Kim touted an HCS seminar on computer privacythat was offered last year and will occur againthis year as a way for students to learn moreabout what is public and what is not.

But only a handful of Harvard's 10,000 activeusers attend HCS's seminars. Likewise, HCSincludes information about privacy in its bookComputers at Harvard, which is distributed tofirst-years, but it is unclear how many studentsread the book.

Child Pornography

The issue of what activities can be observed isalso serious because some of the files studentsdownloaded are labeled as pictures of nakedchildren or teenagers.

John Russell, a spokesperson for the Departmentof Justice said Monday that the transport of childpornography is punishable by up to 10 years inprison and fines of up to $250,000.

Many students interviewed said they did notrealize the possession of child pornography isillegal.

"The trouble is, you don't know what's illegaland what's not," the graduate student course headsaid. "A lot of files aren't posted withdescriptions and sometimes you're not paying closeattention. You just don't know what you'redownloading."

Others said that downloading all the filesavailable and then viewing them at home is moreefficient then selecting which files to transfer.

"I end up with a lot of stuff on my machine," agraduate student said. "But I delete most of it,and everything that might be kiddie porn."

According to an FBI spokesperson in Washington,D.C. the agency could take legal action against aHarvard computer user if it had evidence that theuser transported obscene materials.

Currently the names of the files studentsdownloaded are still in the log file, though theycan only be read by someone with "super user"privileges.

Besides the legal criminality of possessingchild pornography, mental health clinicians saythere is a great deal of emotional stress involvedin obtaining and keeping porn.

Dr. Joseph Glennmullen, instructor ofpsychiatry, said copying hundreds of pornographicimages can be evidence of compulsive sexualbehavior.

"It historically involved things like buyingprinted pornography or visiting the Combat Zone inBoston, renting movies, prostitution," Glennmullensaid yesterday. "In recent years it has taken newforms."

"There's a tremendous amount of guiltassociated with it," Glennmullen added. "It is ashock to people to discover a [person] who doesthis, because they are not the sort of people youthink of as terrible people."