Weekly Read.

Four Puzzles From Cyberspace [3] is an interesting collection of stories that seem to be written to provoke a response from the reader. They ask you to choose a morality that fits the "society norm" and at first it appears to require a simple black verses white answer, but none of the scenarios is that simple. To impose a set justice to all would seem to deny freedom to all as well.

In the story Jakes Communities we are shown in real life (not online) Jake is a meek, mild, nondescript individual who goes unnoticed throughout life, but when he slips into his online persona he transforms into a sought after author who is loved for his stories by those who subscribe to his style of subject and depravity. But Jake is reviled by any 'normal' measure of society because these are not the sort of things we do in our everyday lives. Jakes subject matter would anger any parent and morally, rightfully so. But in a legal sense what is Jake guilty of? Is it a crime when we write something that disgusts someone else or may incite an individual who you've never met to commit a crime? I'm sure that every modern crime show on our televisions can be held to the same criticisms. CSI [4] and shows of the same style routinely feature episodes that cover topics such as paedophilia, rape, torture and murder. One CSI spin off CSI-SVU is dedicated to sex crimes and graphically recounts these crimes to a main stream audience. The only difference I can elicit is that the criminal (nearly) always is brought to justice by the end of the story. We must be careful not to blur the line between thought and action; because once we censor thought we will have given up all of our freedoms.

In Worms That Sniff we are asked if it is acceptable for our governments to spy on us for our own good (or for the good of the government) the major premise is that if we don't know it's happening can it hurt us and the governments can go about their business and all is well. I personally cannot see any difference between a physical property search which is bound by mandated laws and an invisible cyber search. Sometimes privacy must out way safety concerns; so as to still give us some control over our own lives.


Borders is a different story, it is based in a make believe world of online gaming and asks if the hard programming of the scenario can change the experience or outcome so that it benefits the player; then should it do so. In the real world we don't have this option generally. We as individual citizens rarely have the ability to manipulate the rules that govern us. Not just in legislature but the physical, take gravity for example, we as people on this planet have no ability to turn it on or off, that is a given. But in cyberspace if the programmer wishes us to have the ability to control it then it can be coded for us to do so.

In the story, one characters gameplay was destructive to a neighbouring player's enjoyment; a plant the player designed was poisonous and killed the neighbour's dog. It would be entirely possible to program the plant to have certain characteristics that gave the first player all the freedom to design poisonous flora and for the neighbour to keep his animals safe. The ability to create custom environments is the major draw card to these games; it can be a utopian dream space or a realm of magic and dragons that can offer the participant control that they don't have in real life. But the question is, should each player be worried about the feelings or wishes of another player, or is that premise just trying to enforce a niceness on a world we could control because we can't in the real world.

The final story Regulability, is again one of control. When local government has no power over how its citizens behave online In this case gambling which has been banned within the city's boundaries and because the servers hosting the gambling software can be located anywhere outside the city's jurisdiction what avenues can the government pursue to stem what it sees as a scourge to the city. It is especially tricky when one of its own citizens is the person running the gambling site.

The big question with this sort of problem is, is gambling being banned in the city or being banned totally? And then it's a matter of determining where the crime is being committed. Is it where the person stands or where the action is being processed? Unless all governments can agree to abide by laws set in other countries and physical regions, then I believe it must be impossible to uphold any law that cannot set a physical boundary. This is the hardest part in regulating the internet as it is not just one thing and not just in one place.

I can see no chance of stopping this sort of activity and rightly so. Again it is our freedoms being reigned in to suit someone else's morality or to make their job easier and I personally think it's time for less nanny state and more personal responsibility. And of course this would mean more personal consequence.