The Adventures with the AFP

Melbourne, Australia: It was a nice spring Tuesday, a little chilly and gloomy the weather was on the outside. It was one of those perfect days, not too warm, not too cold, but you sure as heck wouldn't want to be outside. In perfect couch potato sense, some friends and me were bumming around the couch, doing our version of a movie marathon - after all, the exams were over, and we were leading a carefree student life.

At 6.15pm, out of the blue, my cellular phone decides to ring. "Private number" is displayed on the screen, as I try to decipher who would be trying to reach me during a movie of mine. I finally decide to answer it fairly quickly, as a ringing phone is probably really annoying during a movie; hence phones are usually meant to be turned off or moved into the more docile silent-mode.

"Hi, this is James, from the Australian Federal Police," the caller on the other side of the line stated. "Are you Colin Charles?" was when I met up with momentarily silence. "Yes," I answered rather cautiously, thinking that this could be a prank of sorts, the rather unsuspecting me. The caller had a fairly thick Australian accent, and over a mobile phone line I would have assumed, it didn't quite sound too appealing to my ear. After all, a movie was also blasting in the background, so it was kind of hard to actually make out his full sentences and think that they made too much sense. Couple that with hearing the word police and that would have just generally freaked anyone out. Heck, I'm not one of those that ride on the wrong side of the law - hearing from the law hence does seem rather freaky.

"I'm calling regarding some threats made," he says rather sternly. At this point I'm silent. Point blank, silence, because I don't really know what to say. I moved on to a quieter location so I could hear the man better, and basically gathered that some threats had been made, nothing that was to be discussed over the phone, and that he wanted to meet me in person. He pressed on the urgency of the matter, made it fairly clear that he had to see me today even if I wasn't at home. So I agreed to meet the fellow at the 24/7 Coles Supermarket at Clayton Road, since it was like a five-minute walk to get there, and it was a public location, so no funny business could occur. James didn't seem too sure where it was located, so he said it shouldn't be too difficult to actually find it, and at that time of the day, rush-hour was nearly over, we agreed to meet at 7pm. He provided his phone number, I punched it into the phone, couldn't even recollect his name, and when he hung up, the phone key-locked itself, and the number went away. In the frenzy going on in my mind, it was not easy to think rationally. When you watch movies and say the role of the character could've been played better, or even how fake the movie seemed to be, somehow when reality hits you in the face, it does seem fairly accurate.

Tick tock. Tick tock. The time was passing by. My friends were getting fairly worried, thinking this could be the work of a prankster. I was thinking along those lines too, because I didn't even know what sort of police division I was going to be meeting. Heck, his name itself disappeared in my head. At about five past seven, my cell phone rang again. This time he was confirming directions, like he didn't quite know where the car park at the Coles was located and after some verbal confirmations, I would think he found himself a nice spot. I innocently asked how I was to be recognized, or how I was to find them basically, and all I got was a, "We'll recognize you, just come up to the entrance. What colour top are you wearing?" This was getting all bizarre now, so I stuttered and said that it was a white top. We left the house, took a short drive to the Coles store, and immediately, that black Holden Commodore V6 was sitting there, parked rather near to the entrance.

I walked up to the car, and immediately a portly guy, dressed in a black suit came out of the car, shook my hands, greeted me, and asked if we could talk inside his car. There was another man sitting in the front passenger seat as well at that time. I said it was fine, and asked for some identification first before entering the car. Like in the movies, the guy took out his ID from his breast pocket, discreetly opened it for me to see, and I was generally satisfied with the picture ID and his police badge. To me, the AFP probably do what the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) does in the USA; well, the portrayed outlook was not short from there.

I got into the car, feeling fairly edgy and was introduced to James' partner. I didn't quite catch his name, as I've always been bad with names, but a face, I usually can remember a face. Guess its somewhat photographic memory or something. James was in the drivers seat, and he just told me to relax, and be calm.

Firing off with the first question - do you have a Hotmail account? My straight answer to that is a no, so I retort with it. I also go on to mention that the only two regular e-mail addresses I have are my aeon and bytebot one. Then after a while, I recollect having an MSN account, for my MSN Messenger purposes, but most likely that one is actually closed.

They ask me a bunch of not-so-clever questions like if I studied at the university, and where I live, which hall exactly, and the like. These folks know the answers to the questions, so it seems like a cross-examination of sorts. They seem pleased with the answers I give them, and the environment seems to get friendlier between the three of us.

Then the clincher of it all comes. They show me an e-mail message, with sufficient details of myself there to shock even me at first glance. There's mention of bombing an ANZ bank, and some other crap in relation to Al Qaeda links and the like. Then I sit back and think hard, and realize that all the information about me is publicly available on the Internet at my website at any rate.

So I start to giggle. I get told off that they take such threats rather seriously and its not really a laughing matter. Attached to the e-mail are two pictures - one of a fairly messy room and one of me. That's how the AFP agent could recognize me I think to myself. I immediately state that the picture of the room there was not mine. I've never had a room like that, but I recognize the room as a friends' one and I immediately inform the agents that it's not mine.

