finally someone who doesnt beat up on me ;) yes, it is meant to be an infinite loop, so if they try to log on again, it is still "hunting" them, this program was actually written very quickly during one of my "perl wars" with another sysadmin, in an attempt to get him off the system before he did something to me. I have never been to a perl class or anything of the sort, so to be honest, I have never heard of the strict command or seen it used. so that would explain why I didnt use that or used the system calls. my code should be improving now cause of this page ;)