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The Internet Is Now Part of the Crime Scene

Posted by samzenpus on from the looking-back dept.

theodp (442580) writes "Over at Forbes, Kashmir Hill examines the disturbing Internet footprint of Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger. 'A decade ago,' observes TechCrunch's John Biggs in The Internet Is Now Part Of The Crime Scene, 'a crime scene was a photo and a report. Now it is a sea of interconnected tracings, the murderer bobbing loosely in social media and the forums. We can watch him make his way through these straits, we can watch the madness growing, and we can watch his terrible end, all through murk of media. We are quick to judge and we are quick to look at his wake and say, definitively, that he was this or he was that. He was frustrated. The frustration grew. He went to a place he thought would help. It didn't.'"

31 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Nobody move a finger! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is official police business. Ctrl-Z and wait to be questioned.

    1. Re:Nobody move a finger! by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      OT but a little funny: this reminds me of a time when I was a vax/vms guy and working with a hardcore unix (ultrix) guy. I was in good old EDT editor (remember that?) and asked the guy for some help on something. he came over to my terminal, hit ctl-z (thinking it would just put my current job in the bg) but, in fact, in EDT editor ctl-z SAVES THE FILE AND EXITS!

      oops. he felt embarassed, as well he should have. I was not an emacs guy at that point, yet...

      never walk up to someone's terminal and just hit ctl-z. never go full retard, either.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  2. the crime scene is still... by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ..the places where he made the shootings and possibly where he prepared.

    the internet is not a "crime scene"(for this) any more than the postal system and newspaper opinion pieces were 30 years ago..

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    1. Re:the crime scene is still... by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. I don't see how this is any different than interviewing a person's neighbors, family, coworkers like they did 15 years ago (and still do now). Or reading the person's journal, or notes or manifesto they left behind. The only difference is that these were private, whereas now anyone can post whatever they like on the internet for people to see. But youtube or blogs are essentially nothing more than the 21st century version of the manifesto or suicide note.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    2. Re:the crime scene is still... by sillybilly · · Score: 2

      moreover it's easy to fake and orchestrate evidence against someone on the internet... where are the witnesses? server logs can be tinkered with, etc.. and digital data doesn't leave a footprint like handwriting or erased handwriting.. and handwriting can be forged too.. everything in the world can be forged.. except gold and platinum and such, as substances, because of their high density.

  3. Double-Edged Sword by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like pretty much any invention mankind has ever come up with, the Internet can help or hurt. If someone is feeling upset over something, they can turn to friends online for help and can get assistance, support, and guidance through their troubled times. Or, if they aren't as lucky or don't look in the right places, they can find abuse hurled at them, idiots saying "Why don't you just kill yourself" and the like, or an echo chamber where particular prejudices are amplified and focused against Group X being the cause of all of the person's problems.

    This isn't really that different from a distraught person seeking help from others via face-to-face social interaction except that the "kill yourself" jerks are probably somewhat less likely to say that to a person's face. Then again, some people I've met in person don't seem to care at all if what they say/do hurts another person. In fact, they consider hurting another person as "harmless fun." These people would be jerks even if the Internet had never existed.

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  4. Can we stop talking about the killers yet? by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No wonder people keep committing mass killings: they see the people that killed before them and see someone who was invisible, that no one paid attention to, become a household name. How many people here know the name of the person that shot up Sandy Hook, or the Colorado movie theater, this guy, or Columbine? Now, name me some of their vicitms? You can't. People that feel unstable, or feel marginalized and that no one ever notices them or cares about them, they already need mental help. If they turn to the internet, post videos on youtube or write blogs, they get pushed over the edge even more when no one watches their video, or people write negative comments. They get to the point where the only way to get noticed is to start killing people. If they do that they become famous, everyone starts talking about them. When you see yourself as only something they might see killing as the only way to become someone. Stop publishing the names of these killers, stop implicitly glorifying these people, and killings will drop. We also need to improve mental health treatment in the country, but that's a whole other topic.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    1. Re:Can we stop talking about the killers yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not talking about it will not prevent it from happening again.

    2. Re:Can we stop talking about the killers yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Posting AC here, but this is something I wholeheartedly agree on.

