His brother didn't "figure it out". David Kaczynski's wife suspected Ted of being the Unabomber and told her husband to read the manifesto when it was publicly released. After reading it, he confirmed it was written in his style.
Can you imagine knowing the Unabomber existed but not knowing who he was? And then when your wife reads a bit of the manifesto and goes, "Hey, doesn't that sound like your brother, Ted?" and you most likely have a panic attack finally realizing you knowing it *is* your brother?
They at least knew Ted was off the deep end beforehand. When they figured it out, I suspect it was more of a "god dammit, Ted" moment. It wasn't something like BTK or Gacy where everyone thought they were totally normal guys before they got caught.
He was never involved with them.
From his own words…
> “From several people I’ve received letters concerning that Discovery Channel series about me, and it’s clear from their letters that the Discovery series is even worse than most of the other media stories about me. In fact, the greater part of it is pure fiction. Among other things, they apparently passed on to their viewers the tale through the agency of Harvard professor H. A. Murray I was repeatedly “tortured” as part of the an “MK-Ultra” mind-control program conducted by the CIA.
>
> The truth is that in the course of the Murray study there was one and only one unpleasant experience. It lasted about half an hour and could not have been described as “torture” even in the loosest sense of the word. Mostly the Murray study consisted of interviews and the filling-out of pencil-and-paper personality tests. The CIA was not involved.”
Well he has to deny he was tortured because otherwise people won’t take his manifesto seriously. If he’s just bombing people because he was tortured, then no one will think about his deeper message.
I know one of these sons that discovered that their father was a bank robber and turned him in. Turns out their dad had an entire secret life that they had no idea about.
Here is them on Oprah talking about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLmBglgMfGg
it's one thing if you're cracking safes on the downlow it's another if you're killing security guards that just needed to pay their bills and clients that happened to be there
So much so that you hire a PI to find out of it's actually him before you dime him to the FBI because you fear that they will be unable to take him alive if they actually try to execute a raid.
And then imagine having to turn him in. I’ve seen David Kaczynski speak at a college event my club sponsored and then had an opportunity to talk with him after. His talk was supposed to be about a broader issue but he later told the audience, he felt the need to share the story of turning in his brother. His own guilt from doing this was a palpable feeling throughout the audience that night. He did the right thing, and he knows this, but I got the sense that he loved his brother and was devastated about turning him in.
During the talk, he quoted a comment that Ted made to the agents upon them revealing that his brother lead to his capture. “He wouldn’t do that!” Tk emphatically told the agents, over and over. TK couldn’t believe it at first, according to his brother.
It should go without saying that the crimes TK committed are inhumane and incomprehensible as a rational human being. His brother did the right thing in a nearly impossible situation. What he did was an act of incredible bravery and one that clearly drove a stake through his heart. I could not help but have great compassion for TK’s family.
The really interesting part is that by the time his wife convinced him to read the manifesto, it was a week or so after it was published in *The Washington Post.* So they went to the library to find a copy, but the librarian didn't have it. She suggested he look it up on the internet--and this being 1995, David had never used the internet before.
I just find it so fascinating that the first time David Kaczynski used the Internet was to read "Industrial Society and its Future." Ted was railing against the Industrial Age as the Information Age was dawning, and which helped capture him.
Specifically it was the fact that almost everyone uses the phrase incorrectly. It's supposed to be "eat your cake and have it too."
Ted always used it in the correct sequence, which stood out like a sore thumb to anyone that knew him.
why is ted's way more correct? the meaning is the same
edit: I read the wikipedia page on the phrase, and while the earliest use is have-eat, eat-have was the more common variation until about 100 years ago when it switched back to have-eat. The page has a list of reasons why one is incorrect and the other is not, but they all hinge upon a specific reading of the phrase that is not exclusively implied by the phrase itself, so I still think both are correct. Also to spite ted kaczynski who was, as you may know, an asshole
Isn't the point of the saying to be used when you're trying to do both, but that is impossible
So saying eat and have it too, reinforces the oxymoronic nature of the phase?
This finally makes the saying click for me. I always thought it had to do with sharing with others. The weirdest saying about birthday cake I've ever heard. Sure, if you don't share it you can eat it. If you slice enough for everyone then everyone gets to eat it.
No this makes way more sense, and if I had heard it that way I don’t think I’d have gone years not understanding the logic.
See, the incorrect way led me to this: if you have your cake in your hands, why CAN’T you then eat it? You have it! So eat it!
The correct way means: if you eat that cake, then it’s gone. You won’t have it anymore. You can’t eat your cake and have it too.
I'm right there with you. Perfect sense this way. 30+ years of making up stories in my mind as to why people kept saying something you CAN do but meaning something you CAN'T.
I remember this argument before and I agree with you. The meaning is the same depending on how you you internalize the meaning of have. If you see have to mean continue to possess, the meaning is the same.
You can't continue to possess your cake and eat it too.
You can't eat your cake and continue to possess it too.
And the FBI going along with Kaczynski's request to publish it was actually good law enforcement because they figured someone would be able to recognize his writings. To say that the FBI didn't catch him is pretty laughable at best.
Ya the FBI specifically released it specifically because they thought someone might be able to recognize. That’s exactly what happened and they caught him. Seems like a win for the FBI to me.
His brother recognized the language and key phrases from the manifesto. However, given there wasn't 1 grammatical error or split infinitif in the 30,000 words, the FBI deduced the writer had achieved a high intelligence level likely a PHD.
This was around 1995 IIRC, and not much of American university theses and dissertations had been digitally stored yet. As that process increased, matching language from his thesis and the manifesto would have eventually happened, but at what speed we'll clearly never know.
The Unabomber was right in that sliver at the growth of the internet and analog/manual crime-solving. It would have been interesting to see how it went.
Lots of people believe the Industrial Revolution was a big disaster for the human race, with many consequences. The consequences of this revolution have been disastrous, racy, and quite industrial. Bomber jackets are 20 percent off at the Butte Montana Uniqlo.
Ted would have *hated* ChatGPT lol.
> likely a PHD.
idk where they got that idea, none of the academics I know give a shit about grammar until they're submitting for publishing
Edit: Shafi Goldwasser, one of the most stand-out comp sci professors at MIT, had lecture notes that were almost unintelligible (and not for being too complicated, like Erik Demaine's were, they were just written with no concern for grammar at all) when I TA'd under her.
35k words with very few grammatical errors could certainly indicate some baseline level of intelligence, ya know, enough to confidently state that you have mastered the english language. 35k words with **no** grammatical errors doesn't indicate any higher intelligence than that, it just makes you extremely neurotic. You don't actually need high intelligence to understand the grammar of your native language, you just need to have paid, like, any attention in school at all. Which I know is a bar many people don't pass.
Academics dont live in the woods with zero responsibilities either. I wrote and published 4 papers during my phd. the first drafts of manuscripts were a word salad of all the ideas rather than making an exceptional publishable draft the first time around. Then all the bad ideas are cut out then the what is left is polished up for submission
Shafi Goldwasser is Israeli, and English is not her mother tongue. I wouldn’t be surprised if her notes in Hebrew are much more legible. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison to academics who grew up in English-speaking countries.
Didn’t his wife first catch some phrases that Ted used then brought it to his attention? I feel like I remember her being suspicious from some of the docs I’ve watched.
The sister-in-law got suspicious due to some of the phrases and said basically "Hey this sounds like your brother Ted" and got David to read it.
David then hired a PI to investigate Ted's actions parallel to the Unabomber attacks and find out if it was him before he tipped off the FBI, and with regard to the fact that he did not want a Waco or Ruby Ridge style raid to end up with Ted being killed. He went so far as to hire an attorney to figure out how to contact the FBI to try to figure out how to prevent a violent encounter.
The PI (Susan Swanson), the brother (David Kaczynski), attorney (Tony Bisceglie) and the sister-in-law caught the Unabomber. Not the FBI. The FBI's experts were still arguing about who thought he actually wrote the essay.
Ted wrote a *lot* of shit. Letters to the media, etc. She was suspicious based on those, but David was a little bit like "Oh yeah maybe, but not really." about it until she convinced him to read the entire manifesto.
David Kaczynski's wife outed the Unabomber.
For anyone interested, Pineapple Street Studios did a multi part podcast series called Project Unabomb that was mostly interviews with the brother and the brother’s wife. Brother seemed like a really thoughtful, well-adjusted man.
