Mr. Vranesevich,



I just read your comments to CBS and I think you are a very misinformed source. My daughter was NOT in a CHAT room or an IRC as you put it and shooting wind, if that statement applies to anyone I think it belongs to you. She was on aol on a search engine looking up her homework assignment for her finals. And never at any time did she have any conversation with anyone but him, and he blipped into her screen with an instant message. Don't make my daughter out to be the criminal here. He invaded her. He made the comments and if you notice she never reacted other than to say she was scared. Yes he should be arrested and charged with nothing less than terrorism. HE IS NOT THE VICTIM. She did not ask for this nor did she want this. He presented the situation because he was "BORED TO DEATH" hmmm think it over sir, you enable people to get away with this.



Good day.

Jacqueline Walton



Ok, you know that when someone spends the time to spell my last name right, they mean business, heh. For those of you that are confused about who this lady is, she's the mother of the girl from Columbine that received the latest "threat". This threat, which was is given to this girl by an 18 year old guy living in Florida, was sent via AOL instant messenger. Because of this instant messenger threat from a guy in Florida, the Columbine School District shut down classes for the holiday vacation 2 days early, causing students to make up their finals when they return in January. A CBS producer called me up, wanting to know what I thought about this whole mess, from a "internet threat assessment" point of view. My comment was simple, you have to take a threat from within the context in which it was made. If we're going to take every threat made by a teenager in some sort of chat environment seriously, we're going to have big problems. We can't allow these types of threats to run our country. While I understand the concerns of the people of Columbine, I can not understand why we as a society are willing to crawl inside of a shell every time we hear any kind of threatening noise coming towards us. Hell, I get death threats by the dozens every month. If I took every one of them seriously, I'd never live a normal life. As for charging some bored teenager that's joking around with some girl in another state via the internet with terrorism, I think that's ridiculous. While the temptation here will be to make an example out of this guy, I think that we need to look at it for what it really was, a very distasteful joke. Oh, for those of you interested, CBS has reported that this "evil threat and act of terrorism" read as follows: "I need to finish what begun and if you do I
don't want your blood on my hands". As if that even makes sense, yet alone causes terror to run in the hearts of the meek.







Websense is my biggest headache at the moment. I am currently on a college network. WebSense is a program that blocks out all the sites concerning hacking and phreaking.



- zac



Can we say "enclave of totalitarianism" boys and girls? Websense doesn't make much sense to me. How
are you expected to learn about security and information technologies without being able to visit these types of sites? Here's a tip for you. Set your computer up to use a proxy. Now THAT makes sense.







DuG Submitted The Following:



Because the Mexican is assuming the control our country, and the Spanish soon will be the official national language, that is why...



A bit of a racist comment there wouldn't ya say?



I believe what you're trying to say is that Spanish speaking people aren't competent enough to run our country, but some guy who sleeps around is? I Don't think your background or the language you speak means anything about the kind of person that you are, maybe you're less of a person for not speaking spanish.



Usted es muy tonta.

DuG



Oh don't get your enchiladas in an uproar. Anyone that reads the MailBag on a regular basis knows that I pick on the racial sensitivity of our country all the time. It has nothing at all to do with any sort of prejudices, etc. People in this country need to lighten up a bit. Read archives of some of my past MailBags to read comments of about other nationalities and religions =)







tcdisorg Submitted The Following:



I am a junior in college and would like to enter the field of Internet security, what field of study would be the best to get into?



Well, being a "college drop out" myself, I'm hardly the right person to go to for advice on which college degree is best. However, there are several colleges now offering degrees in "computer security". I suggest you research to find a college that fits that bill. BTW: People often ask me if I have ever regretted leaving Pitt. In one word, never. I'm doing what I love, and am getting paid to do it. Who needs a degree? There was a famous book titled "Do What You Love, And The Money Will Follow". Notice it's not titled "Get A Degree And The Money Will Follow". I think that there are a lot of college grads out there that will testify to that.