      CNN covered the whole biography of the shooter, read his manifesto out loud, and retraced his steps in very slow detail. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a monument with the guy's name on it. Of course, came the whining from the parents about how evil the gun sellers and the NRA were for not realizing their poor son was sick... but the kid was so rich, any doctor that stood in his way would likely have had a malpractice suit slammed on them or just fired.

      Want to know why school shootings are popular now? Columbine basically put the two shooters on the map with a monument forever naming their names. 20 years from now, they will be remembered. 40 years? possibly. In the past school shootings were handled locally just like the Chicago suburban gangbanger crime [1] that never gets national attention. Now, the shooters are treated with war heroes and given almost the same type of burial.

      Fsck that. These are criminals... why do they deserve so much time in front of the news media?

      Now add to the mix schools and the pressure cooker for anyone in a public school more intelligent than normal. They get bullied 24/7 by the dipshits, the school district doesn't care unless they are on the football team, then combine that with the powerful psychoactive meds that docs throw at kids, and they start to get in their heads that in 20 years, news will say their names every year and there will be a monument in their name.

      I wouldn't be surprised if the press knows this. The push for gun control laws only makes it easier because it means more soft targets. In Texas, after the guy shot up the Luby's, which got concealed carry passed, there have been multiple attempted shootings at malls. All stopped by CHL permit holders who either stopped the gunman in their tracks by just the presence of a weapon, or just took care of business before it made the news.

      The press knows this. That's why the mass shooters head to "gun free zones", and when their rampage hits the news, it only gets the lawmakers wanting to enact more gun control measures. A nice feedback loop, instilling fear, and getting eyeballs. These are dream stories for the press since after the massacre, there is no danger for reporters, unlike reporting gang shootings.

      For people outside the US, there is a demand for firearms. A kid that did this shooting could have easily gotten his guns from an underground metal shop in Mexico (1911 .45 pistols are 1800s tech, including the magazines.) All the lawmakers with their gun control schemes will do is cause -more- of these events to happen. The guns won't go off the street. The Mexican gangs will see that the registered weapons with serial numbers that get seized will be replaced by unregistered ones just as good but coming from factories south of the border.

      So, tl;tr, the press is doing a disservice to everyone by encouraging kids whose minds are already destablized by the meds tossed at them to perform these atrocities.

      [1]: The city cleaned up the garbage, so the gangs moved to the suburbs.

    3. Re:Can we stop talking about the killers yet? by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One of them (Adam Lanza) I remember only because the media started going crazy with "He had Asperger's which made him shoot everyone up." As someone with Asperger's Syndrome and as the father of a boy with Asperger's this struck a nerve. People with Asperger's aren't more likely to commit violent acts than neurotypical (non-Autistic) people. In fact, they are more likely to be the recipients of violence. If they do become violent, they are more likely to hurt themselves than others and even if they hurt others it will be in an unplanned out lashing out (e.g. swinging arms because they are upset and happening to hit someone), not a carefully planned out event like these mass killings were. But, unfortunately, the media loves a simple "reason" and seized on Asperger's as "the cause." The whole affair burned Lanza's name into my memory. So it wasn't his actions that cause me to remember him but the media missteps in reporting his actions.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    4. Re:Can we stop talking about the killers yet? by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Talking about it will not prevent it from happening again.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    5. Re:Can we stop talking about the killers yet? by HornWumpus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      At their core these are suicides. Suicide is contagious.

      Right now there are people on the edge of nutting up that are watching the attention this fuckwit is getting and thinking about it...

      It's the same the world over, in Germany 'Ghost Drivers' (murderous suicides that go the wrong way on the autobahn) happen in streaks.

      Reporters feed this problem. They have suggested advice (don't repeat the jackass' name constantly, report other things; don't focus on the killer.) but don't follow it.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    6. Re:Can we stop talking about the killers yet? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      So you understand how we feel about gun grabbers?

      You're talking to the wrong person dude. Loves me my second Amendment, as well as the first. I am not so kindly disposed to the kooks that blame every possible problem on those they disagree with. They do themselves a disservice.

