I installed XAMPP v1.7.2 on my Windows PC which gave me PHP v5.3.0 with OpenSSL v0.9.8k. It also gave me TLS support as ‘Registered Stream Socket Transports’ on the PHPINFO() page said I had ‘tcp, udp, ssl, sslv3, sslv2, tls’ available. I then used a simple piece of code:

require_once 'lib/swift_required.php';

// Setup the mail transport
$transport = Swift_SmtpTransport::newInstance ('smtp.gmail.com', 587, 'tls');
$transport->setUsername ('{username}@gmail.com');
$transport->setPassword ('{password}');

// Setup the mailer
$mailer = Swift_Mailer::newInstance ($transport);

// Build the message
$message = Swift_Message::newInstance();
$message->setSubject ('Testing');
$message->setFrom (array('{username}@gmail.com' => 'Test Sender'));
$message->setTo (array('{email address}' => 'Test Recipient'));
$message->setBody ('Here is the test message.');

//Send the message
$result = $mailer->send ($message);

You’ll have to change the {username}, {password} and {email address} though to make it work for you. And then I ran it.

BANG! — It failed with a cryptic error message “SSL operation failed with code 1. OpenSSL Error messages: error:1408F10B:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_RECORD:wrong version number”.

I Googled for an hour and found post after post but I got it in the end. It appears to be a version difference between the client and server, the PHP code is running SSL v3 whereas Google Mail is looking for SSL v2. If I changed the port from 587 to 465 it all went away though.

BTW The other tool I used to play with TLS was SendEmail, a command-line utility for sending emails. The following command worked perfectly for me on port 587 (annoyingly). It all needs to be on one line.

sendemail -f {username}@gmail.com -t {email address} -u Testing
-m "This is a test message." -s smtp.gmail.com:587
-xu {username}@gmail.com -xp {password} -o tls=yes

The Justice 4 Kung Fu Guy site just tweeted that Inside Nova have published another story today about the case and it’s a bit of a turn about face.

“Police originally said that [Kung Fu Guy wasn't killed]. Now they aren’t so sure, Prince William police Maj. Ray Colgan said.”

Another victim has been traced and he only recalls waking up in an ambulance after being invited to the dojo to display his fighting skills.

The story also states that police are now investigating Blythe and looking for other victims or witnesses. They also state that they’re not completely sure that the assailant was Willie J Dennis.

I think the short answer is because the school system hasn’t worked out how to add computer skills into the Dickensian curriculum and approach to learning we’ve embraced.

Firstly, I think touch-typing vs typing are two different skills. Touch typing and the QWERTY keyboard used in English speaking countries were developed to deal with the limitations of the typewriter and the mechanical innards of it. Therefore, you needed to be able to push down hard with your pinky fingers to press the ‘p’ key on to the page. It was also important to spread the keys around so we didn’t have multiple levers clashing in midstream.

This all changed with the electric typewriter and the computer keyboard. We don’t need to type with even pressure and we don’t have to worry about our pixels crashing into one another as we type. I can’t see the QWERTY layout being changed as it’s now the de facto layout and the world has invested too much time and effort in learning it to dispense with it. There is a significant difference between a computer keyboard and a typewriter keyboard though. Touch typists are trained to use the main keys, i.e. everything in the center of a computer keyboard, but it’s only around 40 keys; 26 letters, space, tab, return, comma, period, shift and 10 number keys. Computer keyboards typically have 110 keys and most applications use them so keeping your fingers on the ‘home keys’ makes it far more difficult to use the function keys, other symbol keys, the numeric keypad or the cluster of keys between the two pads.

I used to conduct typing tests for the new typists that started and while many could type ordinary text quickly and much faster than I could, a self-taught typist, their speed tailed off significantly when obscure symbols were entered into the fray such as @, _, #, [, ], { or }. As my typing skills here honed on all of these symbols it was second nature to me.

Therefore, typing is a skill we should teach our children at school, possibly in our English Language skills but touch-typing is a little out-dated for some computer tasks.

I also think we need to expand this subject a little and look at how we teach computer skills at school in general. In my daughter’s computer class she uses word processing software and arts packages. She also uses the Internet for various projects but I despise schools that teach Windows, Word, Excel or PowerPoint.

