To collect information such as passwords, online criminals use “spoofing” to direct Internet users to fraudulent websites. In one study of Internet fraud, students were warned about spoofing and then asked to log into their university account starting from the university’s home page. In some cases, the log-in link led to the genuine dialog box. In others, the box looked genuine but, in fact, was linked to a different site that recorded the ID and password the student entered. The box that appeared for each student was determined at random. An alert student could detect the fraud by looking at the true Internet address displayed in the browser status bar, but most just entered their ID and password.

a. Is this an observational study or an experiment? Justify your answer.

b. What are the explanatory and response variables? Identify each variable as categorical or quantitative.