Ted Kaczynski was a loner as a child. Extremely gifted, he received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Universithy of Michigan at Ann Arbor and held a position as assistant professor at Berkeley from 1967 to 1969. He worked in complex analysis. He quit the position and has not held permanent employment since. He was supported by his family.
In early 1996, Kaczynski demanded that his paper Industrial Society And Its Future (commonly called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), a lengthy neo-luddite tract outlining the supposed evils of technological society, be printed by a major newspaper; he would then end his bombing campaign. The pamphlet was published by the New York Times and Washington Post, with the hope that somebody would recognize his writing style.
Industrial Society And Its Future is a biased and unprofessionally-written document, but it is by no means out of sync with the thought of the contemporary anti-technological movement. If not for the stigma attached to its author's criminal activities, it might be more widely used as a source. Indeed, Bill Joy, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, quoted it in his April 2000 Wired magazine article on the dangers of technology, "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us."
Kaczynski's younger brother David recognized Ted's writing style from the published manifesto and notified authorities, who arrested him in his remote cabin outside Lincoln, Montana. David had gotten assurances from the FBI that he would remain anonymous and that in particular his brother would not learn who had turned him in. His lawyers were attempting an insanity defense which he rejected; a court-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia but declared him competent to stand trial. Kaczynski avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty; he is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.
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