Firstly, we shouldn’t be teaching kids how to use the products from a single manufacturer, it’s like taking your kids to McDonalds Play Place and then being surprised when they grow up to like Big Macs. Microsoft offers discounted software to schools and students because they want to get you hooked. Children should be taught basic computer skills like using a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software and illustration packages but they should be blended into other classes. For example, word processing is taught in English Language class because it’s a tool for writing just like a calculator is a tool for helping with Maths. Spreadsheets could be taught in Maths class, Art or Design could use illustration packages, scanners and CAD. Presentation software could be taught in Drama or Life Skills classes.

Computer class can then be left to programming, databases, OS issues such as file copying, security, phishing and other more computer-centric topics.

The school system around the world is currently teaching computer skills in Computer Studies class. Nobody is actually teaching the next generation of programmers or technical support staff, they’re simply making everybody a Microsoft lemming that can only word process in Word.

In 30 years of computer classes at school we seemed to have achieved very little.

I don’t believe this is justice, I believe this is a witch hunt.

Firstly, the crime depicted on the video is heinous and certainly criminal. However, Dennis’ role in it needs to be understood. Yes, he stomped on the guy but there are probably mitigating circumstances. For example, did he think it was a challenge match? Did Blythe instruct Dennis to disable him in such a violent manner? Was this just one incident caught on tape but fitted into an overall pattern? Blythe said Dennis paid for his ineptitude for the following week and said he another ‘Fight for Life’ video which was even better. Therefore, did Dennis truly act on his own.

When a vicious dog attacks a child, we blame the owner and the training it received. Therefore, it seems wrong to use video evidence in one case when making decisions about another case when the background and surrounding facts of that video have not been established.

Every case has to be tried on its merits. Other cases should only be taken into account if they have been similarly investigated, presented to a jury of our peers and a judgement made. Punishing Dennis just because he’s in the system is the wrong approach, in my humble opinion.

To me, justice means collecting information and passing it to the legal system to act upon or ignore. A witch hunt, or vigilantism is taking this information and acting upon it yourself. I would like Blythe, Dennis and every other member of the audience charged over this video but I want law enforcement to gather the evidence, see it presented in a court of law where the facts can be established and a judgement made.

Blythe appears as though he ran his dojo with a rod of iron and whatever he said, he expected others to do or they’d face the consequences. Dennis, being an ex-military man, is likely to understand that hierarchy and simply follow orders almost blindly. I get the impression from this case that Dennis was just the puppet and the consequences of not following Blythe’s orders were far greater than beating a vagrant to near death.

Imagine a group of 7 friends in a circle with 1 outsider in the middle. The leader of the group gives another a baseball bat and tells him to beat the guy, or else. Everybody else starts chanting and encouraging the guy with the bat to start swinging. Who’s really at fault here? They all are, but the guy with the bat is not necessarily the worst one, at least he had a few excuses. Everybody was goading him or pressuring him to act. His leader was telling him to do it, or else. Nobody else had an excuse.

Ultimately, I want to see justice but I want to see due process being followed. I don’t want to see them burned, hung or beaten to death, I want to see them brought to a courtroom where they have to account for their actions on this day. The jury can then decide what to do and who was more culpable than everybody else. Trying to subvert the justice system to punish Dennis today is wrong, that’s not how due process works. Due process means putting him on a charge for this crime.

If the justice system fails and the decision doesn’t feel right, do something about it, modify the system. Maybe statute of limitations should be based on when the evidence comes to light rather than when it occurred. Video will always allow us to see past crimes. If we want a justice system that makes us feel protected and that encourages us to act responsibly, rather than reprehensibly, we have to adapt it to deal with this incident.

If a website, say the BBC News (news.bbc.co.uk) links to another site, say Fred’s Auto Shop (bestautoshop.com), because it’s relevant to the story then Google will think more highly of Fred’s Auto Shop because if the BBC is linking to it, it must be important. So a little Google love is passed from the BBC page to Fred’s site, this is the principle behind Google and its PageRank algorithm. Basically, a site’s reputation is based on the number and quality of the inbound links to it.

Unfortunately, spammers realized that if they could also get their links on to these high-ranking pages they too could get some Google love and promote their own sites full of spyware, cheap medication or other dubious items.

So Google came up with the NoFollow attribute and encouraged people to use it in public areas such as blog comments so that spammers gain no benefit. Wikipedia uses NoFollow on all of its links and Digg is about to use it on sites it doesn’t trust.

For Wikipedia I find that disturbing. As an encyclopedia it’s supposed to be an authoritative page of information and therefore anything a page links to is likely to be a valuable source of information. Therefore, Google should be using this to measure the reputation of the linked page.

