13 Colleges receive Email Bomb Threats

[SirFozzie]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/...ive-back-.html

At least 13 U.S. universities, including Princeton, MIT and Carnegie Mellon, have been targeted for anonymous e-mail bomb threats as students return to classes, federal law enforcement authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

One of the schools, Clemson University, in Clemson, S.C., was targeted again today -- the first day of school across much of the nation -- and an evacuation was ordered, ABC News has learned.

"We have had three in the last 10 days," Clemson University spokesman Robin Denny said of the bomb threats. She said the university has been sending out e-mail alerts to students, faculty and other personnel, saying evacuations were in progress after each threat.

The FBI, regional authorities and university police are investigating the spate of threats, which include a set of difficult-to-track threats that use Internet remailer services to eliminate the sender address and render the threat anonymous and more difficult to trace, the FBI confirmed.

"The FBI is aware of the spate of bomb threats," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told ABCNews.com. "Working with university police and our field offices, we are investigating. The threats, timed to the resumption of classes at schools around the nation, may simply be the work of pranksters, but officials are taking no chances."

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI last week told authorities across the country that "several of the threats indicated that explosives or pipe bombs were placed either inside or close to a campus building."

"It appears that some of the messages were sent using anonymous remailer services. A remailer is an address through which electronic messages pass without exposing the sender's origin or identity," a security bulletin explained. "The message is first sent to the remailer before reaching its actual destination. The user ID and other information pertaining to its origin is removed, replaced by an anonymous ID and the message is sent."

"The source of the e-mails, including the remailers, will be investigated by the FBI," Kolko said.

According to federal law enforcement, Clemson University, Middle Tennessee State, Western Illinois University, University of New Hampshire, the University of Iowa, Princeton University in New Jersey, Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, University of Alaska at Anchorage and the College of William and Mary in Virginia have all received threats.

Since then, according to New Jersey law enforcement sources, Princeton has received yet another threat, and the FBI has added Cornell University in New York, Oregon State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to their list of schools that have received threats.

"The Department of Public Safety is investigating two e-mailed bomb threats received by the University in the past week and deemed to be hoaxes," a campus announcement said on the Princeton Web site. "The first threat received was sent to a single e-mail address, but the second was sent to multiple general e-mail boxes serving the University."

In addition, open source reporting indicates "an increase in e-mailed bomb threats," according to regional law enforcement sources in the northeast United States.

Authorities in New York disclosed that additional colleges in the state have received e-mail threats in the past week.

In one of those cases, at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., a faculty member reported receiving an Aug. 28 e-mail bomb threat in Sage Hall, which houses the Johnson Graduate School of Management. No devices were found. The Cornell University police department continues to investigate the incident.

In New Jersey, authorities noted that schools, including Rider University, have received threats this summer. In each case, authorities said, searches of the institutions found no evidence of explosives.

At Rider University, a July 20 threat prompted an "Alert for Enhanced Security Measures" address to the "campus community" by university president Mordechai Rozanski

"Rider University recently discovered a bomb threat against the Lawrenceville campus for Friday, July 20. As soon as the University became aware of the threat, our Department of Public Safety contacted Lawrence Township Police to investigate...Since then, we have been working closely with township and state authorities to enhance security measures and heighten vigilance," Rozanski said.

In Virginia, authorities said that four suspicious e-mails were sent to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., on Aug. 28. The College of William and Mary police department said the four e-mails were sent to a faculty member at the school of business. The messages, sent with the subject "ALERT," stated there was a booby-trapped pipe bomb in that building and that it would "explode as soon as it was touched." Officers responded to the two buildings that house the business school and found nothing.

In Washington, D.C., on Aug. 29, American University police were informed of an e-mail threat. That case is still open.

At the University of Akron in Ohio, on Aug. 29 and 30, 2007, two separate e-mail threats were received. One came in to the College of Engineering; the other was received at a campus radio station. While an arrest has been made in the campus radio incident, the two cases do not appear related.

Akron University officials notified campus community members on Tuesday that it had "received more e-mail bomb threats over the weekend, all from the same source and within a 30-minute period late Friday and early Saturday," according to an announcement on the university's Web site. The Web announcement went on to say the campus police had conducted "a sweep of the public areas" of two university buildings and "have given the all-clear for both buildings."

[lordscarlet]

Wade?

[JonInMiddleGA]

What a remarkably random set of schools to have been targeted.
If not for Carnegie-Mellon & MIT, I'd have thought someone pulled the list from some of the pre-season/early-season college basketball tournaments.

[Maple Leafs]

If I was going to commit a criminal act via "anonymous" e-mail, I don't think I'd target MIT.

Whoever did this will probably wake up tomorrow and find their car in a tree.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by lordscarlet

Wade?

Weird.. didn't hear about this in the local paper.

Ping: KingOfNewYork - did you hear anything about this?

Edit: And duh, I'm pretty good friends with the director of IT security so I'll ask him about it. Oh, and a Williamsburg Cop (but they're separate from the W&M Police).

[lordscarlet]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Weird.. didn't hear about this in the local paper.

Ping: KingOfNewYork - did you hear anything about this?

Edit: And duh, I'm pretty good friends with the director of IT security so I'll ask him about it. Oh, and a Williamsburg Cop (but they're separate from the W&M Police).

I didn't hear about American, either.

[sterlingice]

Now you and your friends can email in bomb threats from the comfort of your own home without the pesky risk of having a call traced.

SI

[lungs]

Now that's just going to ruin it for everybody else who planned on using that method of trying to get out of an exam.

Not that I would've ever tried that. If I was going to do bad on an exam I was going to "bomb" the exam whether I took it then or the next day or the next week.

The saying "C's and D's get degrees." was a real time saver for me in college instead of having to scheme up bomb threats to delay exams. No staying up cramming, either.