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Tonight I received a piece of email in which the writer invited me to "suck" his (?) " ----." I could see from the address that it had been emailed from within Netscape. When I plugged the URL into my browser, up came the home page for an elementary school. I'm calling the administrators to discuss this with them; I'm not emailing because I'm not sure who has access to the email address--it doesn't sound as if their system is secure. From looking at the headers, I'm pretty sure it did come from their machine, and we'll talk about it. There are two points here worth emphasizing. First, when you have an Internet account, you are accountable for what others do with it. You should not share the password with anyone--child or adult. If someone uses that account to abuse others, you are responsible. I know there is some amount of "wink wink nudge nudge" in this area--I know because people call me up and tell me how they are sharing one account with X, Y and Z, and how can they set it up so they can each get email, etc? (Yes, they do call to ask--which tells me that security training needs more emphasis.) Second, even if you have a "public" account, you need to make sure your tools can't be abused. The security holes in Netscape comes to mind. Netscape is a slick groovy tool, but the company's reluctance to work with public-access agencies such as libraries to develop kiosk modes makes me wonder. Do you really want your library trustees or school-board members receiving email with your email address on it, inviting THEM to suck whatever? I don't thiiiiiinnnnnkkkk sooooooo! I'm not sure what circumstance allowed that piece of email to reach my mailbox--a security problem, an insecure browser, maybe the librarian had a heart attack and a child stepped over her lifeless body to send obscene messages--but take it as a good warning. No, I'm not saying don't use the Internet; I'm saying be safe and be smart. (Btw, the last time I received a pornographic post on the 'net, I posted it to Usenet, headers and all, but this time I'm taking pity on the school AND assuming that some user-id spoofing may be going on, as well.) ============================================================= Karen G. Schneider, Blue Highways Internet Services kgs@intac.com Cybrarian/Internet Trainer "Have Powerbook, Will Travel!" Need a NJ provider? Free referrals. Visit Karen's Kitchen at http://www.intac.com/~kgs/ =============================================================