Porter exploits the advantages in teaching an undergraduate cell biology course. One of his assignments calls for the students to read some recent articles in an area of cell biology and then to elicit more current information by contacting the authors via E-mail. "Usually if they ask the questions well . . . and show some real enthusiasm and some real interest, they get some very excellent answers."
But Porter had firsthand experience of one of the dark sides of E-mail when he was asked to investigate a possible violation of the PCPS "Policy for the Responsible Use of Computing Resources," which he coauthored. It seems that Person A sent E-mail to Person B requesting some sexually explicit information. Person B replied with an E-mail containing that information. However, the original message unintentionally had been tagged with the return address and signature of Person C, so Person B's reply went ...
