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Password change breeds chaos
BY TED NORGAARD
STATESMAN STAFF WRITER
iISSUE: 78/26
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY
TYLER SWEENEY / STATESMAN
Notice the satisfaction seen on the
assailant’s face.
A fight broke out yesterday in Humanities 420 between a UMD student and a Roving Computer Lab consultant. According to eyewitness accounts, the student, who for legal purposes must remain unnamed, became agitated after typing in his old e-mail password. “The kid started swearing and pounding his mouse on the desk,” said Sled Norhard. “The computer lab consultant came over to see what was going on, and things only got worse from there.”
According to the police report, the Roving Computer Lab consultant was hit over the head with a keyboard and strangled by a mouse cord. The consultant could have been killed if it wasn’t for the actions of a brave journalism professor, who was teaching the class during the attack. “I came back into the classroom after one of my many smoke breaks and then saw who I thought was one of my finest students strangling the poor computer lab guy,” said Drew Hatchlin, a journalism professor. “I didn’t want to break up the fight, but the last time I didn’t break one up, a kid lost his eye. I took a lot of heat at my last teaching gig for not doing anything, so I decided I better jump in.”
First, the professor threw his AP Stylebook at the enraged student, stunning him. Hatchlin then finished the bewildered student off by throwing one of the computer lab’s many Mac PowerBooks at him, according to the police report. “It was good to see one of those Mac Books actually put to use,” added Norhard. Officially, UMD’s Administration is trying to keep this on the “hush-hush,” because apparently this isn’t the first issue as a result of UMD students having to change their Internet account passwords.
“It started with reports of students just staring at login screens in the library for hours,” said an anonymous
source, who has a high-level position in the university’s administration. “It wasn’t long until the university had to start beefing up security around the Information Technology Services and Support (ITSS) office, as multiple
students walked by angrily shaking their fists at the office.”
No charges have been filed against the student, and the university is currently looking for a hypnotist to make the class forget the whole incident. The roving computer lab consultant is staying at Health Services and is currently in stable condition. Hoping to keep him quiet, the university gave him a Segway scooter and 20 free meals at the Dining Center, according to the Statesman’s anonymous source.
