[nogridbag]

A similar thing happened to me at my university. This new website came out called TheFacebook.com and it seemed hip to add artificial friends like famous actors, super heroes, etc. I had the bright idea to add the school president as a friend by creating a fake account like the thousands of other fake accounts on TheFacebook. I needed a university email address, but luckily, my school allowed you to create a personalized email alias. What should I change my personalized email address to...? How about <president's name>@mail.myschool.edu? That would be funny - and I'd just revert it back after creating the stupid FB account.

There was some problem with the alias. I couldn't receive the FB confirmation email. So I gave up and went to sleep. The next morning I received a call from the campus police - they wanted to talk to me. I don't remember all the details, but I just remember a long process of being interrogated by campus police and later school administrators who were certain that I had hacked the president's email account. I mistakenly thought simply telling them "I wanted to add the school president as a friend on TheFacebook" was innocent and harmless enough. Some time later I received a letter with a list of 20 or so charges including things like Identity Theft and the possibility that I may be expelled.

I only found out at the end of this whole process that due to a bug in the mail system it allowed me to register a duplicate email alias and all of the school president's emails were being bounced and they assumed I was receiving them. I was able to knock it down writing an apology and community service.

[refurb]

Some time later I received a letter with a list of 20 or so charges including things like Identity Theft and the possibility that I may be expelled.

Wow. Whatever happened to the cops coming and saying "That was dumb. Let this be a lesson. Don't do it again."?

[xigency]

To be honest, that sounds like a really stupid idea.