Correction Appended
Students across campus received an e-mail Thursday night apparently from their own BlitzMail accounts purporting to be a "blitzjack" and directing them to a website labeled "Bored at Berry." The source of the e-mails, which appears to also be behind an e-mail sent out to campus Sunday that seems to be sent from College President Jim Yong Kim's account, remains unclear as of Sunday night.
Although students have long sent messages from logged-on BlitzMail accounts not belonging to them a practice referred to as "blitzjacking" the e-mails sent Thursday and Sunday are the first to be sent to such a large group in recent memory.
The first e-mail, sent out late Thursday evening, had the subject line "blitzjack?" and appeared to be sent by the recipient of each e-mail. Each e-mail consisted of a short greeting and a link to the "Blitzjack" section of the Bored at Berry website. The page shows "from," "to," "subject" and "body" fields, which are prompts for users to create their own "blitzjacks." It remains unclear whether the entire student body received these e-mails.
As of Sunday evening, the Blitzjack page seems to be disabled, and e-mails sent through it are not received.
Safety and Security will be investigating the e-mails this coming week, according to an officer on call. Associate Director of Safety and Security Keiselim Montas could not be reached for requests to comment by press time. Head of Safety and Security and College Proctor Harry Kinne was not available for comment.
Although comments on the Bored at Berry site, combined with the fact that the original Blitzjack application was disabled, imply that Technical Services was involved in disabling the application, The Dartmouth was unable to confirm this by press time.
Director of Technical Services David Bucciero said he was out of the office last week and unaware of the issue, but referred questions to Steve Nyman, Chief Information Security Officer, who did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Director of Network Services Frank Archambeault said he was unaware of both the e-mails sent out on Thursday and Sunday of this week. Other representatives of technical services at the College did not respond to requests for comments by press time.
The second e-mail, sent Sunday evening, appears to have been sent to all undergraduates at the College using the alphabetical campus lists distributed to campus groups. The sender of the e-mail was listed as "President Jim Yong Kim" with the subject "Cancellation of Monday Classes."
Reply messages to the e-mail are redirected to the "President's.Office" e-mail account, just as with Kim's usual campus-wide e-mails.
In addition to a message claiming that classes would be cancelled on Monday, the e-mail contained an html attachment titled "blitzjack,"
The message instructs readers to open the file on Internet Explorer, which directs the page to one that resembles Bored at Berry's original Blitzjack page. The message ends by encouraging readers to "enjoy your paranoia."
The Bored at Berry site also includes a space for anyone to anonymously post comments and agree or disagree to other posts in a setup similar to the original version of the Bored@Baker site. The appearance of posts on Bored at Berry changes depending on the number of agrees and disagrees.
Bored@Baker launched in 2006 along with other "Bored@" sites around the Ivy League was recently overhauled by founder Jonathan Pappas in an effort to prevent students from posting about other students by name.
An online search through Network Solutions shows that the Bored at Berry domain name was registered through GoDaddy.com by Domains by Proxy, Inc, which aims to "keep your personal contact information private" when someone registers a domain name, according to the Domains by Proxy website.
The domain was created on Oct. 21, 2009 and expires Oct. 21, 2011, according to Network Solutions, which reports that Bored at Berry was last updated Oct. 31, 2010.
Students interviewed by The Dartmouth did not appear to be particularly concerned by the e-mails.
"I thought it was just a friend playing some sort of prank," Alex Tanner '11 said.
Some admitted to being surprised at the tone of the e-mail ostensibly from "President Kim."
"I was confused when I received one from President Kim and it said huggles,'" Alesy Iturrey '14 said.
Overall, students said they were not worried for the security of their Dartmouth e-mail accounts.
"I really have no reason to believe the system was breached," said Derek Su '11.
