It's wise to remember how easily email -- this wonderful technology -- can be misused and misdirected, sometimes unintentionally, with serious consequences. Unless you are using encryption, the privacy of your message cannot be guaranteed nor the authenticity of your correspondent.

Consider the case of a man who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in sunny Florida. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick email, who was planning to meet him there the next day.

Unfortunately, when typing her address, he missed one letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife whose husband had just passed away. When the grieving widow checked her email, she took one look at the monitor, let out a wail, and fell to the floor in a faint.

At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this email note on the screen:

"Dearest Wife, Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow. P.S. Sure is hot down here."

What actually hurts here is that the email was not being intercepted but rather, inadvertently directed to the wrong location. The nickname feature in many mailers can cause accidental emails being sent to co-workers instead of family members, or vice-versa. It