Lashing out against what they believe is a hopelessly broken international education system, the hacker collective Team Ghostshell published some 120,000 records from a number of the world’s top universities.
They are calling the operation “Project WestWind.” In a post on Pastebin, the group justifies the leaks as an attempt to spread “awareness towards the changes made in today’s education, how new laws imposed by politicians affect us, our economy and overall, our way of life.”
They go on to cite high tuition prices in the U.S., oft-changed laws in Europe, and systemic thought-repression in Aisa as additional reasons for the operation, in which they claim to be targeting the top 100 universities in the world.
Among the universities listed in the Pastebin post are Harvard University, Cambridge Univeristy, Stanford University, Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Pennsylvania among many more. The group claims to have been merciful by releasing just 120,000 accounts and records, claiming that they left hundreds of thousands of additional records untouched in university servers. They also claim, without providing any evidence, that many of the servers contain malware and credit card information.
The release also includes a number of quotes, all credited to anonymous sources, expressing various opinions about the state of higher education. Whoever authored the post claims that the quotes can be attributed to “different anonymous members, around the globe.”
The Pastebin post does not attempt to explain how such a leak helps to achieve the stated goals, but does encourage readers to bring up the topic, “today’s education” in day-to-day conversations.
