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This is informative as all getout:

Teenage Bomb Threat Suspect Was Internet Prank-Call Star - Wired (May 7, 2009)

A 16-year-old North Carolina boy arrested for allegedly making a bomb threat against Purdue University had a secret identity as a superstar in an unusual online subculture — one dedicated to making prank phone calls for a live internet audience, his mother admitted Thursday. ...

Lundeby confirmed that her son was known online as "Tyrone," a celebrity in a prank-calling community that grew late last year out of the trouble-making "/b/" board on 4chan. Using the VOIP conferencing software Ventrilo, as many as 300 listeners would gather on a server run by Tyrone to listen to him and other amateur voice actors make often-crude and racist phone calls, some of which are archived on YouTube. The broadcasts were organized through websites like PartyVanPranks.com.

A former fan of Tyrone's work helped lead the police to Lundeby's son after the boy allegedly moved beyond pranks this year and began accepting donations from students eager to miss a day of school. In exchange for a little money, Tyrone would phone in a bomb threat that would shutter the donor's school for a day.

"People would pay about five dollars, and they get to submit a number," says Jason Bennett, a 19-year-old college student in Syndey, Australia. "It was getting way out of hand."

Lundeby admits that her son received donations for his prank phone calls, but denies that he made bomb threats. She says her son was with her, coming home from church, at the time of the February 15 phone call that summoned a bomb squad and evacuated the mechanical engineering building at Purdue University in Indiana.

Bennett didn't hear the Purdue call, but he says he heard Tyrone admit to that bomb threat later, and decided enough was enough. He contacted university police and began helping them get the goods on "Tyrone."

The case came to a head the night of March 5, when Tyrone made a series of rapid-fire bomb threats against five different schools around the United States. Bennett recorded the calls. ...[more]


61 posted on 05/07/2009 3:49:44 PM PDT by Cboldt
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I d/l'd the [35 Mb] .mp3 of several of the calls. The voice is clear. Mom's excuse, "There are other people who sound like him," is a give.
62 posted on 05/07/2009 4:04:56 PM PDT by Cboldt
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