| EBay
reopens campus with beefed up security following blast
EBay's North San Jose campus reopened this morning,
clearing the way for 1,900 employees to return to work
after a powerful explosive blew out a window Tuesday
night and closed the campus all day Wednesday.
The company has increased security at the campus, which
includes the headquarters for the PayPal division, spokeswoman
Catherine England said. She declined to elaborate on
specific security measures.
Bomb-sniffing dogs and investigators spent Wednesday
at the site, looking for any signs of who planted the
explosive. San Jose Police Sgt. Nick Muyo said the investigation
is ongoing.
Nobody was injured in the Halloween night blast --
and other Silicon Valley companies were not put on alert.
The company received no threats before or after the
blast, which happened at about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in
a landscaped breezeway outside the 100,000-square-foot,
four-story building.
But the corporate target was so sensitive, the explosion
so powerful and the bombing so rare in Silicon Valley
that law enforcement from San Jose, the federal Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and FBI
converged on the campus.
After more than 24 hours scouring for clues, investigators
had few answers. Was it someone intentionally targeting
the Internet corporate giant, a techno-terrorist? Or
was it a dangerous prank on a night known for smashed
pumpkins and toilet paper attacks?
"It could have been a Halloween thing, it could
have been kids, it could have been something larger,"
Muyo said. "If it's a Halloween prank, it's a sophisticated
one."
Bomb-sniffing dogs spent the day nosing around the
office and other campus buildings, all emptied of its
employees, and at eBay's headquarters on Hamilton Avenue.
They found nothing suspicious.
And investigators said there was no indication that
the company had been warned or that the bomber had targeted
any other place. No one had taken responsibility for
the blast as of Wednesday night.
EBay officials said eBay and PayPal service was not
disrupted. Many of the processes that keep the Web pages
running can be handled from other locations, eBay spokesman
Hani Durzy said.
"The safety and security of our employees is our
top priority," Durzy said.
Muyo described the source of the blast as a sophisticated
explosive device that not only shattered a large, two-inch-thick
plate of safety glass, but also blew over furniture
inside.
"Whatever caused it was pretty strong," San
Jose fire Capt. Jose Guerrero said.
About 1,900 eBay employees work at the North San Jose
campus, which includes PayPal headquarters, technology
staff, sales, marketing and the network operations center,
Durzy said. Employees at that campus were asked to work
at the company's other San Jose location or dial in
from home, he said.
When PayPal employee Dan Hyder arrived for work Wednesday
morning, he was told the office was closed and given
a flier explaining what had happened. He walked around
the site for a while afterward, taking photos of the
investigators milling around the building where he used
to work.
"It's bizarre," said Hyder, who had already
left work before the blast Tuesday night.
Muyo said the timing of the explosion, at 7:34 p.m.
when many people had already left work for the day,
might indicate that whoever placed the device at the
building wasn't looking to injure people.
Authorities received multiple reports of a smoke detector
sounding off, Guerrero said, followed a few minutes
later by multiple calls of an explosion.
When crews arrived, they found a 6-by-7-foot window
had been shattered near a first-floor exit. The window's
frame was bent and a light haze covered the area, Guerrero
said. No flames, however, were visible, nor was there
any other damage. Other debris was in the area, said
Guerrero, who couldn't say exactly what the debris was.
Authorities have an idea about what may have caused
the blast, Guerrero said, but he declined to disclose
it. Muyo declined to say whether security cameras may
have captured images from the site.
"We're not ruling anything out," Muyo said.
Neither PayPal nor its corporate parent eBay received
any threats before the blast, Muyo said.
"It was fortunate that no one was hurt,"
said Catherine England, an eBay spokeswoman.
From Google to Yahoo, other Silicon Valley corporations
reported no similar threats or incidents.
Security experts said such dangers unfortunately come
with the corporate territory.
"You're a target if you have a commodity that's
of any particular value, whether it's home invasion
or the CEO being kidnapped. It doesn't have to be a
terrorist group; it could be the Animal Liberation Front,"
said Forrest Franklin, director of operations for Focus
Group Consultants in Carson City, Nev., who has worked
as a consultant for Silicon Valley companies. "If
you've got 3,000 people in your company, you've got
3,000 potential perps."
Ken Silva, chief security officer for VeriSign, agreed
that such attacks can come from disgruntled employees.
"It could also just be a random person who is
disgruntled with the company," Silva said. "It
doesn't take much among millions of people out there
for someone to get angry."
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