Despite a report in the Los Angeles Times claiming that a California teen hacked into a master computer system at Harvard, the University's computer systems are safe and secure.

The article, published Wednesday, reports that a 16-year-old high school student in the San Fernando Valley hacked his way in to over 20 computer systems, including Pacific Bell's Internet server, from which he obtained passwords to 63,000 e-mail accounts.

Though the article claims that the teen accessed "a master computer system at Harvard University," Franklin M. Steen, director of Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) computer services, said this is simply not true.

"Central systems were not broken into," Steen said.

However, after checking some past records, Steen confirmed that a FAS Academic departmental computer system was accessed in early December, though, for security reasons, he would not say which department.

But the California detective on the case revealed that the hacked server was at inertia.harvard.edu, a Web site that currently seems to be down.

The 'main server' rumor seems to have originated in the Times' reporting of the story.

According to Jeffrey Gettleman, the Los Angeles Times staff writer who wrote the story, his information came from Damian Frisby, a sheriff's detective from Eldorado County near Sacramento.