Simon and Sharon Ng

“He is already in the house. He is still here right now, smoking, walking all around the house.”

When Sek Man Ng moved from Hong Kong to New York City, he Americanized his name. Thus it was Simon Ng who lived in a Queens, New York apartment with his older sister, Sharon Ng, originally Cho Man Ng.

Simon began blogging on Xanga on October 3, 2002. He hated talking about himself, he wrote, but wanted to try to keep a diary. He described doing programming homework and playing Warcraft 3, not unlike many other 16 year old high school students in 2002. After four quick posts, he stopped blogging for three years.

Simon’s life changed drastically during those three years. His parents moved back to Hong Kong in 2004, leaving Simon, 18 at the time, and his sister together in the Queens apartment. Because the siblings rarely saw each other before 10 p.m. each night, Simon was often left to his own devices.

Simon continued blogging on April 22, 2005:

Imagine a guy who doesn’t know how to take care of himself and had been relying on others for like 18 years. All of a sudden have to take care of themselves. So its been hell, two meals rarely and one meal a day most likely -_-. Overcooking and messed up cooking all the time. If it was before I would just say fuck it, lets wait for my dad to cook me some food ( Proceed to throw them all into the bin). Now I have to eat whatever crap I cook out, which is pretty bad believe me. Anyway I am starting to get used to this life style and am improving day by day doing all these small stuff that everyone probably knows how to do.

Now convinced that he had wasted his youth, Simon swore to improve himself. After barely ever stepping foot in a library, he began spending 4-8 hours per day studying at his college’s library. He earned two A- grades, one A and one B+ during his first semester in college.

It is regretable that I screwed up on the finals, because my laziness kicked in. I really wanted to get 2 A- and 2 A+ and I know I could… Yeah I know I should be happy bout it but I am a greedy person. The reason I have regret is probably because it wasn’t all As. I would have really surprised my parents and makes them happy ;) (Not that it hasn’t ;P).

Simon signed up for a $600 summer science course and was hoping to land a job soon. He began blogging regularly, hoping to keep a record that he could look back on in four years when he graduated from college.

The last May of Simon’s life was chronicled closely on his blog.

Simon became hooked on Musui’s Story: Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samuari, the first time he’d read a book without fighting sleep. He finished the book quicker and more happily than any he’d ever read before. Hungry for more, he planned on picking up other books from his Japanese class’s syllabus to “get started on a reading habit.” After watching a movie trailer, he also had plans to on seeing the third Star Wars prequel.

“Even though the last one bored me to death,” wrote Simon. “But Darth Vador is so bad ass, and just him being there gave me enough reason to go see it. LOL the whole day went by with me watching the trailor over and over again. Don’t know why it is so addictive and I can’t concentrate on doing anything after watching the trailor… I can’t wait till [May] 19!”

As well as he’d been doing in school, Simon’s life at home was problematic. He ate as rarely as once a day, unable or unwilling to prepare regular meals for himself. He had been sick for a month.

Life has been really hard lately, I am still ill and it is zapping my every strength.

Even though I am underweight, I am still losing more weight. Gonna become human stickfigure soon, since I am eating one meal a day. No money you know, I can ask my sister for some if I wanted. She usually ask me if I need any, but I declined since she doesn’t make much and like to waste money.

No smilies today too tired exhausted, when will I recover…

In an attempt to recover from a “bad throat”, Simon missed classes for three days.

On Thursday, May 12, 2005, he was home sick when his doorbell rang.

Today I missed my Japanese class again, since I have gotten a bad throat. I only went to the class once this week, so I am probably so far behind now. I will catch up in the summer tho so no worries hehe. Anyway today has been weird, at 3 some guy ringed the bell. I went down and recognized it was my sister’s former boyfriend. He told me he wants to get his fishing poles back. I told him to wait downstair while I get them for him. While I was searching them, he is already in the house. He is still here right now, smoking, walking all around the house with his shoes on which btw I just washed the floor 2 days ago! Hopefully he will leave soon, oh yeah working on the jap report as we speak!

Jin Lin, Sharon’s ex-boyfriend, had come to the apartment at about 3 p.m.

Simon made his last entry on Xanga at 5:05 p.m. Shortly thereafter, Jin stabbed him repeatedly in the chest and neck with a butcher knife. Simon was bound with duct and masking tape while Lin, according to his confession, searched the apartment for cash. He found little to nothing of value. When Sharon came home at around 9:30 p.m., Jin stabbed her and her brother nearly five dozen times in the neck and body, reported Times Newsweekly and Times Ledger. Simon died in the apartment. Sharon died an hour later in the hospital.

Although Jin initially denied any wrongdoing, he confessed once the police found Simon’s blog. In 2008, Jin Lin was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Photo: Times Ledger

“They can have my guns, bullets first.”

We’re coming into a generation of leaders who will have grown up on the internet and know no world without it.

What will happen to our online pasts when we all have a lifetime of potentially shameful Facebook pictures, forum posts and tweets to hide? In 2030, how much will a politician have to pay to have his extensive online past scrubbed? Will it even be possible to clean your past completely? Will a future candidate for President live in fear of old blogs and ancient forum posts coming back to haunt him or her?

At least the old IRC chat logs are gone forever, right? Right?

In 2005, Doug Hanks ran as a Republican for a seat on the City Council of Charlotte, North Carolina. Doug was 36, a relatively young age in the traditionally wrinkled world of politics. He had been using the internet for years. In fact, he made thousands of posts on major forums where he was comfortable enough to have his username listed simply as Doug.

Doug joined Stormfront on May 2, 2002. Stormfront is one of the first and most successful white supremacist forums on the internet. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls it “the most influential hate site on the net.” The site was born into politics in 1990 as an organizing point for former Grand Wizard David Duke’s failed U.S. Senate campaign in Louisiana. Stormfront’s popularity rose in the mid-90s when it opened to the public. It came to national attention when it was featured in Hate.com, a 2000 CBS documentary about the online white supremacy movement.

When Doug joined the site in 2002, there were around 5,000 members. It was an impressive forum population at the time. Today, Stormfront boasts 194,936 members.

Within three years of joining, Doug had made over 4,000 posts on Stormfront at a rate of around 10 posts per day. He was considered admirably active in the white nationalism movement by friends on and off the forum.

By 2003, he’d written and self-published two books. His first book was 80-page how-to guide for forging and building an AR15 rifle called “The Workbench AR15 Project” that sold for $19. Today, it sells for $22.

In a 2008 sit down interview with soft spoken white supremacist Pastor Jonathan Williams, Doug noted that his AR15 book was briefly #8 on Paladin Press’s top-selling books, “so it was a very popular book.”

His second book was a novel titled “Patriot Act: A Novel of Resistance” priced at $15 complete with an autograph from the author himself.

