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Everyone Has an Anthrax Theory
Originally published Sunday, January 6, 2002
By Scott Shane
Sun Staff

Flawed reporting:
Even the most respected news organizations have reported details about the mailed anthrax or the investigation that quickly proved unfounded.

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist at the State University of New York, thinks she has figured out a great deal about the person who mailed the anthrax that killed five people last fall.

"He had to be an insider in the U.S. biological defense program," she says. Not only that: He is a microbiologist. He probably lives near Washington. And for those who want details, she has laid her reasoning out on the Internet.

To Richard M. Smith, a computer security expert in Massachusetts, the nine-digit ZIP codes on the anthrax letters could be a crucial clue - as well as the ersatz return address, a made-up elementary school. If the attacker used the Internet to collect his information, Smith says, he might have left an electronic trail.

Orley R. Bourland Jr., a Fort Detrick retiree who once made anthrax for the Army, has hunted the Web to see whether the equipment needed to make the powder is widely available (yes) and consulted with colleagues to judge whether a person working alone could physically have performed the necessary tasks to do so (probably not).

In the absence of visible progress in the three-month FBI hunt for the anthrax-mailing terrorist, an informal army of detectives has joined the quest. Among them are distinguished scientists, eager amateurs, bounty hunters and conspiracy theorists of every stripe. Solving the mystery has become a game that anyone can play.

For encouragement, there's the $1.25 million reward offered jointly by the FBI and U.S. Postal Service for solving the case. Government sources say the prize will soon be upped to $2 million, a possible sign that investigators are stuck.

But the people who have become enthralled by the anthrax whodunit don't seem to have the money first in their minds.
(More: SunSpot.net News Source)
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