THE current wave of scare stories about online paedophile rings are only the latest in a long line of moral panics about computer networks.
First there were dark tales of hackers or neo Nazis. Then came various `cyberporn' reports such as the cover story in Time magazine in July 1995. It was based on a now thoroughly discredited study, by an undergraduate student later investigated by his own college for unethical research.
Next there was a flood of stories on TV and in the press about "terrorist bombmaking recipes on the Net", particularly after the Oklahoma bombing. According to the FBI itself, most bombmakers get their information from books available at any army navy store or public library, and published by the US Government.
More recently, the Observer devoted much of its front page last August to some scaremongering about Internet service providers, anonymous remailers and child porn.
Closer to home, various Web sites devoted to Sinn Fein have been attacked by mainstream political parties and several broadsheets. Then there was the Sunday Times front page story last November about the IRA using computer hackers to draw up plans to kill senior RUC officers "in a single `night of the long knives'".
The report continued: "Following up leads from BT and piecing them together with other intelligence, the RUC has been able to identify members of a key IRA unit which was to carry out the attacks."
Which begs a very obvious question: if these people have been identified, if there is evidence, if there are concrete facts, why hasn't there been a singlearrest?