I Can't Believe I'm Writing About Tonya Harding

There is, unfortunately, one part of Tonya's story that has to be of interest, especially to those of us who run our businesses by computer (sorry, there's this new cheese at the mag who thinks I should tie my columns to computers right at the get-go. I always thought the word "Computing" in big letters on the front cover would give y'all a hint where I was going, but . . . he's the boss.)

At Lillyhammer, the Olympic athletes were given E-mail accounts. The account numbers were the numbers on their backstage passes (in my world, everything is showbiz). Each account's password was the birth date of the owner. Everyone was advised to change the password to something that was secret (and, easier for a bobsledder to remember). It's like hotels using the first 3 letters of your name as the password for voice mail. I change mine right away (I never know whether it's "JIL" or "GIL" anyway) but, I guess Tonya had other things on her mind.

The story is that Michelle Kaufman of the Free Press, Ann Killion of the San Jose Mercury News and Jere Longman of The New York Times logged in to Tonya's account, saw that there were 68 messages, and logged out. They said they were just seeing if they could do it. They were proud of themselves; they had been clever enough to read Tonya's code off her credentials on TV and read a bio for her birthday. Ocean's 11 it ain't -- but for a reporter -- this is hacking. They bragged about it.

Michelle, Ann and Jere still have their freedom, their computers, and even their jobs. This has been causing some real hackers on the Net to flame. Kids who broke into computers and looked around, had T-men put the fear of Uma Thurman in little geeks, confiscate all their computer equipment and make them do icky community service. Then Mom and Dad had to pay all future allowance to lawyers for weaseling the rap off Junior's permanent record.

The newspapers should fire the Lillyhammer whammer-jammers. They should be punished. Following Tonya around, yelling questions at her and taking her picture is okay - she's a public figure -- but we can't let them break into private communications. They can't open her mailbox to see how many letters she has. What they did was wrong.

You may think it's strange that I go ballistic over a few sports reporters seeing how many E-mail messages Ms. Harding sent and received and find no problem with her topless honeymoon tape falling into the hands of creeps like me. Don't her private parts deserve more privacy than her less primal communications? No. Her husband camcorded with her permission. She knew he would be in possession of that very personal honeymoon communication.

If she had written a message to one of her scumball friends on that Lillyhammer server that said, "By the way, I got 68 messages on this cool computer today" and that person printed it out and sent it out on the wire -- that would be fine. Once someone sends you a letter or allows you to video tape them, that "information" belongs to you, but you can't tamper with the mail. The fact that it's electronic doesn't change anything.

If you're ever over my house, remind me to show you "The Go Gos Hotel tape?"