Here’s a description of the book from the defunct PatriotPublications.com, Doug’s one-man publishing operation aimed at selling the book to Stormfront members and other supremacists:

This novel deals with the ramifications of the Patriot Act not sunsetting in 2005, but being voted into permanence. Government abuse of power, and intrusion into our everyday lives becomes rampant, as more liberties vanish on a daily basis. How far will the people be pushed before they fight back? How can we fight back? The book presents some unique methods of improvising weaponry when our guns are banned, as well as preparing and caching your weapons when that inevitable day arrives.

Described as “‘Unintended Consequences’ and ‘Harrison Bergeron’ meets ‘The Turner Diaries’,” “Patriot Act” foretells of a future where a Zionist-controlled government eliminates all freedom and individual thought; where patriotism is akin to terrorism, and being proud of one’s heritage is criminal.

A quote from the 2003 book itself:

In your new war of oppression, you may take a man’s house, his land, all his property, and even his life savings for speaking out against you; you may take all that is dear to him but remember, when a man has nothing left, he has nothing left to lose. Take what is mine, and you will face a warrior unlike any you have ever battled before. Do not try to squelch us, for you will only invigorate our pride.

Here’s the novel’s best one-liner:

They can have my guns, bullets first.

Patriot Act had multiple buyers and backers on Stormfront. One thread was dedicated to passing a used copy of the book around the country to curious white nationalists.

“That book might just end up the most traveled book on storm front,” wrote user Nurse1969 the day after he put his copy in the mail to another user. The thread, started in early December 2004, attracted the attention of Doug himself.

“Glad everyone has enjoyed it so much,” wrote Doug. “Remember, the Turner Diaries started off by word of mouth, so if you’ve enjoyed it, please tell others, and it makes an excellent Holiday gift. I can personalize and sign these things for everyone you know. There’s still time for Santa to get them loaded on his sleigh..”

Doug and his fans regularly compared Patriot Act to The Turner Diaries, a 1978 novel about a genocidal race war successfully waged by white supremacists. The book is believed to have inspired Timothy McVeigh’s bombing in of the a federal building in Oklahoma City.

Allow me to spoil the ending of Doug’s book. In it, white supremacists take over the American government and exterminate minorities. As is often the case, originality took a backseat to resonance. The Patriot Act seems to have resonated mightily with what few readers it has had.

Doug’s website featured five positive reviews from readers. The first review was from one Rob C.:

Hello, I received your book (Patriot Act) last Thursday, and finished it last night. Loved it. God, I hope something like this occurs to this country, and soon, preferably in my lifetime. Keep up the good work.

In several threads around Stormfront, Doug’s fans went out of the way to assuage fears that the book would tip toe around issues important to the white nationalists. To help send the message the book hit those core issues head on, Doug featured a review from “Billy in North Carolina”:

I finished reading “Patriot Act”…AWESOME! It’s the Turner Diaries for the 21st century. It’s better than I had hoped. I was thinking it was more of a pro-Constitution, pro-Second Amendment novel which only touched peripherally on the race and Jewish problem. Not so, it’s hardcore! It’s a really compelling read because of your extensive character development and the way you tied them together in the end.

On his website, Doug took to the third person to describe himself as “a licensed general contractor, legally ordained minister, and the chief conservation officer of an experimental redwood reforestation project in the North Carolina mountains. He is presently an honorary co-chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Business Advisory Council, and received an award for environmental protection achievement from the President of the United States. He is currently working on a series of pro-Second Amendment novels.”

On his publishing site, Doug referred to himself as a “red-blooded American” dedicated to freedom and liberty. His books “are not for everyone,” he wrote. They were aimed at gun owners, patriots, people who are proud of their heritage and people “who do not conform to the politically correct views of the media regarding ethnicity.”

When referring to himself by name as an author, Doug almost always used the name “D.A. Hänks.” Only once did he refer to himself as “Doug ‘D.A.’ Hanks” on his own website. By changing his name, Doug may have been intentionally obfuscating his identity and throwing a small wrench in the search machine. Another possible motive was that Doug wanted to build up an identity in the white nationalist movement and liked the way that D.A. Hänks looked like an author’s name ought to.

Doug’s two books met with some success and good reviews in a corner of the white nationalist community and, in the AR15 guide’s case, beyond. As of 2004, he was working on three more workbooks and two more novels on similar subjects.

In January 2005, the Charlotte City Council ordered the removal of the Confederate flag from Elmwood Cemetery, a burial ground holding the graves of Confederate soldiers. Controversies surrounding the Confederate flag resonate deeply with many white supremacists and the issue found sympathy on Stormfront.

Doug, a Charlotte resident, made numerous posts urging action and launched a popular petition against those who he thought were at fault: politicians such as City Manager Pam Syfert (whom Doug would later call a “dumb b—h”) and “NY Jews” “whose only wish is to cause more strife between blacks and white.”

Within days of the flag’s removal, Doug entered the cemetery, scaled the empty flagpole and strung the Confederate flag back up with zipties. The media and police were there, he reported with pride to Stormfront, all taking videos and saving the event forever. It should be noted that no video of this event is currently viewable online.

The Stormfront community reactive positively but not overwhelmingly. Doug posted numerous threads on the political situation surrounding the flag but only one thread managed to get more than a few hundred views.

On Febuary 7, 2005, Doug angrily addressed the Charlotte City Council over the issue. “I pulled no punches,” he wrote. “By the time I was finished, the mayor had his arms crossed and a scowl that would have melted the varnish off the woodwork. News 14 ran a nice piece showing me putting the flag back, and then a nice clip of me angrily denouncing the City’s actions.”

On that day, whatever political dreams Doug had once held became much more real. Stormfront posters encouraged him heartily, writing that the movement needed more men of action like Doug.

More people began to ask about him saving the Confederate Flag at Elmwood. Did he really climb up that pole?

“I actually went up it twice,” wrote Doug, “two days in a row. The first day I literally shimmied all the way up, but it was 27 degrees out, and I had to take off my coat and gloves to do it. By the time I reached the top I was so numb I had no strength left. The second day, we came back with the ladder you saw in the clip. I put it on with cable ties, so it’s up there firmly.”

It didn’t take long for Doug to establish DougHope.com and declare his candidacy for the City Council.

My name is Doug Hanks, and I am running for Charlotte City Council at Large in 2005, for the 2006 Seat. I feel very strongly about personal rights and a limited role of Government in our lives. We are being overtaxed and under-represented in almost every aspect of our lives, and this needs to change. There was a time when elected officials were voted into office to represent the people. Over the years, this has changed dramatically, with Big Business becoming the focal point of our City Council’s decisions. This does not represent your best interests, the interests of the many, but those of a few. If I am voted into the Charlotte City Council, I intend to speak for the people who put me in office, and represent them.

