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Britain's First "Web-Rage" Attack
brown-eyed slug writes "The BBC is reporting what is claimed to be Britain's first "web-rage" attack. A man drove seventy miles to assault his victim with a pick-axe handle after they exchanged insults in a Yahoo! chat room." From the article: "Det Cons Christopher Creagh, of the Metropolitan Police, said: 'This is the first instance of a web-rage attack.' Det Sgt Jean-Marc Bazzoni, of Essex Police, added the case demonstrates the importance of protecting one's identity on the internet. 'Mr Jones had posted pictures of his family on the web and had chatted to Gibbons on an audio link,' he said. 'It demonstrates how easily other users can put two and two together and also shows how children could also find themselves in danger.'"
no one here but us anonymous cowards ... oi.
That is why I do not give my home address here :-)...
Regards, Johan Louwers.
This doesn't have as much to do with the internet as they'd want you to think, I mean the guy drove 70 miles with an axe, obviously he wasn't stable to begin with.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Fucking great, he pulled the "think of the children" line...expect politicians to get involved and new laws passed to "protect the children".
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"It demonstrates how easily other users can put two and two together and also shows how children could also find themselves in danger." ...which, in turn, demonstrates why children should not be allowed unfettered access to the Net. Of course, it's probably just easier to pass legislation than to watch what your kids are doing - that makes it somebody else's problem.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
He travelled 70 miles to Mr Jones' home in Clacton, Essex, and beat him up with a pickaxe handle in December 2005.
You've got to hand to the guy for travelling 70 miles just to beat someone up.
I can't wait for news about someone travelling to the other side of the globe just to beat someone up because they kept fragging them / stealing their gold / beat them double perfect in Street Fighter...
Summation 2
On one hand, I find it sad that a network with the potential to unit the world, and bring us all closer together became the catalyst for such a sick, frenzied and unnecessary attack.
On the other hand, I am happy that my TCP-enabled pickaxe handle may have a market.
Police report that this guy owns not just one, but several ax-handles! He's an ax-handle nut! I wish the ax-handle lobby would own up to the fact that these things are not just dangerous, but potentially DEADLY!
Effective ax-handle control legislation is long overdue! Think of the children!
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
You're right. Sadly, misguided politicians use unfortunate incidents like this to hammer through legislation. This has less to do with the internet than one might think. Assault has been illegal long before the birth of the internet.
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"Psycho attacks man over perceived slight" is the dog bites man story no matter how you wrap it up for media consumption. The man bites dog story would be "Psycho drives 70 miles to clean man's snowed-in driveway with a shovel after an online exchange."
He's psychotic, what did you expect? Him to drive up with a bouquet of fresh flowers for the women of the family and a bottle of Dom Perignon for the gentlemen to savor over fine Cuban cigars?
This is one reason why I plan to live in the South as long as I live in America. Most of the South is still relatively sane. Someone comes at you with any sort of axe, ice pick, knife, etc. you're going to be hard-pressed to find a jury that will convict you for blowing their head off.
I read stories online all the time about youths beating up or murdering people in Britain and the police harassing the 50 year old Brit who asked them to just be quiet. Who are the psychos? The punk youths, the British cop and the institution he represents. I thought the definition of psychosis is a pathological inability to tell right from wrong, and last time I checked, state power harassing law-abiding British subjects set upon by violent punks is the definition of injustice--right and wrong!--making the British legal system technically psychotic.
I remember a story of someone killing another person because the victim sold a virtual sword of the killer.
God spoke to me.
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All events like this are bad in themselves... but the more it happens, the more people might stop and think for a second before they do their utmost to cut someone to shreds, safe behind the anonymity of the internets.
The attacker was clearly a dick, but then I've little doubt that the victim was too. No, it doesn't vindicate it, but it does give me a vicious, guilty little flinch of pleasure.
Note to flamers: the interweb is full of games for bored, vicious little pillocks. Don't play one-up in chat.
Meta will eat itself
Then look at the wider picture here, with binge drinking also increasing and parts of our city centres becoming virtual war-zones on weekend evenings and you begin to wonder whatever happened to self-discipline and restraint in our society. Even take violence at football games - yes, it's decreased here in the past 20 years but only because there are so many police involved in crowd control, no violence ever has the chance to break out.
I'm certain that advertising and the media is at the core of this - kids today are constantly pounded with messages of not being "cool" until they buy, use or wear certain brands of electronic devices, clothing or music. But then, where's the education from parents that their kids just cannot have everything they want right there on the spot?
Maybe I'm wearing "rose-tinted spectacles" but I go out to other European countries a lot, particularly Spain, and I don't hear or see any of these kinds of behaviours - go out in the city streets at night and it's always a lot of people, particularly families, just out having a good time.
This is a really sad incident and we should be ashamed that it happened here.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Are they going to remove the obligation to give your personal details for the domain name WHOIS database?
