From: m5@dev.tivoli.com (Mike McNally)
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 09:33:26 +0800
To: "Douglas F. Elznic" <delznic@storm.net>
Subject: Re: Shimomura on TV?
In-Reply-To: <2.2.16.19960112000749.2b6f98f8@terminus.storm.net>
Message-ID: <9601120025.AA27664@alpha>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Douglas F. Elznic writes:
 > I am getting real sick of the media's portrayal of the
 > internet. They never say anything good about it.

The local news here in Austin, which in general seems to have a
terrible time filling up a 30-minute news presentation, had a big
story the other morning about how an Internet pedophile had been
caught.  It seems that some dude in Oregon was running a sting (I
think it was a reporter, not police, but I'm not sure) and some loser
in Austin took the bait and actually flew out there to meet the boy of
his dreams.  (Like I've said many times, it's a Real Good Thing most
criminals are so incredibly stupid.)

It turns out this guy worked at a school for handicapped children up
in Round Rock (the heart of Williamson County, the place hard-core
"old Austin" liberals like to think of as a portal to Redneck Hell).
So they start asking questions and they find some kids who say the guy
abused them (or whatever).  (The whole story might turn out to be
bogus, for all I know; it's disappeared from my sphere of awareness.)

My wife pointed out that though the "news" people made heavy (though
generally absurd) use of the Internet connection in the story, it left
her thinking that the Internet is a damn good tool for trolling out
undesirables like pedophiles (at least the stupid ones).  It makes it
a *hell* of a lot easier to sting people when *they'll pay for the
plane tickets*!  And of course, they can't do any actual damage over
the wire while you string 'em along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Nobody's going to listen to you if you just | Mike McNally (m5@tivoli.com) |
| stand there and flap your arms like a fish. | Tivoli Systems, Austin TX    |
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