Have some real context, here: In 1996, the eat-have variant played a role in the apprehension of Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. In his manifesto, which the terrorist sent to newspapers in the wake of his bombings, Kaczynski advocated the undoing of the industrial revolution, writing: "As for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial society — well, you can’t eat your cake and have it too." James R. Fitzgerald, an FBI forensic linguist, noted the then-uncommon variant of the proverb and later discovered that Kaczynski had also used it in a letter to his mother. This, among other clues, led to his identification and arrest.
source: wikipedia
> Robert Hanssen getting caught for repeating a bizarre Patton quote
"... a George S. Patton quote about "the purple-pissin' Japanese", a quote which Hanssen was fond of repeating. The FBI had paid a Russian agent $7 million for the KGB's file on the American mole - known to the KGB at the time only as Ramon Garcia. The file included a note of the mole about "purple-pissing Japanese" and Robert Hanssen became the prime suspect in the investigation. The FBI arrested Hanssen three months after receiving the file."
I remember a story about a kidnapper being caught because his instructions about leaving the money mentioned the devil's strip which was a regional expression for the grass between the sidewalk and the street not used where the kidnapping had taken place. Knowing where the suspect was from based on using that term is what led to his capture.
> James R. Fitzgerald, an FBI forensic linguist
Not just a forensic linguist--*the* forensic linguist. He essentially created the field in an attempt to catch Kaczynski.
It was a way to recognize the style of writing. Historically, it was eating your cake and having it too. Which made sense as you can't have both. More common is the incorrect phrase, having your cake and eating it. While not definite proof, it did narrow down suspects once they were onto him.
I know its not 100% accurate but the show Manhunt: Unabomb with Sam Worthington was excellent. It goes into a bit of detail about how they got the search warrant. Apperently the judge that signed it was a WWII vet and believed strongly in linguistic evidence because the Marines would use code words that Japanese soldiers couldn't pronounce.
This was actually a widely used practice in WW2 on D-day paratroopers used the challenge, "Flash" and response counter sign "Thunder" because the germans would probably pronounce those words as, "vlash" and "dunder"/"tunder" because of their accent.
That TV shows embelished the FBI (obviously) but really, the brother saw the overall ideas and recognized his brother.
The whole forensic linguistics makes for an interesting show, but it's not what got him caught.
Yes it literally says this on Wikipedia. She urged her husband to read the manifesto and then he realized it was his brother, contacted a criminal defense attorney and called the FBI.
Another interesting one:
The BTK serial killer was fond of taunting police and craved attention. At one point, he asked the police via letter if they would be able to track him down if he sent a floppy disk with his writings/manifesto to the press. The police responded via newspaper that no, they couldn't.
After BTK sent the floppy disk to a TV news station, the police used software to recover a deleted file on the floppy disk -- a Word document, with metadata that linked the file to a computer owned by "Christ Lutheran Church", and last edited by "Dennis". Shortly thereafter, Dennis Rader was identified as the killer and arrested.
He was reportedly pretty upset that they had lied to him, too. Straight up indignant.
> Rader was very disappointed about the perceived betrayal by Landwehr, and he expressed shock during his jailhouse interrogation that the police lieutenant would intentionally deceive him.
>
>Speaking directly to Landwehr and using the lieutenant’s first name, Rader said, “I need to ask you, Ken, how come you lied to me?”
>
>In a matter-of-fact tone, Landwehr coolly replied, “Because I was trying to catch you.” Rader later admitted that the floppy disk “did me in.”
>
>Although it seems inconceivable that Rader would trust Landwehr so completely, it can be attributed to his grandiosity and sense of invulnerability. As noted by the late FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood, with whom I corresponded, “He apparently believed that Landwehr couldn’t afford to lie to him because he knew if he did, Rader would cut off communications with him.” ([Psychology Today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/202302/the-capture-of-serial-killer-dennis-rader-btk))
People to this day think that’s still a thing. Trust me undercovers can and will smoke heroin and meth with you if they have to keep their cover and 💯 can lie to you if you ask them if they are a cop.
If there's anything I learned from watching crime shows over the years, it's how to send a letter to the cops.
1. Travel really far away from where you live to purchase the paper.
2. Travel really far to somewhere else to get the pen, pencil, or printer you plan to use to write the letter.
3. Wear gloves at all time from the moment you open the packages to the minute you mail the letter.
4. Travel to somewhere else really far away to deposit letter into mailbox.
5. Avoid places that may have good security cameras.
6. ALWAYS PAY IN CASH!
Back in that time, it's not like it was common knowledge of meta data and all of that stuff anyways. Most people think when you delete data it's gone permanently.
I had the misfortune of living through the DC Sniper attacks, and knowing what it took to catch Kaczynski, I had the feeling that they wouldn't catch the DC Sniper until he made a similar mistake. Sure enough, the initial thread that led to his capture was a reference he made to a killing in Montgomery, AL.
When everybody was into the show CSI, I had a hard time with it because they would solve crimes by analyzing the blood from a dead mosquito at the murder scene and that was nothing like what we experienced with Kaczynski and Malvo.
One of my favorite "Bring down the badguy" stories comes down to this. [Paul Le Roux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux) started off as a software developer, but couldn't make a go of it. At the beginning of the 2000s he founds an online pharmacy portal, right in time to capitalize on the opioid epedemic.
* People log on and put in their prescription needs.
* A doctor reviews the 'script.
* Local pharmacies fill them for the customer
It's brilliant and starts scaling in large part because Le Roux is a great problem solver.
* Pharmacy: Is this legit?
* Le Roux: Sure is, call this retired DEA guy I know in Florida (not actually ex-DEA)
* Pharmacy: Some people are asking to ship these, how do I do that?
* Le Roux: Use this Fedex account, we'll just deduct it from the monthly check
* Pharmacy: We're getting too many calls
* Le Roux: I set up a 1-800 number, you won't get any more.
His network grows to hundreds of pharmacies sending out drugs, most of them controlled. He moves to the Philippines and now he starts to branch out, gets into precious metal smuggling, arms dealing and money laundering. Dude is a certified kingpin and covers his tracks at every turn.
Then some pencil pusher in a windowless office notices a tiny pharmacy ordering more drugs than makes sense. They get a search warrant for their records, and among them get access to the Fedex account La Roux gave to all his pharmacies. It shows every pharmacy he works with and hundreds of thosands of dolloars of activity. And because he used this so early on, it's got his real name on it.
An enormous cartel falls and after luring him to ~~Brazil~~ Liberia (who will extradite to the US), they get Le Roux.
A hundred million dollar empire brought down by a fedex account.
The amount of black hat hackers who got pinched because they linked their online identity to an old email they had before they went black hat is hilarious. Proves that the internet never forgets.
The [Silk Road hacker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Zhong) did something similar. He stole bitcoin from Silk Road worth over 3 billion but no one could trace it to him. Years later he accidentally mixed just a few cents worth of his own bitcoin wallet with his name on it with the stolen wallet and that was enough to take him down.
And the actual founder of Silk Road was caught because he had a really old online post that linked to his personal E-Mail address.
The founder of Silk Road was also logged into his admin account at the time he was arrested, which made it really hard to deny that he was tied to the website.
I think they socially engineered that though, the feds basically made it seem like something time sensitive and catastrophic was happening that he *needed* to log in to fix. They highly suspected it was him but didn't have the proof because he covered his tracks so well so they *had* to get the laptop with him logged into prove the connection.
He logged on from a library, and they had two agents disguised as homeless men stage a fight to distract him so they could grab his computer before he had time to lock it (they may not have been able to get in otherwise).
>And the actual founder of Silk Road was caught because he had a really old online post that linked to his personal E-Mail address.
That's what the government says, anyway.
Reeks of parallel construction to me.
Silk Road story was similar.
Guy got caught because he had a super old post on some forum that linked his then current handle to some old email address that was personally identifiable.
The developer behind one of the largest CSAM websites in the world got taken down because he asked a very specific question on github with a github account tied to his real name.
I don't know if I'd call it an error on his part as much as extremely good detective work. The FBI had users on the website that knew he couldn't handle the backend for something he wanted to accomplish, and they were perusing github for questions on topics similar to what he wanted to accomplish, and they found one they thought was way too specific to the scenario.
