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To: Bonnie Bear who wrote (1216)	2/12/1999 6:50:00 PM
From: porcupine --''''>	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1722

Porx too chicken to send Valentine's Card to Bonnie Bear --!!!!> Web Site Reveals Intimate Messages Web Site Reveals Intimate Messages KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) _ The lovers, flirts and playboys sending e-mail Valentines and other notes on Hallmark Cards' online site no doubt intended their musings to be perused only by that special someone. Unwittingly, they had a potential audience of millions. A programming error at hallmark.com allowed anyone with a computer and some curiosity to search the Web site for private love notes _ and, in many cases, the senders' name, home and e-mail addresses and place of employment. The security breach surprised customers and executives at the Kansas City-based company, which this week scrambled to modify the computer program after The Kansas City Star reported the problem. Technicians have since deleted all of the old messages. A Hallmark official said the problem involved only greetings sent a year or more ago. ''It was a programming error,'' company spokeswoman Julie O'Dell said. ''We certainly are committed to providing privacy.'' The recipient of a cyber Hallmark greeting card first gets an e-mail from the company, including a password. Then he or she clicks on a Web address to view the card. But until this week, all those messages were available to anyone who used the site's search engine, the newspaper reported. That means if the word ''bear'' was typed, for example, Hallmark's computer would have given you a list of Web pages including that word _ including one page featuring a sweet message from ''Teddy Bear'' to his ''Honey.'' ''I had no idea,'' said Gary Harders of Chicago, who sent one of the cards to his wife. ''I assumed it was private. ''It defeats the whole purpose of sending somebody a personal card if everybody and his brother is going to get ahold of it. It could be embarrassing.'' Ms. O'Dell said she had no idea how many people might have clicked through the greetings. ''This new system has, built in, a new standard to ensure this kind of thing doesn't happen again,'' she said. ''We don't want a lot of people worried. None of the recent electronic greetings were in that file.'' According to the Star, some of the messages were obviously not meant for mass consumption. Among them: _ ''Gary & I have been having secret cyber sex via computer.'' _ ''I've seen you swing a sledge hammer and the way your muscles ripple ... is amazing.'' _ ''You deserve an extra foot massage tonight!'' Another writer e-mailed an intimate message and a photo of a flower to a woman friend, trying to entice her into a romantic rendezvous. ''You will have the greatest time you've had in 15 years,'' he assured his friend _ unless the other man in her life persuaded her to stay home with him and their children instead.