After hacking into the university's academic media system, which manages classroom-presentation and distance-learning technology, the as-of-yet-unidentified culprit or culprits programmed motorized screens to unfurl themselves and scheduled projectors to broadcast the five-minute-long video once every hour. The video--ostensibly a diatribe against campus squirrels and a call to end student apathy--interrupted lectures and cut off access for distance-learning students until the IT staff was able to shut down the program in the early afternoon.

According to Darin Watkins, the university's executive director for external communications, IT officials in some cases had to unplug computer hard drives in order to stop the hack. "It was a rather sophisticated program," he said. "Traditional ways of shutting down the software wouldn't work."