According to Pittsburgh's CBS affiliate there has been a pretty big break in the case. As evidenced by the elementary design of this blog, I'm no tech wizard, so please feel free to correct me if I get any details wrong (I'll keep it as simple to understand as possible). But sources indicate Mayfirst has been subpoenaed and will provide the FBI the necessary data from their servers to continue their investigation. In other words, finally giving authorities the telecommunications lead they needed.
Lessons learned:
1. Every student has heard this lecture: "Watch what you put on Facebook and the internet! Once it's out there, it never goes away!" This is a two way street. The perpetrator left digital "fingerprints" out there (several digital fingerprints!) that are undoubtedly still located somewhere in the Mayfirst servers. There's no erasing these fingerprints.
2. Perhaps if the threatener had only made one or two threats, it might have been difficult to track. Fortunately for authorities, this isn't really a needle in a haystack situation. Heck, even if they stopped now, it wouldn't really matter, they're still toast. There are several unique threats e-mailed in, at pretty regular intervals. It's not going to be hard to connect the dots on this one.
In short, this is probably the biggest break in the case yet. And it comes at a critical time as finals approach. I don't want to be overly optimistic here, but this guy's days are seriously, seriously numbered now. I only wish I could be there when the Feds knock on his door.
There's still a lot of questions unanswered and hoops to jump through. Heck, it may all trace back to a public computer. But it's still a huge step.
I'll let Anthony fill in anything else, he seems much more technologically fluent than me. See the comments section for more details.
UPDATE: As of 1:00 PM on Tuesday, no bomb threats since 9:30AM yesterday. I think this guy is spooked (and definitely should be).
UPDATE: No less than 10 minutes after I post that, we get another couple threats. My feelings on this.
