Only Batman can process every Instagram, Facebook and Twitter Account at once! LOLCATZ!

Dr. J. was extremely impressed with the impressive detective work brought to bear on the Boston Marathon bombing by the Boston PD, Massachusetts State Police and the FBI. The fact that they were able to quickly identify and capture (dead and alive) the primary criminals who perpetrated this crime within about 72 hours is a feat.

As best he can tell Dr. J. suspects that the heinousness of the act, the first act of terrorism perpetrated on civilian targets on the American mainland since 9/11 clearly energized and motivated police. But equally importantly, the citizenry also are, in part, responsible for the first arrest in this terrorist action.

At an event like the Boston Marathon, everyone and anyone has their cell-phone whipped out to take pictures and video and check-in at various locations, if only to show off to their Facebook friends that they’re out and about and hipper-than-thou. The typical cell phone user has their phone set to ‘auto-sync’ for time, and of course they leave their location manager on because they’re not nearly as paranoid as Dr. J. or your even more security inclined Gormogons and Friends of Gormogons. Indeed one of Dr. J.’s IT professional chums has his home network hardwired and uses a ‘dumb phone’ in order to minimize his grid footprint because he’s that paranoid.

So, when folks started to upload their footage of the marathon, the investigators not only had thousands of picture to pour over, but they could all be mapped in time and space with fairly good precision. These, then can be cross referenced against any other security and surveillance cameras at those locations.

Furthermore, the terrorists themselves are also their worst enemy. In the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, he was tweeting after his actions on Monday, albeit only once, and before he was fingered. Should such a terrorist be checking in, tweeting or posting after they’ve been identified, zeroing in on them should be a slam dunk.

As the remainder of the investigation unfolds and the first post-mortems roll in, it will be no surprise if social media and current cell phone technology didn’t have more to do with the first captures being so quick. Hopefully the terrorists won’t adapt as quickly as we do.

Dr. J.