"Is my Furby a computer?"
With five months in jail and eight months of parole behind him, and four years of probation to go, Trevor finds himself contemplating the artificial intelligence of a Furby, and its threat to his future.
As a registered sex offender, Trevor must abide by a bewildering array of rules, regulations and restrictions. He was introduced to the maze upon parole: He wasn't supposed to use a computer or the internet, but his parole officer didn't initially inform him of these constraints. Ironically, he found out his parole conditions online.
Later, during a mandatory polygraph test, a police officer slid a pen and paper toward Trevor, demanding that he write down every username and online alias he has ever had. Trevor, a young, self-identified "freaky queer video/net artist," found this request laughable and troublingly out-of-touch.
"They didn't even understand that any time you comment on anything on a site you have to usually create a username, or any of the endless crap you have to create accounts for online," he said. "They still seem stuck in the mid-90s or something, as if I have one email address and one screen name that I use to talk to pedophiles and minors on the internet, like it works that way."
This is the state of technology and the law when it comes to registered sex offenders - ignorance, confusion, misinformation and conflicting court decisions.
Trevor ended up scribbling down an abandoned Tumblr account and a fake Gmail address he created after his release from jail. He knew the risks of providing outdated or false internet aliases, but thought that this was preferable to leading the police to real information they could misconstrue and use against him.
Trevor's paranoia stems from his recent experience with law enforcement. In 2012, he was convicted of "knowingly possessing child pornography," but maintains his innocence. The police stopped him at the airport after child-porn tracking software led them to a router that he used while house-sitting, leaving Trevor baffled.
