r.-,-..- The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 16, 1995 - 11 Calif. student's expulsion over e-mail use raises concerns Lai Angeles Times f In a controversial decision that has polarized the campus at California Institute of Technol- ogy, a.promising doctoral candidate was ex- pel led from the prestigious Pasadena University last month for allegedly sexually harassing an- -6ther student - largely via e-mail. The unusual action has raised new concerns over the nature of harassment in a digital age, and the credibility of e-mail records at a time when the use of the medium is steeply increas- jng, both on campus and off. Jinsong Hu, 26, who spent six months in jail before being acquitted by a Los Angeles Su- perior Court jury in June of stalking, insists he -dad not send some of the e-mail in question 'and that parts of the mail he did send were dbctored. Jiajun Wen, Hu's former girlfriend, also ac- cused him of verbal and written harassment. But the bulk of the evidence examined in court and in the university's disciplinary hearings was electronic mail. Complaints of e-mail harassment at many U.S. universities have risen sharply over the last 18 months as students, faculty and staff have gained increased accessto electronic communi- cation. Given the ease and relative anonymity with which e-mail can be sent, university officials worry that it's an especially potent tool for harassment. But at the same time, it's often possible for e-mail to be manipulated or "spoofed"-made to look as though it has been sent by someone else - and thus many schools are treating e-mail evidence with considerable caution. In the Hu case, for example, one of the appar- ently harassing e-mails that Wen originally told campus authorities had come from Hu was later found to have been a joke sent by a friend of Wen's new boyfriend from Salt Lake City. "Forging e-mail is notoriously easy," said Gary Jackson, director of academic computing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If you get a piece of ordinary e-mail from me, you have absolutely no way of establishing that I sent it." The Caltech case comes at a time when policy- makers at the national and state level are wres- tling with an assortment of questions about how to govern cyberspace. A congressional commit- tee is debating several bills that would regulate the distribution of "indecent" material over the Intemet-and sexually oriented or harassing e- mail could fit that definition. Connecticut re- cently passed the nation's first anti-computer harassment law. But important precedents may well be set on university campuses, where most students get a free Internet account and daily tasks are migrat- ing to cyberspace more quickly than anywhere else. Many schools have wired their residence halls to the global computer network, and stu- dents are doing homework on-line and attend- ing "virtual office hours." Caltech is thought to be the first academic institution to expel a student for harassment primarily based on electronic mail records. Hu's appeal to Caltech Vice President Gary Lourden was rejected last month. While a university computer expert testified that she traced the offending e-mail back to Hu's account, Hu's defenders argue that Wen had his password, that others had access to his computer - which was often left logged on - and that e- mail is easily edited once it is received. Because of the difficulties involved in au- thenticating e-mail - and because the social and legal protocols defining electronic harass- ment have not yet been fully worked out - many university administrators advise recipi- ents of unwanted e-mail simply to ask the sus- pected sender to stop. Many schools, including Caltech, also prohibit students from sharing passwords. Most common, though, is e-mail harassment stemming from romantic troubles. "I'm amazed with the amount of sexual ha- rassment among students and the use of e-mail to express it," McMahon said. "When relationships go bad, instead of stalk- ing the student they send 10 e-mail messages saying 'l can't believe you won't go out with me."' Fossils show early nugration cof humans The Washington Post t In a cavern near China's Yangtze .iver, scientists have identified fossil ,remains and primitive stone tools of 1what could be the first human ancestor kown to have left Africa. The discovery in Longgupo (Dragon Bone Cave) suggests that primitive ,.humans migrated from Africa to sub- ;tiropical Asia at least 1.9 million years ago ' about 100,000 years earlier Than previously thought - "with the aid of a very simple stone tool kit," :Russell Ciochon, a University of Iowa >paleoanthropologist, said in a tele- ';.hone interview. He led the intena- !iAional field team that analyzed the bones and artifacts. The fossil fragments are scanty - only a part of the left side of an adult *lbwer jaw and an upper incisor tooth -but they are enough to indicate that these earliest migrants belonged to a eimore primitive species than expected, the researchers report in a cover story in today's issue of the journal Nature. ?The new hominid (the family of pri- mates that includes humans) "is so - early, so primitive and so unexpected that it may well overturn a number of theories about human evolution in ,,Asia," Ciochon said. The fragments indicate that the new .hominid resembles two species beliexed ,to have made some of the earliest known stone tools: Homo habilis (handy pan) and Homo ergaster (work man). Until ;now, both species had been known to exist only in East Africa just mod than 2 million years ago. "This discovery