Report: Lanza destroyed computer’s hard drive before the attack
“It was pretty bad,” the source said of the smashed hard drive. “If he destroyed the computer, that means there are things on there that would concern him. It is going to be awhile before they can decipher the information.”
The FBI’s computer analysis response team is still trying to put the pieces of the hard drive back together, said the law-enforcement source, who asked not to be identified because of the ongoing investigation, “The kid knew what he was doing,” the source said. “This was a planned event. There is no question about it.”
According to the Hartford Courant, Lanza had used the computer to play a violent video game in which life-like characters participate in bloody battle scenes. At this point, there’s no telling what else he did with it.
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carazy like a fox
renalin on December 18, 2012 at 1:52 PM
We need comprehensive computer control legislation now!
RedRedRice on December 18, 2012 at 1:53 PM
So he played one of the 99.9% of video games available in stores.
NotCoach on December 18, 2012 at 1:53 PM
Oh, darn. Guess we’ll never know what his political affiliations were.
CurtZHP on December 18, 2012 at 1:54 PM
He knew that what he was doing was wrong. He didn’t suddenly go insane and thus was no longer capable of distinguishing between moral and immoral acts, right and wrong, good and evil.
This sounds like a revenge act, a deliberate planned act.
SteveMG on December 18, 2012 at 1:54 PM
The best article I have seen about this madness in regards to what to do about it came from LTC Grossman.
http://www.killology.com/schoolattack.htm
PierreLegrand on December 18, 2012 at 1:54 PM
“Sources indicate an assault hammer was used to destroy the hard drive renewing calls for high powered tool bans.”
- lib media
Lost in Jersey on December 18, 2012 at 1:57 PM
He knew what he was doing. He was fully cognizant. Which makes this even more chilling.
portlandon on December 18, 2012 at 1:57 PM
The fact that this woman takes a kid who is mentally deficient and introduces him to firearms is beyond me. On what planet does this seem like a good idea?
CycloneCDB on December 18, 2012 at 1:58 PM
heard about this earlier.
It takes work, but unless totaled, FBI should be able to get something off of it.
Clearly, he was hiding something. And took some pretty sane action to hide it.
Jabberwock on December 18, 2012 at 1:58 PM
Fascinating exercise in data reconstruction, while that’s typically recovering pieces of deleted files, this is recovering pieces of smashed hard drive. They ought to have technology to do this, like a scanner would digitize a color photo, some device should be able to read info off of the smashed hard drive pieces. If he really wanted to delete information, he should have used a powerful magnet, or “zeroed” out his hard drive with software, digitally wiping it clean.
Paul-Cincy on December 18, 2012 at 1:59 PM
And BTW, the mother’s computer might have some interesting things as well.
Jabberwock on December 18, 2012 at 2:00 PM
I’m so sick of the video game crap. I’m sorry but there have been books depicting horrific murders and war zones, of heroes on horseback slaughtering hundreds to defend whatever cause they stand for.
I’m pretty sure I remember many a character in Loony Toons having some appliance and/or anvil dropped on their heads and I don’t remember there being an outbreak of appliances falling from buildings in NYC. It doesn’t translate to real life!
Did “Brave New World” inspire child sex organizations to be formed? This same material has been present for centuries; it doesn’t motivate 99.9999% of people to do what is done in the books and that other remainder would have done their horrific act anyway.
Evil is real; stop blaming others and deal with the real problem.
angelwing34215 on December 18, 2012 at 2:01 PM
“That s/b outlawed” — sesqui and the other two brain cells
Schadenfreude on December 18, 2012 at 2:02 PM
I agree. It’s also irresponsible to have an arsenal when you have a person you know has mental problems in your charge. This mother had opportunities to make this incident not happen but was apparently in denial, as often parents are when it comes to their own children.
shuzilla on December 18, 2012 at 2:02 PM
The method of attack he used, where he decapitated the school’s administration first, struck me as almost military in effectiveness. Now this. I wonder where it will all lead?
Socratease on December 18, 2012 at 2:03 PM
You can be highly intelligent and highly disturbed at the same time. I mean, it doesn’t mean he knew what he was doing. IMHO, he probably didn’t have the typical experience of pondering, deliberating, choosing, and then acting. He might have felt he was controlled by aliens. In his mind he might have been matching one set of patterns to another without any conception of what it meant. He may not have understood he had a choice and could do otherwise. We just don’t know. We’ll never know for sure.
