🚀 go-pugleaf

maddison@connexus.apana.org.au (David S. Maddison) wrote:


>"Bomb built using plans on Internet"

>from "The Age", Melbourne, 6 Dec 1995

[case details deleted]

>Mr Steven Anger, for Mr Micklewright, said his client's device was one
>of the least potent of the several hundred for which instructions were
>available on the Internet "for all to see".

>The magistrate, Ms Jill Crowe, said it was incredible such material
>was available on the Internet. She said governement committees
>concerned about pornography on the Internet would certainly be worried
>about the dissemination of information on how to build bombs.

>DSM comments:

>I don't suppose these "government committees" could bother looking to
>the issue of teaching people their responsibilities to society instead
>could they?

Another issue is her phrase "for all to see".  In the time I have been
using the net, I have not yet found a recipe for making bombs.  That
is because I, along with 99% of other net users, was not particularly
interested.  Concerned non-netusers would gain the impression that
whenever one sat down to an online computer, one is assailed with
pornographic images and recipes for unsocial practices!.  If we really
wanted to make something explosive, we could also look up a forestry
or farming manual.  "Dissemination of information" is not appropriate
for describing information on the net - you have to deliberately
decide you want it,  go looking for it, and wait for it to come up! 
 Meanwhile, as you said, society can get on with the education of
young people in making wise decisions with any knowledge they obtain
by whatever means.