is the first toemon- strate a direct link between Asia and the well-known early human sitei of east- ern Africa," Ciochon said. The two stones, or "tools" found at Longgupo resemble those cf two types Tfirst identified at the famos East Afri- can fossil site ofOlduvai Gorge in Tan- *izania. That is, they wee chosen by "someone to "fit within tie hand," the researchers said. They a; river "cobble- ' stones" of tough voletnic rock. One 'was used simply as a lammer and the ::ther was flaked to prvide a cutting or .scraping edge. The first primates appear in the fossil record about 65 milion years ago. Re- search done in the 1960s (comparing "the molecular strucure ofmodern Afri- can apes and humans) indicated that the -ape and human evolutionary lines di- verged about 4 million to 6 million years ago. Sciertists now generally ac- s:ept the theorythat the earliest human- ,like creatures evolved in Africa. But r'there has been less agreement about ,,when their dscendants began to mi- grate elsewhlre. At least tvo recent findings suggested . that the large-brained species known as Homo erettus migrated out of Africa just under 2 million years ago - or J'about a hilf million years earlier than many pa'eoanthropologists had previ- ously thought. (Homo erectus immedi- , ately prcededtoday'shumans- Homo sapiens - on the evolutionary family tree.) A jaw found in the former Soviet republic of Georgia indicated that this ancestor left Africa at least 1.6 million to 1.9 million years ago. 1 1 1 1 t i i a AP PHOTO Out of this world The Russlap space station Mir is seen from the space shuttle Atlantis before docking procedures early yesterday. This was the second time Atlantis docked with Mir this year. As mae viewers turaway networJtksrefocusproram Official fear lack of vaccmes puts Russians at risk Los Angeles Times entirely preventable disease. Some vic- DMITROVGRAD, Russia - This tims were never vaccinated against po- pleasant, tree-lined city had a nasty lio, a scourge that was all but wiped out visitor recently: a dysentery outbreak in the West after the development of the that sickened almost 1,900 people and Salk vaccine in the 1950s. Other chil- left residents wondering whether they dren were injected but probably re- can ever trust their tap water again. ceived vaccine rendered impotent by It is a problem that no longer is a improper handling and storage. rarity. With basic sanitation and water "We have one 16-year-old girl who treatment facilities deteriorating in cit- didn't feel well on a Saturday. She ies across Russia, the incidence of dys- woke up the next day and couldn't entery, which is spread by fecal con- move her leg," said Ailsa Denney, a tamination in water or food, is up 26 nurse with the London-based medical percent over the past year. In the first relief group Merlin, which is helping halfof 1995, 17 people died in Moscow the Chechen Health Ministry conduct alone of this easily curable malady. an emergency immunization program. As the underfunded public health sys- "She was vaccinated seven times." tem here slips A vast nation into critical con- that was consid- dition, infectious ered to have an diseasesthat had inder the effective- albeit been nearly ex- rugged - system tinguishedby the totalitarian of public health now-defunct So- yW five years ago, viet Union have sy t m we Russiaisiowslip returned with a a e",awd ,people pni rntsofthe vengeance, siicky rans of the Measles, ru- to get Third World. bellaand whoop- Between 1991 ing cough are vaccinated.' and 1994, the now ravaging death rate from Russia, and van- - Yuri M. Fyodorov infectious and quished plagues Health Ministry official parasiticediseases such as cholera jumped 67 per- have reignited. cent. That means Malaria has reappeared in areas where 11,700 more Russians died last year mosquito extermination programs have than three years earlier from diseases been abandoned as too costly. Tubercu- that can be easily prevented by rudi- losis is endemic-andis 17timesmore mentary water and sewage treatment, likely to prove fatal than in the United basic hygiene and systematic vacci- States. Mass food poisonings have be- nations. come routine. The incidence ofscabies, Unlike residents of underdeveloped a skin disease caused by a burrowing countries, Russians are still far more mite whose presence is usually associ- likely to die from cardiovascular dis- ated with poor hygiene, is up threefold ease, cancer, accidents and other haz- since 1985. ards of industrialized society than from A diphtheria epidemic across the communicable diseases. But the abrupt former Soviet Union has prompted resurgence of so many infectious dis- the World Health Organization to de- eases, together with an unprecedented clare an international health emer- decline in life expectancy, is a wor- gency. Because of the risk of the epi- some indicator of how far public health demic spreading further, Western doc- standards in Russia have fallen. tors are now being urged to ensure For millions, private treatment or a that adults from the United States and bribe to ensure that they are cared for Europe who travel in the region re- decently is an unaffordable luxury. ceive booster vaccinations that have By the government's own count, 27 often been ignored. percent of Russians live below the offi- In a particularly horrifying develop- cial poverty line, earning less than $67 ment, 137 children in the southern Rus- a month. Critics put that figure even sian republic of Chechnya have con- higher. A sharp decline in living stan- tracted polio since March. Seven have dards for the