Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon

[MediumHigh]

Miss spelling it ensures I wont have to name it memoirsofatroll2007

[HaemishM]

You need to stop reading the fucking Internet then, dude. This thread would be pretty bare without speculation that has nothing to do with nothing.

There is a large difference between "here is a likely possibility" and "here is what I think happened."

And what exactly is your fucking point? This is an Internet thread of mostly friendly geeks talking shit about anything that comes to mind. Wild speculation is what we do. We aren't going to get picked up on CNN. We're just sitting around shooting the shit. What got your fucking tits in a wringer?

[Ingmar]

Well, we don't know that one of us isn't one of the death threat senders. 

[Numtini]

There's a difference between an opinion about what is more likely and a hope about what's happening. Small scale, Boston, Patriots Day, and tax day were all pretty solid indications in one direction. Just like Chechnyan Islamic background is a pretty solid indication in another.

[calapine]

Well, we don't know that one of us isn't one of the death threat senders. 

No, if it was from F13 it would have been poisoned natchos and a 300-page manifesto about DIKUs.

[MediumHigh]

I think the term is stop hyperboling about things I don't find funny.

[Margalis]

And what exactly is your fucking point? This is an Internet thread of mostly friendly geeks talking shit about anything that comes to mind. Wild speculation is what we do. We aren't going to get picked up on CNN. We're just sitting around shooting the shit. What got your fucking tits in a wringer?

My point is that this thread (and the other one) is full of idiotic embarrassing nonsense.

[Trippy]

Topics merged.

[Mithas]

Funny how both threads were heading down similar paths...or circling the drain maybe.

[Abagadro]

Canceling the games probably has as much to do with not having the public safety manpower to staff them as anything.

[Ironwood]

Have we found out what they thought of the Raven-3L yet ?

[Mithas]

Also, clearly these guys were fairly dangerous. The authorities still don't know for sure if there were others involved in the plot so I think taking precautions like this is probably a good thing.

[Margalis]

Canceling the games probably has as much to do with not having the public safety manpower to staff them as anything.

There would probably also be about a thousand reports of suspicious people, bags left unattended, etc. Landsdowne is a total mess during Red Sox games.

[Arthur_Parker]

Have we found out what they thought of the Raven-3L yet ?

I tried searching the younger one and WoW but my heart wasn't in it when I didn't get an easy find.  the last twitter feed I posted is his real one I believe, depressingly sad.

[HaemishM]

And what exactly is your fucking point? This is an Internet thread of mostly friendly geeks talking shit about anything that comes to mind. Wild speculation is what we do. We aren't going to get picked up on CNN. We're just sitting around shooting the shit. What got your fucking tits in a wringer?

My point is that this thread (and the other one) is full of idiotic embarrassing nonsense.

Sky is blue. Film at fucking 11.

[Paelos]

Panic is a helluva drug.

[Ghambit]

You need to stop reading the fucking Internet then, dude. This thread would be pretty bare without speculation that has nothing to do with nothing.

There is a large difference between "here is a likely possibility" and "here is what I think happened."

And what exactly is your fucking point? This is an Internet thread of mostly friendly geeks talking shit about anything that comes to mind. Wild speculation is what we do. We aren't going to get picked up on CNN. We're just sitting around shooting the shit. What got your fucking tits in a wringer?

Margalis, you need to chill a tad.  Firstly, the internets only speculated on who the perps might be (Mulegeta and Sunil).  After said speculation, the media hyped it, it was heard on police scanners, and even Sunil's friends thought it was him.  So... really, I'm struggling at this point to find any validity for the flames shooting from your nostrils.  Unless people react to their hypotheses, it's a fool's errand whining about it.  Those folk that trolled his family's FB/twitter w/o more firmly verified info?? Yah, those folks should eat a shit sandwich.

The medium does its job better than any other human form of communication in our history.  It sifts and parses information.  For all you know the FBI themselves thought it was Sunil, etc. and the fact it got parsed on the nets simply sped up the process... more photos were released, suspects were narrowed, etc.

Lastly, without net-based intelligence, it's likely this fuck would still be walking around UMass campus with his smug smile he has plastered all over his face.  (He's been already verified as going to school even after the bombings).  Once his face was plastered, he flushed himself out and now we are where we are; and know this for sure, as Dave said, by midnite his ass would've been found by amateurs regardless of the 2nd round of photos.  The dumps were that dynamic and that quick.

There's no doubt this doesnt happen in a pre-arpanet society.  Anyways, that's my last argument on the matter.  Not gonna stop digging up info. regardless.  

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm helping by looking at things on the internet. You would be lost with out us!





 

[MediumHigh]

The internet is just as likely to say the cookie monster did it than discover any valuable info.

[Arthur_Parker]

Internet Comes Up With 8.5 Million Leads On Potential Boston Bombing Suspect

 

[Bzalthek]

Careful what you say on the internet folks.  Some retarded people might take it seriously and shoot people/things.  Then you're responsible for cancer.

[Lantyssa]

I thought the Onion was a parody paper, but they're beginning to be more and more like the Daily Show...

[Paelos]

I thought the Onion was a parody paper, but they're beginning to be more and more like the Daily Show...

Yeah that's not a good thing in my mind, either.

