Many professors, staff members, and even administrators see campus computers and e-mail accounts as their own private property--a type of employment benefit provided with no constraints on use. The fact is, universities "assign" computer equipment to personnel as tools to help them perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently, in the same way that institutions assign offices to faculty members, laboratory space to scientists, or photocopy machines to departments. Computer equipment, far from being personal property, is owned and maintained by the university, with restrictions on how it may be used. In this article, the author highlights some important legal and ethical considerations related to personal use of university computers and discusses examples in which the line was crossed.