Hacker causes trouble after ranking Durham
Castle college did not make the chosen list
Staff and students at Durham University were indignant this week after a computer hacker claiming to be an Oxford student broke into their email system. In an email addressed to the student body, the hacker declared that Oxford students had spent three weeks inspecting the quality of Durham colleges, before pronouncing colleges Van Mildert and John Snow College to be joint winners.
The email said, “Over the last three weeks, the University has been inspected by students from the University of Oxford in an effort to decide which of the Durham colleges is the best. On Monday morning, the results were handed in. It has been decided that Van Mildert College for Durham and John Snow College from Queen’s Campus were the joint winners.
“The University would like to congratulate the staff and students from these two great colleges and we hope that they will remain the best for many years to come.” Staff and students fooled by the hoax responded to the email, expressing anger that Oxford undergraduates should profess the authority to establish the college ranking system.
One first year student at Collingwood College said, “A lot of people were emailing back, really annoyed that Durham would think Oxford students would be the best to decide about our colleges. We get stick sometimes for being an Oxbridge rejects’ university. I think students saw red that Oxford students were a better judge of collegiate universities.” In a further email the next day, the hacker dropped all attempts at subtlety.
The message said, “I am not a student from the University of Oxford. I am, in fact, the Pope.” An anti-Bush printout was attached for them to stick on students’ windows, promising free vodka to all who obeyed his teachings. Keith Seacroft, Head of Media and Public Affairs at Durham, was quick to assure staff and students that the emails were hoaxes.
He said, “We regret having to send this message because it compounds the nuisance but this breach of the email system is being investigated by ITS.” There has been much speculation among Durham students regarding the hacker’s identity. One student said, “We don’t know who it is and we don’t think the department do either. “We figured at first it would be someone from the winning colleges, but that seems unlikely now.
It must be someone quite high up to get access to the email databases and all those passwords.” Staff at Durham are tracing the IP address of the hacker to locate his identity. Seacroft said, “The person is just seeking attention. It’s caused a lot of inconvenience and it’s a very irresponsible thing to do.”
4th May 2006