[Vision2020] President White's Letter SupportingGeocentricism is aHoax

[Tom Hansen]

Chasuk -

I have a pristine copy of the subject email on my computer at work.  The
return email address of that email is clearly president at uidaho.edu, the
email address for the Office of the President, University of Idaho.

Perhaps, as you say, somebody made the letter to falsely appear as if it had
originated from the Office of the President of UI (without actually hacking
into a UI email server).  I am very familiar with several ways in which this
can be accomplished.

Question:  The "mail group" to which the email was sent includes all staff
and faculty at UI.  This "mail group", I have been told, is identical to the
mail group that the REAL Office of the President uses.  Enlighten us Chasuk.
How could that have happened without hacking into the server?

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

PS - Did you get the CDs I sent you?

"If not us, who?
If not now, when?"

- Unknown
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Chasuk [mailto:chasuk at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 9:57 PM
To: Tom Hansen
Cc: lfalen; heirdoug at netscape.net; ngier at uidaho.edu; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] President White's Letter SupportingGeocentricism
is aHoax

On 10/6/05, Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:
> Greetings Visionaires -

> These are the facts.  Somebody had actively hacked into a UI e-mail
server.
> That person further created an e-mail from the email account of the Office
> of the UI President.  The e-mail was sent to all staff and faculty of the
> University of Idaho.

Is this a fact?  I haven't seen the original message with the headers
intact, but it isn't terribly difficult to make a letter appear as if
has come from one source when it has come from another, without any
hacking involved.  Most of us have probably gotten spam that is
ostensibly from one individual and is in actuality from another.  I
haven't taken the time to learn such chicanery myself, but I am
assured by knowledgeable people that a relatively clever teenager can
master it quickly enough; probably with tutorials obtained via a
Google search.

If this hacking did occur, then I hope that the perpetrators are
identified and prosecuted.  If it didn't, well, then, the message was
FUNNY, and too obvious of a hoax to have merited a single hackle being
raised.


Cheers,

Chas