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A colleague at a former academic job was questioned by campus police because he was one of a handful of people on the university network connected to TOR when a
by chefandy 4y ago
A colleague at a former academic job was questioned by campus police because he was one of a handful of people on the university network connected to TOR when a bomb threat was submitted (I forget how, though) from an IP address running a TOR exit node. Bomb threats from students were pretty common during exams, so after the cops saw that it was our very privacy conscious dev ops guy they didn't pursue him as a suspect. If the person who did it connected to TOR from the university network to submit a bomb threat to duck an exam, they definitely deserve to get caught. I think that qualifies as "just enough knowledge to be dangerous."
- scrlk 4y agoWas it this incident? https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/18/5224130/fbi-agents-tracked-harvard-bomb-threats-across-tor https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/18/5224130/fbi-agents-track...
- chefandy 4y agoMuch more recent.
- andirk 4y agoSometimes it goes the other way too. In my high school, a handful of kids wore all black every day. They were harmless valley girls/guys if you spoke with them. I figured they _wanted_ to be seen as a threat. Why would someone make a legit bomb threat? Isn't the point of the bomb for it to explode?
- MerelyMortal 4y agoI suppose some people might just want to destroy infrastructure and not kill people directly (give people an opportunity to evacuate).
- Eisenstein 4y agoTwo historical examples: The Weather Underground regularly and the IRA occasionally called in their bombs in advance order to reduce/remove civilian casualties. They tried to give enough time to evacuate an area but not enough time to find and defuse the device.
- chefandy 4y agoI wore all black as a high school student. It fit with my subculture intersts and I just dug the dark aesthetic. I knew other people found it to be unsettling but figured they should probably be more open minded and judge people for what they do and say rather than how they look... I was right, too. Cops disagreed. The nice part is how pleased people were to find out how pleasant I was to talk to.
- andirk 4y agoThe replies have reminded me to mention that I shouldn't judge so quickly and that a handful of those all-black-clothes-all-day-regardless-of-weather school mates were and some still are my friends. I still believe there is a message that is trying to be delivered via one's threads but it can be a plethora of messages rather than just "fear me". EOM.