Inner drives on the hard drive. (In Real Life).(online Scrabble)

NEW YORK CITY -- I started playing Scrabble over the Internet last year. It's allowed me to make some interesting discoveries--about games, about people who play them, and about the influence of the World Wide Web.

Players on the games.com site I use must register their "handles" if they want to be rated. This offers a double bonus: a chance for self-expression, plus complete anonymity. Names range from the benign to the salacious, with many permutations in between. I've played with "cheater" (he was), "sexylegs" (a strong player despite the image), and "mywayisall" (a quitter when it wasn't). I've learned to be wary of players who've given themselves aggressive names (like "warlord")--not because their owners play more fiercely, but because they seem to get vindictive when they fall behind.

You would think that people who enjoy a cerebral, sedentary pastime like Scrabble would be on the gentle side of the human spectrum. Lovers of vocabulary are not your stereotypical swimmers with sharks. But we get our share of bad losers. If an online Scrabble player decides not to move at all, there is nothing his opponent can do to force him. If the board is idle long enough, both players will be disconnected, and both will have points deducted from their rating. This fault allows a spiteful loser to prevent the victor from profiting from his conquest.

Players are highly competitive. That's a good thing for those who wish to keep honing their skills. Many of the most unusual words I've picked up have been at the losing end, as my opponent whipped out gloze, killdee, woald, or jiao.

But I wasn't prepared for the nastiness on the chat bar, the spiteful sabotaging of games, or the lewdness of what I hope are adolescents blowing off steam. These ugly aspects of my hobby are entirely byproducts of playing on the Web, I've decided. The Internet is like a masked ball--you can act out your wildest fantasies without being recognized or stigmatized. This fuels unstable people to misbehave more freely more often.

Anonymity bestows power on insecure people. And the Internet facilitates immediate exposure and gratification for show-offs. Last week, some pervert sullied the air with a riff about defecation and sex that lasted for about 20 minutes. There was no one to shut him up, and no way to boot him off. Occasionally, other players will object to the prurience, but that often just gives the closet exhibitionist an extra thrill. I'm surprised that people choose a Scrabble site for these displays, but perhaps they get an extra frisson from shocking quiet people.

Playing any game on line allows an individual the privacy to cheat. You can ...