February 8, 2001

11:41 PM

A 15 year old girl tried to implicate classmates in a false plot to "shoot up the school". She used her family computer to create fake AOL accounts for 2 girls before having private chats with herself, literally threatening herself on her own computer.
posted by crushed (25 comments total)

Uhh... did this girl actually think that would work? haha



poor, young, niave girl
your plan was doomed from go
someday you might learn
posted by howa2396 at 11:51 PM on February 8, 2001

Police said one of the girls she tried to implicate didn't have a computer and was out of town with her sports team.

Rule #1 for setting someone up: make sure they have the means to commit said offense.

Not only is this girl dangerously spiteful, she's dumb as a box of hair.
posted by shauna at 12:48 AM on February 9, 2001

I just hope they don't try and blame this on the internet. This girl obviously has major problems, regardless of the medium in which she chooses to express her dysfunction.
posted by fiery at 1:12 AM on February 9, 2001

dude, shauna. you're the only person i've ever seen use the expression "dumb as a box of hair." this is so exciting. i even had a zine called "box of hair."

sorry to be so off topic, but i got excited.
posted by sugarfish at 1:26 AM on February 9, 2001

"box of hair" is a great phrase.

Equally off topic, in Australia, Bronwyn Bishop, the beehive sporting Minister for Aged Care is sometimes referred to as the Minister for Caged Hair.

Now, finally, back to the thread under discussion...

posted by lagado at 2:58 AM on February 9, 2001

I just hope they don't try and blame this on the internet.

Oh, but you know they will. It's much easier to do that than to blame her parents for not monitoring her internet access.

(and to sugarfish: "dumb as a box of hair" is one of god's perfect phrases. no question at all what you mean when you say it ;-)


posted by shauna at 3:37 AM on February 9, 2001

Is there a point in arguing that it was probably all done within the confines of AOL's online service, and that the Internet was probably never really involved?

I didn't think so.
posted by cCranium at 6:23 AM on February 9, 2001

Not only is this girl dangerously spiteful, she's dumb as a box of hair.

Sure, in the end it was pretty dumb to think she couldn't be traced, but if you ask me, it's kinda a clever plan to begin with. Much smarter than just making verbal accusations.

...Actually, now that I think of it, she probably would have gotten away with it if she hadn't used the computer.

Discuss...
posted by jpoulos at 6:25 AM on February 9, 2001

BTW, in case you're curious...

boxofhair.com
posted by jpoulos at 6:26 AM on February 9, 2001

I prefer a Box of Rain
posted by terrapin at 7:04 AM on February 9, 2001

It was only a matter of time before some student tried to use the post-Columbine hysteria as a weapon against other students.
posted by harmful at 7:07 AM on February 9, 2001

She's just a little young and naive about the technology she was using. But with a mind like that and her natural talent for evil, I'm sure she'll have a promising career in the GOP one day.
posted by ritualdevice at 7:11 AM on February 9, 2001

Now way off-topic ...

boxofhair.com has officially made me ambivalent about desktop moviemaking. Did I miss something, or was that a movie of a dude walking around at a kegger, twice overdubbed with the sound of breaking glass?

I think we need to seize that URL in shauna's name.
posted by argybarg at 7:19 AM on February 9, 2001

What's amusing is that she didn't actually have to chat with herself. A simple paste-up job would have produced the same results, without having to find a way to log onto AOL multiple times.
posted by kindall at 8:15 AM on February 9, 2001

kindall: it's possible she knew enough to want to spoof AOL's logs, but not enough to realize they'd be logging the source.
posted by cCranium at 10:42 AM on February 9, 2001

well kindall, she actually was one step ahead of you. :)

If I read the article correctly, she actually created accounts with the other girl(s) names on them, and then logged in as them. I would imagine AOL logs connect and disconnect times (since they probably still use their old school minute counting backend software). Therefore, when the police checked with AOL on everything, all the stats seemingly backed up the girls story. ???

I'm a little confused about that movie on boxofhair.com. Was it just me, or was there really only 5 or so people at this so called 'kegger'? (i didn't watch it too closely)
posted by howa2396 at 10:50 AM on February 9, 2001

OT: Box of Hair is also an album by Cub.
posted by Aaaugh! at 11:11 AM on February 9, 2001

I think we need to seize that URL in shauna's name.

I've inspired a coup! Excellent. My work here is done. ;-)
posted by shauna at 11:39 AM on February 9, 2001

Therefore, when the police checked with AOL on everything, all the stats seemingly backed up the girls story. ???

Yeah, all except for the sticky fact that all the logins came from the same computer on the same phone line? It wouldn't take anyone who looked at the logs and knew what they were doing to tell that she was the only party involved...
posted by Neb at 11:56 AM on February 9, 2001

"Teenagers may assume they are anonymous on the Internet, but there are ways of finding out who they are," said Lucy Caldwell, a state police spokeswoman. "Frankly, it's not that tough to figure it out, so they shouldn't even be trying."

Anonymity is impossible. You have no privacy. Give up.
posted by JimmyTones at 1:16 PM on February 9, 2001

"Police became suspicious when the girl snapped at herself, 'This will never work!' and then snapped back 'Yes it will! You just watch! Shut up!'"

It's not impossible, Jimmy, but you have to know what you're doing. People often assume creating a hotmail account is "anonymous" not realizing that they put in their real personal information when signing up, or that hotmail can easily trace their IP address. That's not anonymous, it's like using a fake name on the phone: only useful if you're not committing a crime.

I'm assuming that what she did here was log into AOL as one account and use AIM set up for another account so she could "chat" with herself. It's actually a tiny bit clever, just not nearly clever enough considering the information that AOL has in its logs.
posted by dhartung at 1:33 PM on February 9, 2001

Neb, it must have been more involved than that. How does one log onto AOL multiple times simultaneously using the same phone line? I can understand perhaps running multiple instances of AOL on partitioned hard drives, using entirely different master accounts. But that would necessitate having two modems within one computer, connected to separate phone lines. Perhaps that's even complicated. I remember having a party in my house when I was fifteen, logging onto AOL from my computer (with its own phone line), chatting with another kid who was upstairs using his own account on my step-dad's office computer.

And yes, in my youth, I was nerdier than a box of candy...

But at least doing it that way (using separate computers at once), she could have avoided AOL tracing her hardware signature. Also, does the local phone company generally cooperate with AOL if they are seeking information, say for instance which phone numbers are used to dial-in? Does AOL have a corporate Caller ID at every modem bank?
posted by legibility at 1:51 PM on February 9, 2001

If not with AOL, they would likely have co-operated with the police, if my Law & Order Police Training hasn't lied to me. :-)
posted by cCranium at 2:42 PM on February 9, 2001

Caldwell said state police investigators tracked the girl through Internet service provider records for the AOL accounts that were used.

Sounds to me like she was using the same Internet connection for the different accounts.
posted by Neb at 2:59 PM on February 9, 2001

There are always logs but in some cases they just don't check them enough.

And I really did laugh out loud at the box of hair comment.
posted by davidgentle at 9:11 PM on February 9, 2001