The University of Minnesota is among colleges across the country responding to a hack that caused printers to produce anti-Semitic fliers on Thursday, according to an email sent Friday to students and staff.
The fliers appeared on about 10 of the school’s printers, University spokesperson Steve Henneberry said.
Addressed to white men, the fliers said to “join us in the struggle for global white supremacy” and include a link to the anti-Semitic forum website, the Daily Stormer. The fliers appeared at multiple colleges, including the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Princeton University, Brown University and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Andrew Auernheimer, a self-described white supremacist and hacker, took credit for the incident over Twitter.
Auernheimer has been sued in the past for hacking and was convicted in 2012 of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in New Jersey, the Washington Post Reported in 2014. After he served 41 months in prison, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit overturned his sentence, saying that the case should not have been brought to New Jersey.
On a Storify webpage, Auenheimer said he found online that some colleges’ printers had an open port allowing anyone to send commands to them. A Daily Stormer forum member wrote the fliers, which he said he sent using an encoded command to all the printers.
Vice President for Equity and Diversity Katrice Albert and Interim Vice President and Chief Information Officer Bernard Gulachek denounced the fliers in the email Friday, directing people to report affected printers to Technology Help. Counseling services are available for students and staff, the email said.
