Photophreaking

Main article: Phreaking

Phreaking is easy. Doing it secretly is hard.

Although espionage is a common practice in war – even in non-wars, or whatever the Congo is – phreaking is rarely appealing. If you want to stop a computer running the radar guidance of a surface-to-air missile, or managing hydrogen fuel distribution at machine depots, you bomb the towers and cables it uses to talk to the world. Better yet – bomb the computer.

There are specific circumstances that attract interest in phreaking a line. In asymmetric wars like the Congo, where international missions, charities, genocidaires and mercenaries roam its vast and lawless interior, which computers are talking to who becomes a subject of intense interest. If you bomb a Katangan photoline (the cables that carry computer signals, bound up with telephone lines) the Rhodesians will build them a new one. But if you “tap” the line, the possibilities extend beyond surveillance. A tapped line can hang up a call; it can reroute signals, or even take control. And unless you take control of the computer itself, the only way you can do it is with phreaks.

Phreaks are dudes who are good at phreaking. In Vekllei, their home is in the Covert Photophreaking Section of the 2nd Signals Battalion. They are not part of the Commandos but do behave like them. They are independent, highly trained, and perform technical roles at great personal risk to themselves. Phreaking is not an abstract exercise; it means finding the physical photoline, pulling it out, bending it and watching the light that leaks out for its characteristics.

Once you have some idea of its waveforms, quantum noise level and command signals, you can start to do things with a connection. Every step of this process needs to be performed without interrupting or degrading the connection – doing so can trip a “spectral wink,” which wakes the signalling system and either kills or restarts the connection. That’s the sort of thing that makes people suspicious. The Covert Photophreaking Section are very good at what they do, but the Congo is not an easy place to do it. The heat, poor condition of infrastructure and distances make accessing enemy or not-quite-friendly lines tricky, and tapping them precise and exhausting. And if they find you, they’re liable to treat you as a spy rather than a soldier. That is to say, they’ll kill you.