[HaemishM]

To quote Costello:

It's a dangerous game
That comedy plays
Sometimes it tells you the truth
sometimes it delays it

[MahrinSkel]

I really like the *idea* that the internet detective squad could get ahead of the FBI.  Unfortunately, random people on the internet have no filter and are just as capable of getting caught up in a narrative and ignoring contradictory evidence as any other assemblage of people (they just do it really *fast*).  Looking back, there were two huge problems with the ID: Sunil's hair growing 5 inches in a month (can be explained away as a disguise) and his friend Mike Mulugeta gaining about 50 pounds and 8 inches of height while losing most of his melanin (little harder to explain).

I look like an idiot, which is okay because I feel like an idiot, which is because I *was* an idiot.  Worst is that Sunil's family is being so damned *nice* about having had their son's name trashed and painted as a mad bomber, when they were scared to death for his safety before any of that.  Still trying to figure out how to work off that karma (liking the page doesn't cut it, I'm 3500 miles away, and they aren't asking for donations).

--Dave

[Ironwood]

Uneasy.

[Lucas]

wow...

[Arthur_Parker]

I really like the *idea* that the internet detective squad could get ahead of the FBI.  Unfortunately, random people on the internet have no filter and are just as capable of getting caught up in a narrative and ignoring contradictory evidence as any other assemblage of people (they just do it really *fast*).  Looking back, there were two huge problems with the ID: Sunil's hair growing 5 inches in a month (can be explained away as a disguise) and his friend Mike Mulugeta gaining about 50 pounds and 8 inches of height while losing most of his melanin (little harder to explain).

I look like an idiot, which is okay because I feel like an idiot, which is because I *was* an idiot.  Worst is that Sunil's family is being so damned *nice* about having had their son's name trashed and painted as a mad bomber, when they were scared to death for his safety before any of that.  Still trying to figure out how to work off that karma (liking the page doesn't cut it, I'm 3500 miles away, and they aren't asking for donations).

--Dave

All they wanted was information on the suspects, more photos (from which they could learn route, time), better photos for id and the normal response of "hey I know that guy he's....", they got all that extremely fast.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/04/boston-marathon-friday-suspect-killed/64381/

The FBI says (per CBS) that when they posted the video of the suspect last night their website got 300,000 hits per second.

It was a success, sure people fingered the wrong guy but that was happening before the FBI briefing anyway so *shrug*, such a big news story I don't think that could have been prevented.

[Abagadro]

Wow. Looks like he got away. Crazy.

[Venkman]

My point is that this thread (and the other one) is full of idiotic embarrassing nonsense.

Yes, but I personally take that as the risk of crowd-sourcing anything. Opinions are not seperate from personalities, as the latter drives the delivery style of the former. To me there isn't a lot of difference between someone who starts a post with "In my opinion" from someone who starts with "this is what happened". It's all in the gray area of opinion as far as I'm concerned.

I don't blame 4chan for getting it wrong. I would blame the FBI if they did, but only because I expect them to have access to a lot more information than a bunch of non-security personnel. This is of course why the FBI isn't the one posting "here's the guy/1/1/!!!" all over the place like everyone from 4chan up through print publications.

It feels like this got personal for you because of roots in that area. I totally get it. I wasn't around these parts during 9/11, but felt exactly the same way on the boards I was at. That shit hit home closer than anything before and since. But at the same time, I'd rather have the largely mature group here lacing their insights with personality than the saber-ratting from reactionary immature sites or the silence of the "wait until they tell us what to think" crowd.

It's not clean. But such things really can't be.

[KallDrexx]

Wow. Looks like he got away. Crazy.

Patrick is asked if the suspect remains in Boston. "I don't have any direct knowledge that he's here in the Boston area, but we don't think that he'd get much further. His ties seem to be here."

Indeed crazy that he was able to get away with so much force looking for him.

[Margalis]

I look like an idiot, which is okay because I feel like an idiot, which is because I *was* an idiot.  Worst is that Sunil's family is being so damned *nice* about having had their son's name trashed and painted as a mad bomber, when they were scared to death for his safety before any of that.  Still trying to figure out how to work off that karma (liking the page doesn't cut it, I'm 3500 miles away, and they aren't asking for donations).

Yes, you did look like an idiot, but now you don't. People make mistakes but not everyone owns up to it, so kudos to you.

I really like the *idea* that the internet detective squad could get ahead of the FBI.  Unfortunately, random people on the internet have no filter and are just as capable of getting caught up in a narrative and ignoring contradictory evidence as any other assemblage of people (they just do it really *fast*).

Crowd-sourcing for information and leads can be a double-edged sword but there's nothing wrong with the idea of using internet crowds to gather a lot of info fast. The problem is that the "wisdom of crowds" is really about volume more than wisdom. The internet is really good for getting a bunch of people to say "hey, I think I recognize this guy." It's really bad at expert-level analysis.

When you have a mass of people looking at pictures you are going to get a lot of false leads. That's just the nature of false positives when you have a single set of culprits. You are going to get a lot of people who plausibly look like they could be the bad guys but aren't.

That said, how did they identify these guys anyway? Just from the robbery?

[Nyght]

That said, how did they identify these guys anyway? Just from the robbery?

Some of it (or maybe most of it), came from one of the victims after he regained consciousness.

See : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-19/boston-bombing-victim-in-iconic-photo-helped-identify-attackers.html

[Abagadro]

Saying now that they didn't do the robbery which is weird because of that security cam footage that was floating around.  Names seemed to come out after they had one of them in their hands (deceased) so I imagine it flowed from that.

[MahrinSkel]

Probably found the dead one's fingerprints in AFIS (contrary to CSI, it takes hours even if you jump the queue), and everything went from there.

--Dave