Black Code Page #5

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And then I was presented to the

detective or the interrogator.

I never saw him.

He told me, "You're a computer engineer.

Please be seated."

And I sat next to him and he started

reading all my Facebook posts.

I was like, "Oh."

One of the posts

that I wrote was,

"No praying, no fasting

until the regime falls,"

which was actually

making fun of both sides.

And I laughed and he's like,

"I'm not kidding with you.

I'm not joking with you."

He kicked me on my chest

and then he requested

the same short guy,

because he was

there in the room,

to bring something called

the "flying carpet,"

which is a torturing machine.

It's a wooden board,

like the door,

but it has joints in the middle

that can flip.

And I had to lay on it.

They tied my wrists and they tied me

from the middle, they tied my legs.

And they just closed it

so my knees touched my chest.

He took off my shoes

and my socks

and started beating me with a

metal, uh, with a metal whip.

The pain is unbelievable.

You just can't take it anymore.

You just can't endure

this amount of agony.

What we saw in Syria

was a lot of use of, say,

off-the-shelf remote access

tools.

So this is sort of software that you can

get from underground message boards

or maybe purchase

for not so much money.

Maybe $200-300 that

give you the ability

to record someone's keystrokes,

read their e-mails,

even look at them

through their webcam.

Record via

the computer's microphone,

conversations that are being had

around the target's computer.

Frequently what you would see

is it would be bundled

with some type of lured document

which showed

a deep understanding

of the psychology of the people

they were trying to target.

For instance, one of the documents

that was sent out that I keenly recall

was a list.

A purported list of insurgents

identified by the Syrian government.

So of course what happened was that

this was promptly passed around

to all sorts of very

interesting groups in Syria

because everyone wanted to know

if they were on this list or not.

So the actual spyware payload itself

wasn't particularly sophisticated,

but the social...

the social and social engineering

side of that operation,

um, was quite smart.

Internet entered almost

all countries in the region

before it entered Syria.

Yes.

Government in Syria,

we are not as developed

as Canada, for example,

or not as developed

as United States.

In Canada they can monitor

people and control people

and spy people in

a very intelligent way.

And even they don't

feel that they are...

spied on.

But in Syria,

of course you go to old ways.

They untie me and then I was...

and then he asked me to

sit next to him, and he said,

"Let's start talking."

And I told him, "I don't want

to talk to you anymore."

He said, "I want you to admit you work

with the Free Syrian Electronic Army."

I was like,

"I don't know what that is."

He said, "You like their page. You

like their page on Facebook."

I told him,

"I like their page on Facebook,

but there are too many pages

on Facebook that you can like.

I also like Assad's page

on Facebook."

Well, that did not convince him.

So his boss came and he told

him, "What is going on?"

He told him, "This is the Facebook

guy, and he's not cooperating."

So then his boss told him to,

"Send him down to the basement,

peel his skin off and just

remind me of him after a month."

And I was like, "Can we go

back to the flying carpet?"

[chuckles]

I stayed there

for almost a month,

and then I was released

with a presidential amnesty.

So I went in a taxi,

covered with dust,

dirt, sh*t and blood,

all over my face,

my clothes.

And then the taxi driver felt pity

for me, and he gave me a cigarette.

I remember

that was the first time I cried.

And I went to my flat in Latakia

where I used to study,

and my roommates were

shocked to see me alive.

And then, like, two weeks after

that I fled the country.

I came to Jordan.

I am a journalist now.

[man] With Syria, a lot of the

bad things that are happening

are happening to people who

don't look like Westerners.

The bad things happening to

these people through technology,

through the risks

inherent in technology,

are not different than the kinds

of risks that we may face,

um, although they look

different.

We see in the news

almost every day,

a report of a breach,

some kind of a large hack.

Data being exploited somewhere.

It's the same problem, but in

Syria, it looks very different

and because there are

dark-skinned people,

uh, and there are guns

and a foreign language,

it feels, I think to many,

exotic and different,

and it couldn't happen here.

And I think, in fact,

what you're seeing in Syria

is this is what happens

when the risks get higher

but the technology is the same.

They're using the same Facebook

that we are.

[chattering]

[in Portuguese]

[man beatboxing]

[chattering]

[Teles, in Portuguese]

[woman shouting in Portuguese]

[singing in foreign language]

[shouting on microphone]

[man shouting in Portuguese]

[in Portuguese]

[upbeat intro]

Satisfied

Satisfied

Satisfied

[gunshot]

[man singing]

[glass shattering]

[all shouting]

[screaming]

[sirens chirping]

[Teles, in Portuguese]

[woman speaking Portuguese]

What is this? This is surreal.

[singing continues]

[clapping rhythmically]

[singing continues, indistinct]

Satisfied

[shouting]

[shouting in Portuguese]

- [shouting]

- [shutters clicking]

[news intro]

[in Portuguese]

[man, in Portuguese]

- [police officer]

- [reporter]

[shouting]

[sirens wailing]

[shouting]

Lots of people were there,

by 7:
00 in the night,

and we were live.

[Carioca, in Portuguese]

[Silva] Suddenly a man came to Carioca,

and he asked to interview him.

[Carioca, in Portuguese]

[Silva] And then the military police

came to Carioca, searched his bag.

And then they said

he should be taken to jail

as a preventive arrestment,

to be searched and inquired.

[Carioca, in Portuguese]

How this information was being

virilized was really amazing.

Like sharing, sharing, sharing,

tweets, tweets, tweets,

mention, mention, mention.

"The Ninja is being arrested."

And suddenly there was,

like, a small crowd.

Like 5,000 people.

And all of them was

screaming together,

[in Portuguese]

[chanting in Portuguese]

[in Portuguese]

[man speaking in Portuguese]

[woman speaking Portuguese]

[Teles, in Portuguese]

[in Portuguese]

[in Portuguese]

[shouting]

[in Portuguese]

[Silva, in English] Then we posted this

video from the mobile, like, real time,

and it virilized very fast.

[Carioca, in Portuguese]

[glass shattering]

[vocalizing]

[video sound distorted]

[vocalizing continues]

[glass shattering]

[woman speaking Portuguese]

[woman vocalizing]

[vocalizing]

[shouting]

[music distorting]

[gunshot muffled]

[electrical crackling]

[crackling continues]

The video was just getting

bigger in the social media.

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