Paul-Cincy on December 18, 2012 at 2:03 PM
Yup, very calculated.
the_nile on December 18, 2012 at 2:04 PM
If he didnt use thermite on the hard drives then he wasn’t much of an expert
ChunkyLover on December 18, 2012 at 2:08 PM
So… Why’d he destroy the hard drive? I’ve not seen anyone ask this question.
To cover up his crime? Really?
What was SO bad on his hard drive that he had to destroy it to cover up his shame…
Skywise on December 18, 2012 at 2:08 PM
Sounds like something out of a movie. Wait, if it was a movie, the hard drive would be booby-trapped to explode the moment the authorities tried to retrieve any data off of it. It sounds like this was all planned out at least for a while. He had to improvise when he couldn’t buy a gun himself, but otherwise he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
Doughboy on December 18, 2012 at 2:08 PM
He might have been so far gone in belief of the 12-21-12 “prophesy” that he thought he was saving the kids from something worse. Or, having a hard life with mental illness, perhaps he thought he was targeting special needs children like him to save them from his misery.
Smashing the drive is odd. Why would a suicidal person want to hide anything, except to protect somebody he loved, or because he was “commanded” to?
shuzilla on December 18, 2012 at 2:10 PM
Heh.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 18, 2012 at 2:11 PM
Yep. A more productive convo we could be having on a national stage is how do we preserve the 2nd amendment rights for parents of children like this while still keeping us all safe.
(Hint for libs – it doesn’t have anything to do with limiting 2nd amendment rights for everyone else. Making me less free doesn’t make anyone else more free.)
CycloneCDB on December 18, 2012 at 2:12 PM
On the other hand, why destroy computer information? If you’re going to kill yourself along with others, why go through this? What are you protecting?
It seems calculating and deliberate but to what end? If he tried to escape, if he had some plan to get away with it, then destroying the hard drive might make sense.
But if it was a suicidal attack, what’s to hide?
SteveMG on December 18, 2012 at 2:13 PM
I’m so sick of the video game crap. I’m sorry but there have been books depicting horrific murders and war zones, of heroes on horseback slaughtering hundreds to defend whatever cause they stand for.
Some background before I respond…I have been playing first person shooters since before doom. I was a beta tester for a significant portion of time in the 90′s. Demo’d games at E3 one year…fully deeply involved in games. Love them and still play them. But…
You need to read LTC Grossman about how the army revolutionized training by using human forms as targets to get the regular GI to shoot the enemy. They noticed in WW2 that many infantrymen would simply not kill the enemy. They might fire over their heads but would rarely if ever actually try to kill them. It got so bad that the Army spent time identifying the types of personality they needed to put on a Crew Served Weapon. Think machine guns…
Then the army discovered that if they used human forms as targets the mental barriers could be broken down amongst most infantrymen. The more realistic the depiction of actual humans being shot the more effective the programming was in having soldiers kill.
Video games depict humans very realistically. Video games break down barriers so well the Army uses them.
This is non-controversial.
PierreLegrand on December 18, 2012 at 2:14 PM
midget gay porn…
the_nile on December 18, 2012 at 2:15 PM
He had a Facebook page where he described himself as an anarchist-communist, if that helps. I have a question about Aspergers,…do Aspies have normal feelings of empathy? I’ve read it both ways. Are they able to relate to misfortunes of other people? Our Aspie posters here strike me as people who care.
a capella on December 18, 2012 at 2:16 PM
What did he use to destroy the computer? A hammer?
We need stronger hammer control laws!
The Rogue Tomato on December 18, 2012 at 2:18 PM
I prefer albino porn myself
ChunkyLover on December 18, 2012 at 2:18 PM
I want to know what’s on that hard drive that is more damning than murdering a kindgarten class.
I have some theories but I’ll keep them to myself for now.
Kataklysmic on December 18, 2012 at 2:19 PM
Ahem.
I think you mean, “Abnormally short person alternative lifestyle porn.”
The Rogue Tomato on December 18, 2012 at 2:19 PM
Nah. Japanese hairy armpit and vomit porn.
