[Air-l] distracting puzzlement

[Charles Ess]

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 at 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)