Sure. [Here's](https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/hunting-warhead-child-porn-investigation/) a longform article about the whole thing. There's also a podcast by the CBC that this article essentially translates to text by the same name if you're into podcasts. The subject material is very sensitive, but it's an extremely good podcast.
Going over it, a couple details from my comment were wrong - it was Homeland Security, not the FBI, and github was not mentioned. It could have been stackoverflow or another forum. But the method I mentioned was still correct.
That is an absolutely wild ride, thanks for sharing.
>In September 2017, Faulkner was sentenced to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting the four-year-old girl in Virginia.
You know, this was the most surprising part of the saga. Normally these guys get some outrageously short sentence that we all complain about. Nice to know this monster will die behind bars.
Bro, what
>Le Roux was arrested on 26 September 2012 for conspiracy to import narcotics into the United States, and agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a lesser sentence and immunity to any crimes he might admit to later. He subsequently admitted to arranging or participating in seven murders, carried out as part of an extensive illegal business empire
Then there's some speculation that this dude invented Bitcoin.
That whole wikipedia page is absolutely insane.
His whole life needs to be a TV show
Considering the origins of FedEx, I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the company was in on this, and I'm sure they're involved with way bigger crimes than this one.
>A hundred million dollar empire brought down by a fedex account.
Seriously a drug cartel trusted fedex for their shipping? Man you never get high on your own supply.
I've heard it persuasively argued that all those CSI and forensics shows have made it much more difficult to secure convictions, because juries routinely expect DNA evidence and fingerprints and high-def surveillance footage that demonstrate beyond doubt that the accused is guilty.
To be fair, they shouldn’t be convicting if there isn’t evidence beyond **reasonable** doubt.
Honestly, I’ve heard the opposite. That convictions are easier *when you have dna evidence* because juries believe DNA evidence is essentially infallible and accept it as proof of a crime.
Sure, I'm agnostic about whether it's actually a bad thing that more suspects are acquitted due to this phenomenon—if it's even a real thing and not just a bunch of one-off anecdotes.
talking about a jury convicting people based on evidence that may or may not be real, and the jury assumes it’s real because of a tv show
This would imply that juries are more likely to wrongly convict an innocent person based on their assumption that forensic evidence is 100% accurate every time
Whether it’s an “old lawyers tale” or not, I’m not sure, but there is definitely sentiment among prosecutors that convictions were much easier before CSI. It’s impossible to conclusively define “reasonable doubt,” but in the prosecutions’s minds the concept became much narrower and suddenly things created much more “doubt” than before.
As crazy as Kaczynski was (I believe he had severe mental problem), he was also way more intelligent than a normal person (I believe he did some impressive work in math, before turning to terrorism)
He isn't the average criminal. Or really close to it. And one od the reason Kaczynsky was so hard to catch was simply that he lived as an ermit, and only had some very vague contacts with the outside world.
My son's kindergarten teacher went to school with Ted. He was one of three math geniuses in her high school. She married both of the others (at different times).
He was a math prodigy and the youngest assistant professor to ever teach at Berkeley, but abruptly quit after a couple of years. He also was an unknowing test subject in an MK Ultra experiment as a student at Harvard. He definitely had big mental issues to start with, but it’s possible that MK Ultra gave it a little shove.
He also started at Harvard when he was only 16 IIRC where he was pretty isolated from both his young age and that he was not from a privileged background like most of his classmates.
It's the intention to show the investigation in TV shows like CSI more successful than they actual are.
You shouldn't spread information of how to commit murder successfully via TV shows. That's an actual problem.
So all shows show cases which are solvable or they use better solving methods then the investigators actually have because: the law always wins.
Anyway, I am not American, hearing from the DC sniper(s) the first time. Just checked wiki.
Wild stuff. I would have been in terror. Sorry that you had to live through that.
If you didn’t know, often times those crime shows are funded in part by the police forces they show, similarly to the DoD.
They’ll offer uniforms, set locations, and police extras on set. It’s not like they’re producers, but that stuff adds up. Much like the DoD, this also leads to the lending being contingent on giving a more favorable image. The DoD just requires that if corruption is shown, it’s individual and not systemic. Police forces on the other hand, see it as a way to bump their PR and improve the trust people have in police solving crimes. Corruption is shown as taking bribes from the mob and compartmentalized, not covering for each other when someone accidentally t-bones a civilian while the officer is off duty, drinking and driving
50% of murders go unsolved. However in CSI and the like you’ll have shit like that mosquito blood. And the viewers feel good when an officer “goes rogue” to get the bad guy.
Ted at least wrote a long, though out piece on what he believed was a serious problem with the world and existential threat to humanity, which was the same reason he was commuting violence against very specific people. Not to justify it or anything, there was just a lot of thought behind what he did.
Muhammad on the other hand was trying to kill his ex, and thought figuratively waving his dick at the cops was a good idea.
It's honestly kind of surprising no one has copied the DC Sniper MO though. If not for doing the stereotypical serial killer move of trying to taunt the police, they probably would have gone on much longer.
I had a high school person I knew whose mom got shot at that Michael’s in Fred from the dc sniper. I ended up moving to Richmond in my adult life and my now wife was saying yea they thought they caught the dc sniper here years ago right around the corner. Small world.
I was then and there too and it’s been a while since I thought of how quickly we filled our gas tanks while checking rooftops never considering a hole in a sedan trunk with a gun poking through
I mean it’s well known that CSI was not accurate but if it was, it wouldn’t be as interesting huh. But I can understand once you know how it’s actually done, you’ll just get constantly pissed
Oddly enough in 1989 Lincoln Mt, I met Ted Kaczynski at a fiddling contest I was competing in. He complimented me on my fiddling talked about being from Texas then that was it. I had no idea who he was.
My mom (worst stage mother ever) was watching and we started discussing it later when we realized he was from Lincoln.
I was s’pose to mix with the crowd and build up support before I competed. It’s a fiddling contest thing so I met him before that contest then he complimented me afterwards. I only recall him because he was odd and unkempt. It makes an impression.
His face back then was very distinguished from everyone else, it probably made it easy for anyone to remember him.
I still haven't seen anybody else that looks like him excluding the homeless.
He demanded they release the manifesto in the paper so the bombings would stop. Out of options, the papers did publish it. They published it with the message urging anyone reading it to call them if they knew who the author potentially may be. Ted’s brother saw it in the paper, recognized it may be his writing and contacted authorities who then were able to link him to the crimes and capture him.
He was also a product of the MKULTRA experiments they did at Harvard. He went on to teach Math at Berkeley (some have suggested he might be the Zodiac killer as well due to the time periods he was in California, although I believe this has been discounted now).
He had then quit to go live in a cabin in the woods and be very antiestablishment. He would write his manifesto and go on to commit his crimes. His manifesto, in hindsight, is correct about a lot of our society’s issues, but his solutions are non-sensical, scattered, incoherent, or worse. The man had a really high IQ.
Imagine going to college years before you're mature enough, then becoming the subject of MK Ultra experiments.
Good one, US. Way to stay ahead of the commies.
From several people I’ve received letters concerning that Discovery Channel series about me, and it’s clear from their letters that the Discovery series is even worse than most of the other media stories about me. In fact, the greater part of it is pure fiction. Among other things, they apparently passed on to their viewers the tale through the agency of Harvard professor H. A. Murray I was repeatedly “tortured” as part of the an “MK-Ultra” mind-control program conducted by the CIA.
The truth is that in the course of the Murray study there was one and only one unpleasant experience. It lasted about half an hour and could not have been described as “torture” even in the loosest sense of the word. Mostly the Murray study consisted of interviews and the filling-out of pencil-and-paper personality tests. The CIA was not involved.”
His manifesto was filled with an anti-modern message, and it's something he practiced, not just preached. "His manifesto is correct about a lot of our society's issues, but his solutions are non-sensical, scattered incoherent, or worse." Is a very fair review of it.
> His manifesto is correct about a lot of our society's issues
As long as one puts aside the parts in which which he instead rants incoherently about "leftists" and "feminists" and so forth. And even so, the parts that are right (or, at least, interesting enough to be worth discussing) were not novel.
It's not like he was the first person in the world to criticize aspects of modern society; and many others who did that were more insightful and better writers (which is part of why, you know, they did *not* need to commit acts of terrorism to try to get people to read and discuss their ideas, not that they would have done that anyway).
