Sister and fellow aoir-heads: Feel free to ignore the following as perhaps entirely too trivial and of no significance or interest to anyone but me. One of my students was sent a Hallmark e-card from someone using the address: Dr. Charles Ess <imcharlesess@hotmail.com> The card was more humorous than not: http://ecardview.hallmark.com/hmk/Website/greeting.jsp?id=EG2189-485477-7888 476 This seems to be a largely harmless joke - but I'm wondering what others might suggest would be the appropriate next step? To begin with, it is bothersome to me that someone has used my name and pretended to be me. This also appears to be a clear violation of the MSN terms of us policy - i.e., under "Use of Services," the listed prohibitions include: "Create a false identity for the purpose of misleading others." (see <http://privacy.msn.com/tou/>). In particular, I suspect that the perpetrator is a somewhat socially disfunctional student in a current class who likes to brag a great deal about his (!) computer abilities, including being savvy enough to use the University network in prohibited ways (e.g., to set up his own server utilizing a damagingly large proportion of network bandworth). I've contacted MSN to inquire - but I'd welcome your thoughts and suggestions. Is this a relatively harmless joke, best to be ignored - or is it something that I should pursue with the aim of helping the perpetrator understand that this is an important violation of others' rights? (How's that for Internet research ethics? - smile) Thanks for any advice and counsel you may have to offer. Charles Ess Director, Interdisciplinary Studies Center Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230 Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435 Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/ Education is what is left over after you've forgotten everything that you've learned. (source unknown)