Real crime on cyberspace? The analogy to violence of action, such as murder, is violence of data, the fabric of cyberspace. This may have many forms: belief or opinions, knowledge, information and data crime. Violence of belief (thoughtcrime) - while some people feel that to discuss rape is to perform it, and discussing crimes is subject to a range of conspiracy and riot-control laws worldwide, this really can't be a crime in any free society. Then there is the knowledge crime - theft of intellectual property. This is in my view the single biggest issue in an information economy, but it can be addressed by a combination of encryption technologies, to prevent 'unauthorised' access, and the decentralized, non-governmental civil system discussed previously.Intellectual property can in any case not be treated quite as land and bonds are, and there are practical and moral issues involved in just what it is, which I may talk about in the future. Information crime - 'unauthorised' access of other information such as mail, unreleased memoirs etc, is basically an issue of privacy and can only be practically addressed through technology. Data crime - 'cracking', 'phreaking' etc usually reflect a total lack of responsibility on the part of _administrators_. "Officer, I left my wallet on the kerb 10 minutes ago, and now it's gone!" Better security and greater awareness will prevent most of it. If you do happen to catch a cracker, go through the same old _civil_ system. It is not really practical for a central Thought Police to actually find data criminals, without huge and non-specific violations of privacy. And data criminals don't need to be put in jail, they are probably the most affected by 'cyberdeath' - disconnection, digicash accounts cancelled, reputations muddied. I wouldn't want to do that to _anyone_ actually ;^) A thread I started months ago ('Cyberspace is by nature crime free' / 'Crime and punishment in cyberspace') led to similar Tim May-ist conclusion - let the police (and the minimalist government) attend to murders in brickspace, we cybercitizens will look after ourselves. Concluded. Rishab ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab@dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA