Exon: (verb) To copulate with, the act of copulation.
Gorton: (noun) The female genitals, or specifically the vagina.
Gramm: (verb) To orgasm. Also colloquially used as a noun.
Heflin: (noun) The female secondary sexual characteristics.
Helms: (noun) The male phallus.
Specter: (noun) The clitoris.
However, a borderless Internet can also hinder the censorship crowd. If American bluenoses such as Exon tried to restrict an electronic Tropic of Cancer, for example, a U.S. publisher just might set up shop in countries with less infantile politicians. People in the States could then dial up the computer overseas.
Already the Net has made fools of martinets in the Canadian government. Ottawa tried to squelch newspaper accounts of a murder, claiming that the coverage would preclude a fair trial. So people in the States sent electronic care packages to their Canadian friends—articles from U.S. papers. Canadian officials banned a pulped-wood issue of Wired for attacking their stupidity; that was one of the biggest debacles of all, given the ease of dialing up electronic versions of the magazine, one of the planet’s most plugged-in publications.
Consider, too, the ramifications of anonymous servers, which strip names and other identifiers from messages, allowing Netfolks to circumvent legal bullying by governments and others. In 1995, the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles got Finnish police to raid a server in Helsinki that was posting anonymous exposés of this rather litigious organization. The server survived. But the cops forced Johan Helsingius, operator of the server, to reveal the name of a Church enemy who originated the messages. “Now users fear their secrets are at risk,” Time said of people using his computer service. Case closed on anonymous servers? Hardly.
Within weeks after the incident I read a note from a hacker telling how encrypted messages could wend their ways through chains of anonymous e-mailers in several countries, with the names of the senders remaining hidden unless most or all of the e-mailers broke under pressure. Yes, abuses are possible, such as the release of trade secrets, outright libels, forgeries, or the most vile and violent of pornography. But how much better to live out this future than one of the Orwellian variety. Tyrant-bashers in the Thirteen Colonies used the wizardry of their day, the printing press, to agitate against the Tories; now let’s hope that if Exonian politicians try to stifle the Net, enough hackers will have their most dangerous presses ready to go, the servers I’ve just described. Obsolete or not, the censors aren’t going to stop.