Dark Places
Page 19
Doesn't that mean that as the number of users increases, the number of potential points you can get for a kill increases as well?
Yes. This is deliberate and ensures that the leaderboard is not necessarily monopolized by the users who have been here the longest.
What are style points awarded for?
It's hard to say, and we like to be surprised, but in general kills are considered stylish that involve:
- a high-profile target (eg a fellow-traveler rather than a local)
- multiple simultaneous victims
- subsequent media coverage
- a difficult location (eg a crowded lodge)
- pleasing aesthetics
Aren't you concerned that the authorities will discover this web site?
Not really.
First, of all the information on this site cannot be tracked back to its contributors. The site itself is registered to a false name and administrated anonymously by NumberOne, thousands of miles away from the actual computer that hosts it. Everyone who uses the site is anonymous. So its discovery would be a mild annoyance, not at all a disaster.
Second, we don't think that anyone is going to find out. No search engines have The Bull's address. Nobody knows to look for it. We very nearly don't exist. The only way we could be discovered is if the attempt to recruit new players goes awry - so please be very very careful about that, and only use the appropriate recruitment technique - or if one of you tells the rest of the world. But we think that's doubtful. After all, considering our raison d'etre, who wants to have us on their bad side… ?
But if our location ever is discovered, we will move the site to one of our fallback locations.
What is the primary fallback location?
Sorry: qualified players only.
What is the appropriate recruitment technique for new players?
Sorry: qualified players only.
I leaned back from my computer and stared at it as if I saw aliens breeding in its innards. Which in a sense I did.
"Holy fuck," I said, and then, more eloquently, "Holy fucking fuck."
Chapter 20 Bullsite
I saved the FAQ to my drive and looked next at the Current Log.
Entry #: 57
Points to date: 21
Entered by: NumberThree
Entry date: 13 Nov 2000
Kill date: 9 Nov 2000
Kill location: Rio de Janiero, Brazil
Victim specifications: 2 street children in Brazilian slums
Kill description: Strangulations in a back alley.
Media files and URLs:
Photographs here, here and here.
Copy of police report by People For Children here.
Scores:
NumberOne
5 substance, 2 style. "Multiple but otherwise unremarkable."
NumberTwo
5 substance, 3 style. No comment made.
NumberFour
5 substance, 1 style. "Not up to NumberThree's high standards."
NumberFive
No score yet.
Entry #: 56
Points awarded: 27
Entered by: NumberFour
Entry date: 5 Nov 2000
Kill date: 18 Oct 2000
Kill location: Gunsang, Nepal
Victim specifications: Stanley Goebel, Canadian backpacker
Kill description: Ambush in an abandoned village near the trekking trail.
Media files and URLs:
Pictures available here and here.
The Nepali police called it a suicide(!), but the kill was corroborated on the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree here by its discoverers.
Scores & Comments:
NumberOne
5 substance, 4 style. "Neatly done. Aesthetically pleasing."
NumberTwo
5 substance, 4 style. "Pretty lucky you got that corroboration."
NumberThree
5 substance, 4 style. "I've been on the Circuit, I have some idea how difficult it would have been to find the right moment. Good work."
NumberFive
No score yet.
Entry #: 55
Points awarded: 18
Entered by: NumberFive
Entry date: 21 September 2000
Kill date: 19 September 2000
Kill location: Bangkok, Thailand
Victim specifications: Thai prostitute, name unknown
Kill description: Lured victim to hotel room for assignation, strangled.
Media files and URLs:
Digital video with audio is located here.
Corroboration from the Bangkok Post's "Nite Owl" column here.
Scores:
NumberOne
5 substance, 1 style. "Thai prostitutes are exceedingly banal."
NumberTwo
5 substance, 1 style. "Boring and frankly I find the sexual aspect disgusting."
NumberThree
0 substance, 0 style. "I'm not convinced. The video is blurry, the audio could be faked, and lots of Bangkok prostitutes turn up dead."
NumberFour
5 substance, 1 style. "Real, but that's the only good thing to say about it."
Entry #: 54
Points awarded: 35
Entered by: NumberOne
Entry date: 9 August 2000
Kill date: 30 July 2000
Kill location: Luxor, Egypt.
Victim specifications: Eric & Lucy Hauptmann, middle-aged American tourists.
Kill description: Gunfire ambush during a camelback safari in the desert.
Media files and URLs:
Photographs and audio here, here and here.
Lengthy article in The Times of London which suggests that the attack is that of a terrorist faction here.
Other related articles here, here, here and here.
Scores:
NumberTwo
5 substance, 5 style. "Again the standard we strive to meet."
NumberThree
5 substance, 4 style. "Very impressive."
NumberFour
5 substance, 5 style. "Well worth the wait."
NumberFive
5 substance, 3 style. "Pretty good."