As for Digg, how will Digg know which sites to trust? Why will they be any better than Google at sifting the good from the bad. Ultimately, they will only have one set of data to base their judgement upon, i.e. the database behind Digg, a user’s activity on the site, how many domains they’ve linked to, number of comments with a single link in, etc. Spam detection works better when you have a larger pool of data, one that crosses multiple business sectors, languages and domains. Therefore, Digg should just use NoFollow everywhere … but only if we don’t strictly interpret the NoFollow attribute.

If NoFollow is strictly interpreted, it’s wrong as you’re penalizing good links because of the few bad ones. A maxim that’s never worked in any aspect of life.

If it’s interpreted as ‘this link is user submitted and may be spam’ that’s better. It means we can be wary of this link and maybe we don’t award all of the Google love the moment we see it, maybe we cross-reference other sources and see if it fits into a pattern of abuse. If high-ranking sites are linking to this page without NoFollow and a few are linking with NoFollow, then it’s probably safe to ignore the NoFollow attribute for this link. However, if you only have NoFollow links pointing to a page, it’s more likely to be spam. Factoring in details about the domain, the timespan from the first awareness of this link to the last should also enable a more accurate prediction to be made and identify spam.

With the amount of data Google has it should be able to use this information wisely and be able to more accurately assess the SpamRank (my idea!) of the linked page.

I think the ‘NoFollow’ name is a bad idea and would have been better if it was called ‘UserGenerated’ instead or something similar. I see the value and I trust Google to use the information in a logical manner but if Digg added its own ‘trust’ algorithm to the site, it’s basically nothing more than a PageRank sculpting mechanism however noble it seems. Out of interest, I see Reddit doesn’t use the NoFollow at all for user comments, which again is probably a bad idea.

A retired police detective, Chuck Feldbush, says he met the victim a few days later and even though he had clearly been beaten he chose not to pursue charges. He also said that the video didn’t surface until the 1990s otherwise they’d have taken it as far as they could.

The story fundamentally says that the case is closed, there’s nothing to see and we should all move on.

If that’s true and there is nothing to see can the district attorney please release a statement to that effect.

I didn’t see a video of an alleged murder and a police cover-up.

What I saw was a video of man critically injured by another man with the consent of the dojo owner. I also saw a few others standing by and watching it all unfold, encouraging the attack the continue and then sweeping it all under the carpet as if it was acceptable.

The video has been distributed by Blythe over the past 25 years to a few friends, shown several times and Blythe’s own comments said this guy had his “clock stopped”. Blythe also said there was another video titled ‘Fight for Life’ that he had and others have said this sort of brutality was common practice for Blythe and his way of testing his bodybuards and black belts.

What I witnessed was an attempted murder of somebody regarded as a worthless human being for nothing more than entertainment pleasure. To me, this whole incident is akin to a dog fight with a willing audience all actively participating and being complicit in the crime. On two occasions, members of the audience push the guy back into the fight. On another occasion a woman shouts “TV! TV!” when they approach the TV in the room, clearly more concerned about the TV than the health of the worthless man.

And nobody wants to charge anybody else for this.

It was Martin Luther King Jr that said “justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere” and is emblazoned on the Justice4KungFuGuy website but it sums up the position for me too. If people can do this, video it, brag about it for 25 years and we do nothing, we condone it. We are saying that this is acceptable.

Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in jail for dog fighting. Are we really saying that was more heinous than this crime? How many other guys were beaten by Blythe’s students? How many more videos were recorded and shown to his friends and family? Where is the ‘Fight for Life’ video Blythe boasts about as being even better?

I don’t see this was a wild-goose chase, any more than the pursuit of Nazi war criminals 60 years after the fact. I see it as an opportunity to right a wrong and send a message that this is not acceptable. Blythe and his cohorts got away with this crime, isn’t this what people really find disgusting about this case? All of those hundreds of people that visit this site and read these articles feel disgusted. They want to know what happened and find it unsettling when their value system is knocked off balance by a story like this. We want that balance restored, we want to believe that our justice system works and is effective. We want to know that our faith in the system is well-founded and that our own perception of what’s right and wrong is accurate.

What we really want, is to feel better about this. We want somebody, somewhere, to tell Blythe and his cohorts that this is unacceptable.

UPDATE: There’s also another site pursuing justice for this crime – http://kmz.me/crimevictim/index.php

Another new video has appeared on YouTube showing one of Bobby Joe Blythe’s lectures to three black belt students. In the 9:56 video, it shows Bobby Joe Blythe seated at a makeshift desk talking to three black belts in the same dojo where the infamous KFG (Kung Fu Guy) was brutally beaten.

