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Lancaster, CA – The alleged attack of the 38YES Campaign website was not an intentional act of someone trying to cripple the campaign, but rather a teacher or staff member installing a software program that would allow the website to be downloaded for educational purposes, is the conclusion from an investigation launched by district officials.
The district implemented an investigation after receiving notification on October 20, 2000 from Digital Campaigns, Inc., the company who monitors the campaign website. The notification letter indicated that an individual or group of individuals from Lancaster High School attacked a website they were monitoring. Accompanying the letter was a press release from the 38YES Campaign exaggerating the alleged attack.
As District officials conducted their investigation they learned of a telephone conversation between a representative with Digital Campaigns and a network engineer with Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE). LACOE provides Internet service for the district.
The conversation between the two parties discussed the nature of the alleged attacks. The Digital Campaign representative said that the web page was being repeatedly accessed in a very frequent manner. The LACOE network engineer indicated to the representative that given the reported frequency (one access per second) of hits, it would have little or no impact on his server. Furthermore, the Digital Campaign representative mentioned that the IP address made reference to a Windows program used for retrieving entire web sites.
The LACOE network engineer did confirm that the IP address was the Antelope Valley Union High School District and a school in the Lancaster area, but had no way of knowing specifically which high school.
The conversation ended with the LACOE engineer suggesting to the Digital Campaign representative that it seemed more plausible that the cause was buggy software run amok than a hacker attack. The Digital Campaign representative agreed.
The software in questioned is called Webcapture. Webcapture allows you to download websites to your computer. Education professionals commonly use the software program for instructional purposes. The software program is known to have a bug, which gives it the potential to make continuous hits to a website with the effort to download the information.
Superintendent Robert Girolamo’s response to all of this, "Proposition 38 is an emotional issue and huge decision for the voters of California to consider. There are those that will stretch the truth for their campaign purpose. Unfortunately, our district was a casualty of their purpose."
-end-