Doug wrote that he’d be running on a handful of basic issues. He’d fight lewd art, cut taxes, attack crime and build new roads. He shined a spotlight on his continued actions to keep the Elmwood Confederate flag flying, describing a 50’ climb in freezing weather to string up the flag as proof positive that he would fight for what was right no matter what.

Although Doug made half a dozen threads about the flag issue and dozens of posts about it afterwards, he never created a new thread on Stormfront announcing his candidacy for City Council. However, it’s not as though he was outright hiding the political run. He linked to DougHope.com in several posts and possibly even in his forum signature, meaning that every one of his over four thousand posts would end with a link to the website launched to support his candidacy.

There was little to no disconnect between Doug Hope the candidate for office, Doug Hope the man who fought to fly the Confederate flag and Doug Hope the man who made thousands of posts on Stormfront. They were the same man even in politics, an art whose best practitioners compartmentalize as if it were an Olympic sport. Perhaps this is the most obvious sign that Doug never was the best political practitioner.

For months, Doug never stopped posting on Stormfront. He did, however, change his username several times first to Snarkie and then Boojum. If the goal was some temporary disconnection between his online persona and his new political life, this was a move in that general direction.

In June 2005, Doug was still posting. On June 1, Stormfront discussed a piece of news about black motorcycle riders claiming that South Carolina was discriminating against them. Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride wanted to discourage tourism by black bikers whom he considered dope smoking, beer drinking law-breakers. McBride testified that “when you tell a group of white youth to behave or you’re going to jail, for the most part, they behave.”

That evening, Doug chimed in:

Hats off to Mayor McBride for not only taking this stance, but having the guts to stand by it publicly. They have the same problems in Daytona during Bullet Bike Week, and it gets so bad during Black College Reunion Week, that 99% of the business owners shut down and board up for that week.

When Blacks start acting equally, only then will they enjoy the benefits of being treated equally. I treat a rabid dog differently from a healthy one. In fact, this gives me a terrific idea! Let’s treat all the Blacks like the rabid beasts they are. “Yeller! Here Boy!”

Did Doug believe that a simple username change on the forum would hide his identity after years of promoting his name, writings and beliefs on Stormfront? He’d made close personal friends within the movement and Stormfront had become a significant part of his life. Now, Doug believed that he could push a button and instantly be wearing an unrecognizable mask called “Snarkie” (which is also the name of a character in his first novel).

In August, his entire history on Stormfront became known when an unspecified person “disclosed” his forum posts to journalists at The Rhinoceros Times. An article written about his comments specifically highlighted the “rabid beasts” remark and became big news in Charlotte.

On NNNForum.com, another white nationalist site, user Brewski had a theory as to where the journalists might have found out the information.

A Google search for “Doug Hanks” turns up a since-TOS’ed tripod page called “The truth about Doug Hanks” (still cached), which obviously did a hit piece on the guy showing purported webcam images and identifying him (accurately, as it turns out) as “Snarkie” on Stormfront.

I think if you’re not prepared to be “public” with your WP/WN political views, then a little more discretion is advisable in order to keep a low profile on the internet. What you write (or who you decide to webcast to) can haunt you!

Hanks was immediately on the defensive. He said that whoever “tipped off the Rhinoceros Times wanted him out of the race so that there would no need for a Republican primary.”

In an interview, Hank claimed his over 4,000 Stormfront posts were actually false attempts to win the trust of white supremacists as he researched a novel he was writing meant to appeal to supremacists. He wasn’t a racist, he said, simply an enterprising marketer.

“I needed information for the book and some other writings I was doing,” Hank told the Associated Press. “I did what I thought I needed to do to establish myself as a credible white nationalist.”

“That (white supremacists) was who I was trying to target for better sales of the book,” he said. “They have more of a tendency to word of mouth, to say, ‘Hey you ought to pick this up.’”

After initially resisting calls to end his campaign, Doug Hope’s City Council campaign ceased to exist within hours.

Many in Stormfront were not pleased. Some posters said he was a cowered who slandered the forum, the white nationalist movement and his race by tripping over himself to make excuses for what he’d written.

“Should he even be trusted?” asked user macclad.

When one user asked if he should send Doug condolences, the overwhelming answer was no.

“I don’t think we should reward this guy for his two-faced behavior,” wrote user Galvani. “He might have really believed what he said and is now only trying to save his own reputation.”

Doug’s friends and admirers defended him, pointing to his flag pole activism and urging Stormfronters to give Doug a chance to defend himself.

“I have an idea,” wrote user StormHammer88. “Why don’t we all reserve judgement until Boojum gets here to tell his side of the story, which I’m sure he will. I’m surprised at how many people are so quick to believe what a mainstream news source prints, seeing as how we are also so quick to point out that they, above all, are the most likely to mis-quote and distort what people say, especially White Nationalists.”

In the midst of the argument, user Tommy Atkins asked the obvious question:

Why the hell would anyone use their real name here, if they were going to run for public office. Not the brightest idea as its a gold mine for the opposition?

After a noted absence of several days, Doug returned to Stormfront, posting from “an undisclosed location.”

Doug wrote that the entire incident was a calculated conspiracy “months in the planning.”

“When I picked up a copy of the paper the next day, I almost had a myocradial infarction. It was obvious that this was payback for my refusal to back out of the race when ‘suggested’ to, two weeks prior.”

There were angry reporters banging on his door, he claimed, and worse. Unmarked black vans “with a surveillance-looking thing on the back” parked on his lawn. The men inside filmed around his house, claimed to be from the Republican Party and demanded that he resign and end his candidacy.

I am not from the South originally, and I know full well who they were. 25 years ago, another politician was pressured to leave and when he did not, his son was busted with two pounds of marijuana in his car. I have an elderly father and other family in the area. I will not see their lives ruined because of me.

He was “set up” by a wide-ranging conspiracy of powers, he said, and even TV reporters knew it. In his explanation of the recent episode, Doug even threw in a mention of Patriot Act.

My book was fiction based on fact, but I never realized how true a prophesy I was actually writing.

Doug continued to post on Stormfront. Creative Loafing looked at his activity towards the end of 2005. They found Doug reflecting on his recent experiences on November 19.

“I learned that it is never a good idea to be caught with your pants around your ankles in regard to your personal life/beliefs,” Doug wrote. “Be ready to explain the difference between White supremacy vs. White separatism, and racialism vs. racism.”

Very little changed in the content of Doug’s posts.

In 2006, Doug switched to acting as a full time career, according to his IMDB biography, and landed a role on Atlanta Homicide – AKA Atlanta Investigations: HD (Homicide Division) as Detective Tom Berncliff. This is the picture posted to his Facebook page:

Doug’s IMDB biography – written by him, one quickly assumes — says this look is his trademark: “[Doug] has a deep and imposing, no-nonsense, glaring stare that he uses for all of his law enforcement roles.”

