A Targeted Revenge Porn Campaign Is Happening at a Moncton University

The emails started arriving in Moncton inboxes last Saturday and haven't stopped.

The messages, attempting to reach the majority of the student and staff population, are the primary tool in a massive targeted revenge porn campaign against one female student. The emails claim to be coming from someone connected to the woman, with the sender saying she cheated on him (and police say they have identified the suspect.) The emails have contained a nude sexually exploitative photo of the woman, a link to her Facebook page and threats to the university.

On the Université de Uonctons Reddit page, a user who got the email said that some contained a link to a video on a popular porn website that has since been removed.

On the weekend of Feb 28 alone, over 10,000 emails were sent out to students and staff of the New brunswick school. This last weekend, another 2,000 were sent out. The university's IT department is working to block the emails and have had some success but haven't been able to stop the entirety of the harassment.

READ MORE: People Are Terrifyingly OK with Revenge Porn, New Study Finds

A spokesman for the University told the CBC that they believe that it is a single person carrying out the campaign and that the emails were sent from a European server and that the sender is using multiple accounts and identities to send them from. The president of the University of Moncton, Raymond Theberge, has called the targeted harassment "cyber-terrorism" and, in a news conference, said there are no current plans to take down the server as some have called on the university to do.

""This is a type of cyberterrorism and it's never a good thing to give in to these kinds of attacks because if we give in once, there will be other attacks and there will be other demands made on the institution," said Theberge.

The woman that is being targeted has filed a complaint with the RCMP, who have said that they have identified a suspect in the case. If the person who is orchestrating the campaign is caught, he would most likely be charged with distributing intimate images of another person without that person's consent. The charge could bring with it a five year jail sentence and a fine of up to $5,000.

Lead photo via Flickr user Rocco

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