Murderer confesses on Anandtech forum

[YaRness]

it just goes to show, as it is demonstrated time and again here on the internet: Here there be monsters.

i.e.: surf at your own risk. like life, the only thing you can be most sure of is yourself.

[FoBoT]

that is toooo weird

people are gullable

everything in email/on the internet must be true :p

good thing the internet is just a fad :rolleyes:

[YaRness]

and it's not just the internet in general, it's stuff like MUDs that really gets people weird. i played on one all through college, and there are people that just take it WAY WAY too seriously. and people that just know WAY WAY too well how to abuse it. lots freaks out there.

[hswoolve]

The scary thing is that this has been going on since the internet began, and people logged on.

I remember reading an article (on paper, in a magazine and all) about a man, a psychologist who masqueraded on Compuserv as a paraplegic woman, he would make friendship under both the illusion-her and the real-him, and wound up having a real life affair with another forum member, and then pumping her for information about the relationship as the illusion-her.

It all ended up falling apart quite messily, although I don't recall whether or not it cost him his license to practice.

Moral of the story? -- this has been going on since the early 1980's. We're all 10 point arial around here.