Terminal Compromise

"Fine, why?"

"I'm going to show you Amsterdam."

Scott and the Spook began walking. The Spook knew his way around and described much of the history and heritage of the city, the country and its culture. This kind of educated hacker was not what Scott had expected. He had thought that today's hackers were nerds, the propeller heads of his day, but he was discover- ing through the Spook, that he may have been wrong. Scott remem- bered Clifford Stoll's Hanover Hacker was a well positioned and seemingly upstanding individual who was selling stolen computer information to the KGB. How many nerds would have the gumption to play in that league?

They walked to the outer edge of Old Amsterdam, on the Singel- gracht at the Leidseplein. Without a map or the Spook, Scott would have been totally lost. The streets and ca.n.a.ls were all so similar that, as the old phrase goes, you can't tell the players without a scorecard. Scott followed the Spook onto an electric street car. It headed down the Leidsestraat, one of the few heavily commercial streets and across the Amstel again.

The street car proceeded up the Nieuwezuds Voorburgwal, a wide boulevard with ma.s.ses of activities on both sides. This was tourist madness, thought Scott.

"This is freedom," said the Spook.

"Freedom?" The word instantly conjured his memory of the Freedom League, the BBS he suspected was up to no-good. The Spook and Freedom?

"At the end of this street is the Train Station. Thousands of people come through this plaza every day to experience Amsterdam.

Get whatever it is out of their system. The drugs, the women, the anarchy of a country that relies upon the integrity of its population to work. Can't you feel it?" The Spook positively glowed as he basked in the aura of the city.

Scott had indeed felt it during their several hours together. An intense sense of independence that came from a generation of democratic socialism. Government regulated drugs, a welfare system that permitted the idle to live nearly as well as the working. Cla.s.s structures blurred by taxes so extraordinarily high that most everyone lived in similarly comfortable condi- tions. Poverty is almost non-existent.

Yet, as the Spook explained to Scott, "This is not the world for an entrepreneur. That distinction still belongs to the ol' Red, White and Blue. It's almost impossible to make any real money here."

The sun was setting behind the western part of the city, over the church steeples and endless rows of townhouses.

"Hungry yet?" Spook grinned at Scott.

"Hungry? I got a case of the munchies that won't quit. Let's eat." Scott's taste buds were entering panic mode.

"Good," the Spook said as he lit up another joint on the street car. "Let's eat." He hastily leapt off the slow moving vehicle.

Scott followed him across the boulevard and dodged cars, busses and bicycles. They stopped in front of a small Indonesian res- taurant, Sarang Mas, ably disguised with a red and white striped awning and darkened windows.

"Ever had Indonesian food?"

"No, well maybe, in New York I guess..."

Miles dragged Scott into the

"Let me tell you something," the Spook said. "This food is the absolute finest food available, anywhere in the world, bar no idyllic island location, better than a trip to Hershey, Pennsyl- vania to cure a case of the munchies. It's delicate, it's sweet, it's taste bud heaven, it's a thousand points of flavor you've never tried before." The Spook sounded like a hawker on the Home Shopping Network.

"Shut up," Scott joked. "You're just making it worse."

"Think of the oral o.r.g.a.s.m that's coming. Antic.i.p.ation." The waiter had appeared and waited patiently. It was still early and the first seating crowd was two hours away. "Do you mind if I order?"

"No, be my guest. Just make it fast food. Super fast food,"

Scott begged.

"Ah, let's have a couple of Sate Kambings to start, ah, and we'll share some Daguig Goreng, and some Kodok Goreng and ah, the Guila Kambing. And," Spook looked at Scott, "a couple of Heinekens?"

Scott nodded. "And, if there's any way you could put that order into warp drive, my friend here," he pointed at Scott, "would appreciate it muchly."

"Very good," the dark skinned Indonesian waiter replied as he scurried back to the kitchen.

It still took half an hour for the appetizers to arrive. Scott chewed up three straws and tore two napkins into shreds while waiting.

"What is this," asked Scott as he voraciously dove into the food.

"Does it matter?"

"No," Scott bit into it. "Mmmmmmm...Holy s.h.i.+t, that's good, what is it?"

"Goat parts," the Spook said with a straight face.

Scott stopped chewing. "Which goat parts?" he mumbled staring over the top of his round gla.s.ses.

"The good parts," said the Spook taking two big bites. "Only the good parts."

"It's nothing like, eyeb.a.l.l.s, or lips or..." Scott was gross- ing himself out.

"No, no, paysan, eat up. It's safe." The Spook made the Italian gesture for eating. "Most of the time." The Spook chuckled as he ravaged the unidentifiable goat parts on his plate.

Scott looked suspiciously at the Spook, who seemed to be surviv- ing. How bad could it be? It tasted great, phenomenal, but what is it? f.u.c.k it. Scott wolfed down his goat parts in total ecsta- sy. The Spook was right. This was the best tasting food he had had, ever.

The rest of the meal was as sensorally exquisite as the appetiz- er. Scott felt relieved once the waiter had promised that the goat parts were from a goat roast, just like a rib roast or a pork roast. Nothing disgusting like ear lobes. Ecch!

"So you want to know why we do it," said the Spook in between nibbles of Indonesian frog legs. Scott had to think hard to realize that the Spook had s.h.i.+fted the conversation to hacking.

"It had occurred to me," responded Scott. "Why do you do it?"

"I've always liked biology, so hacking became the obvious choice," Spook said laughing. Scott looked perplexed but that didn't interrupt his voracious attack on the indescribably deli- cious foods on his plate.

"How old are you?" Asked the Spook.

"The Big four-oh is in range."

"Good, me too. Remember Marshall McCluhan?"

"The medium is the message guru." Scott had admired him and made considerable effort to attend a few of his highly motivating lectures.

"Exactly. He predicted it 20 years early. The Networked Socie- ty." The Spook paused to toss more food into his mouth. "How much do you know about computers?"

"I'm learning," Scott said modestly. Whenever asked that ques- tion he a.s.sumed that he was truly ignorant on the subject despite his engineering degree. It was just that computers had never held the fascination for him that they did for others.

"O.K., let me give you the low down." The Spook sucked down the last of the Heineken and motioned to the waiter for two more. He wiped his lips and placed his napkin beside the well cleaned plate. "At what point does something become alive?"

"Alive?" Scott mused. "When some carbon based molecules get the right combination of gases in the proper proportions of tempera- ture and pressure..."

"C'mon, guy. Use your imagination," the Spook scoffed with his eyes twinkling. "Biologically, you're right, but philosophically that's pretty f.u.c.king lame. Bart Simpson could come up with better than that." The Spook could be most insulting without even trying. "Let me ask you, is the traffic light system in New York alive?"

"No way!" Retorted Scott. "It's dead as a doornail, programmed for grid lock." They both laughed at the ironic choice for a.n.a.logy.

"Seriously, in many ways it can be considered alive," the Spook said. "It uses electricity as its source of power or food.

Therefore it eats, has a digestive system and has waste product; heat. Agreed?"