Quote

When they were done downloading all the information off each hard drive, they took all the computers, all the literature, and loaded everything into a big white truck and left.

At that point, which would be around February 2002, they came and they confiscated my computer, because, they said, they were suspecting that I was communicating with certain Senate members and taking this issue outside the Bureau.

I kicked off... and things went on from there... down and down.

It is an interesting fact that during my tour I was never allowed access to computers, radios, or anything else that I might damage through curiosity, or perhaps something more sinister.

That was the division in the hacking world: There were people who were exploring it and the people who were trying to make money from it. And, generally, you stayed away from anyone who was trying to make money from it.

So what I was essentially doing was, I compromised the confidentiality of their proprietary software to advance my agenda of becoming the best at breaking through the lock.

And shortly after that, when I try to get access to those soldiers, to ask them what in the world was going on, I was told that they did not work for me and I had no right to have access to any one of them.

Canceling my landline phone account, cutting off service to my home for good, and rendering the telephones that had long sat on tables in every room as useless as my closeted bread machine, I took the final step in a lifelong attempt to free myself from the wires that tethered me.