A more official looking source for the same information:<p><a href="http://techblogs.mit.edu/news/2013/02/letter-from-israel-ruiz-mit-executive-vp-and-treasurer-about-saturdays-hoax-incident/" rel="nofollow">http://techblogs.mit.edu/news/2013/02/letter-from-israel-rui...</a>
This sounds a lot like swatting, a favorite of anonymous.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting</a>
> At 8:52 AM, a campus-wide alert was sent.<p>It took over an hour after the report of an armed gunman on campus for the community to be notified? Even though it sounds like they were doing a great job physically clearing buildings with armed security, a lockdown procedure seems like a no-brainer. At ~7:30 most people are still in their dorms and it would be easy to keep them there.
"It's not a game" - no, but for the people calling in hoaxes, it can very well be. The administration can't choose to stop responding. But the cost of committing such a hoax is effectively zero - what's to stop the hoaxer from calling in each day?<p>How do other police handle high volumes of hoax calls that aren't traceable (i.e., aren't 911)?
The attacks on MIT are really unintelligent. MIT has some of the most brilliant students and future/current tech leaders, who may have a large impact on how information policy will be shaped. These attacks have only served to alienate MIT students from the cause.
I started reading and saw "A big gun" and "armor" and thought it was going to turn into a normal MIT prank, with a guy wearing a metal suit of armor and carrying a cardboard cannon.<p>Was displeased to learn it was an actual hoax and not a ha-ha-laugh prank.