Hacked Read Online Free PDF

bothered,’ I said. ‘I can get the data off someone else, and it’s quite expensive.’
    ‘You’re going,’ said Dad.
    Great! A bus journey to West Wales, all afternoon taking measurements of a river, sharing a room and a loo with people I hardly know from the other class, a whole day of experiments about speed of flow and direction and dead ducks and cold feet and misery, a second night away with unfunny teachers and fake teambuilding, a debrief and, eventually, home. Just what I needed.
     
    They disappeared, but at nine o’clock El came to saygoodnight and reminded me I was expected downstairs – smug look on her face. I told her where to go but Dad started yelling at me so I gave in and trudged downstairs. Other kids row with their parents but I choose the path of least resistance and mostly things blow over. A few nights of compliance and Dad would go quiet again – I’d stake my Pay As You Go fund on it.
    I didn’t exactly have high hopes of my hour bonding with Dad in front of a whodunnit, but for once he let me choose so we watched a documentary about Afghanistan. It was interesting – although remind me never to respond to those ads that make the army sound like Go Ape. More importantly, it gave me a clue about where I might find a window I could prise open. Thank you, Channel 4.
    Around four o’clock the next morning I had a breakthrough. I didn’t need to infiltrate the Pentagon, or any other major headquarters, because a remote base station in the field near Camp Bastion let me inside the US Military network. It’s complicated, but all you need to know is that I searched for big chunks of data moving between Washington IP addresses and an area of Afghanistan occupied by the Americans, identified the military set of numbers and then sent random emails until I got an out-of-office reply confirming it was a military location. Knowing the location was the ‘clue’.
    I got inside and started sniffing IP traffic. The NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) operates all the satellites so I scanned live video streams in andout of the Pentagon, looking for those initials. How authorities dare protest about their systems being hacked, I don’t know, because that was all it took. I identified a server, found my way in, picked a random location and was rewarded by the feed from a satellite live on my screen. All I could see were fields, with the time, date, co-ordinates and other stuff that I didn’t understand superimposed – but that wasn’t the point. I cracked it –
that
was the point.

10
    I went to school the day after my moderately impressive hack and walked home with Joe.
    ‘Not going to the climbing centre tonight?’
    ‘I’ve strained my wrist,’ he said. ‘Might take two weeks to get better.’
    ‘Bad luck.’
    He nodded.
    ‘Did you go and see Ty yesterday?’ I asked.
    ‘Yep. Nothing changes.’
    ‘Do you think he’s still there?’
    ‘Of course, idiot.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘He’s still breathing. I think that’s the usual way of telling.’
    ‘You know what I mean,’ I said, a bit irritated by Joe’s blind faith.
    My message alert went off. A short burst of Darth Vader – sad but true. I took it out of my pocket and yelped. Seriously, I yelped.
    Ty is awake and talking. He’s going to be fine. Love Mum x
    ‘He’s more than breathing,’ I said, showing Joe the text.
    Joe flung his arms round me and I slapped mine round him, which was odd but good. It wasn’t like I’d been worrying about Ty
all
the time, but knowing I didn’t have to was a big relief.
    ‘Shall we go and see him?’ said Joe.
    I hesitated, because I was keen to get home and have a proper play with the US reconnaissance satellites. Before breakfast I’d mapped the controls onto my phone so I could manipulate the camera, but had only managed to follow New Yorkers jogging through Central Park before Mum shooed me off to school. I didn’t even know if American satellites were trained on South West