I was in Beijing for the ICANN meeting during April this year. I’m writing this quite a long time later, but the story is worth remembering, so I’m going to date this for the last day of the meeting, when the story concludes.
I’d arrived in Beijing after a week in Seoul, Korea, which is the next previous entry in this blog. It had already been a pretty busy trip and Beijing was busy at times. I was in a session when my phone rang. Anybody who knows me probably knows this is a rare occurrence, especially when I’m out of the country. Usually if it happens it’s some charity looking for a donation or a real estate agent trying to get me to sell my house. Everybody else knows I’m overseas. Nobody ever calls me anyway. If you want to get in touch with me, try email, SMS, or Facebook in that order 😉
So anyway I answer the phone and I’m a bit annoyed at having to leave the meeting so that I can talk. A female Asian voice on the other end of the phone asks if I am Pauline Gosling’s husband. “What?” I ask somewhat incredulous at the question? She repeated it and I said, “No, I’m not” and hung up, went back into the meeting and sat down.
Of course my phone rang again, immediately. I was not happy. I had to get up and walk out again. “Please don’t hang up,” she says, “I need to ask you a question.”
“Didn’t we just speak,” I fume. Anyway, she asks again. “Are you Pauline Gosling’s husband.” I’m really angry in the way those who know me, know that I can be.
“I just told you that I am not Pauline Gosling’s husband. I don’t know anybody called Pauline Gosling and I am certainly not married to her. Now I am in Beijing in a very important meeting DON’T CALL ME AGAIN.”
Anyway, I return to the meeting, but by now I’m intrigued about who might be trying to find Pauline’s husband. I feel a bit guilty for being so grumpy about it when I think, perhaps she’s had an accident and the caller is a nurse from the hospital telling the poor woman’s partner to come quickly as he need to sign release forms so they can perform life-saving surgery or something.
So I look at the phone number, or rather the phone numbers. They look like a mobile number as they start with 019 or something. The first thing I notice is that they are sequential; identical except the last digit advanced by one in the second call. Probably a call center, I think and Google the number (as you do).
It only take a relatively easy search to find an article, or a blog rather, about SBS journalists from Australia who say they are monitored by the Chinese secret service and that they frequently get phone calls from the number I had just been speaking to, incremental always the same three sequence of numbers. I only had two, so perhaps they figured it really wasn’t worth phoning again as I would just hang up. Which is about right.
All this was six months ago now and I just checked my phone. The number isn’t stored in the call log anymore. It might still be in my Google search history, but given that I’m currently in China again, I’m not going to start looking for the blog entry by the SBS journo’s.
By now I’m a little paranoid. Although I maintain that paranoid is not the right word for when you are worried about something and when that something is really happening.
I can’t really think of why the PC spooks would be so interested in me. I’m really not that interesting, right. So I punch Pauline Gosling into Google. I can’t actually recall if that was the name and again, I’m not going to start doing too many searches for that name. Maybe I’ll try to track down the ‘evidence’ when I get back home. Anyway, it only take a few minutes on Google tom pop up a Facebook profile page for Adam and Pauline Gosling.
It was hardly surprising that Adam was educated by the Australian defense forces. I’ve no idea what he does for a living and this is the first time I’ve come across THAT Adam Gosling. There are more of me out there than I would have thought, but there you go.
Needless to say, I was a little freaked out by this stage, but the story isn’t over yet.
On the last day of the meeting I was at a cocktail party and we were all standing around mingling, talking to people we knew or didn’t know. i was having a long conversation with somebody I did know and was eager to go outside for a cigarette, so eventually I excused myself and made for the door.
A rather stocky Chinese fellow grabbed me gently by the arm. I had already sub-consciously noticed him as he was hanging about not really knowing what to do with himself, but that’s not so odd. It happens to me in a room full of people I don’t know.
Anyway, he insisted I stop and talk to him, even though I said I was about to leave for a cigarette. I already had them in my hand, such is the devil of addiction. So this rather stocky Chinese fellow in a jacket and open collar says “I saw you before on stage. I know you are a very important person here and I hope that you can help me.”
“Me? On stage? No. you must have me confused with somebody else.” I hadn’t been on stage all week and I’m certainly not an important person who can help anybody. Well, right that’s true.
Anyway, he starts to complain bitterly about regulation of the Internet in China and of the ICANN policies. So, right, I’m not that stupid: “ICANN has an ombudsman. Do you know what that is? He is able to resolve complaints like this. I don’t have his contact details, but I am sure they would be very easy to find on the ICANN website.” True. They are really easy to find.
“Every Nation State has the right to regulate the Internet as they want, that’s just the way it is and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“CNNIC are good partners with my organisation. I know they are required to deal fairly with all applications and to follow our policies and the laws of the country here. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with the way they distribute resources.”
I tried to be sympathetic to him, but seriously, all of the above is true. There are laws, policy processes and rules, I can only assume that everybody is abiding by them – even if as an individual he didn’t like them.
Not that I thought any of this was sincere. As soon as he approached me I was on my guard and when he started complaining I got that paranoid feeling back again.Especially as he was the only person in the room not wearing a conference badge, so I couldn’t even tell where he was from.
What’s worse was that I still really wanted a cigarette. So eventually I was able to excuse myself after maybe five or ten minutes of conversation that I found extremely uncomfortable about.
I gave him my card and hoped he would reciprocate. He didn’t. I said something like “if there’s every anything I can do to help explain the policies or help him get in touch with the ICANN ombudsman, he should get in contact.
As I was nearly getting away, I saw a chance in the conversation: “Where do you work?”
“I work in security, he said.
I fled.