The " credible " threat that caused the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to close all schools on Tuesday was sent from cock.li , the "meme" e-mail host that also provides e-mail services for 8chan, the 4chan splinter site

School officials in New York and Los Angeles reportedly both received threats from madbomber@cock.li, but only LAUSD took it seriously. All 640,000 LAUSD students were unable to attend classes on Tuesday.

Vincent Canfield, the founder of cock.li, posted a copy of the subpoena he received from a New York detective on his own website and included audio recordings of polite but brief conversations with two officials from the New York Police Department (NYPD) Intelligence Bureau.

The December 15 request from the NYPD is just the fourth that Canfield says he has received. The NYPD investigators did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

In an encrypted chat, Canfield told Ars that he complied with the NYPD’s subpoena.

"Yep, it was a legal subpoena as I understand it and it was complied with," he said. "I provided registering IP and time info, as well as IMAP/SMTP logs."

Canfield said he had not even read the content of the message himself, although he does have access to it as the mail host. However, he noted that the NYPD did not ask for it, and he assumes that they already have a copy of the message. He did not provide it nor publish it, as he said that would be a violation of his transparency policy. He also confirmed that his mail server is in Germany—multiple news outlets reported the message had originated from that country.

As part of cock.li’s policy on handling subpoenas or orders to produce data, Canfield writes: "publish everything, inform the target. I do not provide a window for the user to file a motion to quash, but that's probably something I'd look into if I ever receive a civil subpoena. Transparency reports are here."

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department defended its response in a news conference.

"I think it's irresponsible, based on facts that have yet to be determined, to criticize that decision," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said. "All of us make tough choices. All of us have the same goal in mind, to keep the kids safe."

However, the ranking democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Los Angeles) tweeted:

The investigation into LAUSD threat is still ongoing. Preliminary assessment is it was a hoax to disrupt school districts in large cities. — Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) December 15, 2015

Security theater?

In a Tuesday e-mail sent to cock.li users, Canfield explained further his bafflement at the LAUSD reaction:

While people that abuse cock.li are actually the scum of this site and waste so much of my time, it's amusing that an administration can take a few E-mails and shut down a school district of hundreds of thousands of students as a result. This is an administration problem and the fact that NYC didn't close schools it wasn't a "credible" threat is especially telling of the subjectivity that goes into making sweeping decisions like this that effect [sic] countless people. We live in an age where anonymous messages can be sent with extreme ease (not just through cock.li). When someone uses a meme E-mail provider to threaten your organization, pulling the plug on all students and wasting over 1,800 combined YEARS of student-classroom time is a PR stunt and another example of officials employing security theater to make their students and parents feel safe. This cannot be demonstrated clearer than the fact that when something like this happens, and copycat threats inevitably come soon after, the same response is not deployed. All of this over from an E-mail from a meme email provider. Sorry for the political E-mail, hopefully this situation adds more kek to your day than it has added me stress.

NYPD Chief William Bratton told local reporters that his agency did not take the threat seriously in part because of how Allah was spelled in the message.

"The language in the e-mail would lead us to believe that this is not a jihadist initiative," he said. "…That would be incredible to think that any jihadist would not spell Allah with a capital ‘A.'"

On Twitter, the NYPD continued:

"We are very comfortable that this is not a credible threat...concerned with people overreacting to it," says @CommissBratton — NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) December 15, 2015

When Ars called LAUSD asking for a copy of the threatening e-mail, a spokesman suggested that we file a public records request (which we have since done). He also said that further information would be made available at a press conference on Tuesday evening.

Per the Los Angeles Times, LAUSD schools will reopen tomorrow.