In today's New York Times: "Anarchy, a Threat on the Electronic Frontier," by Peter H. Lewis. It's kind of a scare piece on how flame wars, abuse, and out-of-control sociopaths are destroying the self-regulating Eden of the net. The piece itself is more or less "neutral," in classic NYT style, but it can also be seen as the first rumblings of a call for some kind of "responsible regulation" of the net. The pedophiles we all run into by the thousands every day are mentioned in the piece, as are the "pornographic pictures [...] traded in great volume." Also, "virtually every network, large and small, has crackpots and sociopaths who seek to bully others with obscenities and threats." Other quotes: "In recent months, it has become difficult for even network libertarians to argue that the network community can resolve its problems through peer pressure alone." and "[...] 'What people will probably do is invent "site kill files,"' wrote David Hayes, a Usenet regular who works for the National Aeronautics and Space Admistration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. [...] 'My fear is that this will be a cyber-revisiting of the blacklisting that was prevalent in the 50's,' Mr. Hayes wrote. 'Eventually, I predict that such site kill files will be used to censor politically unpopular views (like mine, for example).'" Think about that next time you put someone in your killfile. --Dave.