By John H. Palmer

WESTPORT – Police say they are still investigating Monday night’s hacking of a Zoom meeting that forced Planning and Zoning officials to cancel a long-anticipated public hearing about the Saugatuck “Hamlet” project, but concede that may never be able to nail down the culprit.

“The hacking is being investigated, to the extent that it can be,” said Westport Police Public Information Officer Eric Woods.

Hosts of the meeting lost control of the platform about 45 minutes into the meeting, when unknown hackers began to show graphically violent and pornographic videos to more than 100 people who had shown up. The video depicted violent sexual acts, as well as videos with white supremacist messages and Nazi insignia. In addition, violent videos of graphic beheadings of what appeared to be prisoners in orange jumpsuits were broadcast.

Most people had joined the online forum to debate the future of the proposed development, which in its current iteration would consist of a multi-use development of 11 buildings, including retail, hotel and residential buildings between the Saugatuck River, Charles Street, Franklin Street and Railroad Place.

Meeting hosts and IT staff worked to control the situation by locking down the meeting, removing questionable attendees, and preventing others from joining while the hackers continued to play another video every time another was shut down.

Meanwhile, police were called and responded to Town Hall to speak with IT staff and obtain a copy of the video to be “autopsied,” according to P&Z Chairman Paul Lebowitz just before the meeting was canceled at 7:15.

Source of hacking may never be found

Woods said that in many cases involving what has been called a “Zoombombing,” these kinds of cyberattacks rarely have a local origin and are not easily traced.

“Almost always, these come back to IP addresses that link to a VPN and then go overseas,” he said. “However, if we get lucky and can identify someone locally, we will work with our prosecutor’s office to discuss the appropriate charges.”

Virtual private networks, or VPNs, use encryption technology that can often make it impossible to trace the computers that are linked to it. It is unclear what cybersecurity measures are in place to help protect Westport’s town meetings that are being broadcast live.

Meanwhile, several meetings were cancelled this week while officials work to ensure the safety of the online meeting platforms. Monday night’s meeting was scheduled to be the first of several anticipated public hearings about the “Hamlet,” and had been postponed from the originally scheduled date of March 31.

It’s unclear what dates the public hearings will be held to make up for the delay caused by Monday evening’s chaos. A 65-day application extension has been granted by the developer to allow the public hearing process, which by law must be completed by June 18. As of press time, no meeting has been scheduled for April 14 because of school vacation week and the Hamlet proposal will not be on the April 21 work session agenda for the P&Z. The next scheduled public hearing on the project is set as an in-person session in the main auditorium of Town Hall on April 28 at 6 p.m.

John Palmer is editor of the Westport Journal, and has covered community news in Fairfield County and Massachusetts for over 30 years. He can be contacted at jpalmer@westportjournal.com.