They look to each other, and then they look to me and tell me that they've already seen my room. At this stage I seem rather appalled. They reassure me that they were with the Director of Monash Residential when they came over for a mosey to see if the room in the picture matched mine. Then to top it all off, they tell me that it was totally legal of them to actually enter my premises just to make sure all's well. They quote some form of my agreement with them (my contract?) and say its perfectly legal for them to do so - I honestly think it wasn't, and I'll be taking this up further.

So instead of worrying me further, the guy offers to give me his card and tells me I can go now. My friends are awaiting in the car just to make sure nothing funny happens. That's when I start spewing out all the Jonathen rubbish. Everything I know about this guy at the top of my head comes out. The agents shoot me some IP addresses, most likely dynamically allocated IP's that belong to the TMNet dialup pool in Malaysia. As for me, I fairly tell them what IP's I am usually from and they're all satisfied with such responses.

I offer to take them back to my residence and give them IP-based logs of our good friend Jonathen. So who is this Jonathen that you're all probably wondering about? He's a joker from Internet Relay Chat (IRC), usually seen on the #bangsar and #mamak21 channels on the IRCNet servers. He's made a complete arse of himself before, and has had a certain few private chats with some IRC'ers, in there they've revealed some of his information. Where do I fit into the picture? I pissed him off bad by placing all his exploits up on the Web, on my personal website, and letting the rest of the folk on IRC actually know. The website became very popular, with a great many hits and this of course displeased our Jonathen so very much that he disconnected himself from IRC.

But little did any of us on IRC know that he was planning a revenge scheme, so vindictive that it even involved the Australian Federal Police. They thanked me for my information, offered me a job after graduation, made a little remark that my security clearances will be much easier now, and sent me off, towards the direction of Coles again. I spent the night away from my usual residence. Like a hermit, with a backpack and a laptop, and not much of anything else going, I was at a friend's place, all the time. Never did have the thoughts to leave, as it was a worrying time.

Didn't even quite sleep that night. Every-time a sound was heard, I was actually worried. I adjourned to bed only at about 9am, when I felt that my body couldn't quite take the beating anymore.

The phone rang again at about 3.30pm, on Wednesday. No ANZ had been blown up, I was in the clear (naturally), and all I knew was that our good Jonathen character was being pursued by the AFP, and they were going to be working with the local authorities in Malaysia. Life was getting back to normal, I mean, the initial paranoia was wearing away, not to say that I wasn't actively thinking of whom I could encounter. I never let my guard down, and my guard is still up.

I crafted an e-mail message to a private mailing list, informing them of what had happened to me, and the like. They were rather understanding, with good words of encouragement coming my way. That's the sort of thing I quite needed, good, pleasing words of encouragement. Advice as to my next course of action, and the like were given to me, and I'm headed home to Malaysia to actually carry it all out.

On Friday, a friend in Brisbane called. He was also implicated in the events, in an entirely separate e-mail message. He too had his brush with the AFP. But I guess he's just less paranoid. At least he got no death threat. His account was posted on the private mailing list too, and it was fairly good to read that I'm not alone in this.

As I write this now, I'm on the plane and its Saturday now. Leaving my friends were hard on me I would think, since I've been with such close proximity for the past couple of weeks - but I guess the good times will return. Customs cleared me just fine earlier, with a nice broad smile. Wonder if it shows that my passport had been previously flagged or not! I just went thru all the e-mails, from the private mailing list, giving responses where responses were due. Hopefully, in-transit in Singapore, I'll get my wireless Internet access and a plug point to recharge the batteries on my laptop and start writing more on the connecting flight and the little break I'll have. At least that gives me an opportunity to send my whole mail spool and stuff like that.

So now, it's telling my parents, just about the last people to know - I was just being a good son, not trying to worry them. But my friends on the mailing list pretty much say I should tell them. And I guess that's what's going to happen, later today, or tomorrow. Sometimes, the lack of information will make you freak out less - what the mind does not know, will not hurt you, right?

Concerned friends have been calling my phone at regular intervals. A great big kudos goes out to them for being caring. And to my best friend for letting me stay away from my residence, and putting up with me. Sometimes, its great to have good friends. Never a time did I feel lonely and buggered throughout the incidents that occurred.

So what's on the agenda? We've got to find out more information about this Jonathen character. I may actually want to even meet him. Get a proper photo of him. I wouldn't know what I'd do if I actually saw him in person. Would I knock his teeth off? Am I making a local police report in Malaysia? These are the questions that only time will answer for me.

Update: November 24th 2002

We go on chit-chatting about how they would have handled the event if it had occurred in Malaysia. Lots of things would be different. Would I even be remotely protected? Or just chucked behind bars under the Internal Security Act, which we've held back from the days when we had Communists running around during the British ruling of our nation? These are questions that will never get answered, I guess.

Update: December 29th 2002

One daily even stated that the Malaysian Police acted on information from the Australian High Commission. This certainly opened the eyes of the folk that knew my story, but alas, the AFP never really did contact me in terms of a follow-up, as they can't if it's with regards to an ongoing investigation. I highly doubt that even if the investigation was closed, they'd give me interesting information, hence my decision to publish this, even if the investigations aren't closed.

When I look back on my year, at least I can say something rather interesting has happened to me. Not to say my life wasn't filled with already interesting events, but this is one of those life-questioning events that are real eye-openers. Guess that being on IRC has its perks.

Here's to a happy, prosperous, and wonderful New Year, hopefully filled with a lot less surprises!