In 1982, as tens of thousands of high school students waited

          eagerly for the results of their Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT),

          2000 would-be college freshmen awoke to find quite a shock in

          their mailboxes.  For, the prior week, a form letter drafted by a

          computer at the College Testing Service in Princeton had been

          mailed informing them that a computer check had detected an

          unexplanable number of similarities between their tests and the

          exams of other students from the same testing location.  Their

          scores, the letters continued, had already been cancelled and the

          colleges that they had indicated for the results to be sent to

          were being notified.[1] The question of how indicative this event

          is of the changing nature of computer uses in society today is an

          important one.  For, it is not only their dubious use as "spying

          devices" which is making headlines today, but also their

          utilization by the so-called "computer whiz" for personnal

          profit.  Everyone has heard the frightening stories of ambitious

          high school students, with no more than a home computer and a

          modem, breaking into corporate computers or, as in the case of

          Neal Patrick (age 17), the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer

          Institute in New York.  With an innocent voice, Patrick explained



                                        - 1 -










          that he and his friends only "knew a bit more about computers

          than the average homebuyer," then adding that he didn't think

          "any members of the group were geniuses or anything of that

          sort."[2] If tampering with the files of cancer patients at a

          major New York hospital is indicative of a social trend, and I

          believe that it is, then what is needed is needed is not only a

          revamping of the legal and technical aspects of computer

          security, but also a rethinking of society's attitudes and ethics

          vis a' vis the use and misuse of high technology.





          2 SOCIETAL ASPECTS
          __________________



          2.1 THE PRIVATE SECTOR


              These attitudinal problems, which serve to propogate the

          problem of computer abuse, appear to be manyfold and deeply

          ingrained in the myths and beliefs of society.  One major problem

          is a tendency to view computer thieves as admirable and talented

          eccentrics rather than the embezzlers and burglars that they

          are.  Peter J. Hughes, the director of the aforementioned

          Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute, summed up the problem society

          is now being forced to address:

               "What might be missing is the fact that the 'raiders'
               were looked upon as bright young people, and the
               tendency is to pat them on the head with admiration.
               But in the future, society is going to have to look
               upon them in the same way as someone breaking into a
               home."[3]




                                        - 2 -










          In addition, it appears that this misguided sense of reverence

          and esteem has permeated not only the uneducated and naive layers

          of society, but also the very heart of the nation's higher

          education system.  Apparently an incident occured involving a

          "challenge" by a California Tech professor promising class credit
                                                               class credit