Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 14:04:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vic Sussman <vic@clark.net>
Subject: The demonization of the Net (fwd)
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Vic Sussman : "Lines of light ranged in the nonspace
U.S. News & World Report : of the mind, clusters and constellations
vic@clark.net : of data. Like city lights, receding..."
(202) 955-2093 fax 2549 : _Neuromancer_ William Gibson
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Copyright, 1995, U.S. News & World Report All rights reserved. May not be
reprinted or distributed without written permission.
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, MAY 22, 1995
HATE, MURDER AND MAYHEM ON THE NET
MANY ARE SHOCKED BY WHAT'S ONLINE, BUT OTHERS SAY IT'S NOTHING NEW: TRY YOUR
LOCAL BOOKSTORE
At a Senate hearing last week, Sen. Arlen Specter dramatically held up
THE BIG BOOK OF MISCHIEF, a do-it-yourself guide to bomb-making that
Specter said was just one of many such ``mayhem manuals'' freely available
on the Internet.
Once championed as the fast lane of the much-promised information
superhighway, the Internet has been taking almost daily beatings of late. The
yellow-brick road to a dazzling future of instant information and global
interconnection is now a dank pit of sleaze, murder and terror. ``People would
be shocked to know what is out there'' in the Internet's ``dark back alleys,''
Sen. Herbert Kohl said somberly. Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal
Center in Los Angeles and a witness at the hearing, pointed to this message he
found on the Internet a week after the Oklahoma City bombing: ``I want to make
bombs and kill evil Zionist people in the government. Teach me. Give me text
files.''
What each failed to mention is that many citizens might be equally shocked at
the contents of America's public and college libraries, video shops and
bookstores. There is little online that is not already available in the physical
world (RAGNAR'S GUIDE TO HOME AND RECREATIONAL USE OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES is freely
sold in a bound version, for example), where much of it is clearly protected by
the First Amendment. And champions of cyberspace insist the recent quest to
demonize the Internet as a uniquely awful source of information for terrorists
and hatemongers overshadows the fact that useful information far outweighs the
troublesome material, just as in any library.
Here's a closer look at the ``dark back alleys'' of the digital landscape:*
BOMB MAKING. It is ``easy'' to get bomb recipes from the Internet, but only if
you have a computer, modem, Internet connection and the technical skill to
navigate cyberspace. But why wrestle with a computer when THE BLASTER'S
HANDBOOK, a how-to manual for constructing and using explosives from easily
obtainable materials like fertilizer, is readily available from its
publisher--the U.S. Forest Service? Easier yet, consult the Encyclopedia
Britannica, which describes how to build explosives. ``The Internet is simply a
means of communication,'' says Frank Tuerkheimer, a University of Wisconsin at
Madison law professor. ``Efforts to stop information by enjoining it are doomed
to failure in a free society.''
HATE SPEECH. The Bill of Rights clearly gives Americans the right to hate
anyone, and to freely express their anger--on the Internet and elsewhere--as
long as it does not lead to criminal activity. Can hate speech be singled out
for regulation in cyberspace? Not likely, though Rabbi Hier argued that the FBI
should monitor Nazi and white-supremacist groups online and that children should
be protected from organized bigotry. The latter is already possible through an
ancient method: parental supervision. All the major commercial online services
support parental control, typically with ways of locking kids out of forbidden
areas.
PORNOGRAPHY. While Americans have always been publicly puritanical about sex,
the rule in cyberspace seems to be that anything goes. Sex in all its online
incarnations flourishes on the Internet. Sophomoric conversations about tools
and techniques co-mingle with serious discussions about human sexuality. And
there are pictures--gigabytes of graphics--depicting sexual activity in every
imaginable (and unimaginable) form, though hardly as easy to find in cyberspace
as in an adult bookstore or the adult section of many video shops.
But people who find erotic or other material abhorrent don't really need
government help to avoid seeing it, argues Bob Gibbs, a veteran cop and a
leading telecommunications crime expert at the Federal Law Enforcement Training
Center in Glynco, Ga. Travel in cyberspace is elective, so not accessing
offensive material is the best defense, as is closely monitoring children's
online activity.
Bad guys don't need the Internet to find explosives or guns, adds
Gibbs. ``We have to get over this idea that the Net is an ogre that has
to be defended against,'' Gibbs says. ``The resources out there are
phenomenal and can do so much good.''
BY VIC SUSSMAN