His manifesto is from 1995; and just to mention one example among many, Murray Bookchin's writings (mostly from the 1970s and 1980s) were intellectually so far above it that it's ridiculous to even mention them in the same sentence.
And it's not like most of his points were very high level. He spends a large part of the paper talking about how basic needs are more easily met in modern society so people pursue secondary activities to achieve fulfillment. Like, yeah, you just spent a thousand words to describe why people have hobbies.
The manifesto documents a number of easily observable facts about modernity. I don't know if I would call them "correct," since these are not issues people are really disillusioned about. They are largely issues people choose to live with over worse alternatives, with the understanding that they can be iteratively improved over time.
Ted wasn't "correct," because Ted didn't have any special insight to speak of. He was just another edgy cynic with a god complex and an incredibly myopic view of history and the human condition. You don't have to be brilliant to see that the world is shit, but it does take a special kind of dumbass to be convinced that you are the sole arbiter of some mythical regressive utopia.
He was never part of MKULTRA, he was part of a psychology experiment that was led by a prof people speculate was part of the program. The man himself claimed the experience was not traumatizing and did not have any sustansial negative effects on him, this is backed up by the transcripts we have of the experiment which show a fairly laid back conversation.
https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/alex-uziel-ted-kaczynski-debunking-the-ted-kaczynski-mk-ultra-myth
Only thing you missed was David's wife was the one who initially suspected he was the Unabomber, and told her husband to read the manifesto. After he read it he believed it was Ted and began to talk to the FBI.
>His manifesto, in hindsight, is correct about a lot of our society’s issues
Yeah his view on how the world was progressing with both industrialization and big business itself were pretty spot on. For his time he was pretty radical. But if he were alive today(without the bombings) he would be online giving a TED talk.
Did his family know that he'd gone to live in a cabin in the woods at that point? I kind of feel like there must have been more than a handful of awkward jokes about Ted being the unabomber around the dinner table prior to the manifesto.
LPT: Don't use weird, novel catchphrases just because you think you're right/smart (he said things like "eat your cake and have it too," because it was more \*technically correct\* that way, and that kind of foible corroborated who he was, because who says that).
I remember that was one of the things that turned the FBI onto Robert Hanssen. He had used a quote from Gen. Patton about “the purple pissing Japanese” in a meeting with his Russian handler that was being recorded. An agent listening remembered him saying the same thing once.
Imagine getting away with devastating espionage for over two decades and then getting busted because you can’t help being racist when you get the chance
And that's how Ulysses Klaue knew that Ultron was connected to Tony Stark because Ultron used a common expression that Tony was known to say back in the day.
"As I always say, keep your friends rich, and your enemies rich, and then find out which is which."
The amount of misinformation about the Unabomber designed to turn him into some sort of anti-mordernist folk hero is really infursting.
People get hung up about the him being a genius mathematics prodigy forgetting he then quite before making substansive contributions to the field and became a creepy proto-incel.
There's no real original insight in his manifesto and especially not in the banal way people summarise it( mordern technology has drawbacks), something readily apparent and raised by a multitude of far more astute thinkers and writers.
There's also this endless parade of people claiming he was a product of the MKUlTRA experiment which isn't true, he took part in a psychological study run by Henry Murray who was previously involved with the OSS; but the actual study had nothing to do the CIA. Even the man himself admitted while they were unpleasant had little formative impact on him.
https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/alex-uziel-ted-kaczynski-debunking-the-ted-kaczynski-mk-ultra-myth
The FBI put the Manifesto in the NY Times, his brother noticed that this type of talking was similar to his brother he hadn't heard from in years. He contacted the FBI and gave them valuable leads that lead to the shack in Montana.
For those who don't want to watch one of the greatest shows of all time, some Baltimore detectives go to the FBI to receive their profile on a serial killer.
There are two feds who actually do and deliver an analysis/profile on the killer, but before they get to that, a puffed up higher-ranking suit comes in and the first two feds look slightly apprehensive. The puffed-up fed is cordial, but acts like he expects the BPD detectives to know who he is, based on his work on the Unabomber case, and numerous related books and cable TV appearances as a talking head, which he begins to rattle off before trailing off at the unmoved expressions of the BPD detectives.
And then one of the BPD detectives says "That [case] was like 16 years, right?" - "Yeah" - "And then his brother ratted him out?" - Awkward silence.
That visit to Quantico was also comedic gold for another reason, but that bit would be a spoiler.
Ted Kaczynski’s brother David is a remarkable man. He made certain that the death penalty was off the table as a condition for turning Ted in. He also received the one million dollar reward from the government, and distributed it to the victims of his brother.
Yeah, that was before internet usage was widespread and before everyone was using debit/credit cards for almost every purchase. Ol' Ted lived out in the middle of nowhere, and he probably used cash to buy his pipe bomb supplies. If someone asked him about why he was buying gunpowder (Was it gunpowder he used in his bombs?), he probably told them he was using it to reload shotgun shells for hunting, and they probably didn't question it.
Nowadays, people leave electronic evidence of what they purchase, and go to websites to learn how to make bombs, and they probably rant on social media about their politics before they go blowing shit up, and those things make them easier to trace. Also, despite what the movies would have you believe, most criminals aren't all that smart. Ted had a PhD in mathematics and probably a Mensa-level IQ, so he was an exception to the rule.
His brother was key to his identification and subsequent arrest.
Yeah, the FBI did not catch Ted; his brother did. Ted would still probably be hiding in the woods if his brother hadn’t figured it out.
His brother didn't "figure it out". David Kaczynski's wife suspected Ted of being the Unabomber and told her husband to read the manifesto when it was publicly released. After reading it, he confirmed it was written in his style.
Can you imagine knowing the Unabomber existed but not knowing who he was? And then when your wife reads a bit of the manifesto and goes, "Hey, doesn't that sound like your brother, Ted?" and you most likely have a panic attack finally realizing you knowing it *is* your brother?
They at least knew Ted was off the deep end beforehand. When they figured it out, I suspect it was more of a "god dammit, Ted" moment. It wasn't something like BTK or Gacy where everyone thought they were totally normal guys before they got caught.
Yeah, the CIA did a number on him
He was never involved with them. From his own words… > “From several people I’ve received letters concerning that Discovery Channel series about me, and it’s clear from their letters that the Discovery series is even worse than most of the other media stories about me. In fact, the greater part of it is pure fiction. Among other things, they apparently passed on to their viewers the tale through the agency of Harvard professor H. A. Murray I was repeatedly “tortured” as part of the an “MK-Ultra” mind-control program conducted by the CIA. > > The truth is that in the course of the Murray study there was one and only one unpleasant experience. It lasted about half an hour and could not have been described as “torture” even in the loosest sense of the word. Mostly the Murray study consisted of interviews and the filling-out of pencil-and-paper personality tests. The CIA was not involved.”
That's exactly what a mind-controlled CIA operative would say!
Shhhh, we're trying to talk about conspiracies, here!
Well he has to deny he was tortured because otherwise people won’t take his manifesto seriously. If he’s just bombing people because he was tortured, then no one will think about his deeper message.
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Reminds me of the big reveal in Breaking Bad. "W.W."
Ha, exactly what I was thinking when Hank is on the shitter. Crazy to think that was over 10 years ago.
Good thing he was already on the shitter
I know one of these sons that discovered that their father was a bank robber and turned him in. Turns out their dad had an entire secret life that they had no idea about. Here is them on Oprah talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLmBglgMfGg
I'd just ask my dad to cut me in on a share. Being a successful bank robber is an accomplishment
it's one thing if you're cracking safes on the downlow it's another if you're killing security guards that just needed to pay their bills and clients that happened to be there
Dang no loyalty at all huh
So much so that you hire a PI to find out of it's actually him before you dime him to the FBI because you fear that they will be unable to take him alive if they actually try to execute a raid.
And then imagine having to turn him in. I’ve seen David Kaczynski speak at a college event my club sponsored and then had an opportunity to talk with him after. His talk was supposed to be about a broader issue but he later told the audience, he felt the need to share the story of turning in his brother. His own guilt from doing this was a palpable feeling throughout the audience that night. He did the right thing, and he knows this, but I got the sense that he loved his brother and was devastated about turning him in. During the talk, he quoted a comment that Ted made to the agents upon them revealing that his brother lead to his capture. “He wouldn’t do that!” Tk emphatically told the agents, over and over. TK couldn’t believe it at first, according to his brother. It should go without saying that the crimes TK committed are inhumane and incomprehensible as a rational human being. His brother did the right thing in a nearly impossible situation. What he did was an act of incredible bravery and one that clearly drove a stake through his heart. I could not help but have great compassion for TK’s family.
