Cho Seung-Hui Left No Clues Online? -- Updated

A lot has come out about Cho Seung Hui, 23, the man police have named as the shooter. He was an English major at Virginia Tech, whose creative writing so disturbed his teachers that he was referred to the school's counseling service. He may have been taking medication for depression.

The most detail comes from the Chicago Tribune, which reports that Cho left a note in his dorm railing against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. He died with the words "Ismail Ax" scrawled in red ink on one of his arms. (If you know what that means, let us know).

Police are reportedly searching Cho's computer for clues to what drove him. Surprisingly, though, there seems to be nothing on the internet. Cho has no apparent Google hits predating today. He's an English major who wrote creatively, but seems to have never shared his thoughts in a MySpace or Facebook profile.

Some press reports claim that Cho had been dating one of his first victims, student Emily Hilscher, and that she broke up with Cho two weeks ago. Other news reports say this is false. Hilscher has a public MySpace profile that's been abandoned since December, and is linked to nine friends, none of them Cho. One them has changed her MySpace handle to "R.I.P Emily Hilscher. You will be missed."

Update:

The Smoking Gun has unearthed a one-act play Cho submitted to a contest last year.

Reader Gabe points to a Flickr photo of a South Korean man who, according to the caption, uses the name Ismail "because his (real) name is very hard to pronounce, especially for Indonesian people.
His real name is Cho Seung Hoo ....... or is it Jo Sung Ho? " The photo is dated July 17th, 2006. The author apparently writes more about this Ismail in this blog post, which needs translation. (UPDATE: 4/18. there's nothing to this. It's not Cho.)

BoingBoing has a long thread exploring some theories about "Ismail Ax." A growing consensus has it that the phrase is an oblique reference to Islamic theological history -- though so far nobody's described Cho as Muslim.

Xavier expands on the theory, and ties it to Cho's play.

The Prophet Ibrahim destroyed the villagers false idols to wealth and sex with an Ax in order to please Allah. Allah then saves him from the fury of the Babylonians for this act. He grants Ibrahim a gift, a prophet child. Ibrahim names this prophet child "Ismail." Ismail, the Islamic prophet, comes from Ibrahim's act with the Ax. The link I supplied goes into a little detail on the story, but there's more detailed accounts of the event all across the internet.

As well, the story you linked to from the Smoking Gun also has significance. Reading it, there's a few lines that support the idea that Ismail Ax references the founding of Islam and that Cho is a Muslim.

The boy calls his "father" a "Fat piece of pork."
Cho writes later: "No wonder your name is McPork--I mean, McBeef"
When Cho describes how the mother strikes, he describes her with the
line: "Takes off her shoes to strike him"

Pork is of course considered a sin to eat by Muslims, and it is a Islamic insult to beat someone with your shoes.

That last part seems quite a stretch.

Update: 4/18. Several tipsters suggest Ismail Ax is an Xbox Live handle. It isn't, according to XBL's gamertag search -- though I'm sure it will be.