After reading your article on Howard Schmidt, I wish to point out that your characterization of him as a "computer security celebrity junketeer" is both erroneous and hurtful. Mr. Schmidt has dedicated an enormous number of hours to assisting law enforcement, national guard, military reserve units and university students in advancing their knowledge in this important area. I know this to be the case because prior to his present position he served as a distinguised adjunct professor for the University of New Haven.

Howard Schmidt is providing our nation a great service through his ability to communicate the challenges we are confronting in the area of information assurance and security. In reviewing some of the postings of your readers, I note a benefit of the doubt assessment. Perhaps, you would be kind enough to call their attention to a most interesting study performed by Riptech in which they reported 128,678 cyber attacks on their clients, in a 6 month period during 2001. They reached this conclusion after examining more than 5 billion firewall logs.

Mr. Smith you have excellent writing skills, I would ask you to consider using your creativity to encourage continuing research in this field. Thank you for the opportunity to express my views.

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