BOMBER HAS ICON STATUS ON INTERNET.Byline: The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times The Unabomber, the ultimate technophobe A person who is afraid of technology and does not enjoy using it. See lamer and Luddite. Contrast with technophile. , has a cult following on the World Wide Web that has drafted him for president, given him a mug-shot makeover, and squirreled away countless copies of his mammoth manifesto. ``Mr. UnaB,'' one site calls him. Joseph Keeler, a high school sophomore in Sunnyvale, started a site called the Unabomb Information Center, and was soon getting e-mail from people who claimed to know the hooded fugitive. ``This was our Great Train Robbery,'' the 15-year-old said. ``Everyone imagined they had seen the Unabomber.'' A Boston group called the Unabomber Political Action Committee has a site on the computer network promoting its ``Unabomber Write-In '96 Campaign,'' with the suggested bumper sticker, ``Don't Blame Me - I Voted for the Unabomber.'' ``His favorability ratings may be low,'' the page says, ``but his name recognition is close to 100 percent.'' Chuck's Unabomb Page was posted by a librarian in Maryland who feared that the Unabomber was giving anarchy a bad name. And Steve Hau, a graduate engineering student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Sloan School of Management has notable programs in business, , announces on his home page, ``Contrary to what my family and the FBI may believe, I am not the Unabomber.'' ``I've gotten mail paying tribute to him from all over the world,'' said Hau, 24. ``People aren't really fans. They're just impressed.'' A few sites scrambled this week to post news of Wednesday's capture in Montana of a suspect in the string of deadly bombings. But on most pages, the Unabomber remained a romantic outlaw, an enigmatic loner loner Psychiatry A single young man estranged from society and family, who suffers from psychogenic pain, and tends to live 'on the edge', vacillating between aggression and depression; loners often have unrealistic goals, but are unable to work towards those goals eluding the U.S. government. The Unabomber area of Time Warner's Pathfinder site has a game called ``Find the Unabomber.'' Pathfinder invites visitors to join a forum that asks, ``Is there a little of the Unabomber in all of us?'' MetroActive, a site formed by three alternative weeklies in Northern California, says sarcastically that the FBI sketch has got to go. ``What's with the declasse dé·clas·sé adj. 1. Lowered in class, rank, or social position. 2. Lacking high station or birth; of inferior social status. sunglasses and Boyz-in-the-Hood hood?'' the page asks. ``The Unabomber needs a make-over.'' That is followed by an ``after'' sketch. ``Molotov Mode,'' the caption coos. ``This anarcho-terrorist is looking dynamite in wraparound Wraparound A financing device that permits an existing loan to be refinanced and new money to be advanced at an interest rate between the rate charged on the old loan and the current market interest rate. sunglasses, $140, by Giorgio Armani; black pin-striped suit, $1,550; white corduroy corduroy, a cut filling-pile fabric with lengthwise ridges, or wales, that may vary from fine (pinwale) to wide. Extra filling yarns float over a number of warp yarns that form either a plain-weave or twill-weave ground. shirt, $395; and black silk tie, $125, by Hugo Boss. Styled by Andre.'' The same site has a long essay from a man asserting that he is not the bomber, even though he matches a description released by law enforcement officials. ``Here I am a Sacramento-living, 42-year-old, former wild-eyed anarchist with some pretty deep philosophical distaste for what's become of society,'' he wrote. ``Any of you who knew me when, don't turn me in to the FBI.'' Although agents were led to their suspect by a low-tech tip following a spring cleaning, the FBI had imagined the Internet could be crucial for cracking the case. In a ``Dear Netters'' letter posted on the FBI's Web site, the Unabom Task Force in San Francisco said Internet users, including scholars and researchers, ``are precisely the type of individuals that to date have been recipients of explosive devices attributed to Unabom.'' On Friday, the page was still offering a $1 million reward, with no conditions specified. Browsers find the sketch, a chronology of the bombings and a toll-free phone number. ``You are not being asked to place yourself in harm's way,'' the FBI says. ``Contact the Unabom Task Force.'' The Web is awash in the 35,000-word Unabomber manifesto published last fall. Dr. Jim Thomas, a sociology professor at Northern Illinois University , said 15 to 20 people a day download the document from a site he maintains. About the literary quality of bomber commentary on the Web, Dr. Thomas observed, ``If you took away their computers, they'd be doing it with T-shirts.'' In a sly allusion to the bomber's use of wooden instead of metal devices, one site's treatise has a background resembling knotty knot·ty adj. knot·ti·er, knot·ti·est 1. Tied or snarled in knots. 2. Covered with knots or knobs; gnarled. 3. Difficult to understand or solve. See Synonyms at complex. plywood. ``OK, Mr. Unabomber. Here's the reply to your manifesto,'' says a note appended to one copy of the turgid turgid /tur·gid/ (ter´jid) swollen and congested. tur·gid adj. Swollen or distended, as from a fluid; bloated; tumid. turgid swollen and congested. screed screed n. 1. A long monotonous speech or piece of writing. 2. a. A strip of wood, plaster, or metal placed on a wall or pavement as a guide for the even application of plaster or concrete. b. . ``Bottom line, Mr. Unabomber: You are a successful murderer and a criminal, but a TOTAL FLOP as a political or social critic.'' |
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