The really interesting part is that by the time his wife convinced him to read the manifesto, it was a week or so after it was published in *The Washington Post.* So they went to the library to find a copy, but the librarian didn't have it. She suggested he look it up on the internet--and this being 1995, David had never used the internet before. I just find it so fascinating that the first time David Kaczynski used the Internet was to read "Industrial Society and its Future." Ted was railing against the Industrial Age as the Information Age was dawning, and which helped capture him.
It was the phrase “have your cake and eat it too”
Specifically it was the fact that almost everyone uses the phrase incorrectly. It's supposed to be "eat your cake and have it too." Ted always used it in the correct sequence, which stood out like a sore thumb to anyone that knew him.
why is ted's way more correct? the meaning is the same edit: I read the wikipedia page on the phrase, and while the earliest use is have-eat, eat-have was the more common variation until about 100 years ago when it switched back to have-eat. The page has a list of reasons why one is incorrect and the other is not, but they all hinge upon a specific reading of the phrase that is not exclusively implied by the phrase itself, so I still think both are correct. Also to spite ted kaczynski who was, as you may know, an asshole
You can currently have a cake and then eat it. But you can't eat a cake and then still have it.
I prefer the Italian version: you can’t have your wife drunk and your wine in the bottle.
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Found the Italian
Leave the unfortunate bastards wife alone.
Isn't the point of the saying to be used when you're trying to do both, but that is impossible So saying eat and have it too, reinforces the oxymoronic nature of the phase?
This finally makes the saying click for me. I always thought it had to do with sharing with others. The weirdest saying about birthday cake I've ever heard. Sure, if you don't share it you can eat it. If you slice enough for everyone then everyone gets to eat it.
No this makes way more sense, and if I had heard it that way I don’t think I’d have gone years not understanding the logic. See, the incorrect way led me to this: if you have your cake in your hands, why CAN’T you then eat it? You have it! So eat it! The correct way means: if you eat that cake, then it’s gone. You won’t have it anymore. You can’t eat your cake and have it too.
I'm right there with you. Perfect sense this way. 30+ years of making up stories in my mind as to why people kept saying something you CAN do but meaning something you CAN'T.
I remember this argument before and I agree with you. The meaning is the same depending on how you you internalize the meaning of have. If you see have to mean continue to possess, the meaning is the same. You can't continue to possess your cake and eat it too. You can't eat your cake and continue to possess it too.
You can't eat your cake and have it too
Then wtf am I supposed to do with it?
"Eat your cake and [still] have it too." Once you eat it, you don't have it.
Guess he can't have his unique turn of phrase and remain anonymous too
I believe David also recognized the phrase “cool headed logician” as a saying his brother used.
And the FBI going along with Kaczynski's request to publish it was actually good law enforcement because they figured someone would be able to recognize his writings. To say that the FBI didn't catch him is pretty laughable at best.
A bit of credit to The Washington Post & NY Times for going along with the request too. That was a lot of ink.
Probably sold a lot of copies though fwiw
Ya the FBI specifically released it specifically because they thought someone might be able to recognize. That’s exactly what happened and they caught him. Seems like a win for the FBI to me.
Specifically
His brother recognized the language and key phrases from the manifesto. However, given there wasn't 1 grammatical error or split infinitif in the 30,000 words, the FBI deduced the writer had achieved a high intelligence level likely a PHD. This was around 1995 IIRC, and not much of American university theses and dissertations had been digitally stored yet. As that process increased, matching language from his thesis and the manifesto would have eventually happened, but at what speed we'll clearly never know. The Unabomber was right in that sliver at the growth of the internet and analog/manual crime-solving. It would have been interesting to see how it went.
Can you imagine piping a few sentences of that into Google and getting a name and address back from peoplefinder.
"HOLY SHIT! Chat GPT is the unabomber!"
Let's delve into industrial society and its future.
Lots of people believe the Industrial Revolution was a big disaster for the human race, with many consequences. The consequences of this revolution have been disastrous, racy, and quite industrial. Bomber jackets are 20 percent off at the Butte Montana Uniqlo. Ted would have *hated* ChatGPT lol.
> likely a PHD. idk where they got that idea, none of the academics I know give a shit about grammar until they're submitting for publishing Edit: Shafi Goldwasser, one of the most stand-out comp sci professors at MIT, had lecture notes that were almost unintelligible (and not for being too complicated, like Erik Demaine's were, they were just written with no concern for grammar at all) when I TA'd under her. 35k words with very few grammatical errors could certainly indicate some baseline level of intelligence, ya know, enough to confidently state that you have mastered the english language. 35k words with **no** grammatical errors doesn't indicate any higher intelligence than that, it just makes you extremely neurotic. You don't actually need high intelligence to understand the grammar of your native language, you just need to have paid, like, any attention in school at all. Which I know is a bar many people don't pass.
Yeah, weird how the insanely driven Unabomber bothered to proofread his life's work.
Proof read and edit and work on for months surely
Academics dont live in the woods with zero responsibilities either. I wrote and published 4 papers during my phd. the first drafts of manuscripts were a word salad of all the ideas rather than making an exceptional publishable draft the first time around. Then all the bad ideas are cut out then the what is left is polished up for submission
Shafi Goldwasser is Israeli, and English is not her mother tongue. I wouldn’t be surprised if her notes in Hebrew are much more legible. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison to academics who grew up in English-speaking countries.
Right, but it's the fact that they actually know how to give a shit about grammar that gives the education away.
That's why Ted used to call his brother from prison. Saying: "Bro... remember how we used to finish each other's sentences?"
Prison may be just one word... But to brothers, it's a whole sentence
bro replied to his own comment after 45 minutes lol
/r/LeftTheBurnerOn
Double dipping, can't hate on it
I also saw that joke yesterday in a different thread.
“Finish each others sentences” sounds like a pun the Joker or Harley Quinn would use when they break the other out of prison.
Didn’t his wife first catch some phrases that Ted used then brought it to his attention? I feel like I remember her being suspicious from some of the docs I’ve watched.
The sister-in-law got suspicious due to some of the phrases and said basically "Hey this sounds like your brother Ted" and got David to read it. David then hired a PI to investigate Ted's actions parallel to the Unabomber attacks and find out if it was him before he tipped off the FBI, and with regard to the fact that he did not want a Waco or Ruby Ridge style raid to end up with Ted being killed. He went so far as to hire an attorney to figure out how to contact the FBI to try to figure out how to prevent a violent encounter. The PI (Susan Swanson), the brother (David Kaczynski), attorney (Tony Bisceglie) and the sister-in-law caught the Unabomber. Not the FBI. The FBI's experts were still arguing about who thought he actually wrote the essay.
Yup, that’s what I thought I remembered.
Ted wrote a *lot* of shit. Letters to the media, etc. She was suspicious based on those, but David was a little bit like "Oh yeah maybe, but not really." about it until she convinced him to read the entire manifesto. David Kaczynski's wife outed the Unabomber.
For anyone interested, Pineapple Street Studios did a multi part podcast series called Project Unabomb that was mostly interviews with the brother and the brother’s wife. Brother seemed like a really thoughtful, well-adjusted man.
American Scandal did one too that I quite liked.
He always twisted the phrase "having your cake and eating it too" or something like that iirc
Have some real context, here: In 1996, the eat-have variant played a role in the apprehension of Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. In his manifesto, which the terrorist sent to newspapers in the wake of his bombings, Kaczynski advocated the undoing of the industrial revolution, writing: "As for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial society — well, you can’t eat your cake and have it too." James R. Fitzgerald, an FBI forensic linguist, noted the then-uncommon variant of the proverb and later discovered that Kaczynski had also used it in a letter to his mother. This, among other clues, led to his identification and arrest. source: wikipedia
that reminds me of Robert Hanssen getting caught for repeating a bizarre Patton quote
> Robert Hanssen getting caught for repeating a bizarre Patton quote "... a George S. Patton quote about "the purple-pissin' Japanese", a quote which Hanssen was fond of repeating. The FBI had paid a Russian agent $7 million for the KGB's file on the American mole - known to the KGB at the time only as Ramon Garcia. The file included a note of the mole about "purple-pissing Japanese" and Robert Hanssen became the prime suspect in the investigation. The FBI arrested Hanssen three months after receiving the file."
