University of Otago Photo: 123RF
Police say they are making progress in finding the person behind the Otago University threat.
The shooting threat was posted anonymously to the online forum 4chan on Monday night and was deleted soon after.
Police Inspector Mel Aitken told Radio NZ’s Morning Report that the investigation was in progress.
“We've spoken with a number of persons yesterday and will continue to do so today, it's much in progress at this stage.”
She would not say how many people police had spoken to about the threat, but said they were talking with a number of different people that were helping police with their enquiries.
Aitken said members of the public were coming forward with names for police to consider and added that police did not believe there was still a threat, but asked people to remain vigilant.
Police were maintaining a high visibility presence at the university area as a reassurance to students and staff, she said.
Officers were stationed at the Otago campus yesterday and classes were scheduled as normal but more than two-thirds of students stayed away.
Two other threats were also made to Victoria University and Massey University, but it is unknown if they were linked.
Daniel Ayers, a Forensic IT investigator, told Morning Report the GCSB may be called in a bid to find out who made the online threat.
4chan is hosted in US, which he said made it difficult to get cooperation or legal help.
But he said forensic linguistics, the science of analysing writing style, could be used. If it was classed as a terror threat, it could be dealt with using internet surveillance techniques.
A version of this story was first published on radionz.co.nz.