Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 07/88 - checked

July 1988

I have been trying to find a specific quotation but, Murphy's Law being what it is, I have failed miserably, and will probably stay having failed until such time as this column is written and forgotten. Then, I am bound to remember the quotation perfectly.

However, I have a rough idea of how it goes, something like the following: 'everyone has freedom just so long as they do not use it', that is roughly what it says.

This may seem a particularly useless piece of advice, for what is the point of freedom if you don't exploit it whenever the opportunity arises? I have to admit that there was a time when I would have felt the same, but now I have my doubts. Exploiting personal freedom is at least a two-edged sword, and that is when it has been accurately wielded. For many individuals who exploit their freedom, events are set in train which can be as random and as devastating as a car bomb in their effect.

Easter saw a perfect example. The Observer newspaper carried a front page story about the exploits of one Darren Ingram, manager of a bulletin board service which is, apparently, called 'Corrupt Computing'. The main thrust of the story was about how the service was carrying a great deal of, at best dubious, material which it would probably have been better to erase.

Now, it must be admitted here and now that I have never really tried Bulletin Boards. I have a computer, and I have a modem, so there is no theoretical reason why I haven't. The truth is, they don't really interest me. Maybe it is because I use computers and write about them for a living that messing about with them for entertainment is not the world's greatest turn on for me.

I am sure, however, that they are a fundamentally good idea. One of the things which marks out the human race is its need to communicate, and the ability to disseminate ideas widely and freely is an essential pre-requisite of maintaining and expanding a civilised and dignified society. Communication is the basis of all educational processes, even if it is the direct 'communication' which stems from immediate (and often painful) experience.

So, there is a responsibility placed upon all of us to both keep ourselves informed and, perhaps more importantly, ensure that the channels of communication are kept open and working. If there is ever a threat to the maintenance of the communications medium then the threat should be, if not removed (which could imply direct conflict), at least deflected.

And what, I hear 'Bored of Neasden' ask over a pint of Count Scisenberger continental-style lager, has this got to do with Darren?

Precisely this. Darren's Bulletin Board has poked its head up above the parapet and been spotted. And what has been spotted is its content. If you find that some of the contributors to your bulletin board are publishing some highly contentious material then there is an argument which suggests that a little bit of editing might not be a bad thing.

I am in practice against 'editing' as a form of censorship; we are already getting far too much of that in our current society. But I am not against a little bit of editing as self-restraint, mainly because most people do not seem to understand the term.

By allowing the 'Corrupt Computing' Bulletin Board to be used by the macho pretend soldiers of the SAS-style survivalists (and I don't suppose they like me much, either), all Darren has done is point out to the powers that be that here is another means of communication in need of control.

British Telecom has admitted that Bulletin Boards are very difficult to police (a sad word for its to use but indicative of they way our society in general is increasingly thinking). The Department of Trade and Industry seems to be suitably panic struck. I suppose that is inevitable when baby-boy soldiers are informing anyone who cares to look about ten ways to kill a cop, or how to make nitroglycerine, or how to organise a successful riot.

It is not the information itself that is in question. I may feel that people who think that way are immensely dumb but I would, as someone else once said, defend their right to think it. What is important now is that we live in a society which implicitly does not feel that way.

Not only that, it increasing takes huge legal sledge hammers to crack inappropriate nuts. The famous Clause 28/29 saga is a classic case in point. As history has shown, it is not the people who are honest about themselves that we need to fear. Rather it is the ones who want to control 'non-conforming' thought and communications we should concern ourselves with, for they are scared of themselves and what they might find in themselves if they look to deeply.

And 'Corrupt Computing'? Well, by showing that there is something which might need control, just because the people running it find it fun to exercise their 'freedom', Darren is playing his part in creating a situation where the sledge-hammer of control will inevitably appear. Bulletin Boards will have to be registered, logs kept of all people providing entries, strict censorship of the material carried, and the whole panoply of 'moral outrage' will be the results.

And all for a little bit of self-restraint and subtly. Sometimes, taking the right to your own individual freedom takes the right away from everybody. Darren's Bulletin Board just demonstrates that technology can make this possibility worse, not better.

end