Although the video is a little blurry and the guys are far from the camera it appears the man stood next to Bobby Joe Blythe is the same Willie J Dennis that beat KFG to a bleeding, wheezing pulp. However, it’s clear from the audio what rules Blythe operated his dojo under. He clearly outlines his expectations of his black belts and his rules of what happens in the dojo.

“If they come through that door, it’s open season.”

“I do what I want in my home. I do what I want in my place of business.”

“Now, if a person wises off to you … just hit him. No questions asked. Hit him. Don’t explain your actions. Hit him.”

“If any person touches you, in any way, he’s either a faggot or he’s stupid. Hit him.”

At the end of the video Blythe tirades about earrings, how they’re not allowed in his dojo and that if he ever catches anybody wearing one, that’s the day you will lose your black belt status. He even promises to beat you for it.

To all intents and purposes, this new video seems to be nothing more than a glimpse into the world of Bobby J Blythe and how not only he taught karate in his insane dojo (his words) but how he intended to maintain his dojo’s reputation. If you compare the misguided teachings in this video to that of a misguided Muslim leader at a Pakistani madras you can see how corrupting his words can be. He almost says that any black belt has earned the right to do what they want because they worked their butt off. I think this video further solidifies my own view that Blythe created Dennis, his warped idea of what was right and wrong, wound him up like a clockwork toy and pointed him at KFG.

KFG touched Dennis, his kicks and punches did connect. He also knocked Dennis to the floor. So what was Dennis expected to do? He couldn’t lose face. He couldn’t become a faggot and he certainly wasn’t stupid so he did what Blythe had trained him to do. He hit him. Repeatedly. Brutally. Until KFG was dead or dying.

Blythe incited hatred and incited violence against any inferior being, i.e. somebody that didn’t have a black belt, just as a madras preacher would against the infidel. As an ex-marine he would probably be aware of these psychological techniques though and would prey upon simpler minds but now he’s been caught. If Blythe had not kept these videos for his own trophy cabinet he’d probably be in the clear. His arrogance against the rest of the world and the simpletons that populate it are just cannon fodder to him. I’m sure to this day that he doesn’t see anything wrong in what he said, did or incited others to do.

UPDATE1: Associated Content has also written up a detailed account of the incident and video but seems to add little detail compared to other sources. However, I’m pleased the story is garnering more media attention.

UPDATE2: The Examiner has now published a story too.

UPDATE3: I don’t like that the story seems to be going cold and I think it’s because it’s not easy to see where we’re at and what’s going on. So Justice4KungFuGuy.com is born.

Slowly, slowly to catch a monkey – or so the saying goes. Day 3 into the investigation of the brutal video filmed in Dumfries, VA of Willie J Dennis beating a disabled man to a pulp in Bobby J Blythe’s karate dojo.

Inside Nova, Northern Virginia’s online newspaper, has posted an article on the case today.

Bullshido are continuing to investigate the case and are currently cross-referencing public records on hospital admissions, incarcerations and taking the Sherlock Holmes approach of ruling out the impossible. Bobby Joe Blythe has gone into hiding it seems as nobody has been able to raise him on the phone or in-person. He deleted his online accounts quickly after the incident started to go viral but nobody has yet managed to get his take on the matter. I can only assume that law enforcement haven’t tracked him down either.

The 25 years of time are making the investigation difficult but I don’t think anybody is going to rest until KFG (Kung Fu Guy) has been given a name. Even if Dumfries police only have a few officers in 1984 it’s still likely they would be on first name terms with all the local homeless. Even if KFG did have some form of mental disability or form of autism it’s highly likely that the local store owners and residents would know him. Harmless vagrants and homeless people are typically known to somebody, it’s just a matter of time, media attention and re-connection with the local community before that information becomes known. Some local, national and international media coverage are all likely to speed up this process.

At the moment, with no mainstream media network running the article I wonder what they’ve uncovered. Are they still investigating the case? Or is somebody trying to keep the story from breaking. If Blythe is an ex-marine and has his contacts within the Government and federal machinery it may just be a story that people don’t want to break and Blythe has been instructed to stay low until it blows over.

Without a name to KFG and without confirmation of his status Blythe and Dennis are still far from being in the clear. As many have pointed out, there is no Statute of Limitations in Virginia for felonious crimes. Therefore, any jury watching the video is going to look at the two final head stomps and declare ‘attempted murder’. They will then look at everybody else’s actions, the failure of anybody to stop the fight and the complicit action of moving a critically injured man and will surely say that everybody in that room was aiding and abetting.

