Fear and Virtual Punishment

"The right to punish has shifted from the vengeance of the sovereign to the defence of society...It is a return to a terrible `super-power. It brings with it the need to establish a principle of moderation for the power of punishment."

--Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish

"You've read all the cyberpuke stuff. You know all about the terrible beauty of datumplane, the three-dimensional highways with their landscapes of black ice and deon perimeters and Day-glo Strange Loops and shimmering skyscrapers of data blocks under hovering clouds of AI presence. I saw all of it riding piggyback on BBS carrier wave. It was almost too much. too intense. Too terrifying. I could hear the black threats of the hulking security phages; I could smell death on the breath of the counterthrust tapeworm viruses even through the ice screens; I could feel the wight of the AIs' wrath above us--we were insects under elephant's feet-- and we hadn't even done anything yet...I don't know how they took it."

--Dan Simmons, Hyperion

Introduction

At Look at the Criminals

Government and Legal Aspects

Other Sites Dealing With Electronic Crime and Privacy

Bibliography