The Cutting Edge: Computing / Technology / Innovation : Racist ‘Mail Bomb’ Message Hits 20,000 Computer Users
About 20,000 computer users across the country received an electronic “mail bomb” Monday when someone apparently broke into a Texas college professor’s Internet account and fired off a racist message to addresses culled from several sites on the global network.
The incident--which brought death threats and other angry responses from hundreds of recipients who thought it came from Grady Blount, a professor of environmental science at Texas A&M; University in Corpus Christi--reflects the vulnerability to intrusion of many computer systems on the network.
It also underscores the fragility of the emerging social system on the electronic frontier, where the much-touted cheapness and simplicity of distributing information can be easily abused. Unsolicited mass mailings, whether from stolen or legitimate accounts, are not hard to orchestrate.
“The potential for this kind of thing is the price you pay for the relative inexpensiveness of the Internet,” said Jeff Olenchek, a University of Wisconsin system administrator whose network was compromised in the break-in. “You pay your initial fee but it’s free to send an e-mail message.” Internet users at college campuses in Mississippi and Colorado were also affected.
Netcom, a San Jose-based Internet service provider, estimates that about 3,000 of its subscribers received the mail, which was signed “Crusader” and included the phone number of the white supremacist National Alliance.
“And if you burn down your own neighborhood when a court decision doesn’t go your way, don’t worry: Truckloads of money will soon arrive to build you new breeding colonies--er, I mean houses, apartments, community centers, swimming pools, etc.,” the message read in part.
William Pierce, founder of the National Alliance, said his group did not send the mail. He added that many members use the Internet and electronic bulletin boards to distribute the group’s material.
Said Blount, who continues to receive hundreds of outraged messages responding to the mail sent under his name: “Whoever did this was trying to stir up racial animosities, and they’re hurting a lot of innocent people.”