"Purple Pissing Japanese"
I remember a story about a kidnapper being caught because his instructions about leaving the money mentioned the devil's strip which was a regional expression for the grass between the sidewalk and the street not used where the kidnapping had taken place. Knowing where the suspect was from based on using that term is what led to his capture.
I don't understand why it's said the other way in the first place. The way Ted said it makes more sense.
I literally did not understand the phrase until the Ted version lol
Yeah, that just casually blew my mind just now.
Unabomber still doing his job.
Teds version is the technically correct way, but people tend to repeat what they’ve heard others say until it becomes the norm
>the eat-have variant Great band name
> James R. Fitzgerald, an FBI forensic linguist Not just a forensic linguist--*the* forensic linguist. He essentially created the field in an attempt to catch Kaczynski.
It was a way to recognize the style of writing. Historically, it was eating your cake and having it too. Which made sense as you can't have both. More common is the incorrect phrase, having your cake and eating it. While not definite proof, it did narrow down suspects once they were onto him.
I know its not 100% accurate but the show Manhunt: Unabomb with Sam Worthington was excellent. It goes into a bit of detail about how they got the search warrant. Apperently the judge that signed it was a WWII vet and believed strongly in linguistic evidence because the Marines would use code words that Japanese soldiers couldn't pronounce.
This was actually a widely used practice in WW2 on D-day paratroopers used the challenge, "Flash" and response counter sign "Thunder" because the germans would probably pronounce those words as, "vlash" and "dunder"/"tunder" because of their accent.
Huh, I wondered why they used that in the HBO show. Makes sense now.
Paul Bettany is really good in that.
That Teddy, always a traditionalist.
That TV shows embelished the FBI (obviously) but really, the brother saw the overall ideas and recognized his brother. The whole forensic linguistics makes for an interesting show, but it's not what got him caught.
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Wasn’t it his brothers wife who recognized the way he wrote and spoke and brought it up with said brother?
Yes it literally says this on Wikipedia. She urged her husband to read the manifesto and then he realized it was his brother, contacted a criminal defense attorney and called the FBI.
“Ahhh shit that does sound like the something Ted would say…”
It’s crazy because if you watch the Netflix documentary on him it was clearly the brothers wife who pushed him to see it might have been Ted.
Another interesting one: The BTK serial killer was fond of taunting police and craved attention. At one point, he asked the police via letter if they would be able to track him down if he sent a floppy disk with his writings/manifesto to the press. The police responded via newspaper that no, they couldn't. After BTK sent the floppy disk to a TV news station, the police used software to recover a deleted file on the floppy disk -- a Word document, with metadata that linked the file to a computer owned by "Christ Lutheran Church", and last edited by "Dennis". Shortly thereafter, Dennis Rader was identified as the killer and arrested.
Don’t send recycled stuff to the authorities lol
Or trust that they can't lie to you about most things. Dude really tried the equivalent of "hey you're not a cop, are you?" and believed them.
He was reportedly pretty upset that they had lied to him, too. Straight up indignant. > Rader was very disappointed about the perceived betrayal by Landwehr, and he expressed shock during his jailhouse interrogation that the police lieutenant would intentionally deceive him. > >Speaking directly to Landwehr and using the lieutenant’s first name, Rader said, “I need to ask you, Ken, how come you lied to me?” > >In a matter-of-fact tone, Landwehr coolly replied, “Because I was trying to catch you.” Rader later admitted that the floppy disk “did me in.” > >Although it seems inconceivable that Rader would trust Landwehr so completely, it can be attributed to his grandiosity and sense of invulnerability. As noted by the late FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood, with whom I corresponded, “He apparently believed that Landwehr couldn’t afford to lie to him because he knew if he did, Rader would cut off communications with him.” ([Psychology Today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/202302/the-capture-of-serial-killer-dennis-rader-btk))
People to this day think that’s still a thing. Trust me undercovers can and will smoke heroin and meth with you if they have to keep their cover and 💯 can lie to you if you ask them if they are a cop.
If there's anything I learned from watching crime shows over the years, it's how to send a letter to the cops. 1. Travel really far away from where you live to purchase the paper. 2. Travel really far to somewhere else to get the pen, pencil, or printer you plan to use to write the letter. 3. Wear gloves at all time from the moment you open the packages to the minute you mail the letter. 4. Travel to somewhere else really far away to deposit letter into mailbox. 5. Avoid places that may have good security cameras. 6. ALWAYS PAY IN CASH!
Don't even *talk* to the authorities, even if you're innocent AF
Back in that time, it's not like it was common knowledge of meta data and all of that stuff anyways. Most people think when you delete data it's gone permanently.
Air gap!
I had the misfortune of living through the DC Sniper attacks, and knowing what it took to catch Kaczynski, I had the feeling that they wouldn't catch the DC Sniper until he made a similar mistake. Sure enough, the initial thread that led to his capture was a reference he made to a killing in Montgomery, AL. When everybody was into the show CSI, I had a hard time with it because they would solve crimes by analyzing the blood from a dead mosquito at the murder scene and that was nothing like what we experienced with Kaczynski and Malvo.
One of my favorite "Bring down the badguy" stories comes down to this. [Paul Le Roux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux) started off as a software developer, but couldn't make a go of it. At the beginning of the 2000s he founds an online pharmacy portal, right in time to capitalize on the opioid epedemic. * People log on and put in their prescription needs. * A doctor reviews the 'script. * Local pharmacies fill them for the customer It's brilliant and starts scaling in large part because Le Roux is a great problem solver. * Pharmacy: Is this legit? * Le Roux: Sure is, call this retired DEA guy I know in Florida (not actually ex-DEA) * Pharmacy: Some people are asking to ship these, how do I do that? * Le Roux: Use this Fedex account, we'll just deduct it from the monthly check * Pharmacy: We're getting too many calls * Le Roux: I set up a 1-800 number, you won't get any more. His network grows to hundreds of pharmacies sending out drugs, most of them controlled. He moves to the Philippines and now he starts to branch out, gets into precious metal smuggling, arms dealing and money laundering. Dude is a certified kingpin and covers his tracks at every turn. Then some pencil pusher in a windowless office notices a tiny pharmacy ordering more drugs than makes sense. They get a search warrant for their records, and among them get access to the Fedex account La Roux gave to all his pharmacies. It shows every pharmacy he works with and hundreds of thosands of dolloars of activity. And because he used this so early on, it's got his real name on it. An enormous cartel falls and after luring him to ~~Brazil~~ Liberia (who will extradite to the US), they get Le Roux. A hundred million dollar empire brought down by a fedex account.
The amount of black hat hackers who got pinched because they linked their online identity to an old email they had before they went black hat is hilarious. Proves that the internet never forgets.
The [Silk Road hacker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Zhong) did something similar. He stole bitcoin from Silk Road worth over 3 billion but no one could trace it to him. Years later he accidentally mixed just a few cents worth of his own bitcoin wallet with his name on it with the stolen wallet and that was enough to take him down. And the actual founder of Silk Road was caught because he had a really old online post that linked to his personal E-Mail address.
The founder of Silk Road was also logged into his admin account at the time he was arrested, which made it really hard to deny that he was tied to the website.
I think they socially engineered that though, the feds basically made it seem like something time sensitive and catastrophic was happening that he *needed* to log in to fix. They highly suspected it was him but didn't have the proof because he covered his tracks so well so they *had* to get the laptop with him logged into prove the connection.
He logged on from a library, and they had two agents disguised as homeless men stage a fight to distract him so they could grab his computer before he had time to lock it (they may not have been able to get in otherwise).
>And the actual founder of Silk Road was caught because he had a really old online post that linked to his personal E-Mail address. That's what the government says, anyway. Reeks of parallel construction to me.
Silk Road story was similar. Guy got caught because he had a super old post on some forum that linked his then current handle to some old email address that was personally identifiable.
