Put that Internet Evil back in the Box!

In case you haven't been living in a box for the last few days you may

of noticed a bunch of news regarding href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3073355.stm">a 12 year old girl

and 31 year old ex-marine meeting after establishing a

relationship in an Internet chat-room. I was pleasantly surprised by the

lack of "The Internet is Evil" backlash until I read the

Bill Blog. In the article Bill argues that child age verification (i.e. verifying

children in chat rooms are children) wouldn't work so the obvious

solution is to make all chat rooms "adult-only and require age

verification by those hosting them."I don't see how Bill, knowledgeable about the net as he is, thinks the

second option is any more realistic. I use IRC and there are

thousands of servers out there and I don't know how he intends to

ensure they all switch to some sort of mythical age verification for

the benefit of the children.

The correct answer of course is to supervise (not spy!) your children

and ensure they are educated to the dangers of the 'net, just as you

tell them how to cross the road. If they prove unable to follow the

advice then don't allow them out on their own on the 'net.

Away from the occasional weirdos you find on the 'net I did find two

other pieces interesting. The first href=http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2003-07-13-microsoft-linux-munich_x.htm>article

is a nice detailed background to what went on when Microsoft lost out

on a licensing deal to upgrade Munich's computing systems. The

interesting thing was Microsoft lost despite the cheaper bid, because

Munich realised while you might get a good deal this time around when

you rely on a proprietary system to power your systems your at the

mercy of the one vendor. The tide is certainly turning :-)

The other I, Cringely article was very interesting about what happens when law

enforcement and pervasive surveillance is the norm. A lot of the time

cyber-libertarians (of which I count myself as one) often get unfairly

painted as a bunch of dope-smoking, file-sharing beatniks who just

don't want to get caught out doing something wrong. The problem with

the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about"

approach is though I (within limits) trust our police and intelligence

agencies to not doing anything without cause, I can't trust everyone.

And once these snooping systems with their mountains of data are there

who's checking they aren't being wrongly used? Its an even scarier

thought than the href=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2037459.stm>RIPA Snooper's

Charter debacle of last year.