by Lucy Hebb
We all get the unsettling emails. Some of us may even open them from time to time. I’m not referring to the day we learned that our sweet potato fries had been “slathered, jizzed, and whizzed,” though that information was equally concerning.
No, I’m talking about the emails that provoke unequivocal fear of your Google account being deactivated, the ones that throw around four-letter words, like “scam” and “spam” and “hack,” that remind you to not to give out your email username or password to anyone because the University will never—and I repeat NEVER—ask you to provide this information, and that leave you with countless unanswered questions, like who is jjohanns@sewanee.edu, and why is he (or she) always the bearer of bad news? What if the University does want our usernames and passwords someday? How will we know it’s really the administration and not another imposter? What does the “c” in cstudent stand for, anyway? And who the hell keeps trying to hack Sewanee’s email?!
When I began to contemplate possible offenders, my mind went to the first logical place: aliens. However, other Sewanee students have their own theories. Annabelle Thaddeus (C‘14), for example, insists that, “It’s definitely a covert branch of a terrorist organization pretending to be the CIA.” It should be noted that Ms. Thaddeus recently discovered the TV show Alias on Netflix Instant Watch. Mary Morrison (C‘15) believes that the ambush is rooted in academic rivalry and that Vanderbilt and Rhodes are responsible for the attempts to infiltrate our Internet.
Param Singh (C’16) responds, “I’m not saying it’s the Indian mafia, but I’m not not saying that either.” Incidentally, Samantha Bhate (C’14) has no comment.
One Sewanee male is certain that the Ministry of Magic is responsible: “If it happened at Hogwarts, it could happen anywhere.”
Gabrielle Marion (C’16) exclaims, “Maybe jjohanss@sewanee.edu is the one doing it! It’s like Gossip Girl!”
Another Sewanee student, who prefers to remainanonymous for safety reasons, is certain that this is the work of the Capitol. Yes, as in the Capitol of Panem.
“I mean, haven’t you seen where our ‘districts’ come up on the Facebook app for iPhone? ‘District 5, Sewanee.’ Yeah, that’s where it all starts.” She continues, “All I’m saying is that it isn’t a coincidence that the government shut down right around the same time that Sewanee’s email was mysteriously hacked.”
Well, what Sewanee lacks in secure firewall software, we make up for in imagination.