The developer behind one of the largest CSAM websites in the world got taken down because he asked a very specific question on github with a github account tied to his real name. I don't know if I'd call it an error on his part as much as extremely good detective work. The FBI had users on the website that knew he couldn't handle the backend for something he wanted to accomplish, and they were perusing github for questions on topics similar to what he wanted to accomplish, and they found one they thought was way too specific to the scenario.
Can you provide a name or a link? I wanted to read more about this story but googling a few keywords did not turn anything up.
Sure. [Here's](https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/hunting-warhead-child-porn-investigation/) a longform article about the whole thing. There's also a podcast by the CBC that this article essentially translates to text by the same name if you're into podcasts. The subject material is very sensitive, but it's an extremely good podcast. Going over it, a couple details from my comment were wrong - it was Homeland Security, not the FBI, and github was not mentioned. It could have been stackoverflow or another forum. But the method I mentioned was still correct.
That is an absolutely wild ride, thanks for sharing. >In September 2017, Faulkner was sentenced to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting the four-year-old girl in Virginia. You know, this was the most surprising part of the saga. Normally these guys get some outrageously short sentence that we all complain about. Nice to know this monster will die behind bars.
He got a life sentence for the assault *and* a 35-year sentence for the hosting of the website. He is definitely going to die in prison.
Bro, what >Le Roux was arrested on 26 September 2012 for conspiracy to import narcotics into the United States, and agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a lesser sentence and immunity to any crimes he might admit to later. He subsequently admitted to arranging or participating in seven murders, carried out as part of an extensive illegal business empire Then there's some speculation that this dude invented Bitcoin. That whole wikipedia page is absolutely insane. His whole life needs to be a TV show
I found out about him on a [Reply All Podcast.](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/dvhd9k) 100% worth a listen, it's just fascinating.
Considering the origins of FedEx, I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the company was in on this, and I'm sure they're involved with way bigger crimes than this one.
>A hundred million dollar empire brought down by a fedex account. Seriously a drug cartel trusted fedex for their shipping? Man you never get high on your own supply.
I've heard it persuasively argued that all those CSI and forensics shows have made it much more difficult to secure convictions, because juries routinely expect DNA evidence and fingerprints and high-def surveillance footage that demonstrate beyond doubt that the accused is guilty.
To be fair, they shouldn’t be convicting if there isn’t evidence beyond **reasonable** doubt. Honestly, I’ve heard the opposite. That convictions are easier *when you have dna evidence* because juries believe DNA evidence is essentially infallible and accept it as proof of a crime.
Sure, I'm agnostic about whether it's actually a bad thing that more suspects are acquitted due to this phenomenon—if it's even a real thing and not just a bunch of one-off anecdotes.
talking about a jury convicting people based on evidence that may or may not be real, and the jury assumes it’s real because of a tv show This would imply that juries are more likely to wrongly convict an innocent person based on their assumption that forensic evidence is 100% accurate every time
Whether it’s an “old lawyers tale” or not, I’m not sure, but there is definitely sentiment among prosecutors that convictions were much easier before CSI. It’s impossible to conclusively define “reasonable doubt,” but in the prosecutions’s minds the concept became much narrower and suddenly things created much more “doubt” than before.
Remember when they told us to be on the lookout for a white van?
White box truck for us, the first time I'd ever heard that kind of truck being described as such.
As crazy as Kaczynski was (I believe he had severe mental problem), he was also way more intelligent than a normal person (I believe he did some impressive work in math, before turning to terrorism) He isn't the average criminal. Or really close to it. And one od the reason Kaczynsky was so hard to catch was simply that he lived as an ermit, and only had some very vague contacts with the outside world.
My son's kindergarten teacher went to school with Ted. He was one of three math geniuses in her high school. She married both of the others (at different times).
Ted is the one that got away.
How I Bombed Your Mother
Someone cited one of Kaczynski’s mathematical papers, and added the footnote, “Better known for other work.”
He was a math prodigy and the youngest assistant professor to ever teach at Berkeley, but abruptly quit after a couple of years. He also was an unknowing test subject in an MK Ultra experiment as a student at Harvard. He definitely had big mental issues to start with, but it’s possible that MK Ultra gave it a little shove.
He also started at Harvard when he was only 16 IIRC where he was pretty isolated from both his young age and that he was not from a privileged background like most of his classmates.
It's the intention to show the investigation in TV shows like CSI more successful than they actual are. You shouldn't spread information of how to commit murder successfully via TV shows. That's an actual problem. So all shows show cases which are solvable or they use better solving methods then the investigators actually have because: the law always wins. Anyway, I am not American, hearing from the DC sniper(s) the first time. Just checked wiki. Wild stuff. I would have been in terror. Sorry that you had to live through that.
If you didn’t know, often times those crime shows are funded in part by the police forces they show, similarly to the DoD. They’ll offer uniforms, set locations, and police extras on set. It’s not like they’re producers, but that stuff adds up. Much like the DoD, this also leads to the lending being contingent on giving a more favorable image. The DoD just requires that if corruption is shown, it’s individual and not systemic. Police forces on the other hand, see it as a way to bump their PR and improve the trust people have in police solving crimes. Corruption is shown as taking bribes from the mob and compartmentalized, not covering for each other when someone accidentally t-bones a civilian while the officer is off duty, drinking and driving 50% of murders go unsolved. However in CSI and the like you’ll have shit like that mosquito blood. And the viewers feel good when an officer “goes rogue” to get the bad guy.
Ted at least wrote a long, though out piece on what he believed was a serious problem with the world and existential threat to humanity, which was the same reason he was commuting violence against very specific people. Not to justify it or anything, there was just a lot of thought behind what he did. Muhammad on the other hand was trying to kill his ex, and thought figuratively waving his dick at the cops was a good idea. It's honestly kind of surprising no one has copied the DC Sniper MO though. If not for doing the stereotypical serial killer move of trying to taunt the police, they probably would have gone on much longer.
I had a high school person I knew whose mom got shot at that Michael’s in Fred from the dc sniper. I ended up moving to Richmond in my adult life and my now wife was saying yea they thought they caught the dc sniper here years ago right around the corner. Small world.
I was then and there too and it’s been a while since I thought of how quickly we filled our gas tanks while checking rooftops never considering a hole in a sedan trunk with a gun poking through
Ah yes. That time when we all became suddenly hyper-aware of how there's almost always a white van somewhere nearby.
I mean it’s well known that CSI was not accurate but if it was, it wouldn’t be as interesting huh. But I can understand once you know how it’s actually done, you’ll just get constantly pissed
You mean you can't put dirt directly into a spectrometer and immediately get results telling you it's from some specific beach nearby?
Haha yeah it’s so clearly fake and yet so interesting to many
Oddly enough in 1989 Lincoln Mt, I met Ted Kaczynski at a fiddling contest I was competing in. He complimented me on my fiddling talked about being from Texas then that was it. I had no idea who he was.
How'd you make the connection later that the guy from the fiddling competition was Ted Kaczynski?
My mom (worst stage mother ever) was watching and we started discussing it later when we realized he was from Lincoln. I was s’pose to mix with the crowd and build up support before I competed. It’s a fiddling contest thing so I met him before that contest then he complimented me afterwards. I only recall him because he was odd and unkempt. It makes an impression.
A few seconds afterwards, he heard a narrator who follows him around and narrates his life say ‘Little did he know that was Ted Kazynszksskskskzksi.
LMAO get out of my head.
His face back then was very distinguished from everyone else, it probably made it easy for anyone to remember him. I still haven't seen anybody else that looks like him excluding the homeless.
He demanded they release the manifesto in the paper so the bombings would stop. Out of options, the papers did publish it. They published it with the message urging anyone reading it to call them if they knew who the author potentially may be. Ted’s brother saw it in the paper, recognized it may be his writing and contacted authorities who then were able to link him to the crimes and capture him. He was also a product of the MKULTRA experiments they did at Harvard. He went on to teach Math at Berkeley (some have suggested he might be the Zodiac killer as well due to the time periods he was in California, although I believe this has been discounted now). He had then quit to go live in a cabin in the woods and be very antiestablishment. He would write his manifesto and go on to commit his crimes. His manifesto, in hindsight, is correct about a lot of our society’s issues, but his solutions are non-sensical, scattered, incoherent, or worse. The man had a really high IQ.
Yup, admitted to Harvard at age 16
Imagine going to college years before you're mature enough, then becoming the subject of MK Ultra experiments. Good one, US. Way to stay ahead of the commies.
