Richard Herman
From U of I Wiki
Richard Herman is the chancellor of the Urbana-Champaign campus.
E-mail hoax
Someone posing as Herman sent a hoax e-mail to campus students, staff and faculty members discouraging students from participating in the Greek system. The e-mail was sent on two ocassions, the first in the late hours of Friday, August 29, 2008, and the other in the early hours of Monday, September 1, 2008. The first e-mail reached about 2,900 inboxes, and the second e-mail reached more than 100,000 inboxes.
CITES said there was no evidence of hacking, but instead the e-mail spoofed the sender's address (chancellor@illinois.edu), spoofed the recipient's address (everybody@uiuc.edu) and probably blind-carbon-copied the thousands of addresses that were gathered.
The e-mail was signed "GDI Chancellor Richard Herman." "GDI" is an abbreviation for "God Damn Independent," a label indicating non-membership and opposition to the Greek system. Fraternity rush week was occurring at the time, and sorority rush week was scheduled for the week after. The university is home to the largest Greek system in the world. The e-mail was also missing the hyperlink to the mass mail archives at the bottom of the message, which usually accompanies e-mails from the chancellor.
A transcript of the e-mail, complete with headers information, follows. The Recipient's e-mail address references have been changed (recipient@isp.com, recipient@uiuc.edu) to protect recipient. References to Google and Gmail are from redirection of the e-mail from an Illinois.edu inbox to a Gmail inbox.
Delivered-To: recipient@isp.com
Received: by 10.151.114.18 with SMTP id r18cs157593ybm;
Mon, 1 Sep 2008 16:21:38 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.150.54.6 with SMTP id c6mr9425417yba.223.1220311298433;
Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:21:38 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <chancellor@illinois.edu>
Received: from relay01.cites.uiuc.edu (relay01.cites.uiuc.edu [128.174.4.23])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 4si7136032yxq.9.2008.09.01.16.21.38;
Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:21:38 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 128.174.4.23 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of chancellor@illinois.edu) client-ip=128.174.4.23;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 128.174.4.23 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of chancellor@illinois.edu) smtp.mail=chancellor@illinois.edu
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for <recipient@uiuc.edu>; Mon, 1 Sep 2008 18:21:37 -0500 (CDT)
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for <recipient@uiuc.edu>; Mon, 1 Sep 2008 18:21:37 -0500 (CDT)
Message-Id: <200809012321.m81NLbvV014515@expredir7.cites.uiuc.edu>
Date: 08/29/08 21:10
To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff & All
Undergrad Students & All Grad Students <everybody@uiuc.edu>
From: Chancellor Richard Herman <chancellor@illinois.edu>
Subject: Regarding Greek life on campus
Reply-To: chancellor@illinois.edu
X-Spam-Details: rule=tag_notspam policy=tag score=0 spamscore=0 ipscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx engine=5.0.0-0805090000 definitions=main-0809010159
X-Spam-Score: 0
X-Spam-OrigSender: chancellor@illinois.edu
X-Spam-Bar:
Dear Students,
Many of you may be aware of an event known as Rush. It is my objective to
warn you of the potential downsides of Greek organizations. I advise you to
not succumb to the aggressive recruitment tactics used by these
organizations. It has been my concern over the years, that the Greek culture
of alcoholism and lack of respect for the community degrades campus life.
These organizations present themselves as prestigious, yet are
discriminatory, serve to perpetuate social inequality, especially with
respect to the opposite gender, and promote a lack of diversity. Many
students have expressed concerns with regards to safety on campus,
particularly due to Greek culture and behavior. It is my hope that a
student's experience on campus strengthens one's individuality, but the Greek
system emphasizes the group above all, without cause or reason. This is
detrimental to the purpose of universities.
I hope that you will consider wisely.
GDI Chancellor Richard Herman
Noteworthy is the receiver's named and numbered IP address: "Newman-71.newmanhall.org [209.174.188.71]," which could be a resident in Newman Hall. However, it's possible that the person behind the hoax could have found an unsecure wireless router from which to send the e-mail, framing blame on a Newman Hall resident. CITES believes that the e-mail was sent from "outside the university."
