OIT uncertain how spammer infiltrated University directory

A yacht. A big yacht to sail to Greece.

That was the request of Nathan Damianos in a mass e-mail sent to the entire University community Sunday.

Titled "To the kind people of Princeton University," the e-mail directed readers to Ificandream.com and asked them to sign a petition to support his effort to buy a $1 million yacht and sail around the world.

The mass e-mail left the Office of Information Technology confused about how Damianos infiltrated the directory and what changes they can make to prevent spam, or junk e-mail.

"What he is doing is reprehensible," said Rita Saltz, associate director of information services. "It's tricky, devious and downright unethical."

Interviewed at his home in Las Vegas earlier this week, Damianos declined to comment on how he was able to send the e-mail.

"The fact that he's not saying suggests he's doing something shady," Saltz said.

However, Damianos maintains his story is true and that he does not plan to sell e-mail addresses.

He said he hopes the signatures will help him recruit a major sponsor for the voyage. In total he is looking for $5 million in sponsorship — one major sponsor of $3 million and eight minor sponsors of $250,000. He is not asking for money from students.

He proposes to broadcast television shows from the yacht, conduct youth workshops on the vessel and hold fund raisers to benefit local communities throughout the voyage.

His project has not yet received any sponsorship.

"[I want to do this] first and foremost because this is my dream and I believe it can happen," he said. "I feel as though it is very easy for young people to get stuck in a rut, and I want to show that life does not have to be that way, and that you don't have to accept the norm, and that you don't have to go by anyone's rules."

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Princeton is not the only university Damianos has solicited. Students at the University of Iowa, University of Alabama, Carnegie Mellon University, Ball State University, Stanford University and Cornell University have also received e-mails about the website. In addition, he has also targeted newsgroups online.

There is no evidence that Damianos is misrepresenting his intentions, said an IT representative at the University at Iowa, whose students received the e-mail in early April.

The representative added that Damianos promised to stop spamming universities.

Damianos, 25, who is an Australian native, studied computer science at the University of New South Wales and abroad at the University of Illinois.

His most recent job was for a company that makes gambling software. In November 2001 he quit his job to devote his time to the aim of sailing to Greece.

The e-mails can been traced to five different places, including universities in France, Hong Kong and Korea. Damianos declined to comment on why he used international servers when he owns a domain.

The e-mail has sparked much conversation on campus, and opinion is split.

Jay Plater-Zyberk '04 said, "He's just a guy with a dream," while Jason Vagliano '05 said, "There's not any sort of higher cause. It's so selfish."

Meanwhile, Damianos sharply criticized people who send mass e-mails and advised the University on steps to prevent spam from entering the system.

"There's things they should do to increase the security of their online directory," he said, explaining the University should keep track of how many directory searches are being conducted each hour.

"I'll give you a hint," he said. "When there are 100 searches in an hour, it should raise an alarm."

Damianos was surprised there was no security preventing him from accessing the entire database. "That freaks me out," he said.

Neither the United States nor New Jersey has legislation against spam, though 12 states have adopted such laws.

Unless Damianos plans to continue spamming, OIT will not investigate him, only security issues, Saltz said.

"There's nothing we can do about him since he's not in any way affiliated with the University," Saltz said. "If a student tried to do something like this, they would get into major trouble."