School is cancelled

(12:38:38) Anthony Romano: will
(12:38:38) Full Decent : I'm not away... I'm idle!
(12:38:40) Anthony Romano: will
(12:38:41) Anthony Romano: will
(12:38:42) Anthony Romano: will
(12:38:43) Anthony Romano: will
(13:31:02) Full Decent: yo
(13:31:56) Anthony Romano: did you spoof that email?
(13:33:04) Full Decent: >-)
(13:33:10) Anthony Romano: yes or no
(13:33:21) Anthony Romano: I wont tell anyone
(13:33:23) Anthony Romano: I just want to know
(13:33:26) Full Decent: what difference does it make?
(13:33:33) Anthony Romano: well if its fake I have to constantly check my emai
(13:33:36) Anthony Romano: to see if he found out
(13:33:39) Anthony Romano: and uncanceled class
(13:33:47) Anthony Romano: if its real, I can go home and sleep all day
(13:33:57) Full Decent: then that would suck if I didn't tell you
(13:34:08) Anthony Romano: :/
(13:34:09) Full Decent: how much would that information nbe worth to you?
(13:34:18) Anthony Romano: oh geez
(13:35:28) Anthony Romano: dont be a dick

UPDATE 2009-08-29
A little bit later, a second email from the school president went out:

------Original Message------
From: Edmund Dobbin
To: students@villanova.edu
Subject:
Sent: Jun 24, 2009 8:47 PM

Dear students,

Please be aware that I did not send the message sent to all students last night. THERE WILL BE CLASS ON TUESDAY APRIL 20, 2004. The message was sent by some hackers, and not myself.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused,
Edmond Dobbin O.S.A.

442651724acc96ad90bbf6f07a79566f


 UPDATE 2013-12-20

 Found this file that explains exactly how the first hacker sent an email canceling school and then how we uncanceled school. Actually some more details were that the first people had used the guest login at Falvey Library and then set up an email account in Thunderbird, setting the "from" address as the president... which of course has send access to the "all students" email list.

 >> https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qND8ihiCSufuqDTC__EobFzJ_h3RpxrdzDPcqgSVZE8

 Recently, Villanova fixed this problem by switching email hosting to Gmail. Also, the 442651724acc96ad90bbf6f07a79566f part of the message is a MD5 hash of something like "Will and Chris sent this" so that we could later take ownership of this prank. Unfortunately (?) that was a drinking night and we forgot what we typed in there.

SEE ALSO:
 * Another Wildcat's analysis of this night: http://pinknblack.blogspot.com/2004/04/villanova.html
 * Reporting in the local newspaper: http://www.villanovan.com/2.7326/hacker-attempts-class-cancellation-via-e-mail-1.1024995

NOTE:
  Yes, although we were the "good guys" here, doing something like this can easily get you ten years in jail nowadays. For another story on police/security trying to throw the book at you, see how we hacked in and changed our grades at Villanova http://fulldecent.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_archive.html

Comments

William Entriken said…
Nice! Found the full story here:
http://pinknblack.blogspot.com/2004/04/villanova.html
11:04 PM
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