Slashdot Mirror
University of Twente NOC Fire Arson
Lars writes "A 26-year old man from Hengelo has admitted to deliberately setting fire to the Network Operations Centre of University of Twente, last Wednesday. The fire gutted two wings of the building and devastated one of the fastest networks in Europe.
The arsonist is an employee of the University, which must come as quite a shock to those involved.
The University released a short statement to the press.
It mentions that the total damage caused is roughly 40-50 million euros (about the same in dollars) and that the guy was caught last Friday, when he tried to set fire to one of the faculty buildings."
Wouldn't going on strike have been a little more effective than burning down the office?
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
The Stake, obviously.
I guess those Euro's don't go for that sort of thing though, do they?
Never confuse volume with power.
Now that's a dedicated luddite.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
The arsonist is an employee of the University, which must come as quite a shock to those involved. The University released a short statement to the press
English text here.
A few non - european services were affected as well - namely ALL security updates for Debain (the primary mirror anyhow) were offline for a while.
Brings up a good point in disaster recovery: How many organizations have machines at various places that they can't recover from a total loss?
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" -- George Orwell
The article basically says: he dun-it and he's an employee. What it doesn't say is why he dun-it, though.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
I mean, he's 26. He now owes the university and several companies 40-50 Million Euros (dollars). Its just arson so thats what 3-5 years. To me, thats way to easy to get off. Even if he makes $50k after taxes, it will take him 800 years to pay off 40million. Thats just messed up.
So, this guy gets out when he is 30yrs old, can find a job and move on with his life looking for more buildings to burn down. isnt there something wrong with that?
Ralph: "That's where I saw the Leprechaun. He tells me to burn things!"
Leprachaun: "You've done grand, laddie! Now ya know what ya have ta do! Burn the house down! Burn 'em all!"
They obviously didn't have enough firewalls.
(Sorry... couldnt resist)
-- 7 string electric violin + live loop samplers
Information wants to be set on fire.
Press release Twente Police 25 November 2002
Confession concerning fire UT
The 26-year-old man from Hengelo detained on Friday afternoon has confessed that he also started a fire on the grounds of the University of Twente on Wednesday morning 20 November 2002. In this fire two wings of one of the buildings on the grounds were completely destroyed and damages caused of between 40 and 50 million euro.
The 26-year old was detained Friday afternoon after witnesses had observed the start of a small fire in another building. On the directions of these witnesses the 26-year old could then be detained.
On the how and why of the arson on the 20th no further announcements can be made at this moment. The suspect will be undergo further questioning on this.
We can announce that the 26-year old is an employee of the University of Twente. The University staff has been informed of his confession by now.
He will be brought before the magistrate in Almelo today.
Stupid idiots.... the whole infrastructure was burnt down, and we're trying to rebuild it as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, www.utwente.nl is used as a central point of information towards students and employees. Which n00b put the link on slashdot, _AGAIN_? Thanks for ruining our just revived webserver, thanks for nothing!
(25-11 1345) Plead guilty within prickly UT Politiepersbericht Plead guilty within prickly UT ( university Twente ) Enschede: The vrijdagmiddag jl. aangehouden jr. spouse out of Fishing rod , has zondagavond well-known who he too the prickly has institution in the field of the University Twente worn woensdagmorgen 20 November jl. Towards this prickly went two wings with one with the buildings worn the shunting yard wholly ruin and went one pity raise with between the 40 and 50 million European currency. The jr. wax vrijdagmiddag aangehouden after through give evidence wax seen who towards one other edifice worn the Universiteitsterrein one young prickly wax sping up. Worn pointer with this give evidence might the jr. subsequently turn aangehouden. Via the the and why with the incendiarism worn the 20e November jl , may worn this one moment not one draw near information turn given. The suspect will about this yet nearer turn hearing. Well-being pitcher turn medegedeeld who the jr. one cooperator is with the University Twente. The personnel worn the University Twente is yet worn the altitude brought with one's plead guilty. Today is being he pre-gummed towards the master - superintendant within Almelo.
Can anybody make more sense of this more than the original?
First a massive fire, now a thorough slashdotting. What's next, Mecha-Striesand?
According to the mIRC home page, their message boards and mailing lists were destroyed in the fire as well. It appears to have affected a large number of people.
It turns out it wasn't arson, but merely a misunderstanding.
They asked him to install the new "firewall"...
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Here's a summary of the statement in English (from Dutch):
--
A 26-year old man from Hengelo admitted sunday evening that he started a fire on wednesday 20th of November that incinerated 2 wings of the University of Twente building.
He was arrested after witnesses saw him at another small fire on campus.
