Just like the real world, cyberspace contains people who commit flagrant acts of misbehavior. Fortunately, these people are in the minority. Unfortunately, we have to watch out for them anyway. Here are a few egregious violations of Netiquette to be on the alert for as you travel through cyberspace.
Perhaps the worst Netiquette violators are people who use their cyberspace connections to gain the trust of others and then take advantage of them in real life. Some of the most unpleasant stories involve pedophiles who get to know kids online, engage in sexual discussions with them, and in some cases, arrange to meet them live.
Children aren't the only ones who are vulnerable to this kind of abuse. The story of the "Net Lothario" is an example of how adults can also be fooled by someone who lacks morals and writes persuasively.
This doesn't mean that you can't trust anyone you meet online. It does mean that you need to exercise at least as much caution with your cyberspace acquaintances as you would with a friendly person you met at the grocery store. In fact, because it's so easy for predators to misrepresent themselves online, a little more caution is in order.
Children, in particular, should be warned never to give out personal information -- their addresses, their phone numbers, their passwords, or the times they're home alone -- online. And unfortunately, every cybernaut needs to remember that fellow net travelers may not be who or what they claim to be.
Many people who create false identities online aren't predators -- they're just fooling around. In many areas of cyberspace -- particularly MUDs (multi-user dungeons) and their close cousins, MOOs (object-oriented MUDs) -- it's normal and expected behavior. MUDs and MOOs exist specifically for the purpose of exploring fantasy worlds and fantasy identities. Men often represent themselves as women. (For some reason, it's less common for women to appear as men.) All that is just fine.
Other cases are closer to the borderline of acceptable behavior. For instance, male journalists have created feminine handles to investigate sexual harassment on the net. While that isn't particularly nice, neither is sexual harassment. Netiquette permits it as long as the journalist refrains from getting deeply involved with anyone under false pretenses. The story of "Joan" is an example of a man whose "experiment" in cyberspace cross-dressing got out of control.
Long-term misrepresentation of oneself in romance discussion groups or chat areas, where the purpose of the interaction is to form a serious relationship, is definitely not acceptable.
Every piece of email and every posting to a discussion group carries an electronic signature. And, just as it's possible to forge a handwritten signature, it is sometimes possible to send email from someone else's ID. A recent example occurred when five college freshmen decided it would be funny to send a false letter of resignation for a new university official. They also circulated demands for tuition to other students and letters implying that the official was gay. Administrators had begun acting on the resignation before they found out it was a fake.
In another bizarre incident, readers of alt.fan.douglas-adams, the USENET fan club for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams, started circulating rumors that genuine postings from Adams -- who occasionally reads the newsgroup -- were fake. Then an actual fake Douglas Adams started sending abusive notes to readers. The real Douglas Adams had a terrible time straightening out the mess.
Forging email is just as wrong as forging a paper letter. Forged email is also fairly easy to trace. Bad idea.
Have you ever gotten one of those letters promising you millions of dollars if you just send a few dollars to a list of people, but threatening you with hideous death within a year if you don't? Those things circulate in cyberspace as well. The best-known is a long, rambling letter signed by "Dave Rhodes." It appears periodically in random discussion groups and mailboxes.
Chain letters are forbidden on BITNET and on most commercial network services. If you receive a copy of the "Dave Rhodes" letter, or any other chain letter, don't follow the instructions! Forward a copy to your system administrator or postmaster and request that action be taken against the sender. You can also reply to the sender yourself and tell him or her that sending chain letters is not acceptable network behavior.
Some people don't stop with forging email from real people. Some people construct entire fictional companies and publicize them on the net.
A recent example that received a lot of publicity was the Sexonix hoax. A fellow named Joey Skaggs announced to the media that he had set up the world's first virtual reality sex provider, called "Sexonix." He actually rented a booth at a Canadian trade show to show off his wares. Then he claimed that the Canadian government had seized all of his hardware and software on his way to the show. He posted a press release to The WELL claiming that the seizure had destroyed his business. The trouble was, he had no hardware, no software, and no business except that of fooling people.
