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They are now developing a Web site to help educate their peers on the same issues and plan to visit elementary and middle school students this year to pass on Internet safety messages. Students also created individual blogs this week. "We're trying to develop youth to be leaders in the city and the state and the nation and the world. With the Internet, it's not just local," said Akua Goodrich, the program's director who helped found the Power Unit for Motivating Youth, an after-school and mentoring program in the city. "We have to prepare them to be safe and help spread the message."

"When you're a kid, you don't want to listen to an adult who doesn't know what you're going through," she said. "You're much more open to listen to your peers talk to you. It's more interesting."

Both the state Senate and Assembly have proposed anti-cyberbullying laws. Kathy Wilson of Sen. Carl Marcellino's (R-Syosset) office said that the Senate has proposed two bills in the last two years that add computers to the list of modes of illegal harassment, but the Assembly passed neither.The Assembly's website states that the Assembly has proposed bills "to define and prohibit the bullying, cyberbullying and hazing of students and others on school property" as well as to add a database for reporting such complaints, but has not passed either yet.

Both the state Senate and Assembly have proposed anti-cyberbullying laws. Kathy Wilson of Sen. Carl Marcellino's (R-Syosset) office said that the Senate has proposed two bills in the last two years that add computers to the list of modes of illegal harassment, but the Assembly passed neither.

The Assembly's website states that the Assembly has proposed bills "to define and prohibit the bullying, cyberbullying and hazing of students and others on school property" as well as to add a database for reporting such complaints, but has not passed either yet.

While some of what is published online may seem libelous (i.e., intended to harm the reputation of another), proving that point can be difficult and expensive. In order to prove libel, you have to prove malicious intent, something that might prove difficult if the offending Web page was put up by an adolescent. And many times, freedom of speech wins out.

Unless an actual crime has taken place, law enforcement officials often are unable to arrest anyone, even if they can identify the culprit. According to Lt. John Otero, commanding officer of the computer crime squad for the New York City Police Department, individuals would actually have to post a direct threat in order for the police to act. "For example, if they say, 'tomorrow I am going to hurt, kill, or injure an individual,' that would constitute a crime," he explains. A person posting such a threat could be arrested and charged with aggravated harassment. Although Otero says his department has seen some arrests, anyone under the age of 18 would not be dealt with harshly: "If the kid is too young, he would get a scolding and the incident would be brought to the parents' attention; if they are under 16, they are considered minors."

Like cliques, cyberbullying reaches its peak in middle school, when young adolescents are trying to figure out who their friends are and whether they fit in. "Third- and 4th-graders are just having fun with computers," says Loretta Radice, who taught computer skills to middle-schoolers in public and private schools for more than 15 years.

Musical works. Performance rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI and SESAC) handle copyright licenses for the performance of musical works, including their performance in a podcast. Separate licenses are necessary from each performance rights organization because each company represents different publishers of composers' musical works. Sound recordings. Copyright licenses for the playing (or "performance") of sound recordings historically have been handled directly with the owners of the works, usually record companies. (Over-the-air broadcasters are not required to obtain copyright licenses for playing sound recordings. They must, however, hold licenses for playing the underlying musical works.)

Reproduction. By contrast to webcasting, a podcast may include a reproduction of a sound recording. Podcasting is an interactive activity. It results in the transmission of a sound recording which is fixed and is accessible on demand by the user. The reproduction requires clearances or licenses - for the sound recording, and for the musical work. Although the performance rights societies offer licenses to cover the musical works in a podcast, no uniform or industry-wide licensing scheme has developed yet to cover the sound recording.

This leaves the podcaster with three choices: to attempt to obtain licenses from the record companies; to limit podcasts to sound recordings not subject to copyright protection (generally, U.S. recordings pressed before February 15, 1972 [careful: a CD reissue of a pre-1972 recording is a new, protected, sound recording]); or to eliminate sound recordings altogether from podcasts.

For the home user, however, password safety requires more than on-the-fly thinking. Pacheco suggests a system built around a main word for all instances. The distinction is that the name of the site is added somewhere. For example, if the main word is "eggplant," the password might be "eggyyplant" Yahoo, "eggplantgg" for Google or "wleggplant" for Windows Live. He suggests listing the variations in an Excel spreadsheet.

Hackers rely on a lot of methods. Some, Rogers said, employ "shoulder surfing." That means what it sounds like -- looking over someone's shoulder as that person is typing in a password

The type of hardware being used can be a clue, said Rogers, a senior technical staffer in the CERT Program, a Web security research center in Carnegie-Mellon University's software engineering institute. It's easy to find a default password, typically in the user's manual on a manufacturer's Web site. If the user hasn't changed the default, that's an easy break-in.