The other night I got an urgent message from a friend. My friend said that one of our fellow adult webmasters had received an alarming email notification. The email said this:

It has recently been brought to our attention that you are, or have been, in violation of the Net Authority Acceptable Internet Usage Guidelines. It has been reported that you both distribute and view offensive materials over the Internet.

Net Authority has investigated these claims by checking your webpage at http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx and verified that they are true.

As a result, your personal information has been added to one or more Net Authority Internet offender databases. Your information will be stored in the databases until enough evidence has been gathered against you to warrant further actions. To help avoid such a situation, it is strongly recommended that you cease your immoral actions on the Internet at once.

You have been added to the following databases
: - Pornography Offenders
- Child Pornography Offenders
- Bestiality Offenders
- Homosexual Pornography Offenders
- Interracial Pornography Offenders

If you would like more information about Net Authority or the Net Authority Acceptable Internet Usage Guidelines, you may read the details at http://www.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx. It is imperative that you fully understand the guidelines if you wish to avoid further prosecution.

May God be with you as you struggle to overcome these evil impulses. You will be in our prayers at night.

God speed,

Net Authority Investigations Department

Since my friend and I were both online and using an instant messaging program, we were able to visit the supposed netauthority website together.

The images of crosses and a church choir on the front page should have been our first clue. The language of the text inside the site should have been our second. The lack of actual reported offensive websites was what finally clued us in.

I scrolled down to a tiny bit of text with a link to more information about this "netauthority".

"In these days of incomprehensible sneak attacks, what I used to believe were harmless games aren't so harmless anymore."

The link took me to a page informing me that if I had received the aforementioned email, not to be alarmed. No emails were collected. No offending websites were put in any databases. The email was a joke.

Ha. Ha.

Perhaps my comedic sensibilities are not as receptive to prank humor these days. Perhaps I'm just too old to comprehend what the kids find funny. Maybe I'm just disgusted when I read the little boy webmaster's text celebrating that because of his "joke", his site was finally getting traffic.

Hell, if the kid just wanted traffic, he could have built a porn site. Ah the Internet hoax. The urban myth. Start one now! Fool honest souls! Piss off your friends! Get traffic to your website! Get the attention you so desperately need because no one would attend to you otherwise.

In these days of incomprehensible sneak attacks, what I used to believe were harmless games aren't so harmless anymore. Isn't it enough that we are besieged every day with virus encoded emails? While having to reformat your hard drive is only a minimal inconvenience compared to the damage experienced in New York recently, the mindset behind these acts is exactly the same.

Those that unleash viruses, hoaxes and cruel jokes on the cyberworld look at that world as a tool. They hide behind their monitors, unable to envision living, breathing humans. They are so far removed from society, they have lost the ability to empathize or conceptualize that behind all the other monitors, are innocent people. I have a new term for these cyberage terrorists: Internet Sociopaths.

Harsh? Maybe, but dammit, I've had it. I'm through believing hackers when they claim their destructive behavior is some sort of imagined security alert service. I'm tired of mean-spirited wannabes telling me to fuck myself because I can't take a joke.

I know funny. I am funny and I've worked with funny people. I'm here to tell all the Internet Sociopaths that we know who you are and you're NOT funny. You're not helpful. You're not instructive and we are sick of you.

I suggest that any adult webmaster, who receives an email like the one above, do what my friend and I did. We performed a WHOIS lookup on the little brat and will be reporting him to his host.

Of course we should protect ourselves by using anti-virus software. Of course we should not open email attachments from strangers. Of course we should defend ourselves, but we should also take action. If an Internet Sociopath has victimized you, here are places you can go:

WHOIS lookup
(http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois)
This is where you can type in the domain address of an offending website and get detailed contact information of the site's owner and address.

HoaxBusters
(http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org)
This site is an offshoot of the United States Department of Energy. Along with information about recognizing them, this site is where you can report virus and hoax attacks.

Symantec
(http://symantec.com)
Symantec are computer security specialists and their site contains downloadable shareware and pay version of their award-winning anti-virus software.

While there are worse crimes in this world, viruses and hoaxes cost us all millions of dollars in lost time and repairs. Just because you can't see the face of your attacker, does not mean you can't stop them. You do not have to surf the Internet in fear. Don't let Internet Sociopaths deny you your right to enjoy the riches to be found along the information highway.