The Internet's wilder side

With much of the Internet beginning to resemble a pleasant, well-policed suburb, a neighborhood known as Internet Relay Chat remains the Wild West.
The New York Times

The story "The Internet's wilder side" published May 6, 2004 at 8:58 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[nap1805]

Your article

two very brief points:
1. The line about "Windows being responsible" sounds fairly weak and poorly supported by any comparison. An OS, whether this is UNIX/Linux/Win, gets hacked. That's how it matures. And the others, although maybe safer, need this to take at some point the lead. I was sniffing ports on NT servers long ago, and now.. well, I guess they moved to something else!

2. My main point: Your approach, by not saying / half saying what should be done about it - but by nevertheless showing the 'easy' good side and where the dark one could lead -, is not providing to the reader the true image of what to expect from irc. Wild west is the good name for it, fully agree, as well as fundamental social life for introverty kids, potential goldmine for self-skills gigs, developed-countries java/c# learner..... Whatever. My point is not here: you try to push the reader in this direction that 'as this is not controlled, this are the risks that we can expect'. And although you are not wrong, the approach to the reader is incorrect. This is not a Because.. that.

But I guess you spent a bit of time writting all this, I don't want to spoil (an article is just a view of someone willing to speak up..).

Glad you put back this message box back (remember it a few years ago, you took it out soon after as it was -i guess- right next to the article itself).

That's my 10c.
Ciao+ Tim.