I think the case demonstrates that the internet is no different than the real world. Trade insults with a guy you just met (online or not) and he may be a violent person that will come over to your house with his buddy and kick your ass. I'm glad he wasn't killed and I hope he'll completely recover but I don't have too much sympathy.
Too many people use the supposed anonymity of the internet as an excuse to be asshats. Always remember...the other guy could be a bigger asshat.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
these kinds of "rage" attacks are definitely on the increases p
t ml
WRONG
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page63.a
(And thats before taking Victorian London into account)
with binge drinking also increasing
LOL ! Getting shitfaced is obviously a new phenominon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_Lane
Even take violence at football games - yes, it's decreased here in the past 20 years but only because there are so many police
Nothing to do with the rise of MDMA in the late 80's & early 90's then?
http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v04n1/04122mdm.h
Stop reading the News of the Screws / Daily Hate and get a grip.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
With a little time and paitence, most anyone can get an address if they have an IP. Why give them that chance?
anoNet gives you the opportunity to have as much anonymity as you want. It doesn't prevent someone from being a dumbass, but it does give that extra little bit to people that do want their privacy.
It is what the Internet was back before big brother stopped by.
Give it a chance, you may like it.
First Incident of Web-Rage or the millionith (ish) incident of one Human going nuts and attacking another.
So, What's new?
The Good Life
Every time you OMGWTF on the internet it bring an axe-wielding psychopath 70 miles closer
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2409469
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By calling it "web rage". Obviously, this man was not in control of himself. Clearly someone who drives 70 miles doesn't have any time to think about their actions at all, it's completely impulsive.
What this man was lacking was a safe way to act out his aggressions on the person he was chatting with. And what do they call a chat application where you can bludgeon the other users with a blunt object? Deathmatch.
Okay class, this concludes today's example of Social Engineering.
He's psychotic, what did you expect? [...] This is one reason why I plan to live in the South as long as I live in America. Most of the South is still relatively sane. Someone comes at you with any sort of axe, ice pick, knife, etc. you're going to be hard-pressed to find a jury that will convict you for blowing their head off.
If that story had taken place in the southern united states, the guy would have driven the 70 miles with his gun and blown the victim away when he opened the door.
When guns are illegal, only pickaxe handles are handy to psycho net ragers.
You can't take the sky from me...
You do know that it goes both ways. He could have just as easily blown you away. In this case, both people are alive. That speaks more for gun control than against it.
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Rage is something different then this. You don't have coherent thought, your unable to speak. I'd really doubt you'd be able to drive 70 miles in a "rage" to kill someone.
This more "web-assholishness" which does exist but has been documented more then enough times.
In conclusion rage != being really angry.
Though I must admit he certainly "went the distance".
This underscores the concept that any communication medium is only as safe/dangerous as the people using it. I am sure there have been cases of "FAX Rage" too, but that is not sexy enough to make the news.
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Clearly the problem is that pick axes and chat rooms are too easy to access to the general public. It is madness that any person can just boot up their computer and access a chat room, or just walk into a hardware store and purchase a pick axe, with no sort of government supervision or licencing. It is undeniable that if chat rooms and pick axes were restricted the same way firearms are restricted now, then a brutal chat-room-pick-axe attacks like this would have never happened.
How anyone can look at this violent crime, and not support chat-room-control and pick-axe control is proof that they are brainwashed by the chat room industry and the pick-axe industry!
Umm... we only have to ban pick-axe handles, he didn't attack him with the actual pick-axe.
That aside, if it wasn't for the UK's stupid gun control laws he could have met the guy at the door with a 12 gauge rather than a kitchen knife.
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I suppose the UK will ban pick axe handles now. They've already banned certain kitchen knives and jsut about all guns. Next will be banning anger.
This guy is way out there
You're assuming he doesn't shoot through the door. This is the silliest datum with respect to gun control on either side that I've seen.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Wow, I find it interesting that there's only one tiny small eeenie weenie reference to this fact mentioned anywhere that I saw:
, 00.html
"The court was told that Mr Jones, 43, had posted personal details about himself online and used his real name when participating in a Yahoo! chatroom dedicated to Islam, where he met Gibbons." - from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2409469
What a surprise, an act of violence occurs after some people were in a chatroom about that peaceful religion we kep hearing about lately, Islam, and furthermore, the media barely even mentions the fact. They don't even say whether Gibbons, or Jones, or both, were muslims - I for one would actualy like to know whether it was the muslim getting beat up, or the muslim doing the beating (or both).
Really, I would like to know. Does anyone have any other links giving more detail on the story?
Anyway, I don't mean to start a religious flame war here, but it makes it hard when this whole big 'first case in britain of web rage' headline comes along - and it's about an argument on an Islamic chat room.
AND PEOPLE DON'T EVEN NOTICE.
Early bird may get the worm.. but the second mouse gets the cheese.