An ugly attack on a Dalhousie University professor and his family could happen to just about anyone as a result of malevolent use of social networking websites, the Dalhousie Faculty Association is warning.

Academics should consider their privacy in a new light, DFA president Kevin Grundy says, after someone posted a video about the engineering professor and his family on YouTube and other sites in late November. The video included the voice of someone impersonating the Dalhousie professor, a pornographic soundtrack, doctored photographs of his wife and daughters and racist comments about Muslims.

Halifax police are investigating the possibility the video upload constituted a hate crime, and university authorities are attempting to determine if the video was created and uploaded from a campus computer.

In a message e-mailed to students and faculty, Dalhousie president Tom Traves characterized the video as “racist and malicious.”

“This is not regarded as a prank, but as a vicious assault against which we will take all legal measures possible,” said Traves in the statement.

The video was yanked from YouTube following complaints filed by attorneys for CAUT and the university. Access to the video was then provided through a phony Facebook group created in the professor’s name. The group was shut down after lawyers for the university intervened.

The Dalhousie community was encouraged to view the video Nov. 29 when a message linked to the posting on YouTube was sent to thousands of university faculty, student and staff e-mail addresses. The e-mail came from an account created by someone using the professor’s name.

The professor and his family have been “very upset” by the ordeal, Grundy said, but are “comfortable that police and the university are taking the matter seriously and doing everything they can to investigate the source behind the video.”