A few other highlights from the trivia and quote sections on his IMDB page:

• Was Jeff Gordon’s stand-in for a series of pizza commercials in 2005.
• Has donated over 11 gallons of blood, saving more than 300 lives.
• Turned down a black tie dinner invitation with President George W. Bush, twice.
• Was hired as a “private contractor,” for a tour of duty in New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina.
• “You cannot place wolves and bobcats into the same cage and expect them to coexist peacefully. Therefore, it is just as wrong to force people to be together, as it is to force them to be apart.”

The Katrina point is particularly interesting. Here’s a post Doug made on Stormfront on September 3, 2005, a month after he ended his City Council candidacy:

Apparently, there are 200 [evacuees] arriving here in Charlotte today … Look for riots to spring up across the country and be prepared.”

Later in 2006, Doug wrote another novel titled The Green Day Prophecies “meant to expose globalism and the new world order,” said Doug in a 2008 interview. “[This book] takes a lot of the information I learned as a political candidate and the stuff I was brought into and expected to abide by and embrace. I did the exact opposite.”

“The Green Day Prophecies” – although a fictitious story – follows what I believe will happen to our country in the near future, if we do not secede from the UN and cease meddling in the affairs of other countries around the world.”

Doug’s prophecy — also described as a nightmare that “may soon become waking reality” — was that the UN would assume authority over the entire planet and create a green communist state that would commit genocide to the tune of 6.5 billion deaths in the name of environmentalism.

Doug described the book as a retaliation against the powers that be for the 2005 campaign.

Doug’s political ambitions never died but they were forced adjust to a new reality. In 2012, he launched a campaign to the Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisor in Mecklenburg, North Carolina. You can see his campaign website at DougHanks.com.

Doug claims to be a leading global authority “on the critically endangered dawn redwood” whose photographs have appeared in magazines and are featured on a permanent exhibit at the Leo Carillo Ranch State Park in Carlsbad, California.

While the title may sound unglamorous or even mundane, Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisors, in reality, have a much more important role than most people even realize. District supervisors are charged with the task of protecting farmlands and other open spaces, as well as finding the funding and incentives that are crucial to preserving our natural resources. If these measures were not in place, our streams and rivers would quickly silt in, compromising the quality of our drinking water, and urban flooding would be much more commonplace than it currently is.

During an October 23, 2012 forum in which Doug gave a stump speech and took questions from the audience, one resident read two of Doug’s more infamous remarks (including the “rabid beasts” post) and asked for an explanation.

“I sure would [like to explain it],” said an excited Doug as he shot up from his chair. “I’m an author and I’m an actor. I was doing research for a book. That was explained. I saw the post you [addressing the questioner] made on Facebook where you went back and pulled everything up. That’s nice, everyone can find something on someone. I think it’s absolutely despicable that you’d bring that up in this neighborhood. Real professional, I appreciate that. You’re darn right I want to address that.”

Doug was livid. The crowd was talking. He continued his explanation.

“Seven years ago, I was writing the book called Patriot Act. I had two audiences I targeted: the average gun owning audience and the white racialist audience. And I made a mistake, I admit that. I have nothing against anyone. Since then, if you had looked, you’d have seen that I acted in a show called Atlanta Homicide where I was the only white detective on that show. It was black written, black produced, black directed. By the time that show was over, I was directing and I was writing episodes for it and I explained what happened to them and no one had an issue with it. So if those black people didn’t have an issue with it, why do you still have an issue with it?”

“Seven years ago, you were still old enough to know better,” said the questioner.

Doug ended the questioning, saying he was tired of it being brought up. He’d go on to explain the plot of Patriot Act and his marketing ploy directed at white nationalists.

“I have nothing to hide as far as that goes,” said Doug. “I have been nothing but cordial to everyone I have spoken to not only today, not only in my campaign by every time since then and before.”

The next questioner asked him if he was ashamed or comfortable. Wayne Powers, Republican candidate for the position then stood up to speak, informing the crowd that it was not one or two comments made but thousands.

“Is it really?” said a surprised woman in the audience.

“What does that say about your judgement that, in doing your research, you become an activist spreading hate rather than just reviewing or reporting on it?” asked Wayne.

Doug explained that you couldn’t garner support by simply making a few posts. He had to make many posts.

“Once the book was sold out, that was the end of it,” he said.

In fact, Doug has made posts on Stormfront as late as January 2012. Some of his latest posts include holocaust denial and tips on how to carry yourself in “a known Negro location, like a mall.”

Doug hasn’t made a post on Stormfront since early 2012, presumably just before he began his latest campaign for political office.

“It’s almost bed time.”

Those are the first words Joseph Edward Duncan III wrote in his blog on Sunday, January 4, 2004.

Joe was 43 years old when he started the blog he called The Fifth Nail. By 2004, he had already served 17 years in prison for stealing cars and raping at least two young boys at gunpoint. Duncan himself told his therapist that he’d raped over a dozen younger boys by the time he was 16 years old. In his own words, Joe grew up in prison.

He was in and out of jail in 90s, living all over the west coast before starting the blog. By the time he was let out of prison in 2000, he moved to Fargo, North Dakota in apparent attempt to begin a new life.

Almost bed time, I hope I can get some sleep after sleeping in to noon today.

In his first post, Joe wrote about wasting time playing video games, feeding his cat and the self-delusion he noticed suffered by millions about the supposed heights human intelligence. It was an unremarkable start. No one was reading what he wrote.

Joe slept in the next day, missing his alarm. He worked late to make up time lost. When he got home, he wrote a 1400 word essay on why sex offenders do what they do. Offenders are victims of their badly distorted view of reality, he wrote, and of a justice system ill equipped to handle anyone from sex offenders to drug addicts. The offenders don’t believe they’re hurting the children, he blogged, and the system doesn’t know how to react to that. He insists that “the system” — that is, the justice system, the mental health system and society at large — has to tell the offenders the truth, though it becomes clear that the truth is a moving target for Joe.

The most poignant passage in the blog is this:

I am not a pedophile nor have I ever been accused of being one. Also, I was a child (age 16) when I committed my crime. And possibly most significant; because of my appearance and family circumstances I was molested so often and by so many different people that, up until the time of my offense, I actually thought it was normal and that everybody did it.

The following day, Joe made it into work on time. He found time in the evening to berate the existence of the Prison Industrial Complex after setting up motion-detecting security cameras in his home because he felt paranoid about going back to prison. Every time he heard about a child being hurt on the news, he’d check his alibi. He thought the cameras documenting his life might help if another case came up.