Entry #: 53
Points awarded: 32
Entered by: NumberThree
Entry date: 14 April 2000
Kill date: 11 April 2000
Kill location: Jungle, Suriname
Victim specifications: Thomas Harrison, British backpacker
Kill description: Multiple stab wounds. Night-time ambush.
Media files and URLs:
Digital video with audio here.
Corroboration from London's Guardian newspaper here.
Scores:
NumberOne
5 substance, 3 style. "Neatly done, a worthy target."
NumberTwo
5 substance, 3 style. No comment made.
NumberFour
5 substance, 4 style. "Often, paradoxically, kills are more difficult at night."
NumberFive
5 substance, 2 style. "Its okay. Not real memorable."
View archive of previous entries
"Aw, shit," I said aloud, when I was finished. I felt sick.
I didn't want to read any more but I had to see one more thing. I saved the Current Log file and went to the archives. Fifty-two more entries, dating back to May 1996, when NumberOne initiated the whole thing. NumberTwo had joined in July 1996. NumberThree had shown up in 1998 — he was Southern Africa's The Bull. NumberFive was a recent recruit, less than a year on The Bull.
And NumberFour, Morgan Jackson, had began his career with this:
Entry #: 28
Points awarded: 27
Entered by: NumberFour
Entry date: 9 July 1998
Kill date: 15 June 1998
Kill location: Limbe, Cameroon
Victim specifications: Laura Mason, British traveler
Kill description: Ambushed on the beach at night, eviscerated.
Media fil
es and URLs:
Photographs here and here.
Corroboration from various British papers here, here and here.
Scores:
NumberOne
5 substance, 4 style. "Well done. Welcome. An impressive debut."
NumberTwo
5 substance, 4 style. "Central Africa? You've got more guts than me. (sorry)."
NumberThree
5 substance, 4 style. "Bienvenue. I wish you a prosperous career."
I didn't want to look at the photographs, but I did. Laura on the beach. I'd seen her there, but it was far more horrific seeing this picture now than it was discovering her then. My hands shook so badly I couldn't shut down the window and I had to stab at the computer's OFF button instead. I was making grunting noises with every breath. I felt as if someone had kicked me hard in the stomach.
The Bull was a fucking game. And Morgan was only one of five.
Chapter 21 Demon Princes
I didn't know what to do. I wanted to call Talena and talk to her. At the same time I didn't want to talk to anyone, didn't want to ever have any contact with that repugnant animal called homo sapiens ever again. Move to Tibet and find a cave in the Himalaya and sit there forever. That was what I really wanted.
I went out to get a very late breakfast. I got to the Pork Store half an hour before it closed. Best breakfast in the city but that day it might as well have been cardboard. I must have looked like hell, and I was muttering to myself, and the waitress gave me a wide berth and rushed to give me the check. I must have looked pretty weird and disturbing even for the Upper Haight, and that's saying something.
The food helped me pull myself together. I went back to my apartment and turned the computer back on and went back to The Bull. Forcing myself to be analytical, investigative. To save every speck of data I could find on the site and then hunt through it to find out whatever I could.
The bulletin board was only available to qualified users. I didn't try to register or add an entry. That left me with just the FAQ and the logs. I read through every single entry, starting in chronological order, making notes in a Notepad file as I went through.
NumberOne was responsible for 13 entries. NumberTwo was responsible for 21, but hadn't made an entry in the last six months. NumberThree had done 10. NumberFour, Morgan, was responsible for seven. NumberFive had six entries, all Thai prostitutes.
The total number of reported deaths was 57, although several entries, particularly from NumberTwo, were considered questionable and got few if any substance points. Fifty-seven murders. These five madmen had killed fifty-seven people over the last five years, and it looked like I was the first person to discover them.
They had begun by killing locals. For the first couple of years they went to Third World countries and murdered poor helpless poverty-stricken natives. The majority of victims were still locals. But in the last couple of years they had moved to killing travelers in a big way. Partly for style points and partly because they were easier to corroborate. NumberTwo, in particular, lamented how difficult it was to get outside media to verify that you had murdered some street kid in Calcutta. But travelers were still a minority, a mere eighteen of the 57 victims were citizens of First World countries.
I tried to extrapolate personalities from comments. NumberOne, presumably the original Bull, that Usenet "Taurus," was patronizing, full of himself, and used flowery words. NumberThree was much the same. NumberTwo didn't make comments very often, and when he did, used slang. NumberFour, Morgan, stuck to commenting on the difficulty of each entry. NumberFive appeared to be the odd one out, a sexual sadist who didn't have the command of the language that the others did, who often seemed a little defensive and didn't get along with the others. I got the sense they regretted that they had recruited him.
Details of the appropriate recruitment technique were restricted to qualified users only. I wondered how it worked. Had any of these five ever met face-to-face? I doubted it. At least not until they were very confident in one another. Far too dangerous. So what was this technique? How did you safely bring a new member to The Bull?
