The dark web beyond the reach of metadata retention laws

A day before carrying a mass shooting, Chris Harper-Mercer seemed to hint online at what he was planning.

There are places in the dark web that act as echo chambers where troubled people gather online and combine to form a kind of collective sociopathy, stamp their feet in abusive tirades, ideate mass murder and urge others on to commit the worst possible crimes.

Oregon mass murderer, Christopher Harper-Mercer was a frequent user of 4Chan bulletin boards. His penultimate post on 4Chan’s /r9k/ board obliquely revealed his intentions.

“I have an elaborate plan. Needless to say it shall be glorious. Some of you guys are alright. Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest. Happening thread will be posted tomorrow. So long space robots.”

His like-minded ‘robots’ offered advice.

“I suggest you enter a classroom and tell people you will take them as hostages. Make everyone get in the corner and then open fire.”

“You might want to target a girls (sic) school which is safer because there are no beta males throwing themselves for their rescue. Do not use a shotgun. I would suggest a powerful assault rifle and a pistol or 2x pistols. Possibly the type of pistols who have 15+ ammo.”

When the reports of the shooting at Umpqua Community College started coming through 4Chan’s /r9k/ board went into a shameless orgy of congratulation. Harper-Mercer was applauded in numerous comments. One such post: “He did it. One of us. One of us.”

Prior to his assault on the college, Harper-Mercer made other posts suggesting his rampage was in part a tribute to Elliot Rodger who went on a shooting spree in and around Santa Barbara Community College in California killing six people and injuring 14 on March 23, 2014.

Welcome to the dark world of beta males, sometimes also known as ‘cucks’, ‘robots’ or ‘incels’ – short for involuntary celibates. The beta males refer sneeringly to well-adjusted young men and women as ‘Chads’ and ‘Staceys’.

The first media go-to point in the wake of any spree or rampage shooting event in the US is to blame the country’s gun laws, yet clearly there is a lot more going on than the availability of firearms.

Like Harper-Mercer, Rodger whined about being rejected by women and despised men who were able to enjoy healthy sexual relationships with women. Harper-Mercer and Rodger suffered serious developmental and mental health issues. Both used 4Chan and other social media forums like Reddit and a range of deeply unpleasant men’s rights websites to spout their fury against the world.

In this respect sites like 4Chan create similar conditions to that which have radicalised young men and women to Islamic extremism. The degree of threat to the security of western society varies but the methods of recruitment are similar.

The echoes resonate far and wide. This week, the University of New South Wales published a warning on its Facebook page saying threats had been made against the university’s students. Police have beefed up security in and around the Kensington campus while the university has urged students to go about their studies as normal.

“I finally managed to get a handgun. Australians, if you study at UNSW don’t go in tomorrow,” the anonymous threat published on 4Chan read.

The wording of that threat reveals a similarity to Harper-Mercer’s post on 4Chan on the day before he coldly shot nine people dead and wounded nine others at Umpqua Community College. Colleges in Austin, Texas and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania went into lockdown after receiving similarly worded threats in the past seven days. All threats were published anonymously on 4Chan.

If you think user-created online message boards such as 4Chan should be banned you won’t get too many arguments from me, except to say they exist legally under US First Amendment rights to free speech. Even if shutting 4Chan down was possible then some other forum would be created in its wake.

This has already happened after 4Chan banned posts associated with the malignant saga of Gamergate, where a battle over online gaming culture led to death threats, threats of rape and actual identity theft of three women and their families, friends and associates.

What rose to prominence was another image message board known as 8Chan, bearing the infinity symbol rather than an actual ‘8’. 8Chan is, if anything, worse than 4Chan where the obscene pursuit of the three women was allowed to go on virtually unchecked.

8Chan also hosts a paedophile image thread. Islamist terrorists and their supporters have been known to use the website to spread their messages of hate and lure in those open to their horrific suggestions.

Last month Google kicked 8Chan out of its search results but the site continues to draw in tens of thousands of unique users every day.

With this sort of anti-social, violent behaviour, you might think the state keeping a Mordor-like eye on it a good thing. The trouble with that assumption is that state’s eye is not all seeing and all knowing nor should we expect it to be.

Those who seek to cause harm won’t be giving anything away. All 4Chan’s hard core users who post on the /r9k/ board would use an encrypted browser like Tor. Many would route their net activity through encrypted servers known as virtual private networks.

Nevertheless, state surveillance is essential because these people must be monitored, but metadata retention is not an effective means of preventing further mass murders and terrorist events. Metadata retention is not a prophylactic by definition. It exists essentially for the forensic obsequies in the aftermath of criminal activities.

Be it Islamic radicalisation or the weird and shocking rise of beta male spree shooters, there are no easy solutions. State surveillance can only ever expect to enjoy a Pyrrhic victory. Much like our gun laws, it is the law abiding who will suffer the potential or actual indignities and intrusions while those with criminal intent mask their activities beyond the reach of the state.