In this case, the worst thing that happened was probably that the people who were fooled felt -- well, foolish. But it's not hard to imagine stories that could have far more dangerous consequences. Hoaxes are bad Netiquette.
A close cousin to the hoax is the rumor. Two rumors that weren't invented maliciously have gained special prominence on the net. The first is the Craig Shergold story. Here's the true part: A number of years ago, Craig Shergold, a young English boy, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He decided that before he died, he wanted to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records for receiving the most get-well cards ever. He succeeded. Better yet, a wealthy American had the idea that maybe Craig's cancer wasn't inoperable. He paid for Craig to see specialists in America. It turned out that the type of cancer had been misdiagnosed, the tumor was removed, and when last heard from, Craig was fine.
Well, almost fine. Somewhere along the way, Craig's request for get-well cards mutated into a request for business cards. And the news that Craig was fine didn't spread as fast as the requests. Craig's mailbox has been piled full of unwanted business cards for three or four years now. It's driving his mother crazy! If you see this story, please tell the well-intentioned person who passed it on that the cards are no longer wanted and Craig is well.
The other rumor that resurfaces periodically is the modem tax story. Several years ago, the U.S. Congress did discuss imposing a special "telecommunications tax" on modems. A call to action was posted and protests were lodged. Eventually, the idea was dropped. Unfortunately, the call to action posting wasn't. If you see this story floating around, squelch it immediately.
It's hard to believe, but some people are both stupid and venal enough to harass their colleagues via email. I know of one case in which a male manager started emailing outrageous sexual suggestions to a female employee. Initially, the notes were fairly innocuous -- for example, "That was a great-looking dress you had on yesterday." Over time, they progressed into obscenity. The really funny part was that about half of each note would be more or less pornographic, and the other half would be perfectly reasonable business correspondence.
The employee, being far smarter than her boss, simply saved copies of the notes. When the situation got out of control, she took them to the human resources department. Everything she needed to prove her case was right there, including the dates and times the messages were sent. Her manager, of course, was fired.
With a milder form of harassment -- for example, Joe Schmoe keeps sending the blonde joke of the day to everyone in the department -- less drastic steps might be in order. If you don't object to other people reading blonde jokes but don't want to get them yourself, send a reply to one of Joe's messages and ask him to take you off his mailing list. If you feel that his use of company resources is inappropriate and should be stopped, tell him so. But in either case, keep copies of everything. If the situation ever escalates, you'll have backup.
Right up there with the email harassers and the rumor-mongers are the people who get kicks out of sending worms and viruses throughout cyberspace. Cornell graduate student Robert Tappan Morris became notorious in 1988, when he shut down large areas of the Internet with a program -- variously described as a worm or as a virus -- that succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
Morris actually intended this stunt as a harmless experiment; he had no intention of shutting down the Internet. He saw that there was a "back door" in the Internet email system and wanted to see how far he could go with it. He found out -- and paid for it with a federal conviction for "computer fraud."
Morris made a big mistake. There's no excuse for repeating it.
Various types of networks can make it more or less easy to get into another person's personal files. On Macintosh networks, it's possible to publish your entire hard disk as a server, making all your files accessible to anyone on the network.
Even if you should happen by a machine that -- essentially -- has its front door wide open, don't snoop. You're not in the habit of walking up to people's houses and trying their front doors, are you? (I hope not!)
If, because of your position or your superior knowledge, you have the power to snoop in other people's mail or files, it's even more important that you don't do it. It can be very tempting. But their mail is really none of your business. Netiquette forbids the abuse of power (see "Rule 9: Don't abuse your power").
Keep in mind that Netiquette alone does not protect the privacy of your email.
Sometimes, annoyed discussion group readers will try to take vengeance on a particularly obnoxious flamer by flooding his mailbox. This is called mailbombing, and it's a bad idea. Yes, it annoys the miscreant. But it also eats up hard disk space and wastes system administrator time for other users of that person's server. Don't do it.