UC Irvine students face cyberattack

Several hundred hackers bombarded UC Irvine Discord servers with graphic images of gore and violence that reached nearly 3,000 students on Jan. 16, CBS News reported.

The hackers demanded a $1,000 ransom after infiltrating 30 channels. Some students were sent to the hospital due to exposure to the graphic imagery. Some students reported seeing vomiting and crying from their peers, according to CBS News. 

Following the cyberattack, a group of 100 UC Irvine (UCI) students worked to create a bot that would automatically block the hackers and were able to identify and block 400 different accounts associated with the attack.

The incident has been reported to the UCI police, who hope to raise it to the FBI. Students who spoke with CBS News said the attackers have hit several other schools, including Washington State University and the University of Southern California. 

New documents reveal cause of death of human skeleton found at UC Berkeley

The cause of death for human remains found on UC Berkeley’s campus in June 2021 was identified this month, according to the Berkeley Scanner.

The deceased individual, Steven Lawrence McCreary, died of “blunt force injury of the head,” according to an autopsy report obtained by the outlet.

McCreary’s skeleton was discovered in a crawl space in a vacant building on the Clark Kerr Campus. Contractors originally discovered the body in 2021, but their supervisor neglected to report it to the police, the Berkeley Scanner reported. After the contractors alerted the police themselves, police announced the discovery, identified McCreary and ruled it as a homicide.

McCreary’s family had not spoken to him since 2009, they told the Berkeley Scanner, and he was 37 years old when he disappeared.

UC Santa Cruz to provide new online creative technologies major

UC Santa Cruz will be the first institution to provide a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Technologies, City on a Hill Press reported. It will be the UC System’s first online degree.

The major will be offered in Fall 2024, with the same tuition costs as other majors but without obligation to live on or near campus. The primarily online major is partially motivated by an effort to reduce living expenses, according to City on a Hill Press.

The major’s curriculum will cover the intersection of diversity, equity and justice with developing technologies such as coding and generative artificial intelligence. UC Santa Cruz music professor Ben Leeds Carson helmed the degree’s development, and told City on a Hill Press the major is a step in the right direction for increasing accessibility to higher education.

“We have a lot of work to do at UC to become a truly public institution,” Carson told City on a Hill Press. “Creative technologies faculty are trying to make a program that steps further in the direction that helps the problem of inaccessible and privatized education.”

A version of this article appeared on p.2 of the Jan. 25, 2024, print edition of the Daily Nexus.

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Sindhu Ananthavel
Sindhu Ananthavel (she/they) is the Lead News Editor for the 2023-24 school year. Previously, Ananthavel was the Deputy News Editor for the 2022-23 school year, the Community Outreach News Editor for the 2021-22 school year and an assistant news editor for the 2021-22 school year. She can be reached at news@dailynexus.com.