I would have e-mailed you directly to avoid the "this is not ferrety" e-mails but to all who would say that... Poo and my computer is being goofy right now... I can only REPLY to mails I cannot currently type addys in... Okay... I am a bit of a computer dork and I know something about "catching" people and giving them cyber-spankings... (so to speak)... I am truely sorry that your are having to deal with this kind of harrassment, that anyone would have to deal with cyber threats... ka ka... its like being chased by a masked "bad person" in a dream where you cant run cause your feet wont move fast enough... but here's the thing... your service provider is quite correct in saying that they have to be ONLINE to 'Grab" them... Once you get an IP and the person is online, you can ENTER their computer with the right skills, internet connection speed and server... I have personally seen this done!! - ON AOL! There is really NO other way to get that info unless you take teh LEGAL route - which if you want to use this info you will NEED to do... in court hacking it ammounts to searching somebodys home without a warrant or for somebody who is not a law officer... breaking in and finding it! - you would lose that information as evidence in the event of a trial. AOL is NOT being honest with you about your situation...they CAN STOP this person and even Suspend their account...which (if they have made THREATS) is a TOS violation and they should be booted... Their name and personal information is Protected , the only exception to this is the personal profiles... do you have AOL?? There are some loopholes to this though... If you can afford it I would reccomend getting a lawyer to force AOL to turn this information over to the police... that wont be hard to do if there were terroristic threats made... that would be ... any DIRECT threat on your life! I have probably not told you anything you dont already know... but when I can e-mail directly I can tell you about some programs that could help you deflect and even discourage any threats to you via e-mail. Now, for the "Im being objective part"... this world is crazy enough without us torturing one another... humyns that is... I abhor the mentality in our species that allows us to treat one another so badly, threat, lies, violence, not to mention what we do to other species... oh my... but here's the thing... we only get one life... JUST ONE! ... and its like a penny (as I once heard) you can spend it anyway you want, but you only get to spend it once! So why spend it hating, hurting and expending all that energy on all those wasteful emotions... when you can eat, drink (even if its just pepsi) and be merry! Right... so no matter what the situation that is happening via e-mail... I sincerely hope that all involved can find forgiveness, and resolution in the end! So ... Cheers... *drinks a pepsi*... smiles and ... hey where's my toast?? Cheers! Betty and the Fuzzyland Rebels! [Posted in FML issue 3277]