Professor Urges Students to Beware  Hate Sites on the Internet
DETROIT — A Wayne State University communications professor and Holocaust survivor considers the Internet an increasingly used, effective marketing tool by hate groups.
"The Internet is the greatest thing that ever happened to hate," Jack Kay, also an associate provost at the school, said last month while rallying a group of University of Detroit Mercy students to be watchful of hateful speech.
"It is up to us to do good," The Oakland Press of Pontiac quoted Kay as saying. "People do have a right to believe [in hate], but we have a responsibility to denounce what they say."
According to the watchdog Southern Poverty Law Center, hate-related Web sites increased by almost 60 percent in 1998. The organization that monitors hate groups nationwide said there were 254 such Web sites last year, up from 163 in 1997.
"The Internet and messages on the Internet are not just text," Kay told the students. "They are flashing before your eyes. The Internet is forming an Internet community culture, virtual communities."
To form "virtual hate communities," he said, hate group members go into Internet chat rooms and news groups — where people discuss issues — to spread their message and attract new members.
Kay believes female White supremacists account for a large portion of the proliferation of hate-related Web sites. During his speech titled "Cyberhate," he showed the audience a woman's White supremacy site, Aryan Female Homestead. It called for keeping the Aryan bloodline pure to ensure the survival of the White race.
"I am not going to contend that we aregoing to wake up tomorrow and see a White revolution," he said. "But I will contend that these groups are very dangerous. They are succeeding at using their rhetoric to get people to do things."

Federal, Local Authorities Seek   University Computer Hacker
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Federal and local authorities are investigating a computer hacker who may have gained access to government files from a computer lab at West Virginia University.
Federal agents launched the investigation last month, says Bobby Roberts, a security official at the university, who adds that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has provided WVU investigators with records of when and how access to the files was gained.
Roberts says most university computers have backup tapes that can determine when and how they are used and what information the computer user retrieves.
It is not clear what type of information the hacker was seeking.