The Prisoner's Dilemma

They were threatening and yet reassuring to his mother all at the same time and spoke politely to her, even apologetically.

‘As bad as it sounds,’ one of them said, ‘we’re going to have to charge you with things Anthrax has done, hacking, phreaking, etc. if he doesn’t cooperate with us. We know it sounds funny, but we’re within our rights to do that. In fact that is what the law dictates because the phone is in your name.’

He followed this with the well-worn ‘it’s in your son’s best interest to cooperate’ line, delivered with cooing persuasion.

Anthrax wondered why there was no mention of charging his father, whose name appeared on the house’s main tele- phone number. That line also carried some illegal calls.

His mother worried. She asked her son to cooperate with the police. Anthrax felt he had to protect his mother and finally agreed to a police interview after his uni exams. The only reason he did so was because of the police threat to charge his mother. He was sure that if they dragged his mother through court, her health would deteriorate and lead to an early death.

Anthrax’s father picked him up from uni on a fine November day and drove down to Melbourne. His mother had insisted that he attend the interview, since he knew all about the law and police. Anthrax didn’t mind having him along: he figured a witness might prevent any use of police muscle.

During the ride to the city, Anthrax talked about how he would handle the interview. The good news was that the AFP had said they wanted to interview him about his phreaking, not his hacking. He went to the interview understanding they would only be discussing his ‘recent stuff’ – the phreaking. He had two possible approaches to the interview. He could come clean and admit everything, as his first lawyer had advised. Or he could pretend to cooperate and be evasive, which was what his instincts told him to do.

His father jumped all over the second option. ‘You have to cooperate fully. They will know if you are lying. They are trained to pick out lies. Tell them everything and they will go easier on you.’ Law and order all the way.