Secret Army 2 - The Computer is Stolen

Tony and Mike had broken into the headquarters of XX Mobile Phones in the middle of the
night.  Tony opened the door into the computer room.
"What are we doing here?" asked Mike.
"We're stealing the computer."
"You break into a place to steal jewellery and money.  Computers are worth nothing at all."
"Mike, this is a phone company.  It's their head office.  This computer contains all the
customers' bank account details and all their credit card numbers.  We can help ourselves to
all their money."
"Tony, when the staff turn up for work tomorrow, won't they notice the computers don't work
anymore?"
"By that time we'll be gone, won't we?"  Tony stood next to a big box about half the size of a
refrigerator in the corner of the room.  "This is the one."  Tony and Mike carried it out of the
building into their van which was parked outside.  They drove off.

The police had seen Tony and Mike's van on CCTV as it had driven away.  It was unusual to
see such a vehicle on an industrial estate at 3 o' clock in the morning.  Once the theft of the
computer had been reported Tony received a knock on the door.  
"Hello, Officer."
The policeman pointed at the van outside.
"Is this your vehicle, Sir?"
"Yes."
"Can I have a look inside?"  Tony got the keys and unlocked the van.  There was the
computer.
"Perhaps you'd like to accompany me to the station, Sir.  And give me the keys.  I'll send
someone to pick up the van."

Half an hour later Tony sat with the policeman in the station.
"What were you going to do with the computer?" the policeman asked.
"Sell it."
"Is it worth that much?"
"It's worth a few thousand.  It's a really big server.  I could sell it to a friend in the IT trade.  He
provides people with internet access."
"You drove hundreds of miles to get there.  I think it's more important than a second hand
server that can be sold to a friend.  You could have gone looking for any company's IT
system.  What's so special about something belonging to XX Mobile Phones?  You wanted the
information inside it.  That thing contains records of every customer's bank account and
credit card number.  I think this is a much more serious offence than burglary."  

A technician was examining the computer in the police lab.
"Look at this.  Millions of pages of text, video, sound, photographs.  Clare doesn't just rent
mobile phones.  She collects data for them.  What kind of data?  This data isn't registered
anywhere."
The police arrested Clare, the owner of XX Mobile Phones.  They brought her to the office of
the female police sergeant.
"What is your job in the company?" asked the sergeant.
"I created it.  We rent mobile phones.  I design websites and I do the marketing."
"What sort of mobile phones?  Are they pink mobile phones?"
"They're not all pink.  They're XX mobile phones for ladies.  They're refined.  Some look
like teddy bears."
"Teddy bears?" asked the sergeant.  "Can you show me some?"  Clare took her own mobile
phone out of her pocket.  It was pink and looked like a toy hippopotamous.
"Here," said Clare, thumbing through her own website.
"Mmm," said the sergeant, looking at Clare's phone.  "That's nice.  There's an awful lot of things on that system. Far more than we'd expect to see if someone was just renting mobile phones."
"It's not against the law to have your own independent server."
"Is that what it is?  Your own independent server?" asked the sergeant.
"I'm a very prolific writer.  I've been writing since I was a child.  My job takes a few hours a
week.  I've nothing to do for a lot of the time at work so I produce films and stories."
"During company time?"
"I own the company."
"There's millions of pages on it.  You didn't write them all yourself.  Some of the writing is of
a very religious nature.  Are you religious?"
"I prefer to call myself a Christian.  It's not illegal to produce Christian programmes."
"No it's not.  So why don't you use Videobook like everybody else?"
"Videobook is subject to editorial approval.  Some of my views are of a radical nature that
would not be acceptable to Videobook."
"What sort of views?"
"We believe that homosexuality is not as God intended.  We believe that Jesus is the only
way to God and that other religions are wrong."  The sergeant looked horrified.
"You said we.  Who are we?"
"Me and the other born again Christians."
"Which ones?  The ones that help you produce your website?"
"I don't know who they are."
"Well Clare, they seem to know who you are.  They send you plenty of articles."
"I've no idea who they are."  The sergeant held out her mobile phone.
"Your brain's working very hard, Clare. It's turned very red on my screen.  You're thinking
hard.  What are you thinking?  Tell me, Clare, what are you really thinking?"
"You need to repent.  You need to be saved.  How are you going to stand up on the Day of
Judgement?"
"I ask the questions.  I've established that you're a born again Christian fanatic and that you're
a writer."
"Yes.  That's true."
"Who is working with you?"
"No one."  The sergeant was still holding the mobile phone with the brain scanner in her
hand.  She looked at the screen.
"Part of the truth.  Not the whole truth.  You're thinking very hard about what you don't want to
tell me.  It's a darknet server, Clare.  How does it work?"
"I plug it into the wall and turn it on."
"You're not the manager of the country's leading mobile phone network unless you know
more about servers than that.  Where do all the articles on it come from?  You don't know
the names of the writers but what do you know about them?"
"Nothing.  I don't know anything about them."
"You don't."  The sergeant was still gazing at her mobile phone.  "You're telling the truth.
But you didn't write a million pages of articles yourself."
"No I didn't."
"Where did they come from?"
"The server just finds things on the internet all by itself."
"Who programmed it?"
"I did."
"By yourself?"
"It's self programming.  It programmes itself.  I defined the basics of the program."
"What is it meant to do?"
"It's a search engine.  It just searches for Christian articles on the internet."
"Why have your own search engine?  Why don't you use Amazoogle like everybody else?"
"Because some of the articles on it might be censored by Amazoogle.  Amazoogle doesn't
list things that some people might find offensive."
"And you do?  That's against the law."
"Yes and it's all my fault.  I'll come clean, Officer.  I created that server all by myself to find
things on the internet and to broadcast my own Islamophobic, Transphobic and Homophobic
views."  The sergeant glanced again at her mobile phone.
"You're thinking very hard Clare.  You must have rehearsed that speech so many times.
Distract the police from accusing anyone else by taking the blame.  You're trying to protect
the people who wrote those articles.  You don't know who they are, but you know something
that you're not going to tell me.  Something that could lead me straight to their door.  I
wonder what that is?"

