McGill student a victim of high-tech harassment
D'Arcy Doran, Special to The Gazette
McGill student Tara Newell fell victim to a new kind of high-tech harassment after someone broke into her E-mail account tolearn personal details about her.
Newell, 22, who was elected president of the Students Society of McGill Undergraduates on Thursday, received severalobscene messages at the beginning of the election campaign threatening continued harassment unless she dropped out of theelection. The harasser learned personal details about Newell by reading her saved messages. During a seven-day periodbeginning at the start of the election campaign Feb. 17 Newell and her friends received dozens of obscene messages. Thesender found the friends' addresses in saved messages.
"(S)o much information we've learned about you," read one message from the anonymous sender. "Undeleted email is such apleasure to read. We have names. We have phone numbers."
"What was most disturbing was that it was evident they had read all my correspondence. It's almost like someone reading your diary," Newell said in an interview "I felt violated."
David Dedic, a network analyst and computer-security expert at the McGill Computing Centre which manages students' E-mail accounts, said it's important to keep in mind the risks of using E-mail. "Be careful of what you say - E-mail is not any different from having a conversation with someone in public and the same rules apply," Dedic said.
Newell described the messages she received as "pornographic" and "homophobic."
One message received by a friend of Newell's repeatedly uses the word "fag" and says: "You probably need a good beating too." Another read: "Maybe its (sic) time we met them (your friends). We do have some idea who they are."
The harasser closely monitored Newell's account, promptly deleting the obscene messages once they had been read.
The penalties for E-mail harassment are severe. If found, the harasser would face criminal charges in addition to possible expulsion from the university - if he or she is a student.
Robert Lecker, who has been appointed by the university to hear and investigate complaints of sexual harassment, said the messages fit McGill's definition of sexual harassment.
Newell said Lecker called her last week and asked whether he "should throw out her file" because the messages were untraceable.
Attempts to trace the obscene E-mail were made by the McGill Computing Centre, which investigates all violations of the McGill computer user's code of conduct including E-mail harassment. Glen Matthews, McGill's associate director of communications and systems networking, would not comment on Newell's case directly but said E-mail account break-ins are rare.
Constable Annie Metivier of Montreal Urban Community police read copies of the messages supplied by a reporter. She said the sender could be charged with harassment under Section 264 of the Criminal Code and face up to five years' imprisonment.But Metivier said neither Newell nor the university had filed a police report yet.
Constable Richard DiFoglio said MUC police have not seen any concentrations of E-mail-related crimes in Montreal.
The Internet is new territory for the police, he said, and there have not been enough complaints to warrant having officers who investigate only internet related crimes.
This isn't the first time an E-mail account has been broken into and caused a stir on McGill campus. Last October, someone posted a message on InfoMcGill, the university electronic information service, aimed at creating animosity between the Chinese Students' Society and the Hong Kong Dragon Students' Society.
A few days later, someone tried to frame a member of the Hong Kong Students' Society by breaking into his E-mail account and sending a fake confession. The computing centre was unable to find the offender. "Until a year ago the McGill population was very responsible and there were very few infractions. But as E-mail's popularity has grown, we've had people do things they're not supposed to," said Sander Wasser Manager of Direct Support Services and Education at the computing centre. Sander
Wasser
Wasser said there are several ways E-mail harassers can try to avoid detection including re-routing messages through E-mail services that allow you to send anonymous mail. One such service exists in Finland where government regulations do not require messages have a header detailing where and when the message originated.
Newell said she thinks her account may have been vulnerable because she used a common word as a password. Wasser said to break into an account with a common word as a password all someone has to do is write a program which tries every word in a computer's spell-check dictionary.
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