Meltwater Read Free Page A

her words sink in. She scanned her listeners. She’d got them.
    ‘Freeflow is in a unique position in history. The Internet has given ordinary citizens such as us enormous power. It is not the power to oppress or censor, but the power to set information free. Someone has risked a lot to get this video to us; possibly committed treason in their own country. We owe it to that person, and to humanity as a whole, to make sure that this work will have the maximum impact.
    ‘This is possibly the most exciting leak Freeflow has been involved with. We’re going to have to work hard over the next few days, but it will be worth it, I promise you. What you do this week will be noticed throughout the world.’
    ‘Way to go!’ said Franz, the Swiss guy, with a cheer.
    The Icelanders Dúddi and Ásta looked impressed; the Israeli student a little anxious. Erika didn’t blame her.
    ‘So let’s get to it!’ She turned towards the big man standing in the middle of the tangle of cables, his matted fair hair and scrappy beard streaked with grey. ‘Hey, Dieter, don’t I get a hug?’
    Dieter grinned as he extricated himself from the wires. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. He was a German computer security consultant, and he and Erika had been through a lot over the last three years. They had first come across each other on the Save Darfur website. It was Dieter who had suggested setting up a separate secure site to publish leaked UN documents exposing the diplomatic dithering over the massacres of refugees in Darfur a few years earlier, and so Freeflow was born. His technical expertise and Erika’s crusading drive were at the heart of the organization.
    ‘How close are we to getting started?’ Erika asked.
    ‘We’ll have all the machines hooked up in another hour or so,’ said Dieter. ‘But Apex has a security issue.’
    ‘Not again?’ said Erika. Apex always had security issues. Erika was never sure whether they were real, or whether Apex was just paranoid. ‘Does he know who it is this time?’
    ‘He’s pretty sure it’s the Chinese.’ Ever since 2008, when Freeflow had published a list of websites blocked by the Chinese government, its network had come under attack from China. ‘He doesn’t want us to transfer the video across until he is sure everything is secure.’
    ‘Do you think he’s overreacting?’ Erika asked.
    Dieter shook his head. ‘No. It’s a real intrusion.’
    ‘OK. How long?’
    ‘Tomorrow morning at the earliest.’
    ‘Damn.’ Erika glanced around the room. ‘Where’s Gareth?’
    Gareth was a British security analyst, a former employee of GCHQ, the British government department responsible for collating and analysing electronic intelligence. His expertise would be vital for interpreting the video and for assessing its authenticity.
    ‘He can’t come until Wednesday,’ Nico said.
    ‘Wednesday! You’re kidding?’
    ‘He’s doing some freelance work that he can’t get out of. But he will be able to analyse information we send him.’
    ‘Can we do that securely?’ Erika asked Dieter.
    ‘Yes,’ Dieter said. ‘We can use Tor once Apex has given the all-clear.’ The Tor network allowed encrypted data to travel through a virtual tunnel between two computers that was extremely private. It was Dieter and Apex’s favourite system and at the heart of Freeflow’s operations. When layered with PGP or ‘Pretty Good Privacy’ data encryption, information was just about as safe as it could be. ‘It’ll be better than nothing for a couple of days. It’s not ideal, though,’ Dieter added.
    ‘No, it’s not,’ said Erika.
    ‘Erika?’ Nico was giving her his most charming smile. It put her on her guard but she couldn’t help warming to it. He was an Italian in his late thirties who used to run a hedge fund in London and had made himself several million before quitting. He had approached Freeflow the year before, offering help, both financial and organizational, and after