IP: What Thimbleby Hath Wraught

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Below is the entirety of an article from today's (London) Times - still
regarded here as a quality newspaper, though certainly not of the stature
that it had before it was bought by Rupert Murdoch.


It is by Bernard Levin, a very well-known columnist here - famous for his
writing skills but also for his idiosyncratic views on many subjects.


It has been scanned in, without permission.


An IPer


The Times (12.9.95)


WORLD WIDE WOE


Man's ingenuity is endlessly turned to the bad, and the malignity of the
Internet could be the worst yet


Bernard Levin




Well, I never thought to see a huge, five-column, top-of-the-page story
headlined "Porn as a guide to business potential" in the Financial Times.
But there it was, with Tim Jackson's byline. What's the world coming to?


I shall answer the question in good time, but before I do so, let me jot
down something else of interest. "Police said yesterday that the Internet
global computer network was teaching children how to commit serious crimes,
after six boys from an independent school admitted using the system to
organise a sophisticated credit card fraud against mail-order firms."


Still on the same subject: "Bombmaking recipes and formulae for making
napalm and the drug Ecstasy can all be found on the Internet, along with
price lists for illegal drugs and limitless supplies of free, hard-core
pornography.


No, I'm still at it, and will for a very considerable time yet: "The
Internet is absolute dynamite and it is without any form of quality
control". (I have about 30 pages of this: perhaps you should sit down after
all.)


Because "the Internet is giving extremists a previously undreamed of
possibility for spreading racist and anti-Semitic propaganda. Bomb-making
instructions and computer games such as Achtung Nazi, in which the aim is
to gas as many Jews as possible, are being posted on the worldwide computer
link. Denials that the Holocaust took place, glorification of the Third
Reich, and hate articles about prominent Jewish families are readily
available."
Had enough? No, you haven't had enough. I'll tell you when you have had enough.


"Armed with a computer, modem and telephone line, they use the global
Internet computer network to organise illegal meetings and disseminate
racist propaganda. Austrian authorities admit they are powerless to stop
the spread of the computer underground: the cyber-Nazis use an unbreakable
code when sending messages."


Thirty pages. I said, and I think it was an understatement. "More important
than the opening of physical space is access to the enormous
several-trillion-dollar pool of money that sloshes around in supranational
cyberspace. moving by computer in and out of offshore banks and chasing
profits in 2-hour markets, all largely beyond the reach of governments'
control. This space without rules is made to order for those who co-operate
without them."


Let's have a breather; I need one, and I imagine you want one even more.
Like most people. I do not understand what cyberspace is, nor do I
understand what the Internet is and does. But before I spread my ignorance
at your feet, let me bring in that startling Financial Times  headline,
"Porn as a guide to business potential".


Is it true? Well, Mr Jackson has clearly studied the subject, and is
sufficiently knowlegeable to state what he calls Jackson's Law of Media
Futures. These are: "If pornographers are among the early adopters of the
new technology, then it has definite commercial possibilities", and "If
there is a public backlash against pornographic use of the new use of the
new technology, then its future is assured".


We smile; but one day we shall have the smiles wiped off our faces.
Because, of course, what I am saying in roughly 1,500 words is that, in the
words of the old proverb, "I have caught a bear, but he won't let me go".
We don't need to know what animal an Internet is; we need only listen to,
or read about, the catastrophes that the Internet has begun to cause. I
shuddered when I read that people in America involved in the Internet were
being charged with crimes and being punished for those crimes; how very
right and proper - those American lawmen are on the trail, night and
morning. So why did I shudder? Because I am quite certain that very soon
those lawmen will have been swamped by the new crimes, committed by the new
criminals - fanatics, madmen, cheats- and when they are asked how they did
their wickednesses, they will say - the coolest first-"we did it on the
Internet". And then it will not matter whether the Internet is a physical
object or just a series of words.


The "porn for business" notion is being strenuously attacked by an American
Senator, James Exon, who is drafting legislation against such things, but
he is making very heavy weather of it. But heavy or light will soon not
matter, and this is why. There is a comparison between pornography in the
form of magazines and videos and in the form of what the Internet provides;
physical pornography is illegal in the United States, and sooner or later
non-physical pornography will also be outlawed. Oh, yes? And is there any
city in the United States, in which illegal pornography cannot be acquired
with a few more dollars? Of course not; and so it will be with the
Internet.


Though it seems otherwise, I am not simply putting the case against the
Internet; my scope is very much wider. I argue that just as television has
corrupted and poisoned the world, so the computer will, in its time,
destroy the world entire. Mad, am l? True, today we can almost literally
put the whole works of Shakespeare on the end of a pin, and thousands upon
thousands of things have shrunk to vanishing point. But I read not long ago
that if all the heads-on-pins we have today were blown up to their original
size, we would need thousands of Albert Halls.


In many places in the world there are people - it is their job - who are
working on the dangers of nuclear fission. Should they be worrying not
about nuclear weapons in the hands of savages or madmen, but in the hands
of those who can manipulate the Internet and break open its mysteries? We
shall be told - indeed, we have already been told - that there are strong
defences against these dangers. Oh, yes? And how long did it take the
skilful thief to get money from the out-of-hours bank cash machine? Stop
for a moment to think about a group - a horde - of the most fanatical
fanatics. Then think about the same, when armed with the Internet's
"weapons".


Most of us who move amid computers have had more than one "crash", the
machine on which I am writing has had several. They do no harm, other than
making me rewrite something that the crash wiped out. But think of such a
crash in the Bank of England, then think of a crash that would ground all
the major airlines at once, and then think of such a crash in half a dozen
countries.


The problem is the interdependence of so many computers. For the most
significant fact of my crazy picture is indeed its inextricability.
Remember, "I have caught a bear, but he won't let me go". But we cannot
turn the clock back.  The dangers are here to stay. We have all seen the
photograph of the first "road locomotive" with man walking in front
carrying a red flag. We look at the picture and smile. I wonder, if the man
was still there with his flag and his stately marching in front, how much
less happiness would there be in the world? Do I dare to say that there
might be more happiness?


Absurd! But you must remember what we were told about the wonderful new
nuclear fuel. It would be perfectly clean, it would be absurdly cheap, it
would be amazingly undangerous. One of the claims made for the new wonder
fuel has stuck in my mind through all the years; they said that the Queen
Mary could sail right round the world without stopping on a piece of fuel
no larger than a tennis-ball. And in the end it was a ludicrous waste of
money and dirty to boot.


Our society lives by one precept: if it can be done, let us do it. And I
regret to say that noble science herself follows too often that evil star.
Did you read the story of the scientists who changed the sex of an insect?
That is surely a "first", and indeed the boffins must have taken many hours
of selfless labour to achieve their miniature goal. But I don't believe
they paused to recite "And God made the beast of the earth after his kind,
and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth
after his kind: and God saw that it was good." For the scientists saw that
it was even better.