Police can make no statements about why and how he did it. However the police confirms that he works at the University.
--
"Son, in a sporting event, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get" - Homer J. Simpson
gruntled?
In talking with a Disaster Recovery, quote EXPERT unquote, he said a little fact that quite surprised me: 62% of all technology disasters are premeditated by disgruntled employees, honest administrative mistakes, or lack of change control procedures. We build our moats around the castle, but we never think to install smoke alarms in the kitchen!?!?
If I don't post again before Thanksgiving, Happy Turkey day ya'll.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
You guy's are really considerate: fire destroys network, they do all their best to get it somewhat back to work and then you slashdot it back into oblivion.
Though the arsonist takes a huge part of the blame, i think the university also made some faults. Why put your servers in a building that burns that well? If you have so much expensive equipment, you should consider everything, including arson! A few days ago they were happy that no asbestos was released because it was removed shortly ago. But isn't asbestos a fire retarder??
Anyhow this fire is a huge problem for the university. When i was studying there 2 years ago, their biggest trouble was the financing of new buildings. They were supposed to build a new combined building for Physics, Electronics and Chemistry. When the drawings were almost finished they had to scap the whole thing. Right now several buildings are way beyond their lifetime and could technically be shut down to regulations any moment. Most buildings are already extended with temporary containers (Portacabins). And now this..... If they were a company this would certainly be their bankruptcy.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Here is a link to the movie you are refering to.
Somethign tells me this guy who burnt the place down, will not go to the tropics to meet woman. Instead he is going to prison and meet Bubba; the A$$ Plow.
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
Let's develop a manual, GUI router software.
The PC has 2 or more network cards, and one program on the system. The only interface is a mouse.
The delinquent sees as many windows on the screen as there are NICs in the computer. They manually route packets by identifying a packet header in hex in the window, and dragging that packet from the window it's coming from to the window it should be routed to.
They would be checked by an automatic router in operation in the background, and would be given further punishment if they route packets incorrectly.
Their sentence term would simply be to route as many packets as were lost due to their actions.
-Adam
PS God loves you and longs for relationship with you.
I do not think that using that signature was a good idea. People might get the wrong idea about Prisons, rape and God.
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
This happened in The Netherlands. He will be judged by a single judge, no jury. Having full access to lawyers who are not capable of making any money out of this beyond their reasonable salary. He will maybe even go to prison (not that likely though). Single person in a room. 4 Nice painted walls, a door with a friendly window. TV in the room. Possibly a window for a decent view of the outside world. 3 Good meals a day. Sports facilities and libraries. Guards without guns. Lots of therapeutic little jobs....so he doesn't f&^%#ng hate society when he gets out next month!
My name is Dam Backer. I am from The Netherlands and I switched to the US 6 years ago.
(all of the above might not be perfectly accurate, but it schetches an idea of the philosophy of the Dutch punishment system)
Hmm, I wonder if he'll actually be brought to trial or will get judged to be a nutter and sent to a mental hospital.
When I was at primary school in Colchester(UK) there was a spate of school fires in my area which the police believed to be arson. They got extremely excited when they realised that the headmaster(principal) of my school had visited each of the schools just before the fires. Obviously they questioned him quite closely but then couldn't find any evidence against him, so they started secret surveillance on his movements.
A couple of days into the surveillance, my school got burnt down completely and what the police saw was another teacher torching the school. Apparently this guy had flipped and he was trying to assasinate the headmaster by burning down any buildings that he visited. Not really the most efficient way of taking someone out, but that's madness for you.
I'm pretty sure he was judged to be clinically insane and sent away pretty much permanently....
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
I wanted to point out that more complex trials are handled by three judges instead of one (I'm not sure about the exact rules on that matter). The punishment will probably depend a lot on his past criminal record, motivation & current regret/willingness to be treated. In the best case it might be low (community service). It has been proven that (more) jail-time will increase the chance of someone becoming a repeat offender, so we try to reduce jail-time in favor of more educational approaches (and reduce the load on our jails + save money).
I also want to point out that judges aren't elected, so they aren't forced to punish harder to appease the people* that believe the "Crime is increasing"-mantra that the media like to perpetrate (and have for hundreds of years. They complained about it during roman times and ever since.).
*True democracy is the average man deciding who is smart enough to govern them. It's not the average man making decisions on complex matters which they cannot (be expected to) understand in detail. The people should choose the goals and judge the elected men and women on the results they achieve. Politicians should be allowed to try and achieve these goals with a coherent set of decisions. That's why I don't like these micro-management elections or referenda for that matter. </rant> Sorry, had to get that off my chest.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi