Spam barrage
“Hallo pervert.” This was how a large number of UM staff members and students were greeted by a message in their mailbox on Tuesday morning two weeks ago. Despite the ‘spam label’, many could not resist the temptation to take a peek. And apparently that made an impression: within two hours the ICTS service desk received two hundred reports. The sender lashed out with all kinds of accusations and threatened to put so-called recordings online that “would destroy your life within a single second.” But that could be prevented by transferring an amount of 1,450 euro in bitcoin, it said.
So far, however, the anonymous sender of the e-mail has had no success, says Jacques Beursgens, director of the ICT service centre. “We were able to look into the crypto wallet, there is still nothing in there.” Completely preventing an employee from transferring funds is difficult. “This is only possible with a link that you click on taking you to another website, which we can subsequently block. At that time, there was only an account number. That is why people need to continue reporting this.”
So, from now on no more spam e-mails? “No, unfortunately this is a daily routine and difficult to prevent.” The golden tip continues to be: “If it is labelled as spam, just stay away from it. Use common sense.” Regarding the latter, the anonymous sender (unintentionally) sent encouragement at the end of the e-mail: “Good luck, my perverse friend.”
Quick cappu mdm, hdp!
Kladiladi! Those of you who are now thinking that the cat just walked over the keyboard, are most likely no longer students. This is a typical example of today’s student language, says Ande Cremers from Nijmegen. For her bachelor’s thesis, the student of Dutch Language and Culture looked at abbreviations used by students.
For the non-initiated: kladiladi means ‘klap die laptop dicht’, or shut that laptop. And the heading of this piece? That translates into ‘even een cappuccino met de meiden, heerlie-de-peerlie’ (a quick cappuccino with the girls, lovely jubbly or: great, having a quick cup of coffee with my friends). In addition to all those abbreviations, students often also end words with ‘-ie’. “Gezellig becomes gezellie, spannend becomes spannie”, says Cremers to university newspaper Vox in Nijmegen.
Why do students use language like that? According to Cremers, they are poking fun at a certain type. “They imagine someone with a hair clip, blond hair and trousers with wide legs. A Marie Claire, is what they call her. A pretentious person with rich parents, who often live in the Randstad.’
Clever children
There is another new answer to the age-old question: does it depend on upbringing or genes? Professor Erik Plug from Amsterdam saw that children who were born after IVF – so, with the help of the egg-cell or sperm cell from a donor – do better at school when they have a highly-educated non-biological mother. This means that it cannot be due to genetic characteristics. By the way, no connection was found with the education level of a non-biological father.
Remarkably, this influence was not found in adopted children. This is probably due to the fact that adopted children often become part of the family later on in life, writes Hoger Onderwijs Persbureau (Higher Education Press Agency). Erik Plug says on the University of Amsterdam’s website that “it is even possible that the prenatal experience in the womb is important for the development of the child.” IVF children, after all, are carried by the non-biological mother during pregnancy.