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A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

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Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#351

Post by ravendawn »

jml7c5 wrote: post #262
jennyyang wrote: post #63

Here is a link to his notebook that they found on him: https://www.colliersheriff.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=94010

They seem to be a novice programmer with big ideas. Some notepads might be missing (see pg 11). I really wish the scans were better. 1-2: Ideas for a screeps AI. (Screeps seems interesting! From a brief look, it's an open-source online MMO/RTS for programmers. It's seems kind of like an AI tournament akin to Battlecode, but persistent. You write your AI in JavaScript or WebAssembly.) 3-5 (top half): Unclear. Maybe fr…

Links :Transcripts of his complete notebook- https://imgur.com/a/eTphrRF

I’ve posted up above, but just incase you’ve missed them here’s a the transcript of his his notebook typed up

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#353

Post by codezero »

cycomanic wrote: post #289
codezero wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you stick around, mainly because I hope someone will say that to me one day. I mean it too.

Codezero I hope you stick around as well. From what I see in your profile the world is a better place with you in it!

Thanks cyco - appreciate that.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#355

Post by hungryforcodes »

pvaldes wrote: post #322
Raphmedia wrote: post #37

Could it be a Canadian that drove to NY and then hiked west? That's a pretty common thing to do. I have a bunch of friends from college that are bouncing around the globe travelling on foot, picking fruits and doing farm-work when they run out of funds. Or are the databases / missing persons agencies communicating with each others?

He talked with several people. A canadian accent would be noticed.

I've met lots of anglophone Canadians (even from Quebec), which I confuse for Americans. It's very hard to reliably distinguish the two by accent.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#356

Post by eneveu »

grawprog wrote: post #109
alecbcs wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checking for users who forked the repo in 2017 and haven't been active since 2017 I got. - amidman - eqzus - Mike Hancoski (follows users from NY, wrote PHP code, his personal website domain wasn't renewed and is now available.)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hancoski-b342aa53 This guy looks like a clean shaven version of those pictures. Noses look the same. The eyes. No updates to the account since 2015.

It would be funny if the real Mike Hancoski googles himself and stumbles upon this thread.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#357

Post by ravendawn »

kick wrote: post #15
gtsteve wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he wanted privacy but didn't expect to die. He likely had someone in his life who is wondering what happened to him and I think it's good that people are trying to give them closure.

Why do those people deserve to know anything? They obviously haven't sought it out, and given he hadn't contacted them in years, it's completely pointless to assume they were close. Answer: They don't. Privacy should be respected, even in death. Especially in a case like this.

How do you know? You didn’t know about MH case until now? 2years on. what’s not saying his parents are elderly and are not on the internet? That his friends are not recognising him due to the hiker association and maybe the beard and hat has altered his appearance a lot. Especially with the weight lost he would of experienced during the hike.

He wrote whole notebooks, that doesn’t scream I’m walking into woods to die and don’t want anyone to know. It was the AT and then the FL that’s hardly the wilderness.

He could of just been a private person and never thought he see the hikers again so didn’t give to much away. He could have experienced some sort of mental illness and wasn’t in his right mind to know what he wanted.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#358

Post by trickster_ »

Regarding his identity; I used to hang out on #coders on IRCNet from the mid 90's to the early 2000's. There was a guy there called MostlyHarmless and I think both the age and nationality checks out. I haven't been there for ages and I am pretty sure that the channel was password protected but it would probably take somebody just a few minutes to check around there amongst the regulars to see if they're the same guy. Right now there isn't a user online called MostlyHarmless, which there always was back then.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#359

Post by breck »

SaberTail wrote: post #347
breck wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$5,000 and 5 months? Why in the world is the DNA matching going so slow? My cousin mailed fifty bucks and some spit in an envelope on Monday and Wednesday I get an email from 23andMe saying "Hey! We think this is your cousin's spit!". And neither of us is missing!

A few things off the top of my head: 1. collecting a DNA sample from a corpse is more difficult than having someone spit in a tube and drop it in the mail. It takes tools and a specialist 2. they want to compare with lots of different databases. Most GEDMatch data comes from genotyping arrays, that look at ~500k variants on the genome. However, different companies use different sets of single-nucleotide variants. Mea…

This is a fantastic answer, thank you.
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