I guessed it worked the same day online child-porn rings worked. As repulsive as The Bull, but far more common if the newspapers were any guide. Your target market consists of the people hunting in the deepest, darkest, ickiest, most disturbing corners of the Net, the most loathsome hardcore porn sites, most unspeakable Usenet rape fantasies, the sick underworld of faked snuff films and elaborately documented torture fiction. They looked for users who contributed — anonymously, of course — to these sites. I guessed they wanted people who seemed homicidally fucked up but in a cold controlled way, although it looked like they had misjudged with NumberFive at least. Then they talked to them on an anonymous IRC chat line or a secure instant messaging connection, talked to them regularly until they thought they knew and understood the potential recruit, and if they passed muster, then they popped the question — invited the recruit to join The Bull.
That IRC fragment I'd dug up, that must have been from one of those recruiting sessions, there must have been someone else online that NumberTwo and NumberThree were talking to. Maybe it was Morgan Jackson.
I went back to the site and looked at it more carefully, doing a technical analysis. It was a Microsoft FrontPage/ASP-powered site; the .asp filenames and HTML source for the pages confirmed that. The media files were stored on the site, but the links to corroborating data were URLs to the newspaper or other sites in question.
It was the work of a developer who knew a lot less than he thought he did. A semicompetent ASP programmer who thought that he understood how the Web worked and he had guaranteed security and anonymity on his site. Very wrong. First of all, he had neglected to warn his users to wipe the cookie files on client machines. Second, he was using an unencrypted login. Third, they had that simple "taurus" username/password combination for guests, where they should have an unintelligible mix of numbers and mixed-case letters.
Fourth, and potentially most dangerous to them, were the links to corroborating data. Every time you click on a link in the Web, the site you go to may log not just the IP number of your machine, aka the client address, but the IP number of the site whose link you clicked on, aka the referring address. Which meant that there were web logs out there with entries that had The Bull's IP number as the referring address, one entry for each time that a user of The Bull had clicked on that link — and each of those entries also held the client address, the IP number of the machine utilized by The Bull's user at the time.
In fact one of those web logs was the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree. My own account of Stanley Goebel's death had been used as corroborating evidence so Morgan could get his precious deadpool points. I couldn't remember if Lonely Planet logged the referring address or not. If they did, I could look them up, find out what computers the other users of The Bull had used to read that corroborating evidence.
But the rule that The Bull should only be accessed from a public terminal was sound and alleviated a lot of their risk. If they had followed it. Rules are meant to be broken. Morgan had broken one of The Bull's rules, he had gotten fancy, he had had a conversation with me on The Thorn Tree. And he had begun his career by breaking another, by killing someone he knew socially. I wondered how he could have hated Laura so much. I wondered how anyone could have hated Laura.
It occurred to me as I logged off that I had just left my traces on The Bull. Like Heisenberg said, the observer affects the observed. I had not gone through Anonymizer or SafeWeb or Zero-Knowledge; so I had left my own IP number in The Bull's web logs. And cable modems have fixed IP numbers. It was possible — difficult, unlikely, but possible — to determine my name and address once given that IP number. I might have just opened a path for The Bull to get to me.
For a moment I felt frightened. Then I realized that Morgan already knew my address. Last year when I moved in I had sent out a mass e-mail to all my friends and relatives and fellow Africa truckers. If he wanted to come ge
t me, he knew where I lived. But I didn't think he was going to. I thought he was certain I was harmless.
I intended to show him he was dead wrong.
I went for a walk because my apartment seemed claustrophobic again. Maybe I shouldn't renew the lease after all. I was beginning to associate it with horrific discoveries. I walked all the way down Haight Street to Market and then I turned around and walked back again, chewing the facts I had discovered, trying to smooth them into a digestible mass.
Then I called Talena.
"Hello?" she answered.
"Hi. It's Paul."
"Oh. Hi." She waited expectantly. I think she thought I had called to apologize.
"Listen. There's something you should see."
"What's that?"
"Do you have two phone lines?"
"What? No."
"Okay. I'm going to give you an IP number, a login, and a password, and you should go there and read what you find."
"Paul," she said, "does this have anything to do with The Bull?"
"This has everything to do with The Bull."
"Paul, stop. I mean it. Get it out of your head. I'm not getting involved any more."
I almost started arguing furiously but I thought of a more cunning tactic. "Okay. I understand that. And to be honest you probably don't want to read this. It's the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. But I felt, you know, I should at least call you and try to tell you about it."
There was a silence. Then she sighed, long and loud, and said "Tell me."
"I will. But first of all, and this is the important thing, is you want to go through SafeWeb. SafeWeb-dot-com. Enter the IP number into the address field on its home page."
"Or the Men In Black will find me and kill me?" she asked sarcastically.
"It's a distant but distinct possibility."
"Uh-huh. All righty then. What's the number?"