THE CATACOMBS

Port Kembla, NSW, Australia

He could feel the cloying commnentary months, years later, and it didn't seem to matter how invisible he became, how quiet, how non-controversial. He walked the quiet path, and still he could hear them. "The laughing stock." Well, who points the finger points it back at themselves. He hadn't wanted to come back here, to the country of his birth. Not in any way. Most of his friends were dead; others had moved on. Nobody retired to Sydney, they all retired to the bush, one way or another.  

There wasn't any place you could call a village, or a home. There were old neighbourhoods, and that's it.

And the strange, late night catacombs he had dreamt of even as a child. 

"I've made a shocking discovery, gay men like to get stoned and go out and have sex with each other half the night," he said in mock outrage to his invisible friend. "You could have knocked me over with a feather when I realised."

There weren't any corridors left unexplored, there were old, fleeting points of passing, and that was it. A memory. A distant call. A large, tubby, amiable man. Strange how affectionate strangers could be to each other.

"I know, he's sent him to protect him," came another invisible voice. And Michael remained just as haunted here as he had been anywhere else; and didn't want to be here. 

The crisis remained. He remained. The rest of the country was steaming towards Christmas; the isolated remnants of what passed for his family did not celebrate it; another pagan ceremony, another reason to decry the world at large. And so he grew more silent with each passing day; and let them fly.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/us-bill-requires-smart-phone-kill-switch/story-e6frfkui-1226787091767

TWO US officials have announced plans to introduce legislation requiring smart phones to have a "kill switch" that would render stolen or lost devices inoperable.

California State Senator Mark Leno and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon announced on Thursday that the bill they believe will be the first of its kind in the United States will be formally introduced in January.

US law enforcement officials have been demanding that manufacturers create kill switches to combat surging smart phone theft across the country.

"One of the top catalysts for street crime in many California cities is smart phone theft, and these crimes are becoming increasingly violent," Leno said.

"We cannot continue to ignore our ability to utilise existing technology to stop cellphone thieves in their tracks..."

Almost one in three US robberies involve phone theft, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

Lost and stolen mobile devices - mostly smart phones - cost consumers more than $US30 billion ($A33.98 billion) last year, according to a study.

In San Francisco alone, more than 50 per cent of all robberies involve the theft of a mobile device, the San Francisco District Attorney's office said.

Samsung Electronics, the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, earlier this year proposed installing a kill switch in its devices.

But the company told Gascon's office the biggest US carriers rejected the idea.

The CTIA-The Wireless Association, a trade group for wireless providers, says a permanent kill switch has serious risks, including potential vulnerability to hackers who could disable mobile devices and lock out not only individuals' phones, but also phones used by entities such as the Department of Defense, Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies.