It's Harvard vs. MIT in an online pranking war

By Katherine Landergan, Town Correspondent

The incoming classes at Harvard College and MIT seem to be waging a series of online pranks against one another.

First reported by The Huffington Post on Tuesday, these jokes included MIT students editing a website devoted to the Harvard class of 2017, and replacing students’ pictures with an image of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. A Reddit user posted a screengrab of the hack.

Another screenshot showed that MIT students also changed each Harvard students’ bios to phrases like, “I wish I had as much swag as the MIT kids.”

In response, the incoming Harvard students created a Google Doc announcing a “Declaration of War!”

"Whereas the Immature Prefrosh of MIT has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Harvard 2017 Website and the Members of the Harvard Class of 2017:

Therefore be it Resolved by that the state of war between the Harvard Class of 2017 and the Immature Prefrosh of MIT which has thus been thrust upon the Harvard class of 2017 is hereby formally declared; and the Harvard Class of 2017 is hereby ComMITted to utilize the entire strengths of its class to carry on war against the MIT Prefrosh."

They later created a “Terms of Surrender” Google Doc, in which the incoming Harvard students demanded that the MIT class of 2017 apologize, and comply to several terms. For example, Article V states that the “Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Class of 2017 provides Harvard University, Class of 2017 with a tribute of several varieties of cookies and cheesecake in sweet abundance.”

Katherine Landergan can be reached at klandergan@globe.com. For campus news updates, follow her on Twitter @klandergan.

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