The Rogue Tomato on December 18, 2012 at 2:20 PM
Related Sandy Hook information: Obysmal is profiting from the tragedy.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/team-obama-still-raising-money-off-sandy-hook-shootings/article/2516262?custom_click=rss#.UNC1KawofYN
The jerk is absolutely shameless and manipulative as h*ll.
onlineanalyst on December 18, 2012 at 2:20 PM
Should a deranged killer set the standard for the rest of us? Is anyone asking that question?
Those hard drives are tough. It’s an effort to unscrew the case and take out the disc itself. Recently I took an axe to the middle of the case of such a hard drive before I threw it out. The disc inside was probably very well salvagable by the FBI, but I wasn’t worried about the FBI.
Yes I know the guy massacred 20 kids but I still like to discuss nuts and bolts details.
Paul-Cincy on December 18, 2012 at 2:21 PM
Good point. At risk of swimming upstream on this, I’m inclined to suspect a link in modern attitudes toward human life, just as I believe there is one fostered by abortion and movies.
a capella on December 18, 2012 at 2:22 PM
All he had to do was download something free like DBAN, and run a seven-pass DoD wipe. But, that can take many hours. Physically destroying the drive with a hammer is a lot quicker.
Ward Cleaver on December 18, 2012 at 2:22 PM
Have the investigators actually determined that it was definitely Adam Lanza and not someone else who destroyed his computer?
The Rogue Tomato on December 18, 2012 at 2:22 PM
Thermite is more thorough.
The Rogue Tomato on December 18, 2012 at 2:23 PM
Some hard drives have glass disks. I found this out the hard way when I dropped a laptop drive and the disk shattered. If it was a glass disk I don’t see how the feds can reconstruct it. If he went to the trouble of smashing the drive I would suspect that he also erased it and just wanted to be sure.
False Flag? I was talking with someone last night that said one thing in common the CO guy and this one had was psychiatric help and drugs. He was hinting at some sort of covert brainwashing going on. He said the CO guy even claims that he was programmed to do it.
I personally think it’s BS but I figured I throw it out there anyway.
Frank Enstine on December 18, 2012 at 2:24 PM
Yes, they are. There’s a whole spectrum of disorders that fall into the Aspergers/Autism category where children with these disorders have to problem whatsoever feeling empathy for others. I know one girl in particular who is extremely empathetic. She is especially drawn to children with obvious disabilities (i.e. Downs, CP, etc.) and readily makes friends with them while “normal” children in her peer group ignore or shun them.
CurtZHP on December 18, 2012 at 2:24 PM
Y’mean like communications? There do seem to bea lot of coincidences lately.
a capella on December 18, 2012 at 2:24 PM
to = NO
CurtZHP on December 18, 2012 at 2:25 PM
Thanks.
a capella on December 18, 2012 at 2:27 PM
I might have guessed. If he had described himself as a conservative or libertarian, that would be the lead line in every story.
CurtZHP on December 18, 2012 at 2:28 PM
You could bang on a typical HD case a dozen times and possibly not even damage the disc inside. If you unscrew the case, take the disc out, and beat on it with a hammer, that might be a sure kill.
Paul-Cincy on December 18, 2012 at 2:29 PM
True. Human life is no longer precious, and society is moving toward utilitarianism. Also, animal rights types are working to equate animals with people (as far as worth goes), diminishing humans’ intrinsic value. Nuts.
Ward Cleaver on December 18, 2012 at 2:30 PM
Not really. With the proper forensic tools, you can still get the data off a smashed hard drive.
The Rogue Tomato on December 18, 2012 at 2:30 PM
If you run your computer off of a USB flash (with the OS and persistence on the flash) then nothing ever sits on the hard drive (save a little junk from the swap partition) and there is nothing to see when you pull the flash out and flush it. NOTHING.
Further, it’s easier and better to run your OS from a flash. Everyone should do it. It just makes life that much simpler.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 18, 2012 at 2:32 PM
Has anyone asked the question the Donks asked after the attack from the union mob in Michigan?
Was this a ‘false flag’ attack?
..Just asking the same question they asked..
Insert witty screen name here on December 18, 2012 at 2:33 PM
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