majority of Russians has died; the other victims, most of them meantthatmorepeoplearepoorlynour- younger than 2, may end up paralyzed ished and, hence, more vulnerable to or permanently disabled because of an disease. The Washington Post Forty years ago, Robert Young epitomized the family patriarch as the star of "Father Knows Best." Nowa- days, TV families are just as likely to be headed by the likes of Brett Butler's wisecracking single mom on "Grace Under Fire." Similarly, you won't find many Mar- shal Matt Dillons in prime time any- more. Instead, the last remaining west- ern series on the broadcast networks revolves around a beautiful frontier woman on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." Grace and Dr. Quinn surely reflect the diversity of real women in Ameri- can society. But they also reflect some- thing about the way real people are watching television these days. With men turning away from the traditional broadcast networks in recent years, the networks have responded by creating more shows for and about their most loyal viewers: women. The result is what might be called the "feminization" of prime time. Women are the central focus - in fact, they provide the titles- ofmany of the most popular programs on the air: "Roseanne," "Ellen," "Cybill," "Murphy Brown," "Grace Under Fire," "Caroline in the City," "Sisters," "The Nanny." What's more, prime-time soaps such as "Melrose Place,""Central Park West" and "Beverly Hills 90210" revolve around their female leads. Even programs in such traditionally testosterone-driven genres as medical drama ("Chicago Hope" and "ER"), and science fiction ("Star Trek: Voy- ager") now star women. And for the first time in his storied career, Super- man, the ultimate guy, is sharing top billing with his favorite co-worker on "Lois & Clark." For network TV producers, tailoring programming to women is a simple bet on the numbers. Male viewers are in the minority dur- ing prime time, and when they do watch For an entertainment program to work (on the networks' schedules) today, it always needs more women viewers than men." -Alan Sternfeld ABC's top program planning executive are more likely than women to watch cable TV with its heavy dose of sports and news. Some data also suggest that the personal-computerrevolution has affected TV viewing patterns as men, more than women, spend their time on-line. The upshot: "For an entertainment program to work (on the networks' sched- ules) today, it always needs more women viewers than men," says Alan Sternfeld, ABC's top program planning executive. "We all hope to attract a little of every- one, but we depend on women." Programs with strong appeal to men, such as "Monday Night Football" and "NYPD Blue," haven't disappeared from network schedules, of course. But series centered on traditionally male roles - lawyers, cops, doctors, cowboys, soldiers and spies, for ex- ample - have been in gradual de- cline for a number of years on CBS, ABC and NBC, said George Gerbner, director of the Cultural Indicators Project, a TV-monitoring organiza- tion affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. A recent University of California-Los Angeles study of TV violence concluded that of the 121 entertainment series that aired last season on the three networks and Fox, only 10 raised "frequent con- cerns" about violence. Although the researchers did not com- pare their findings to earlier TV sea- sons, Jeff Cole, the project's director, said he believes that in general TV series are less violent these days. Whatever the cause, many applaud these trends as socially responsible and long overdue. "We've always had 'Lucy' on TV, but what's new in the past five or 10 years is that programs have come to reflect more of the reality of women in this society," said televi- sion consultant Marcella Rosen, the former head of the Network Television Association, a trade organization formed by ABC, NBC and CBS that was recently disbanded. Added Rosen, "It's now OK to show a single mother on TV. It's now OK to show two womenliving together. It used to be just the (all-male) 'Odd Couple.' Now it can go in any direction." According to Nielsen Media Re- search, there are more adult women in the United States than men - about 98.7 million over the age of 18, com- pared with 90.2 million men over 18. Of even greater importance to the TV industry is that a higher percentage of women watch television - and prime- time TV--than men. On average, 43.5 percent of women are watching broad- cast or cable TV between 8 and 1I each night, compared with 40.5 percent of men. In real numbers, that means there are about 6.5 million more women than men in the audience each night. With so large a base, women "are your first and most natural target audience for any program," said David Poltrack, CBS's chief audience researcher. Poltrack and others say this is consis- tent with the needs of the majority of prime-time advertisers, such as packaged- goods companies, that perceive women as their primary customers. Men,he said, can be targeted more effectively by ad- vertisers during weekend sports telecasts. Disposable Contacts Fed Ex FREE To Your Home Or Work Place! * Our disposable contact lens package starts at $159.00 complete, which includes your contact lens examination, seven pairs of disposable contact lenses and a deluxe storage kit! * Replacement contact lenses can be mailed free of charge to your home or workplace! 169CGLASSES COMPLETE! COMPARE AT $129 Price Includes Single Vision Lenses, Frame and a Case! 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