>>No, it's already beat. Let's say I put a Pentium III in a computer with an ethernet adapter (for a cable modem, say), connect to the internet and hack into the Pentagon. Even if the DoD is wise enough to capture those numbers (the P3 s/n and my XNS/MAC address) they can't prove it was ME who did the hacking, just someone using my computer (or someone _pretending_ to use my computer).
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>Yes, but that's legalistic...a major hacker probably wants to be a lot less visible than that. But I'm sure they'll find ways...

Absolutely. And it does work the other way, of course. Anyone accessing the internet via proxy hides their XNS/MAC address. The same (hiding/turning off) could be done for the P3 s/n. It's much ado about nothing.

The funny part is if the Melissa virus author actually knew what he was doing (at all) he probably wouldn't have gotten caught (or not so quickly)!