The Accidental Hacker

Chapter One

Chapter One

I logged onto team viewer and quickly entered the details for my mum’s computer. She’d been having problems (when doesn’t she) and this software allowed me to access her desktop remotely, which saved me a whole lot of travelling time, not to mention money. As a starving artist, I can't exactly afford to take the train back to Ipswich once a week.

Once I logged on, I noticed that her desktop looked a little different than I remembered, the icons had changed a bit and there was a new program or two, but I was just hoping that she hadn’t buggered anything up installing them. You’re unable to see the wallpaper using team viewer, so despite the changes, I had no idea it wasn’t her computer.

Once I had the desktop up, I navigated to google, downloaded the webcam chat program, YouChat, and installed it. She had been badgering me to find her something 'like facetime but for the PC', apparently she wanted to use it to talk to her non iPhone using friends, like me (the iPhone is a luxury this starving artist isn’t willing to scrimp for).

I suggested skype, of course, but she had used that once a few years ago and after a billing problem, had refused to ever use it again. My mother might not know her hard drive from her headphones, but she sure knew how to be stubborn and once she disliked something, that was it, she would never even try it again.

YouChat was a free, open source service that didn’t offer phone calls to landlines, only internet webcam chats, so there shouldn’t be any billing problems to worry about.

Once installed, I opened the program and set myself up as her first contact, giving myself the contact name of Dr Horrible. She wouldn’t get the reference but she was used to me being ‘weird’, and never let it be said that I disappoint her in that respect. I gave her the username Captain Hammer, and I knew she’d have the devil’s own time changing that without my help.

With that done, I opened a word document and left it open on the desktop, to let her know she could start using the software with anyone else who had installed it, so long as she got their contact details from them. I also included full instructions for how to set up a contact, how to call them and how to end the call.

Then I logged off Team Viewer and waited for her to text me, asking who Dr Horrible was.

I didn’t hear anything for ten hours, which was odd, then I had a notification pop up on my screen saying that Captain Hammer was trying to call me. I clicked on the box, smiling as it opened.

“No need to thank me, it’s what good daughters do.”

Then I saw who was on my screen and my smile faded away. The lighting wasn’t very good but it definitely wasn’t my mum. Not even the same gender, in fact.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Except I’m not in your mum’s home calling her daughter at nearly midnight, am I? Are you a burglar or just the newest in her line of dodgy boyfriends?”

“Dodgy boyfriends?” he parroted back at me.

“Yes, that’s what I said. I really don’t care if you’re on the dole, with recession and all that, it can't always be helped, but please tell me you were bright enough to leave school with some O’Levels.”

“Sorry, darling, no O’Levels for me.”

“Fantastic,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “At least tell me you aren’t on parole.”

“Definitely not on parole,” he laughed, which irritated me. “And I have GCSEs, not O’Levels.”

“Oh sweet Jesus, she’s a cougar.” I buried my head in my hands.