So all of those Napa Auto Parts guys that closed early to watch the show and the woman that shouts “TV! TV!” are implicated, not to mention Blythe’s family and others involved in running the dojo. All of these people watched it or know somebody that watched it and they need to give up their silence. Even though Willie J Dennis’ son has come forward and said the guy was pulled out the day after, I find the statement doubtful as he would have been around 8 at the time. I can recall very little about what happened 25 years ago so I’m surprised he has any recollection whatsoever and can only suggest that his statement is what he was led to believe rather than what he observed. After all, why would an 8 year old boy remember something so uneventful as somebody being pulled out of a dumpster? My 13 year old son can’t recall anything more than a week ago.

Ultimately, I believe that Willie J Dennis is the tool in this video, the weapon that is used against KFG but it’s Blythe and the audience that used this weapon. They placed Dennis in a situation where he was embarassed and egged him on, I see Dennis’ crime as the lesser and Blythe’s the greater. It would also be interesting to correlate this event with Dennis’ future run-ins with the law. Was this the start of something? Or was it already a pattern of aggressive behaviour?

I just hope all of the children and grandchildren of those involved watch this video and push their parents into being open and honest. Innocent people have nothing to hide, nothing to be silent about. Only cowards hide and as every day passes I, for one, assumes that the complicity increases. The families know what’s happening, they know the world is watching and yet, they wait. This will not blow over, there are literally thousands of people watching this story every day and hundreds of armchair sleuths cross-referencing every database to elicit the truth. I know because I see all the hits on these pages.

UPDATE: The case has now spawned a new mini-site Justice4KungFuGuy.

As a follow-up to the brutal video that appeared on the Internet, showing the apparent murder of an unknown man at the hands of a black belt student. I just picked up this video on YouTube from KMPH news which shows the Hanford Police Chief, Carlos Mestas, talking about the case. He said that they are investigating the case but refused to reveal the exact details of which agencies were involved. At last the wheels of justice seem to be turning and we can expect to hear something in the coming days and weeks.

Anybody from the local Napa Auto Parts store that were watching the “demonstration” may want to confess now before the Police come knocking. Somebody will talk and they will be the one with the lesser sentence, the rest will be assumed to be more complicit. Good luck playing the waiting game cowards.

The video also shows the reporter trying to getting a response from Bobby Joe Blythe’s residence in Hanford, CA. Needless to say, there appears to be nobody home.

UPDATE1: KMPH news article.

UPDATE2: There’s also a new mini site about the case now with Twitter and Facebook connectors, Justice4KungFuGuy.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a disturbing video as the one that appeared on YouTube today. Reddit picked it up from 4Chan via this posting. It was then cross-posted on Digg.

I watched the video without any audio due to my surroundings and judging by the comments on Reddit it was the ‘best’ way of watching it. The video shows a black man duped into being beaten by a karate black belt student. It was apparently shot in December 1984 and it beings slowly with the victim showboating until the kicks and punches start to take effect. In particular, it looks like it’s a right elbow that first knocks him to the ground. At this point the victim tries to stop the fight repeatedly but all to no avail.

The dojo master then pushes the student to finish the fight and it ends badly with the guy on the floor and receiving too stomps to the head and neck. There is some stomach-sickening wheezing heard and a pool of blood quickly forms under the guys head who lies their motionless. He’s then dragged across the dojo floor and allegedly dumped in a dumpster in the back alley.

If ever something good is to come out of this it will be through the media picking up this story and forcing somebody to investigate. Did he really die? Who were in this video? It seems Bobby Joe Blythe and Willie J Dennis play the roles of master and student but where is the justice?

If it wasn’t for the student being black, they would say it was a lynching. Mindless brutality, caught on video, bragged about and traded like a Baseball card and everybody gets away with it. Somebody please tell me there is some goodness in the world. Where are the BBC and CNN when you need them?

UPDATE1: Somebody on Reddit reports that the matter has now been referred to Washington DC’s Cold Cases department for investigation. I wonder if an address for the crime scene can be found online, or the neighbouring NAPA store as it implies the employees closed early to watch the show. They would all now seem to be complicit in the murder of this young man – who wants to squeal first?

UPDATE2: It seems that Bullshido is collecting the most information and may have been the original source of this article.

UPDATE3: KMPH, Hanford’s local news, broadcast a story about the case. See this post.

UPDATE4: A new mini-site, Justice4KungFuGuy, has been created to catch the perpetrators.