Thursday, April 22, 1999
Killers but a Drop in Internet's Vast Ocean of Angst
Technology: Monitor dismissed violent writings when comparing them to
others' darker rantings.
By GREG MILLER, Times Staff Writers
Before gunning down 13 people at Columbine High School near Denver on
Tuesday, the two teenage killers left disturbing electronic footprints across
the Internet.
There were drawings of horned beasts and figures brandishing knives. There
were ominous quotes--"I kill who I don't like"--and obscure references to
"420," the date of the shootings and Adolf Hitler's birthday. There was even a
recipe for pipe bombs.
But amid the oceans of angst unleashed every day on the Internet, the digital
traces apparently left by these troubled Colorado teens amount to a few
specks of sand.
Postings more malevolent than any attributed to these two are plentiful on the
Net, where people tend to reveal their darkest thoughts from behind
anonymous identities. Pipe bomb recipes abound, with instructions in far
greater detail than the one apparently posted by gunman Eric Harris.
Experts said there was no way to anticipate Tuesday's events from online
warnings.
In fact, officials from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said
they had come across material from Harris and his fellow assailant, Dylan
Klebold, during the organization's recent sweep of hate content on the
Internet. But the center dismissed it as exactly what it was until Tuesday: the
all-too-common online posturing of disaffected teens.
"The full range of human expression is something you can find on the
Internet," said Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a civil liberties group. "And teenage alienation is pretty
common."
Many Internet experts cringed Wednesday at the inevitable effort to connect
Tuesday's horror to online behavior. Most believe that the Internet's role in
tragedies tends to be exaggerated, pointing to the flurry of stories several
years ago about the Web site affiliated with the Heaven's Gate cult that
committed mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
Nevertheless, authorities and Internet service providers on Wednesday were
trying to preserve and piece together the scraps of electronic evidence related
to the shootings.
America Online, for instance, removed a collection of files apparently created
by Harris. There is also a great deal of information on the killers that is
difficult to trace or verify. For instance, the purported America Online user
profiles of the teens were being widely distributed in online news groups
Wednesday.
Klebold's supposed profile, under the user name WurmHole, lists his
hometown as Littleton, Colo., his hobbies as "computers, chasing the ladies"
and his personal quote as "420," possibly a reference to Hitler's April 20
birth date or an eerie precursor of Tuesday's tragedy.
Harris may have had an account with WBS.net, an online community site,
although company officials declined to comment on any content affiliated
with specific members. His profile there says: "I kill who I don't like, I waste
what I don't want, I destroy what I hate."
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, who coordinates the ongoing digital hate study at the
Wiesenthal Center, said researchers came across material from Harris
and Klebold a month ago, but they didn't think it merited inclusion in the
center's recently published list of 1,400 online hate sites. Still, Cooper said
the teens probably learned about pipe bombs and military tactics online,
"unless these kids had a guest terrorist giving them lectures."
_ _ _
Times staff writers David Colker and Nona Yates contributed to this story.
Copyright Los Angeles Times |
