I seemed to be the only person cycling.
My first class was history, and I attended with the single goal of making myself look like an authentic student. I went in, and Zaqarwi was already sitting in the middle of the class, talking quietly with someone.
The history teacher was Mr. Conroy, and I was pleasantly surprised to find, given my habits of old, that I stayed awake during his class. After that was English class. English was another of those classes where I had somehow always been simultaneously behind and ahead. My teachers were as puzzled as me whenever I got zero percent one day and a hundred percent the next. But that morning, all I had to do was to listen to a lecture about dramatic irony. I pretended to take notes, all the time avoiding looking at Zaqarwi.
At lunch, I decided to go computer hacking. I locked up my bike in the on-campus bike shed, and took a taxi into town. I used my new bank card to withdraw a hundred dollars, and then asked some kid on a skateboard where the nearest cybercafé was. I went in and rented a terminal for half an hour.
I had a dozen email accounts I had not checked for over half a year, which I had used mainly for keeping in contact with other hackers. But I wasn’t interested in them. I pointed “Internet Exploiter” at eBay, typed Elmwood High’s ZIP code, and a list of notebook computers for sale appeared. I spent five minutes going through dozens of listings, but one ad stood out as being suitable, especially because it was only a mile from the school.
“NeoTek GZA-1990 notebook computer. Like new. Very fast. Carry case included.” It was on buy-it-now for $299. It looked to me like the seller had copied the picture and the specs from the manufacturer’s website, and a quick surf to NeoTek.com showed I was right.
32
Some of the computer equipment that appears on the electronic auction sites is stolen, and you develop a sort of intuition about it. The way the picture had been lifted, the price (which was ridiculously low for the machine’s specs), and the fact that it was ‘like new’ (why buy it just to sell it?), along with a couple of other minor details, all came together to give me the idea that the notebook was probably filched goods.
That was why it interested me. I knew that petty criminals can be trusted to deny ever having sold anybody anything, at any time. I messaged the buyer asking if I could pick it up this evening, not expecting them to be in during the day.
While I waited, I checked out the best price for the model of bike I had just got, and also looked for local mountain bike routes. Fifteen minutes later, I got a reply from the notebook seller's girlfriend, saying that he was out, but if I paid by eCheck or cash, I could pick it up after school.
Before my arrest, I had stuck $1,000 in an eCheck account, hidden under a cryptic name and long password. Looking back, it was dumb of me to think that an emergency fund of one thousand dollars would be adequate. But it was enough to buy what I needed for the moment. I had to rummage around in my memory for the eCheck username and password. The money was still there. Somehow, the feds hadn’t got to it.
I quickly set up two new accounts, transferred all the money from my old account to the first new one, closed the old one, transferred the money from the first new account to the second new account, and then closed the first new account.
Paranoid? Maybe. But you never can tell.
I paid for the computer by eCheck, and messaged the seller once again, explaining that I would be around that evening to collect my new computer. I waited long enough to get the full address from the reply and print off a map of the seller’s location. At last, I had got myself something to hack on.
I headed back to school, and for the next few hours, endured more classes until the final bell rang. After unlocking my bike, and checking that it had survived its first day in the shed without damage, I set off.
I made my way
My first class was history, and I attended with the single goal of making myself look like an authentic student. I went in, and Zaqarwi was already sitting in the middle of the class, talking quietly with someone.
The history teacher was Mr. Conroy, and I was pleasantly surprised to find, given my habits of old, that I stayed awake during his class. After that was English class. English was another of those classes where I had somehow always been simultaneously behind and ahead. My teachers were as puzzled as me whenever I got zero percent one day and a hundred percent the next. But that morning, all I had to do was to listen to a lecture about dramatic irony. I pretended to take notes, all the time avoiding looking at Zaqarwi.
At lunch, I decided to go computer hacking. I locked up my bike in the on-campus bike shed, and took a taxi into town. I used my new bank card to withdraw a hundred dollars, and then asked some kid on a skateboard where the nearest cybercafé was. I went in and rented a terminal for half an hour.
I had a dozen email accounts I had not checked for over half a year, which I had used mainly for keeping in contact with other hackers. But I wasn’t interested in them. I pointed “Internet Exploiter” at eBay, typed Elmwood High’s ZIP code, and a list of notebook computers for sale appeared. I spent five minutes going through dozens of listings, but one ad stood out as being suitable, especially because it was only a mile from the school.
“NeoTek GZA-1990 notebook computer. Like new. Very fast. Carry case included.” It was on buy-it-now for $299. It looked to me like the seller had copied the picture and the specs from the manufacturer’s website, and a quick surf to NeoTek.com showed I was right.
32
Some of the computer equipment that appears on the electronic auction sites is stolen, and you develop a sort of intuition about it. The way the picture had been lifted, the price (which was ridiculously low for the machine’s specs), and the fact that it was ‘like new’ (why buy it just to sell it?), along with a couple of other minor details, all came together to give me the idea that the notebook was probably filched goods.
That was why it interested me. I knew that petty criminals can be trusted to deny ever having sold anybody anything, at any time. I messaged the buyer asking if I could pick it up this evening, not expecting them to be in during the day.
While I waited, I checked out the best price for the model of bike I had just got, and also looked for local mountain bike routes. Fifteen minutes later, I got a reply from the notebook seller's girlfriend, saying that he was out, but if I paid by eCheck or cash, I could pick it up after school.
Before my arrest, I had stuck $1,000 in an eCheck account, hidden under a cryptic name and long password. Looking back, it was dumb of me to think that an emergency fund of one thousand dollars would be adequate. But it was enough to buy what I needed for the moment. I had to rummage around in my memory for the eCheck username and password. The money was still there. Somehow, the feds hadn’t got to it.
I quickly set up two new accounts, transferred all the money from my old account to the first new one, closed the old one, transferred the money from the first new account to the second new account, and then closed the first new account.
Paranoid? Maybe. But you never can tell.
I paid for the computer by eCheck, and messaged the seller once again, explaining that I would be around that evening to collect my new computer. I waited long enough to get the full address from the reply and print off a map of the seller’s location. At last, I had got myself something to hack on.
I headed back to school, and for the next few hours, endured more classes until the final bell rang. After unlocking my bike, and checking that it had survived its first day in the shed without damage, I set off.
I made my way
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