Anthrax 'rogue scientist' also Wikipedia cult member

Jimbo Wales sleuths secret sorority obsession

By Cade Metz in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Law, 7th August 2008 18:36 GMT

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Bruce Ivins, the deceased US government bioscientist accused of perpetrating the infamous 2001 anthrax mailings, was also a closet member of the online cult known as Wikipedia.

Under the name Jimmyflathead, Ivins spent several years obsessively editing Wikipedia's article on the American college sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma. A federal report exposing the rogue scientist's involvement with the Jimbo Wales-led online cult has turned up at The Smoking Gun.

Bruce Ivins killed himself last week as the US Justice Department prepared to indict him on capital murder charges.

According to US officials, Ivins's Kappa Kappa Gamma fixation dates back decades, and as The Associated Press reports, it could explain why anthrax-filled envelopes were mailed from Princeton, New Jersey - nearly 200 miles from Ivins' lab in Frederick, Maryland.

Apparently, Ivins' KKG obsession stems from his days as a student at the University of Cincinnati, where a member of the sorority may have snubbed his advances. The bioscientist once pilfered a sorority handbook from a Kappa Kappa Gamma house at the University of North Carolina, The Los Angeles Times reports, and the infamous anthrax mailbox is but 100 yards from where the Princeton KKG chapter stores its rush materials and initiation robes.

Wikipedia cult leader Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales likes to say he doesn't have the power to reveal the true identities of cult members. But when word of Ivins's Wikipedia involvement hit the web, Wales immediately gave himself "checkuser" rights and attempted to expose Jimmyflathead's IP address.

Wales was intent on staying one step ahead of investigators - even though he had no idea what they were investigating. "Just wanted to be ahead of the curve in case this turns into a story, but it seems that there really isn't much of a story here," the cult leader said. "At Wikipedia, he was focused almost exclusively on a women's sorority, and never edited anything about Anthrax." ®

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