Student arrested in Harvard bomb threat case

[redheadbaker]

www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/12/18/255198081/student-is-charged-in-harvard-bomb-scare

The initial suspicion of many — that Monday's bomb scare at Harvard University was the work of a student who wanted to avoid taking a test — may have been correct."

A Harvard University student who was allegedly trying to get out of a final exam has been charged with making bomb threats that led to the evacuation of four campus buildings and the cancellation of some final exams Monday," our colleagues at WBUR report.

They've posted a copy of court papers filed by the FBI in which Special Agent Thomas Dalton alleges that the student, 20-year-old Eldo Kim of Cambridge, Mass., sent four emails to officials at the school Monday morning. Each message, Dalton writes, said:

"shrapnel bombs placed in:
"science center
"sever hall
"emerson hall
"thayer hall
"2/4. guess correctly.
"be quick for they will go off soon"

According to the court papers:
— The emails' author had used "a service called Guerrilla Mail, an Internet application that creates temporary and anonymous e-mail addresses available free of charge."
— "Further investigation yielded information that the person who sent the e-mail messages accessed Guerrilla Mail by using a product called TOR, which is also available free of charge on the Internet and which automatically assigns an anonymous Internet Protocol ('IP') address that can be used for a limited period of time."
— "Harvard University was able to determine that, in the several hours leading up to the receipt of the e-mail messages described above, ELDO KIM accessed TOR using Harvard's wireless network."

When the FBI and campus police interviewed Kim on Monday evening, the FBI agent's account adds, Kim "stated that he authored the bomb threat e-mails. ... According to KIM, he was motivated by a desire to avoid a final exam scheduled to be held on December 16, 2013."

Kim is due to appear in a federal court in Boston on Wednesday. He's charged with making bomb threats and if convicted could be sentenced to as much as five years in prison.

The student-run Harvard Crimson says Kim is a sophomore. The Crimson writes that:

"On Saturday night, Kim sent an email over the Quincy [Hall] email list timestamped 9:58 p.m. under the subject line, 'Has anyone taken GOV 1368 The Politics of American Education?'

" 'I was wondering if anyone had taken GOV 1368: The Politics of American Education (Paul Peterson) in the past,' Kim wrote in the email. 'I have several quick questions about the course.'

"The final for Government 1368 was scheduled to take place at 9 a.m. on Monday in Emerson 210 and was among the exams evacuated Monday morning following the bomb threat. The Crimson could not immediately confirm if Kim was enrolled in the course."

The FBI's court papers, though, indicate that it was indeed the Government 1368 exam that Kim may have wanted to avoid:

"KIM was scheduled to take a final exam in Emerson Hall, a building on the Harvard campus, at 9:00 a.m. on December 16, 2013. KIM stated that he was in Emerson Hall at 9:00 a.m. when the fire alarm sounded and the building was evacuated. According to KIM, upon hearing the alarm, he knew that his plan had worked."

[cattledogkisses]

Well, I hope avoiding his final was worth a potential five year prison term. Idiot.

[wawa]

Fucking idiot.
Seriously. You go through all this trouble with your anonymous email and your anonymous IP address, forgetting all the time that you're doing this over a monitored wireless network.

Also...next time just trying studying. Asshole.

[downtoearth]

What a privileged asshole to think that flunking a final exam was such a negative life-changing experience that he would call in a bomb threat to his school to avoid flunking!

[IIOY]

Dec 18, 2013 13:49:20 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

What a privileged asshole to think that flunking a final exam was such a negative life-changing experience that he would call in a bomb threat to his school to avoid flunking!

Harvard grads blew up the economy. Don't be surprised.

#gradeinflation

[penguingrrl]

Moron. I would imagine all the time he spent researching and executing this plan could have instead been used studying and he would have passed the exam. Instead he's facing prison. Brilliant. And I would imagine he'll also be expelled, which likely would not have happened over poor performance on a single exam.

[heyjude]

Politics of an American Education indeed! JFC he could be a case study in the same course on what's fucking wrong with education today.

[pixy0stix]

doh, he was so close.

not.

[ttt]

Dec 18, 2013 15:30:47 GMT -5 @esquirefish said:

Harvard's average grade is something like an A-... he could have half-assed studied over the weekend and probably received a B.

I was going to say, he was getting an A anyway so why bother with all this??

[decemberwedding07]

Dec 18, 2013 13:36:19 GMT -5 wawa said:

Fucking idiot.
Seriously. You go through all this trouble with your anonymous email and your anonymous IP address, forgetting all the time that you're doing this over a monitored wireless network.

Also...next time just trying studying. Asshole.

I know!  And think about everyone else who did study and got themselves in the mindset for taking their tests, and then had to stop part way through!  And the tests that were interrupted-- are the profs going to have to rewrite those?  Will the students get to just pick up where they left off? 

[mrsukyankee]

You'd be amazed at how many kids are cheating due to fears of failure (and I mean for some of them getting under an A+). They are kids who have never failed anything because mommy, daddy and the school step in to make sure they never feel pain. And then they do something like this...

[secretlyevil]

What a fucking morAn.

[mouse]

This seems like a very lazy bomb threat. He couldn't be bothered to go off-campus?

[cattledogkisses]

Dec 18, 2013 17:23:16 GMT -5 mouse said:

This seems like a very lazy bomb threat. He couldn't be bothered to go off-campus?

Right?  At least go to the public library or something. 

[IIOY]

Dec 18, 2013 16:17:55 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

You'd be amazed at how many kids are cheating due to fears of failure (and I mean for some of them getting under an A+). They are kids who have never failed anything because mommy, daddy and the school step in to make sure they never feel pain. And then they do something like this...

But this is why you go to Harvard.  Failure isn't a possibility.  BAM