Regardless of the ability of the term to inflict fear and horror on people, it isn’t an uncontested concept and indeed, no longer even appears as a diagnosis within the DSM-III, the handbook of mental problems published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

The evolving telecommunications infrastructure, now popularly generally known as the Web, links homes, companies, faculties, hospitals, libraries, cell phones and the worked, to one another and to an unlimited array of electronic data assets. Individuals all around the globe are able to tap into pc databases elsewhere more easily than walking all the way down to the local library.

Thus, there have been ferocious reactions to the clumsy attempts of the Clinton administration to impose surveillance over the Internet, from the ‘Clipper Chip’ and the embargoing of exports of varied encryption applications; to the FBI’s ham-handed try and enforce tapping of digital communication (and make the users … Read the rest