Here's our own Politech archive on mattd/proffr/professor rat, and his run-ins with the Australian cops: http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=proffr -Declan --- http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1497971,00.html Article Published: Monday, July 07, 2003 - 12:00:00 AM MST Online threats target Denver investigators Anarchist says e-mails harmless; feds disagree By Jim Hughes, Denver Post Staff Writer An anarchist using the online moniker "Professor Rat" has threatened the lives of two federal terrorism investigators in Denver, advocating that they "need killing." The threats name an FBI agent assigned to the local multiagency Joint Terrorism Task Force and the government's lead prosecutor of terrorism cases in Colorado. Although those who travel in the same online circles as Professor Rat say his provocations are not to be taken seriously, officials say they are concerned about the threats, which were sent to an e-mail listserv and posted on the Internet in April. "The recipients of the threats have no way to discern their validity," said Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office. "They cause fear and they disrupt lives, and it's for that reason that they're taken very seriously. "It's more than the individual targets. It's the families and those associated with them," he said. That is the purpose of the postings, an Australian man who admits to using the Professor Rat name and to posting these kinds of threats said in a telephone interview and a series of e-mails: To scare people out of working for the government. [...] Most current Cypherpunks subscribers have set up their e-mail in-boxes to block any messages coming from Taylor, said Declan McCullagh, a reporter for the high-tech website CNET.com. He has subscribed to Cypherpunks for 10 years, he said. Taylor exists on the "radical fringe" of online anarchists, McCullagh said. "He's routinely ignored and 'kill-filed' by just about everyone on the list. I'd be surprised if more than a small handful of people are reading his postings, let alone taking him seriously." Taylor acknowledged that he does not not have much support in anarchist circles. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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