But it still doesn’t give me any real sense of security, because a crafty prosecutor can tear apart the best alibi. They know the law doesn’t work by its self and they think it is up to them to make it work. The law is just a bunch of rules, and whoever can manipulate those rules the best wins. It’s a very sad game, where nobody wins. While the prosecutors and police focus on the “little victories” the overall situation is getting worse.

—-

Joe wrote multiple lengthy blog posts every day about the sort of stuff you expect to see on any personal blog: computer programming, artificial intelligence, relationships, cats, Hitler, injustice, oppression and then, without fail, he went back to the inescapable thought of sex crimes. Once or twice, he quoted Noam Chomsky’s writings on prison profiteering. Still, no one read the blog.

I feel so frustrated knowing that I can see solutions to many problems in our society where most people don’t even see the problems (or at least not the real problems). And I’m sure the solutions are correct becuase they are typically coroborated by experts. And the expert are also frustrated because no-body will listen to them iether. Society is so full of fear, it just can’t see striaght, and it is our government that propogates the fear.

Through all the pain and suffering, Joe tended to think rather highly of himself. He admitted that he committed terrible acts but, he said, he was a confused young victim himself. Now, with the blog, he was simply telling truths that others could not or would not see. He advocated for sex offenders’ rights and against an oppressive state. Joe knew that the truth would make him enemies.

The blog continued through January 2004. Joe wrote about his belief in God, his dreams, quotes that resonated with him, his passion for scuba diving, his computer programming classes at North Dakota State University and, of course, Joe continued to write about sex offenders. The blog had a few readers by now, according to Joe’s posts. On some days he’d have 400 hits and on other days, there would be 40 or 4. On days when he had almost no visitors, Joe would launch into rants against Google for censoring his site from the search results. They were oppressive like the rest, he’d write on blogger, a Google product. But Joe would convey his thoughts no matter what stood in his way.

Almost every day for a month, many times a day, Joe wrote on the blog. Days after being frustrated with his lack of readers, he noted that the blog was really for himself anyway.

This blog is my connection to who I am and who I am becoming. It is a way for me to connect to who I was, so I can better understand who I will become. Just like the guy in the movie The Butterfly Effect, I can’t explain, so why do I even try. Because I know what I know, and that is all anyone can know.

Soon, Joe set up a streaming web cam, a novelty in 2004. He railed against the war in Iraq which, in early 2004, was front and center in the American psyche. Joe is somewhat difficult to precisely categorize politically but in the midst of many of his more unique ideas, one can see a clear identification with left wing politics borne of his education in prison. He frequently quoted communist and socialist ideas while showing disdain for what he characterized as the inhumane profiteering of capitalism.

—-

Joe’s paranoia about being “checked up on” by the police, arrested and returning to jail continued. Cops showed up at his home for regular checks. Whenever a child disappeared or was harmed, Joe feared that he would be blamed. He had nightmares about being arrested and wondered if people recognized him on the street or in airplanes. He wrote that “the propoganda against Sex Offenders is getting worse, soon there will be seperate restrooms and drinking fountains for us.” He repeatedly accused Google of blacklisting him as he showed that he did not understand the basics of Google’s PageRank. Joe called the paranoia his “daily torment.”

I am a mere citizen’s complaint away from going back to jail at anytime.

For a tormented person, his day-to-day existence bears many similarities to yours and mine. He worried for his cats, one aging and one younger. He also wondered how to let his neighbor’s romantic advances down gently because he couldn’t give her the love she deserved.

When Joe moved to a new apartment in the same building, the police performed a new address check as they are required to do with all sex offenders. Joe quickly reached out to the police to complain, culminating with a letter to the Chief of Police comparing his plight to the Jews in Nazi Germany. Joe worried that the police harassment would hurt his earning potential on top of the wanton trampling of his liberties. He felt dehumanized by police check ups. He felt as though he wasn’t wanted.

Sometimes, I just want to cry.

—-

“Blogging the Fifth Nail.” The Fifth Nail is the nail that was meant to peirce the Heart of Christ and end his suffering.

Around June and July of 2004, Joe’s visions became stranger. Whether they were dreams or hallucinations became more difficult to discern. One night, he saw a long rope hanging from the ceiling emitting a “strange noise.” The next morning, he felt disembodied, possessed and utterly confused. He saw animals and objects that didn’t exist. He heard noises where there were none.

When strange things like this happen to me, even if I am half asleep, it reminds me that I can not trust my own mind.

On Friday, July 9, 2004, Joe got a call from a cop.

“Apparently I am a suspect for some un-defined incident that occurred last Sunday,” wrote Joe. “He would not tell me anything about what happened, though he did not seem too concerned except to say it was a felony and all felonies are serious (in other words it probably was not too serious at least).”

Joe was asked to drive an hour to speak with the police. Instead, he paid $500 for an attorney to help him avoid the hassle.

“That was money I had hoped to use to buy a new wet suit for an upcoming scuba trip on Lake Superior,” he lamented.

Within a few weeks, police armed with a warrant came into his house multiple times. The officers took his computer, camera, camcorders and media. He blogged it all, registering his disgust with the entire fascistic process.

I am now 99.99 percent sure I will move to a different state as soon as I graduate and can find a job in a state where I’m not required to register.

By this time, the blog posts became more rare. In September 2004, following the police action, there was only post. It was made from Joe’s home on a Sunday afternoon.

Nothing to do, everything being undone. Nobody to remind me. Life is about giving your choices over to God. Chicken pot pie in the oven. Why can others not see the unity of the universe. Why are they so blind in their dungeons.

In October, Joe wrote another letter to the Chief of Police:

“Healing can not start without forgiveness. So if you don’t forgive, then you are only prolonging the pain (others pain). You are even guiltier than the culprit because you are in a better position to forgive. You can start the healing instead of continuing to hurt people, yet you choose to not forgive and ignore the most important message from Christ.”

Posts were becoming less and less descriptive of his day-to-day life. Instead, he wrote more airy thoughts that occasionally bordered on nonsensical to readers outside of Joe.

His next post was titled “Without forgiveness, there is only insanity.” Later on, he wrote that “The only cure for crime is Love. Everything else is just more crime.”

In March, Joe was officially accused of molesting two young boys in a Minnesota playground in 2004. By this point, the police were monitoring the blog. He denied the charges in a post and then wished for death. He was scared and alone, he wrote, trapped in a battle against demons (a term he did not necessarily use literally) that “have me tied to a spit and the fire has already been lit.” In May, he informed his readers that the demons had won the battle, trapping “happy Joe” in the same dungeon he had once trapped his demons.

In April, a Fargo businessman wrote Joe a $15,000 check to make bail on the molestation charges. Within just a few weeks, Joe fled from the authorities — but he didn’t stop posting on his blog.