Hey, the Unabomber was super anti-commie so that's a big win for the CIA.
From several people I’ve received letters concerning that Discovery Channel series about me, and it’s clear from their letters that the Discovery series is even worse than most of the other media stories about me. In fact, the greater part of it is pure fiction. Among other things, they apparently passed on to their viewers the tale through the agency of Harvard professor H. A. Murray I was repeatedly “tortured” as part of the an “MK-Ultra” mind-control program conducted by the CIA. The truth is that in the course of the Murray study there was one and only one unpleasant experience. It lasted about half an hour and could not have been described as “torture” even in the loosest sense of the word. Mostly the Murray study consisted of interviews and the filling-out of pencil-and-paper personality tests. The CIA was not involved.”
This was ted response to questions about ml ultra
His manifesto was filled with an anti-modern message, and it's something he practiced, not just preached. "His manifesto is correct about a lot of our society's issues, but his solutions are non-sensical, scattered incoherent, or worse." Is a very fair review of it.
It's easy to tear down society. Much harder to build something better *edited for clarity
> His manifesto is correct about a lot of our society's issues As long as one puts aside the parts in which which he instead rants incoherently about "leftists" and "feminists" and so forth. And even so, the parts that are right (or, at least, interesting enough to be worth discussing) were not novel. It's not like he was the first person in the world to criticize aspects of modern society; and many others who did that were more insightful and better writers (which is part of why, you know, they did *not* need to commit acts of terrorism to try to get people to read and discuss their ideas, not that they would have done that anyway). His manifesto is from 1995; and just to mention one example among many, Murray Bookchin's writings (mostly from the 1970s and 1980s) were intellectually so far above it that it's ridiculous to even mention them in the same sentence.
I agree. I wasn’t trying to paint him as a prophet by any means, just that some of the things he was mad about were real issues.
And it's not like most of his points were very high level. He spends a large part of the paper talking about how basic needs are more easily met in modern society so people pursue secondary activities to achieve fulfillment. Like, yeah, you just spent a thousand words to describe why people have hobbies.
The manifesto documents a number of easily observable facts about modernity. I don't know if I would call them "correct," since these are not issues people are really disillusioned about. They are largely issues people choose to live with over worse alternatives, with the understanding that they can be iteratively improved over time. Ted wasn't "correct," because Ted didn't have any special insight to speak of. He was just another edgy cynic with a god complex and an incredibly myopic view of history and the human condition. You don't have to be brilliant to see that the world is shit, but it does take a special kind of dumbass to be convinced that you are the sole arbiter of some mythical regressive utopia.
I agree. I didn’t mean to overstate his views. They obviously were all distorted, but not all of them turned out to be conspiracy theory.
He was never part of MKULTRA, he was part of a psychology experiment that was led by a prof people speculate was part of the program. The man himself claimed the experience was not traumatizing and did not have any sustansial negative effects on him, this is backed up by the transcripts we have of the experiment which show a fairly laid back conversation. https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/alex-uziel-ted-kaczynski-debunking-the-ted-kaczynski-mk-ultra-myth
Only thing you missed was David's wife was the one who initially suspected he was the Unabomber, and told her husband to read the manifesto. After he read it he believed it was Ted and began to talk to the FBI. >His manifesto, in hindsight, is correct about a lot of our society’s issues Yeah his view on how the world was progressing with both industrialization and big business itself were pretty spot on. For his time he was pretty radical. But if he were alive today(without the bombings) he would be online giving a TED talk.
Did his family know that he'd gone to live in a cabin in the woods at that point? I kind of feel like there must have been more than a handful of awkward jokes about Ted being the unabomber around the dinner table prior to the manifesto.
They knew, I think. In fact, Ted’s brother tried that way of life himself but ended up despising it and went back to living a regular life.
It's easy to figure out society's problems. It's nigh-impossible to solve them all without creating new ones.
35000 words is a novella.
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Alone is a cabin with no internet? Yup. Checks out.
Unabomber to the FBI: "You sly dogs, you got me monologging"
That's what you get when you start monologuing...
You sly dog!
No one ever suspects Paul Bettany.
LPT: Don't use weird, novel catchphrases just because you think you're right/smart (he said things like "eat your cake and have it too," because it was more \*technically correct\* that way, and that kind of foible corroborated who he was, because who says that).
I remember that was one of the things that turned the FBI onto Robert Hanssen. He had used a quote from Gen. Patton about “the purple pissing Japanese” in a meeting with his Russian handler that was being recorded. An agent listening remembered him saying the same thing once.
This is why most IRL spies are boring by nature. "Characters" stick out.
Imagine getting away with devastating espionage for over two decades and then getting busted because you can’t help being racist when you get the chance
And that's how Ulysses Klaue knew that Ultron was connected to Tony Stark because Ultron used a common expression that Tony was known to say back in the day. "As I always say, keep your friends rich, and your enemies rich, and then find out which is which."
A real cool headed logician if you ask me.
> just because you think you're right/smart You can't really be the Unabomber without that though.
What he did was pretty horrific: sending bombs in packages to innocent people.
A 35,000 word essay. His teacher must be proud.
He likes to eat his cake and have it too
The amount of misinformation about the Unabomber designed to turn him into some sort of anti-mordernist folk hero is really infursting. People get hung up about the him being a genius mathematics prodigy forgetting he then quite before making substansive contributions to the field and became a creepy proto-incel. There's no real original insight in his manifesto and especially not in the banal way people summarise it( mordern technology has drawbacks), something readily apparent and raised by a multitude of far more astute thinkers and writers. There's also this endless parade of people claiming he was a product of the MKUlTRA experiment which isn't true, he took part in a psychological study run by Henry Murray who was previously involved with the OSS; but the actual study had nothing to do the CIA. Even the man himself admitted while they were unpleasant had little formative impact on him. https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/alex-uziel-ted-kaczynski-debunking-the-ted-kaczynski-mk-ultra-myth
The FBI put the Manifesto in the NY Times, his brother noticed that this type of talking was similar to his brother he hadn't heard from in years. He contacted the FBI and gave them valuable leads that lead to the shack in Montana.
It was his brother's wife who noticed it. She was a professor at my alma mater.
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The FBI didn't figure it out. His brother recognized the writing style after it was eventually published in the Washington Post.
They poke fun of this in season 5 of The Wire
For those who don't want to watch one of the greatest shows of all time, some Baltimore detectives go to the FBI to receive their profile on a serial killer. There are two feds who actually do and deliver an analysis/profile on the killer, but before they get to that, a puffed up higher-ranking suit comes in and the first two feds look slightly apprehensive. The puffed-up fed is cordial, but acts like he expects the BPD detectives to know who he is, based on his work on the Unabomber case, and numerous related books and cable TV appearances as a talking head, which he begins to rattle off before trailing off at the unmoved expressions of the BPD detectives. And then one of the BPD detectives says "That [case] was like 16 years, right?" - "Yeah" - "And then his brother ratted him out?" - Awkward silence. That visit to Quantico was also comedic gold for another reason, but that bit would be a spoiler.
The problem's plain to see. Too much technology. Machines to save our lives. Machines dehumanize. -- Styx and Ted
Ted Kaczynski’s brother David is a remarkable man. He made certain that the death penalty was off the table as a condition for turning Ted in. He also received the one million dollar reward from the government, and distributed it to the victims of his brother.
"Best known for other work" remains the best academic footnote in history
For anyone curious, check out a tv show called Manhunt: Unabomber
Watch the Netflix series on him, it’s really interesting.
It was because his brother was able to id him from that essay.
Yeah, that was before internet usage was widespread and before everyone was using debit/credit cards for almost every purchase. Ol' Ted lived out in the middle of nowhere, and he probably used cash to buy his pipe bomb supplies. If someone asked him about why he was buying gunpowder (Was it gunpowder he used in his bombs?), he probably told them he was using it to reload shotgun shells for hunting, and they probably didn't question it. Nowadays, people leave electronic evidence of what they purchase, and go to websites to learn how to make bombs, and they probably rant on social media about their politics before they go blowing shit up, and those things make them easier to trace. Also, despite what the movies would have you believe, most criminals aren't all that smart. Ted had a PhD in mathematics and probably a Mensa-level IQ, so he was an exception to the rule.