Lock your doors and nail crooked boards over the windows Iowa State, we are under attack again.

There has been a strange rash of reports lately about magazine salesmen running around campus trying to sell their tawdry wares and occasionally committing what can only be described as sexual assault.

While the perpetrators have yet to be identified, stories are spreading faster than a bad urban legend about young men showing up unannounced, making small talk, pretending to be working on a class project or conducting a survey.

Eventually, the subject turns to magazines and more than one story has the salesmen offering to take hugs and kisses in trade for magazines and in two cases now, fondling young women.

As ridiculous as this might sound, it is quite serious.

Rules exist in the Residence Halls to keep solicitation to a minimum, but for anyone unconcerned with our rules, they are easy to break.

Any miscreant with the will to sell perfume, candy bars or magazines can wait by a locked dormitory door for someone to come out, enter and start hawking goods.

And if that same miscreant is a sexual deviant looking for an easy target, the open door policy on most dorm floors makes it easy to walk around, take a look, see who is home and start chatting up his next victim.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where women have to be particularly careful and while we lament that fact, it is still a fact.

Be on the lookout.

This goes for the men out there as well as the women.

If you see a guy selling magazines, don’t hesitate to call DPS.

And if you are really in the market for magazines, remember: the Web sites have better offers than any questionable salesman who might have something on his mind besides selling People subscriptions.Editorial Board: Carrie Tett, Greg Jerrett, Katie Goldsmith, Amie Van Overmeer, Andrea Hauser and Jocelyn Marcus