Clare was taken away and locked in a cell.  The sergeant still sat at her desk.  A
policewoman came into the office.
"Louise, she won't tell me everything she knows," said the sergeant. "She knows something
that she's really frightened of telling us.  The brain scanner on my phone shows that she's
trying really hard to conceal something."
"I'll go undercover," said Louise.  "Just put me in that cell and I'll say I've been arrested
when I was doing street evangelism.  I used to be a Christian.  They make a covenant to be
faithful to eachother for life.  She won't betray her friends.  She won't tell the police anything
that might incriminate anyone else.  But she might tell another Christian."
"If you made a covenant to be faithful to other Christians for the rest of your life, why are you
not a Christian any more?"
"Boyfriends came along.  I got married.  My daughters want to go to university."  Louise went
into the changing room where she opened her locker, took off her police uniform and put on
some ordinary clothes.  The sergeant then led her into the same cell that Clare was in.  The
door slammed behind her.
"What are you doing here?" asked Louise.
"I'm a Christian.  We had this great big server at work and I just couldn't resist the temptation
to fill it with Christian books, films and music to broadcast on the internet."
"Is that a crime?"
"It is if you don't edit it properly.  You're supposed to register the material and you're
supposed to have software that removes anything that might be considered hateful or
discriminatory," said Clare.
"It's hard to be a Christian.  I have had a similar experience.  I've been arrested today when
I was doing street evangelism.  A man came up and said that he was gay and what did I
think about that?  I said that he couldn't help being gay, there wasn't anything he could do
about it and God would understand.  Then he told me he was a practising homosexual and
what did I think about gay relationships?  I told him that the Bible said they were an
abomination."
"Yes. They would arrest you for that."
"So this server contains things that you have written yourself?"
"Yes.  I wrote quite a lot of the articles myself.  I sing songs.  I also make films."
"That's interesting.  Who helps you make them?"
"I just ask friends from church if I can use their photographs in my animation.  They're like
cartoons with photographic pictures but you must get people's permission."
"I'm a Catholic.  A charismatic worshipping Catholic," said Louise.
"That's good.  The Catholic church seems to have a lot of spirit life in it these days."
"Which church do you go to?"
"I'm a Baptist," said Clare.
"If you're a writer maybe you can help me.  I'd like to know where I can get Christian books,
recorded music, Christian films.  I don't even have my own Bible.  We all take turns to lead
the Bible study at church and you can borrow this old Bible for a week.  It's falling apart.  How
does a darknet server work?"
"When something is removed from the internet it isn't totally removed.  The software will
remove it from the server where it originated but it actually passed through six or seven
servers before you saw the information.  There are copies of it in several places.  A darknet
server searches the internet all the time, looking for articles about a specific topic, maybe
Christianity, including all the old articles that are still left around on people's servers even
though they've officially been removed.  It then copies the files on to itself.  It has a search
engine.  You type the words into the box and search for what you want.  It's like Amazoogle
but it's totally uncensored."
"If it's a darknet server how does anybody know how to find it?  How does anybody know the
address?"
"The address is complicated and difficult for the authorities to guess.  They send people
a photograph of some cars in a car park.  The letters and numbers on the registration plates
spell the address of the darknet server."
"Now you've been caught and the server has been confiscated.  Are there any other people
you know that you can put me in touch with?"
"There are other Christians with darknet servers.  I can send you their addresses.  I'll email
you a photograph.  I'll say it's a photograph of my new car in the car park with a few other
cars beside it.  But it's really a photograph from the owner of a darknet server.  It spells out
the address of their server," Clare said laughing.
"My priest wants to start televising his church services on the internet.  Is that a good idea?"
"What sort of Catholic priest is he?"
"Oh, he's a Bible believing fundamentalist.  Other religions go to Hell.  God loves gay
people but hates their sinful lifestyle."
"It's up to him whether he wants to televise his service," said Clare.  "People do need to
hear things like that.  It's like the book of Amos in the Bible.  There is a famine in this land.
A famine of hearing the words of the Lord.  The truth must be spoken.  It's up to him whether
he wants to take the risk."
"Would it be dangerous?"
"Companies that host websites keep records for 25 years.  They also ask for proof of ID
when you open an account.  There's no anonymity."
"Would they know which company he was registered with?"
"They could easily tell that by looking at the address of the website.  Then they just ask the
company to search through all their records for the last 25 years to find the recording."  The
sergeant unlocked the door.  She looked at Louise.
"Right, come with me."  The sergeant led Louise out of the cell and slammed the door
behind her.

Louise and the sergeant returned to the office.
"What did she say, Louise?"
"All articles on the darknet server are traceable.  They've got the original website addresses
on them.  Find the host company and they know who made the recording."
"That might be the big secret she was holding back.  Anything else?"
"People with darknet servers communicate their website addresses," Louise laughed,
"by emailing photographs of cars in car parks.  The letters and numbers on the registration
plate spell out the address of the darknet server."
"Do you believe that?"  The sergeant smiled.
"She was quite convinced when she said it.  It would be one way of getting the message
across without being noticed.  It could be worth investigating.  She asks her friends at church
to be photographed so she can use their pictures in films."
"Difficult to prove.  Anyone could use someone else's photograph in a film and they have no
idea what the film is about.  People frequently use people's photographs without their
permission.  Still, well done Louise, we've got something to work on."