The demonized Joe wrote a May 11, 2005 blog post that was, in retrospect, a confession to multiple homicides and rapes.

To be more specific, I am scared, alone, and confused, and my reaction is to strike out toward the perceived source of my misery, society. My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die. As for the “Happy Joe” (Jet), well he was just a dream. The bogeyman was alive and happy long before Happy Joe.

I was in prison for over 18 years, since the age of 17. As an adult all I knew was the oppression of incarceration. All those years I dreamed of getting out…And getting even. Instead, I got out and I got even, but did not get caught. So, I got even again, and again did not get caught. So, I figured, well, I got even twice (actually more, but that’s here nor there), even if I’m the only one who knows, so now what? Well that was when the “Happy Joe” dream started. I met a bunch of really great people, the kind of people I didn’t even know existed, but here they were, bunches of them, my neighbors, my landlords, my professors, my coworkers, and they were all good people, who were willing to give me a chance despite my past. They were willing to accept me and be my friend, something that was new for me, having been betrayed by many “friends” and even my own family.

So, I tried to make it work. But the problem was those demons. The ones who “got even” for me. They kept reminding me that if my new “friends” knew about them (and what they, I, had done to even), then so much for their friendship. So, “Happy Joe” was just dreaming, or pretending to be happy.

In a May 13 blog post, Joe wrote that he kept a private journal that’s “hundreds of times more frank” thank the blog but is protected by PGP encryption that is “very un-crackable. I figure in 30 years or more we will have the technology to easily crack the encryption and then the world will know who I really was, and what I really did, and what I really thought. Also, maybe then they will understand that despite my actions, I’m not a bad person, I just have a disease contracted from society, and it hurts a lot.”

On May 16, the police discovered three dead bodies in Idaho. A man, 37, his girlfriend, 40 and her son, 13, were killed in their homes at Lake Coeur d’Alene by “blunt trauma to the head” after being bound. They would later discover the her 8 year old daughter alive and her 9 year old son dead, his remains left in a remote area of Montana. The little girl would later share a vivid account of just how Joe slaughtered her family and molested her and her brother for weeks.

There were no more posts to Joe’s blog.

By the time he was arrested, Joe’s latest crimes had made headlines all over the world. His blog was subject to intense scrutiny from a curious if repulsed public. A Georgian blogger noticed the similarities between Joe and the sketch of the suspect in a 1997 murder in California, reported the Seattle Times. In time, he confessed to two more murders in Washington.

Joe is currently serving six life sentences on death row in an Indiana federal penitentiary.

More info:

• The Cellar
• Wikipedia
• Articles about Duncan

The Ballad of Tony76.

On January 10, 2012 at 7:08 a.m., Tony76 registered an account at Silk Road.

Silk Road is an anonymous marketplace famous for its brazen selling of drugs. Ever since Adrian Chen wrote about the site in 2011, it’s been famously considered a successful cross between Amazon and eBay in the online drug world. Anonymous buyers and sellers depend on Bitcoins to anonymously transfer wealth and user reviews to establish trust.

There are currently over 6,000 drugs being sold at Silk Road including “10 gr high grade MDMA 80% +” for about $170, “Cocaine good quality 1.0g” for about $40 and “Extreme quality Black Tar” for about $270.

By January 18, 2012, Tony76 was already selling drugs on Silk Road. At 1:31 a.m., he established his personal and official feedback thread in the site’s forums, soliciting reviews from customers to establish trust and offering updates and news on new products.

Within a couple of days of Tony shipping his product from Canada, the positive reviews started rolling in.

“got my H today from Tony76,” wrote user toelessJoe. “Just had a small taste and I say way to go, Tony. Very good gear! Feeling double plus good right now… I truly hope that you stick around, you’re off to a great start as a new Vendor – and that potential buyers gives you a try.”

The reviews were good enough to provoke excitement from users and even a bit of hopeful skepticism from potential buyers. When more and more positive feedback came in, user oldschoolclubkid said some of the reviews looked strange, wished Tony luck and said he’d have to wait and see. He eventually became a buyer.

Several customers wrote that they’d spent the best $20 of their lives on Tony’s products. Tony offered a wide selection of drugs including heroin and MDMA, his most popular products.

Users continued to post detailed reviews of their experiences.

“So i had just under half a cc of the rig filled,” wrote MacMan after receiving Tony’s vacuum-sealed heroin in the mail. “Plunged that bitch down about halfway, felt a little burn, stopped there, pulled it out, because i started to feel the rush and didnt wanna overdue it. Got a wicked awesome rush, I would say the 1st or 2nd best H i have ever done. Also it is really hard for me to feel opiates when i have been taking methadone. And this dope of tonys, i didnt even feel like i had any methadone in my system!!! It was awesome. Still havent gotten Nuc’s, but best i have tried here on SR. Fuck, if i didnt have that methadone in my system, i probably would have fucking came everywhere.”

By February, over 100 customers had posted positive feedback. In early March, Tony publicly cancelled an order from an underage customer and received congratulations for his discretion.

“Wow, I guess this is what happens when you take the criminal element out of the equation,” wrote northsidepk. “Good job Nixon Era drug war on doing just the opposite.”

For his part, Tony was enjoying the adulation that came with running a highly successful and visible new business.

“Thanks guys! Love you all!”

Tony’s customers loved him back.

—

“I don’t think I’m risking much,” wrote one anonymous Silk Road vendor on reddit. “It would be almost impossible for law enforcement to find me. They would need to find out where the package came from, and go to that mailbox, and have a police officer wait a few weeks for me to return to that mailbox. All just because they found a 100mg of a Schedule II drug in an envelope.

“Also, they wouldn’t suspect me. My criminal record is perfectly clean. Not even a parking misdemeanor…I doubt that I could be caught. They would need to find out the mailbox that I’ve been putting the packages in, and then have someone wait there and watch me, and then they would need to prove that I was the one who put it in the mailbox. So if they could back-track and find out where the package came from, then maybe they could catch me. Also, there are many different mailboxes around me, so I put the packages in different mailboxes each time. Definitely can’t hurt.”

—

By mid-April, Tony had completed over 500 orders according to his customers. Over 1,000 posts had been made publicly chiming in to vouch for Tony’s excellence. The good reviews drove new customers which drove good reviews. This is the cycle that underlies everything at Silk Road and had made Tony a lot of money in a short span.

The feedback thread was lively and long. It was mostly full of positive reviews but the occasional negativity found its way in. When packages were late, some customers got angry. If an addict expects a package on Friday, making him wait until Monday can wreck havoc. The delays were mostly not Tony’s fault. Shipping packages cross-continent meant that any hiccup from mail services could mean significant waiting for the customer.

