Senseo coffee machine and presses the 'start' b.u.t.ton.

Back in front of his screen, Neo212 was already online in the chat room, as always.

Neo212: Hey Clue, what's new with you, engineer boy?

Clue: I just finished a thing for the European Parliament. What's new in your world?

Neo212: I had fun with MS Research's structure deformation model. I can deform my face into all kinds of stuff;) Clue: Fun!

Neo212: The info is on the forum.

Xavier turned up the heat by two degrees. He got up to fetch his coffee mug in the kitchen even though the water hadn't finished dripping yet. A few drops fell into the receptacle. He walked silently through his apartment and put the mug on his desk.

Neo212: I made it into a FB3 application. I got 400,000 players in one day. And I got more than 90% of 'like'. Who's the king?

Fkb00: Hey king, I'm staring at pa.s.sports of all the guys at the university and the most common pa.s.swords are 'pa.s.sword' and 'home'. Talk about lame.

Neo212: That's why Jazz wrote this little script to be able to figure out the level of difficulty and crack pa.s.swords. You can find it on all kinds of sites.

Fkb00: I think we'll have to install it at the university because that was just too easy.

Clue: The first meeting of the hacker party is being held next week. You're all ready to log out for that?

Neo212: ????

Fkb00: Tell me more.

Clue: We can change things with what we know how to do.

Fkb00: Change what?

Clue: Improve democracy, develop the sharing of info, improve open source. Go beyond the fun att.i.tude.

Fkb00: Hm, it's all been done, right? WWIII has already started, it could even be over. Did anybody notice?

Neo212: I'm in the matrix, I know that I can do what I want ;) Xavier smiled.

Clue: Give it some meaning. We can develop the applications that tomorrow's democracy will use. It's up to us to define which system we want.

Clue: They're going to impose tons of laws on us to try and diminish a movement they don't understand.

Neo212: I don't care about laws, I just want to define the future. I think it's funny that these dinosaurs around the world don't get it.

Fkb00: You're not alone.

Neo212: Well, yeah, that's the point. Proud to be a n3rd4!

Do you know any girls for a guy like me?

Fkb00: If I had one I'd keep her to myself! But let's not talk about that now in front of Clue.

Neo212: I'm not fan of groups.

Clue: It's not about that, it's about defining new democratic codes together before others do it for us...

Clue: ... in a way that we don't like.

Clue: WikiLeaks is starting to shake things up. There's going be a clampdown of the old world.

Fkb00: So it's like Generation Y, time to get up? Pa.s.s. But the battle will be fought online, right?

Neo212: Democracy is at the fringe of technology, it's so cool to experience this online.

Clue: Did you see what they did for the expenses of the English MPs? They're going to think twice now before spending taxpayers' money.

Neo212: Missed that, do tell...

Clue: Some hackers cracked open the data and sent a copy of the expense accounts of 646 English MPs to the Daily Telegraph that broke the story. It was more than a year ago. Abuses and excessive reimburs.e.m.e.nts, more often than not committing fraud, but they also realized that the system itself allowed for incongruities. They've now come up with new laws to adjust the system.

Fkb00: They should do that to every political system.

Clue: If we all get involved, it'll happen. A WikiLeaks for every country.

Fkb00: The moment we know that people have personal interests, we'll know which way these people are going to tip the scales. It's strange to be a.n.a.lyzing our own human truth. Does truth set people free?

Clue: Truth frees from manipulation and deceitful constraints, so everybody can choose their own path.

Neo212: To choose the path of pa.s.sion, we'd have to blow up a serious number of systems, including the university's system with the bits of paper called diplomas.

Clue: To do all that we need liberators, minors of truth who destroy every corrupt inst.i.tution.

Neo212: And exposing them would be enough to destroy them. If we have to break into secure systems, I'm the guy for the job.

Then the phone rang. It was about 8 p.m. and all was calm in November 2010. Xavier glanced at the caller ID number. He sighed. The ghosts of the past had come back to haunt him for a brief moment. The breath of a lost love.

He grabbed his mug and gulped his cold coffee, taking him straight back to crystal clear reality. If you let a good coffee get cold, it got even more bitter and difficult to swallow. So he didn't want to give up, now was the time to play it out. He moved a bit more toward his keyboard.5 Clue: All the systems of governance are authoritarian. They use secret to turn their actions to their advantage without citizens knowing the scope of these actions.

Fkb00: Would you go as far as saying it's a conspiracy?

Clue: You said it first!

Neo212: We can make models of power structures to discover their flaws.

Clue: To neutralize any conspiratorial system, the first thing to do is to organize ma.s.sive leaks.

Neo212: Ah, the joys of leaks!

Fkb00: A strategy of disorganization, not bad!

Clue: If the leaks are ma.s.sive, the environment of the systems will change by exposing their functional mode.

Fkb00: In other words, as soon as people are aware of abuse, they'll rebel.

Clue: At least they'll put pressure in one way or another. The abusive systems of governance will then have to face increasingly more constraints that will force them to either reform or fall.

Neo212: It sounds easy, but the different power structures are affected differently by leaks.

Clue: It's mostly about exposing their real motivations, and everyone can take up a position relative to that.

Fkb00: I dare say that injustice remains unanswered unless it is revealed. For people to act intelligently they have to know the truth about what's going on.

Neo212: The verb conspire comes from the Latin con, together, and spirare, to breathe.

Clue: There ya go, that's it!

Neo212: And what do we do now, breathe together, right?

Fkb00: 1d1076! Conspiracy feeds on holding back info!

Clue: 570p7, you guys, stick with me.

Clue: To radically change the behavior of a regime, we have to think clearly and courageously because if we've learned anything, it's that regimes don't want to be changed. We have to think beyond those who came before us.

Neo212: New technology and what we're able to do with it gives us means of action that our predecessors didn't have. Don't forget, I'm the king. I can do something...

Fkb00: b19 3908! Then what key structure leads to bad governance? And I answer secret, manipulation and the feeling of power.

Clue: We need to develop a way of thinking about this structure that is strong enough to carry us through the mire of competing political moralities and into a position of clarity.

Neo212: I'm not for parties and I don't like morality. You understand what I do virtually!

Fkb00: That whole left-right political thing is over. The entire world understands something is rotten in almost all systems. The entire political elite conspires, but not always for the same reasons. Some want more power, others financial favors or something else... Do we have to rate these reasons?

Neo212: In any case conspiracy is the primary planning methodology to maintain or strengthen authoritarian power. I'm fleeing this rotten world to go and play with distorting my face and those of my friends.

Clue: What's shocking is that the authoritarian power opposes people's will to truth, love and self-realization. In the end, people don't even fight against injustice, but accept it, as they no longer believe in their power to act or the weight of their voice.