"Attempts to circumvent accounting systems, to use the computer accounts of others...will be treated as forms of attempted theft."

--Harvard's Handbook for Students

Attempted theft? Bah. Such a crime is worth the risk when there's valuable information to be gained from hacking into a friend/lover/enemy's e-mail account.

Despite Harvard's intolerance for students breaking into other people's UNIX accounts, violations of this policy are rampant.

For example, one Harvard student, who spoke on condition of anonymity, discovered that her boyfriend had received highly personal e-mail from his ex-girlfriend. So, of course, she took it upon herself to read the mail in question.

Using his password that he had entrusted her with, the student broke into her boyfriend's account and read all of the corresponding e-mail with his ex. She says that her boyfriend still does not know that she looked at his mail.

Entrusting a friend, or even a loved one, with an e-mail password is obviously not the best of ideas. Yet some do it anyway.

"People tell friends their passwords for convenience sake," says self-styled e-mail expert Issac J. Lidsky '99. "If you're away or something, you ask a friend to check your e-mail."

A cautionary tale comes from one first-year, who also wished to remain anonymous. She says that an ex-friend once told her and another person his password.

When their friendship with the other person dissolved, they began to send each other e-mail using the third party's account. Lucky for him they didn't decide to send e-mail from him to others!

Outside Harvard, the password issue persists as well.

A friend of Mary W.D. Nicklin '00, who attends Cornell, says her ex-boyfriend wrote malicious e-mail messages to others on her account after their break-up.

"My friend was mortified," says Nicklin. "She had a lot of explaining to do."

But even those who don't share their passwords with others are often up for danger.

Emily N. Tabak '00 tells the story of a Harvard friend who wrote all that he disliked about his roommate in an e-mail message.