[The exact quote, abbreviated so I could shorten the Subject line to a reasonable length: "Nobody should just be able to sit down at a computer without some verification of who they are." --Declan] ******* From: "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKHat_private> Subject: "Nobody should just be able to sit down at a computer without some verification of who they are." Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 21:42:04 -0700 "Nobody should just be able to sit down at a computer without some verification of who they are." Any thoughts on this sentiment, and the incident that prompted it? The Record (Bergen County, NJ), July 5, 2001 July 5, 2001, THURSDAY; ALL EDITIONS SECTION: NEWS; Pg. L1 HEADLINE: LIBRARY'S COMPUTERS LINKED TO HARASSMENT ; WEBVANDALS USE SMUT TO DEFAME 3 TEACHERS BYLINE: JAN BARRY, Staff Writer Logging on to an educational Web site, a teacher at Martin J. Ryerson Middle School was horrified to see pornographic material posted in his name. [...] Detectives didn't have to look far to find where the postings came from. The Internet's internal coding system pointed from SchoolNotes.com in Gig Harbor, Wash., to two computers at the Ringwood Public Library. . . . [...] Mayor Allan Van Eck and Lombardo agree. "There should be some kind of accountability on what is sent on the computer, especially because it is a public entity paid for by taxpayers," Lombardo said. Citing his experience as vice principal at Mahwah's middle school, Van Eck said "each student has their own log-in name and password, so we know who has logged in or not. I don't know why the library can't do something like that. Nobody should just be able to sit down at a computer without some verification of who they are." ... The incident, however, has prompted library officials in Ringwood to consider overseeing computer use. "We are very sorry this happened," said Cahoon, the library director. "We have been looking into some sort of software management program . . . so people would be tracked. Let's hope we can prevent it from happening again." . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Jul 08 2001 - 23:29:42 PDT