      They can be snookered into insane positions, like backing up the Bundy kook that doesn't even recognize the US Government. Doesn't recognize the US Government, and running an armed camp inside the country that I pledge alliegance to and will defend to my death if need be? That person is my enemy. And Fox news and their sychophants took his side until they found themselves skirting the sharp edge of sedition.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    7. Re:Can we stop talking about the killers yet? by SternisheFan · · Score: 2
      I was bullied as a kid, and as a young man. You know what I did? When I was mad enough at the injustice I saw I stood up to those bullies, as any young man (or young woman) should. Over time, I matured and learned that sometimes being a man means walking away from a fight. Fighting comes easily to us humans, it's easy to throw a punch (or to pull a trigger, for that matter). A true man or woman must do the hard thing in life sometimes, and sometimes the hard thing for us to do means walking away from a needless fight, especially when we really want to answer back with violence.

      Not every battle is that important that it needs to be 'won'. And this overly indulged young male (he does not rate the use of the term 'Man', Imo) allowed his anger to grow and fester within him. He did not even try to consider that other people have the same right to life as he does, he just let his anger take control over his actions. In other words, he did the 'easy' thing. What a waste...

  5. The bigger story by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Interesting

    is to congratulate the NSA and FBI on what a fine job they are doing spying on us. How safe they kept us with ever intrusive nets. That they can't even catch a kid whose own relatives called the police on him worried and posted out in the open that he'll kill people.

    And then they go on how they need more powers to protect us. Yeah, right, more like to control the populace.

    Congratulations Law Enforcement. Awesome work.

    1. Re:The bigger story by spire3661 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The NSA isnt WATCHING, they are RECORDING and STORING for later use. Its a very different game.

      --
      Good-bye
    2. Re:The bigger story by ganjadude · · Score: 4, Insightful

      really? because I would wager that a number of us here have been shit on for a large portion of our lives, being the geeks and nerds and all. Ive never killed anyone

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    3. Re:The bigger story by onkelonkel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is what narcissistic psychopaths do; they blame other people for their own problems. Girls don't want to go out with me. It's clearly their problem, nothing to do with me, so I will kill them all.

      --
      None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
    4. Re:The bigger story by PPH · · Score: 2

      They are made by the very same people they eventually go homicidal on.

      So, the six people who died in Santa Barbara were targeted because they shit on Rodger? I don't think so.

      Leaving the issue of made vs born aside for the moment, many people who go off the deep end just take their problems out on targets of convenience. Even if someone actually did 'shit on them', odds are when the snap, the shitee will just go off on the nearest person or on a group that they believe represents their tormentor.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  6. What kind of dating approach by Deadstick · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...will never get you a date if you (a) are a fairly nice-looking kid, (b) drive a BMW, and (c) have a father who employs actresses?

    About the only one I can think of is "Let me tell you about Amway".

    1. Re:What kind of dating approach by dinfinity · · Score: 2

      Have you heard him talk?

      This guy pretty much defines 'utterly creepy psycho'. Just watch some of the video's discussed in TFA.

    2. Re:What kind of dating approach by mpe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      From what I have gathered, he didn't even speak to them. He simply expected them to come up to him and lust after his cock or something. It is really bizarre. He had no social skills *at all*,

      Possibly because that's how things looked to him. Any skil set (including "social skills") can look like magic to someone who does not posess it. Quite a bit of social interaction, including sexual, is "non-verbal". (Sexual encounters which involve little even no verbal communication certainly do happen.) People with good non-verbal communication skills are often less conciously aware of non-verbal communication than those who are poor at non-verbal communication. With the former even assuming that all communication is verbal.

      which seems to have been the result of him being awkward around the time high school started and him retreating into video games, mainly WoW.

      More likely this was a reaction to his lack of social skills. Whilst the lack of a non verbal communication channel, in text based chat, is often considered a handicap this dosn't tend to be the case people who have difficulty with non verbal communication. Especially if their non verbal illiteracy means they are effectivly sending out "noise".
      Being verbally literate but non verbally illiterate appears to be especially confusing to the verbally and non verbally literate majority.
      In Western cultures, possibly others, whilst verbal communication is typically taught to both children and adults non verbal communication typically isn't.

