Forgery on the net Forgery is presently a serious problem. In September 1996, an ad for child pornography appeared in thousands of newsgroups. That same month, students at the University of Georgia received, by email, official-looking threats of disciplinary action that turned out to be fake. If something on the Net looks like it might be fake, it probably is. There's no guarantee that an email message or newsgroup posting actually came from where it says.
Some software lets the sender give any name and email address whatsoever.
To spot fakes, look at email headers. Each piece of email or newsgroup posting arrives with a path indicating how it reached you. If the message wasn't sent from the site it claims to have come from, something is amiss. In my experience it's a small problem that has gotten big publicity. Because the Internet is a totally open communication system, it will inevitably contain some pornography along with everything else.