For every negative comment made, a dozen customers came to Tony’s defense, proclaiming their love for their favorite vendor on Silk Road, a stand up guy who had gained the trust of the community. For every negative comment made about Tony, another customer was requesting that Tony would immediately expand his business into meth and other drugs.

In the beginning of April, more and more negative comments began to appear. Packages were slow. Tony76 blamed recent layoffs at the United States Postal Service.

Still, many Silk Road users gave a spirited defense of Tony.

“Tony is the best,” wrote ijumz. “He will always come through. No one has any need to worry. I know he gets backed up with more pointless messages than I can even imagine and I’m not about to add to that. If you should have faith in anyone, then it should be the #1 vendor on SR!”

A week into April saw even more claims of packages that were days and weeks late in arrival.

“Trust me guys, this is harder on me than it is on you,” wrote Tony. “You may not believe me, but i stress out a ton when things are late because i’m always worried that people will think i am unreliable etc. I wish i had the option of offering something like DSN’s [tracking packages] anonymously, but the fact is that it is impossible in canada to get tracking without being on camera somewhere.”

Tony added that because he was a top seller, he was a target for fraudulent complaints.

Other vendors were having similar shipping issues, said Tony’s defenders. The problem may have been in Canada’s postal system rather than a problem with Tony. Were they confiscating the packages? Was it low staffing and slow shipping? It seemed that no one really knew the answers and there was no place to find hints except from the anonymous posters on the Silk Road forum.

“All these posts are really stressing me out.. To the point that it’s fucked up my mood and i have been in a shit mood all day,” wrote Tony. And when, eventually, more posters wrote that they’d received their packages with high quality drugs, a happier Tony appeared on the board to say that a customer’s patience is always rewarded.

“Also guys, i’m #1 for a reason,” wrote Tony. “i take care of my customers.. so don’t worry. I wont have anyone get fucked over. We’re in this together.”

—

On April 9, a poster named 1ge81la7 wrote in Tony’s feedback thread.

“I just received some information that an order from Tony was intercepted and resulted in a friends house being visited by the FBI and subsequently arrested one of them. They asked how they ordered it and basically implied that they have been intercepting a lot of his packages.”

Tony immediately popped into the thread and called 1ge81la7 a scam artist, identifying her as ObamaGirl, a Silk Road vendor who had once scammed customers and was now out to take Tony off the top rung of the Silk Road ladder. Tony posted a private message apparently from ObamaGirl in which she threatened his business.

Most Silk Road posters sympathized with Tony and once again came to his defense. The exceptions were those customers who claimed to be waiting for packages for weeks overdue, a claim that was becoming increasingly common.

Tony responded to the complaints.

“All is well in Tony land… I just look at this thread and shake my head because the amount of stress vending here is starting to cause me… No matter how many hours i put in every day, i still can’t please everyone.”

Business was up and orders were increasing but problems persisted and even grew.

He wrote that he had been losing money giving people partial refunds because their packages had apparently been delayed but that he couldn’t verify the truth of most claims. Silk Road’s reputation system was broken, he said, because buyers can leave feedback for vendors but vendors can’t leave feedback for buyers. He was being scammed and it was costing him his money and his mental health.

“I’m doing the best i can guys. I take care of all my customers. Cheers.”

Few of Tony’s customers wanted to stress the top vendor on Silk Road and their new favorite drug dealer.

Soon after, ostensibly to beat the scammers, Tony began to require that all customers ‘finalize early’ by immediately paying directly to Tony as opposed to putting the money in a Silk Road escrow fund until the transaction was complete. Suddenly, the number one vendor on Silk Road was requiring all of his customers cut out the third party, circumventing the system that had made Silk Road a success.

The action was divisive.

“Silk Road is based on TOR, escrow, and bitcoins,” wrote user phubaiblues. “By requiring that everybody go out of escrow, we buyers have no recourse if things go badly. Escrow is here for a reason. I’m real uncomfortable when someone with good reputation is asked to finalize early.”

Secretly, Tony established a private invite-only site for some of his customers so that they could order directly from him completely outside of Silk Road and its community.

When some customers complained, others predictably came to Tony’s defense. Several customers wrote that they’d be furious if complaints led to Tony stopping business. No one was as good as Tony. No one got the drugs out as smoothly as him.

—

As the pot holiday 4/20 approached, Silk Road garnered even more attention. A 4/20 sale by the site’s founder (Dread Pirate Roberts) created excitement around the community. Tony was quick to take part “offering fabulous discounts on his products and for the first time ever opened up shop to buyers outside North America,” reported All Things Vice. “Orders flooded in from users well accustomed to receiving high quality goods from this seller and from new users, excited to have the chance to buy from such an esteemed identity.”

Tony offered holiday discounts on MDMA, heroin, cocaine, LSD and ketamine. Silk Road’s biggest holiday saw its top vendor get an awful lot of new business. Dozens of new customers posted that they were excited to make their first purchase off of Tony, the most trusted name in online drugs.

As orders flooded in, Tony required immediate payment via Bitcoin (having the customer ‘finalizing early’) from all customers until he could somehow stop scammers from hurting him financially by demanding refunds and giving him bad reviews.

Tony had registered his account in January. In just over three months, he had built up the site’s greatest reputation as a trustworthy businessman. He was known for politeness and professionalism. Most of all, he got people the drugs they wanted.

If you had problems with your shipment during the 4/20 sale, forum-goers told complainers to contact Tony privately and that he’d fix things up eventually. That’s how it had always worked in the past. Why would Tony lie now?

“Tony can handle it,” wrote MSCammer. “Just leave him alone. Stop talking about it stop screaming about late days stop sending pointless time wasting messages and STOP FREAKING OTHER PEOPLE OUT.”

—

Generally good reviews continued to roll in for several days following 4/20. Great ecstasy trips were described in the sort of detail that only someone on E would produce. But more and more negative reviews started to surface. Packages were late and Tony wasn’t responding to messages.

It soon became clear that no one was receiving packages ordered during the 4/20 sale.

Within a week of 4/20, Tony was accused of being a scam artist who just picked up and left with all the money he’d made from the sale. His defenders said it was illogical, that Tony had proven himself trustworthy already and that his doubters were “full of shit.”

“How has he proven he is not a scammer?,” wrote eeee. “He has only been around for THREE MONTHS.  I’ve been watching you cloudy minded fools fall for shit over and over, month after month.   Gullible fools will always be around, you can’t just blindly trust people on the internet, and especially the Silk Road. It’s way too easy for someone to come in here and scam everyone, the anonymous nature of it just adds to the scammer’s protective veil.  If you seriously aren’t thinking by now that he could have just ran off with all of your money, there’s probably a good chance you’re an idiot.

Depending on who you talked to, eeee was a either an arrogant moron or a person airing legitimate concerns in exactly the right place: the feedback thread. eeee was initially deemed a troll. As time passed, more and more people came to his defense in the increasingly panicked forum.