    3. Re:What kind of dating approach by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Given that this idiot was still stewing over not getting to go on a carnival ride with his friends 16 years after the fact (apparently, the little shit was too short to meet the minimum height requirement - you remember those "you must be this tall to ride this ride" signs), I can well believe he came across as a whackjob.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    4. Re:What kind of dating approach by Jason+Levine · · Score: 2

      Not just social isolation, but falling in with the wrong crowd socially. Had he had friends who educated him about his misogyny (and had he listened), he might have turned his dating life around. However, from the reports I've heard, he fell into a crowd who - like him - saw women as objects who should bend to men's sexual demands and who got upset when women insisted on being treated like actual people. This added to his mental instability instead of helping him.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  7. Makes forensic avoidance simple by larwe · · Score: 2

    So what I glean from this is "Step 1 in committing any crime: Delete all social media accounts before posting anything about it".

  8. Not so fast.... by westlake · · Score: 2, Interesting

    the internet is not a "crime scene"(for this) any more than the postal system and newspaper opinion pieces were 30 years ago..

    A crime scene is a location where a crime took place or another location where evidence of the crime may be found.

    Crime scene

    Rodger's e-mails and posts to the Internet would be admissible as evidence of premeditated murder.

    Once again, a self-made video, uploaded to the world via YouTube, is at the heart of a horrific news event.

    Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old man who authorities say killed six people in the Santa Barbara, Calif., area before fatally shooting himself late Friday, posted at least two self-pitying videos to the video-sharing site shortly before he went on his rampage.

    The videos --- in which Rodger calmly and chillingly discusses his sexual frustrations and intent to ''slaughter'' those he claims harmed him --- were removed by YouTube after viewers flagged them. But they were repeatedly re-posted on the site as copies spread across the Internet.

    Videos are routinely flagged by YouTube's users; the company reviews videos that have raised concerns and removes them if they violate its community guidelines. Among other things, the guidelines prohibit videos displaying ''predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment [and] intimidation ... and inciting others to commit violent acts. ... Anyone caught doing these things may be permanently banned from YouTube.''

    Law enforcement authorities in Santa Barbara said they are analyzing Rodger's videos, which he apparently has posted online since 2012.

    Elliot Rodger video removed by YouTube

    Finally, when exactly did the angry rants of a mass murderer become rightfully characterized as a manifesto? Although Rodger's document is a manifestation of emotional disturbance, it hardly qualifies to be called a manifesto. A true manifesto reflects the political ideology of a formidable leader of men, a political force to be reckoned with. Nowhere in his 141 pages does Rodger describe his manuscript in such a way.

    So why should we?

    Why mass killers need to explain their plan

  9. They are NOT friends. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If someone is feeling upset over something, they can turn to friends online for help and can get assistance, support, and guidance through their troubled times.

    Internet "friends" are no such thing - they are just electronic ghosts of people. The relationship is superficial and shallow - no matter how nice it is.

    Nothing beats face to face interaction with someone. Nothing.

    We have mirror neurons that allow us to connect and help with emotional regulation.

    That kid didn't have adequate real personal connections. From what I've read, his family sounds pretty fucked up and mix in any mental illness this kid had (reported Aspie), you get the actions he committed.

    If there was someone who was able to be a real friend to this guy (a VERY tall order considering his previous assaults, abusive actions and emotional issues), maybe - maybe the shooting wouldn't have happened.

    Kids like this usually find "healthier" outlets for their rage like boxing, for example - see Mike Tyson.

    It's pretty sad when folks spend all their time online and consider their online contacts as friends.

    Now for the thick headed, I am NOT talking about communication with your real friends with email or posting to your friends about meeting up at Joe's Bar for happy hour. I am talking about the phony "friends" that are only online with no physical contact.

  10. A: Because it breaks the flow of a message by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4

    Q: Why is starting a comment in the Subject: line incredibly irritating?

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  11. Re:The gun store should be a crime scene by misexistentialist · · Score: 2

    Did he buy the knife at the gun store too?

  12. Shooter? The first 3 deaths were stabbings by schwit1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    He killed 3 with a knife and 3 with a legally purchased firearm. He also tried to kill others with his car.

  13. Re:Half Jew, half Chinese... by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    I'm not sure him being Jewish was relevant. He never mentions it in the part of his diatribe that I read on scribd. Never mentions synogogue or any aspect of Jewish life. I'm guessing that while he may have some genetics that indicate he is of partial Jewish descent, I haven't see that he is one in a cultural, mental, or religious manner.

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon