Britain's First "Web-Rage" Attack 399
brown-eyed slug writes "The BBC is reporting what is claimed to be Britain's first "web-rage" attack. A man drove seventy miles to assault his victim with a pick-axe handle after they exchanged insults in a Yahoo! chat room." From the article: "Det Cons Christopher Creagh, of the Metropolitan Police, said: 'This is the first instance of a web-rage attack.' Det Sgt Jean-Marc Bazzoni, of Essex Police, added the case demonstrates the importance of protecting one's identity on the internet. 'Mr Jones had posted pictures of his family on the web and had chatted to Gibbons on an audio link,' he said. 'It demonstrates how easily other users can put two and two together and also shows how children could also find themselves in danger.'"
Sanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Children (Score:3, Insightful)
Fucking great, he pulled the "think of the children" line...expect politicians to get involved and new laws passed to "protect the children".
Won't somebody please think of the children?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sanity (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Won't someone think of the children? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sanity (Score:3, Insightful)
They got angry at each other from the net, and unfortunately one of the people was unstable. So yea, this has a lot to do with the net.....nobody is claiming the net is bad, just, like any other tool, be careful how you use it.
Re:Sanity (Score:4, Insightful)
Excellent... (Score:3, Insightful)
All events like this are bad in themselves... but the more it happens, the more people might stop and think for a second before they do their utmost to cut someone to shreds, safe behind the anonymity of the internets.
The attacker was clearly a dick, but then I've little doubt that the victim was too. No, it doesn't vindicate it, but it does give me a vicious, guilty little flinch of pleasure.
Note to flamers: the interweb is full of games for bored, vicious little pillocks. Don't play one-up in chat.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
So... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sanity (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Ax-handle control NOW! (Score:1, Insightful)
It's just as easy to point out that if this guy did have a gun, there would likely have been a fatality here. One more life saved by gun control. Watch the evening news for information about countless lives lost due to lax gun controls.
Yes, children are killed by guns every day in the United States.
How many lives is your hobby worth?
And how is this different from the real world? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the case demonstrates that the internet is no different than the real world. Trade insults with a guy you just met (online or not) and he may be a violent person that will come over to your house with his buddy and kick your ass. I'm glad he wasn't killed and I hope he'll completely recover but I don't have too much sympathy.
Too many people use the supposed anonymity of the internet as an excuse to be asshats. Always remember...the other guy could be a bigger asshat.
Re:Sanity (Score:2, Insightful)
(To avoid too much irony, I'll state that my
Re:That is why..... (Score:5, Insightful)
You could do exactly the same thing using paper resources if you had the time and patience. There were plenty of stalkers around before the internet reared it's head. I don't think there are really any more these days, simply a greater proportion of them doing it faster.
Re:Sanity (Score:5, Insightful)
"It demonstrates how easily other users can put two and two together and also shows how children could also find themselves in danger."
No, it demonstrate the importance of acting civilized and how people should stop acting like savages just because they are not in front of the person they are communicating with.
First Incident of Web-Rage or... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, What's new?
Re:That is why..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:more info (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay class, this concludes today's example of Social Engineering.
Psycho with a big heavy stick (Score:4, Insightful)
He's psychotic, what did you expect? [...] This is one reason why I plan to live in the South as long as I live in America. Most of the South is still relatively sane. Someone comes at you with any sort of axe, ice pick, knife, etc. you're going to be hard-pressed to find a jury that will convict you for blowing their head off.
If that story had taken place in the southern united states, the guy would have driven the 70 miles with his gun and blown the victim away when he opened the door.
When guns are illegal, only pickaxe handles are handy to psycho net ragers.
Re:That is why..... (Score:3, Insightful)
This does not make doing it electronically un-creepy. In fact, I believe it confirs the creepiness factor. Instead of pointing out the importance of anonymity on the web, this should point out the importance of not being a wanker on the web. There are people who do not take kindly to being called names, and while it is correct to think they should not be so sensitive, the broken jaw that can result from insulting the wrong person is an very strong argument for descretion. This is exacerbated on the web were you do not have access to physiological cues (body stance, facial expression, physical size) that alert you to trouble. Like delivering a deliciously dry and sarcastically witty comeback to an ill-tempered (American) footballer.
Re:I blame Britain's gun control (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry not "rage" (Score:3, Insightful)
This more "web-assholishness" which does exist but has been documented more then enough times.
In conclusion rage != being really angry.
Though I must admit he certainly "went the distance".
Re:Ax-handle control NOW! (Score:3, Insightful)
And how many kids (and their families) are killed by drunk drivers? Or people wielding machetes?
Have you ever kept a very crazy guy with a pipe from beating down your back door in the middle of the night while your terrorized spouse frantically dials 911 for a long-delayed response? I have, with a gun. I couldn't have done the same thing by drinking a beer and then driving my car at him, but the beer/car combo is wildly more dangerous, and results in many more deaths-by-idiots.
Are you also tallying up kids that die from other poorly-supervised activities? Like, drowning in family pools, eating foods they're allergic to, sucking down carbon monoxide from a car idling in the garage, falling out of trees, etc? Or are you just talking about kids killed by people who are deliberately shooting children with guns? If so, are you also comparing that to kids that are stabbed, beaten, strangled, shaken, burned, tossed off of bridges, etc? Are you going to start talking about crazies invading Amish school houses? Then you'd better also talk about crazies that walk into schools and cut the throats of a bunch of kids with a knife (in Japan, for example... since a gun wasn't easily available to the guy who was planning on killing kids anyway).
A little more context will make your comments seem a little less... shrill.
there would likely have been a fatality here
How do you know that? There are beatings all the time in areas where guns are readily available, and no one gets shot. It seems more likely to me that the guy was specifically looking to deliver a beating and then walk away with the other guy "taught a lesson" or humiliated. Doesn't matter, because he's a loon, and should be locked up. And that guy (in the US) wouldn't be able to buy a gun legally anyway, if that's how he conducts himself.
Re:That is why..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone, anyone, can find that given enough patience.
Sure it is creepy that people can do it with Google now, but private detectives have made a business out of this for a very long time. They never had a monopoly on being able to do it, and therefore Google does not break any monopoly on people who can find out where you live.
You're right. A lot of stuff on the internet now (cookie tracking etc.) is lauded as some kind of infringement of civil rights, personal privavy, god-given liberties or whatever, when it is nothing that wasn't being done before. If you pay taxes, the government knows who you are. If you have a bank account your bank knows who you are. If you have certain spending habits or look like you are in need of credit they send you brochures in the mail for credit cards, or if you walk into a bank, the computer will flag for you if you are discussing with a teller, that you are eligible for the latest and greatest whatever they are trying to sell. This was done even in the days of VT100s sitting in banks, little green text lines would pop up and say "ask customer if they want to update to super-fly checking account). If you go to Amazon and buy something, signing up for an account and therefore telling them who you are, they start to collect data on your habits to better serve your needs, what's the difference here?
The solution to not being hunted down by someone you pissed off on the internet, is stop being a jackass and stop pissing people off on Yahoo! IM - that barrier of "he can't punch me because he is only text in a box" needs removing from peoples' minds. If it was a personal confrontation, most people would not say these things. Even the dry, sarcastic witty remarks
you refer to, when made in social situations with cues, and similarly intelligent and sarcasm-aware company, can go down badly.
Isn't that it? That we are a world of fucking assholes who will stop at nothing to get a snide remark out, and simply wallow and relish in the fact that we can do it from the safety and comfort of our own living room, rather than at the end of someone else's fist?
Yeah, forget hiding behind privacy, rights and liberties, you fucking jerks, and start being more polite to each other!!!
*-Rage (Score:2, Insightful)
Ban chat rooms and pick axes! (Score:3, Insightful)
How anyone can look at this violent crime, and not support chat-room-control and pick-axe control is proof that they are brainwashed by the chat room industry and the pick-axe industry!
Gun Control (Score:3, Insightful)
That aside, if it wasn't for the UK's stupid gun control laws he could have met the guy at the door with a 12 gauge rather than a kitchen knife.
Chat room on Islam? (Score:2, Insightful)
"The court was told that Mr Jones, 43, had posted personal details about himself online and used his real name when participating in a Yahoo! chatroom dedicated to Islam, where he met Gibbons." - from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2409469
What a surprise, an act of violence occurs after some people were in a chatroom about that peaceful religion we kep hearing about lately, Islam, and furthermore, the media barely even mentions the fact. They don't even say whether Gibbons, or Jones, or both, were muslims - I for one would actualy like to know whether it was the muslim getting beat up, or the muslim doing the beating (or both).
Really, I would like to know. Does anyone have any other links giving more detail on the story?
Anyway, I don't mean to start a religious flame war here, but it makes it hard when this whole big 'first case in britain of web rage' headline comes along - and it's about an argument on an Islamic chat room.
AND PEOPLE DON'T EVEN NOTICE.