The negative voices grew louder. Some threw out numbers. Tony could have stolen well over $50,000, said one forumer. According to some members, $100,000 was a realistic possibility. Defenders told doubters to relax, all the while not hearing a peep from Tony who had once been famous for his exceptional customer service.

The theories began to ring out.

Was Tony a cop? Maybe, the response came, but he’d had an awful lot of successful shipments worldwide.

Was he just a greedy scammer? Could be, said some members, but he’d exhibited the epitome of grace under pressure with the uptick in business. He was a good guy.

Why would he cut out quickly when he could keep working and keep making more than the low six figures he’d just come into? If he had kept his listings up, he could have sucked a few hundred thousand more out of the scam. Instead, it all disappeared rapidly.

Was he arrested? How could anyone at Silk Road ever know? The entire site was set up to be as anonymous and disconnected as a bustling marketplace could be.

Private messages flooded Tony’s inbox all the while but he responded to precisely zero of them. We know he saw the messages pile up because his last login date came just as the tide of forum users against him began to rise on April 25, 2012 at 09:51 p.m.

Wait, wait, wait another week, came the call from more patient users. Patience has paid off for us in the past with Tony, why wouldn’t it pay off again?

Over on reddit, one would-be customer hoped that Tony would come through. “I’m dope sick,” wrote mjolnir. “And heading to my mail box in about 30 minutes :(.”

The minutes ticked by without deliveries, the days kept coming and the argument over Tony continued. Would he come back?

“omfg stfu you whining babies,” wrote chiefrogan. “tony76 will deliver and you will suck from his god-like drug-giving nipple soon enough.”

“He’s been a member for 3 months only,” wrote Thor. “Nobody really knows him. Most big sellers know they can’t keep stay in business for too long. Tony probably just cashed out. He could easily make or already have a different account from which he could restart his business. The question is did Tony want a free $100k and a vacation instead of shipping out hundreds of packages and making little profit? If you think the answer is definitely ‘no’ because he was a nice guy and blablabla you need a reality check. If he did do this it was a smart move. A brilliant scam. I am honored to have been scammed by him. Not really, fuck you.”

Days became weeks became months without a sign of life from the number one seller on Silk Road.

Tony has not been heard from since April 25, 2012.

“Don’t lecture me about being new to contract killing.”

If there is a supply, is there necessarily a demand?

On a simple, anonymous and hidden forum called Underground Market Board 2.0 (UMB), a poster named Shadow wrote yesterday that he is a very experienced marksman looking for serious people to sell him weapons near New York City. That’s not a combination that usually ends happily for everyone involved.

“I sold almost all of my Rifles i used when i shot competitively,” wrote Shadow. “I’m planning doing Contracts so obviously I am need of new ones. Don’t lecture me about Being new to contract killing. I am fully aware of the consequences if i get caught.”

Shadow posted his advertisement on October 27, 2012 on the somewhat strange and hidden UMB in which anonymous users seek to buy and sell guns, stolen information, drugs and other illegal goods and services.

“Cash for kills” reads another post by BlueGuru. ”You want someone taken care of? Im your man. 10,000 within US. 20,000 international. No questions asked (besides all basic vital info for the job). prefer bitcoins for anonymity.”

Blue then provided his TorMail address, the anonymous email service of choice for the buyers and sellers on Underground Market Board.

Maybe UMB isn’t too strange. After all, the Tor-powered deep web bazaar seems common enough. The Silk Road is famous and the Hidden Wiki serves as a deep web travel guide by cataloging a dynamic set of forums and markets that speak about and sell contraband anonymously. Drugs especially are easy to buy online even if a little expensive compared to your local neighborhood hook up.

UMB is listed near the top of the popular Hidden Wiki, requires no registration (like, say, Silk Road does) and offers little in the way of conversation. Most posts are requests or offers for illegal goods plus an anonymous email to contact if one is interested.

Internet shopping is convenient, sure, but is a professional hit man really just a couple of clicks away?

Consider the possibility that UMB and its posters are frauds.

BlueGuru, the assassin advertising a $10,000 domestic hit service, has attracted a number of skeptics to his ads. Blue, as he refers to himself, has written that he has extensive murder experience, only accepts the anonymous digital currency of Bitcoins and is “not some child living out what he saw in a movie.”

woodenrabbit, another UMB poster, didn’t believe Blue. Blue’s “low, low prices,” as described by woodenrabbit, Blue’s exclusive use of Bitcoins (invented in 2009) for a supposedly experienced hitman and the overall lack of details had woodenrabbit vocally skeptical of this apparent assassin.

“The prices i gave are the prices I have always given and they are the prices I always will give,” responded Blue. “If the job calls for more money I’d know that right off the bat and would adjust the original deal accordingly. Newsflash, we live in a large world with a lot of people. Just because you dont have the heart to end a life doesnt mean that theres not people like me who can and who make a living off of it.”

It turns out that nternet arguments aren’t limited strictly to religion and politics.

“On the average, there are about 3 to 5 professional ‘hitmen’ advertising services on this board,” wrote woodenrabbit. “they all seem to have something in common with you- They watch movies and think ‘hey, I could do that’.”

Blue had originally said that the lack of details about his experience were meant to keep himself and his clients safe. Then, obviously offended because he was accused of being a fake on the internet, he proceeded to detail his career as a professional killer. According to Blue, he’s received government training and has three years total experience working “in this line of work” including one year doing freelance killing.

“I was getting paid by my company to handle stuff like this but since i left them i havent been getting any work, which is why im here,” he wrote. “i make one post trying to get some money together because im going broke and some little douchebag who has no clue what hes talking about suddenly starts running his mouth like a child having absolutely no idea of whether or not i can do the things i said or not. if you really want to know why dont you hire me for a job and THEN you can start talking shit IF i dont succeed. but since you HAVENT hired me and you DONT know me, keep your little ass out of my posts.”

If movies have taught us anything, it’s that hired killers ought to be cold blooded and calm under all circumstances. If justified internet skepticism (served with a side of condescension) can provoke that irritated response, who is hiring Blue to be behind cross-hairs?

But if the Underground Market Board has its share of apparent bullshitters, the vast majority of the posts are not being met with skepticism. They’re being met with interest.

Can you hack my university and change my major? Yes, $500.

Can you help me sell pure Colombian cocaine in America and Canada? Yes, easily.

Weapons in Australia, confidential doctor’s records in America, fake IDs, a pharmacy’s worth in drugs and even psychic readings for occultists are all apparently for sale and selling on UMB.

And Shadow, the would-be contract killer looking for weapons close to New York City? It took all of two days for someone to respond to him with an anonymous email address. Shopping has never been easier.