The more that people try to regulate Internet content, the more likely it is that a samizdat mode of communications will emerge. You want to communicate but you want some form of protection from detection. Organised criminals, terrorists and paedophiles will already be aware of this and will be taking steps to avoid any en clair exchange of information.

Now, those who want freedom of speech and information also want the 'right to silence' and 'freedom from identification'. Meanwhile, the Internet has become a cesspool of ill-intentioned scamsters and spamsters, the massive majority of whom are given safe harbour by the United States. And the whole seamy business is dollar-denominated.

Rhyming slang
Perhaps it's an age thing. Some people will not remember samizdat, some will. Of those who do, few should have forgotten what it meant. Although many of the latter seem to be doing so: freedom of speech is a bit of a joke these days. That's a mistake.

I remember samizdat at first hand. In a country 'X', in a city 'X', I was handed a piece of photocopied fax-paper in a bar (and no, it was not the bar-bill), on which was written something in a language 'X' that I could not possibly understand. I was handed it by a person, 'X'. Had it been found that 'X' owned a fax or a photocopier it would have resulted in 'X' years in prison for my new friend 'X', back in 19XX.

Little bits of sign language and scraps of pidgin English (mine, I confess) got person 'X' to read the samizdat transcript aloud. It lasted all of two minutes and by the end my new friend 'X' and all her/his friends were crying.

It was a poem.

World Wide Weep
It was a poem about grain and motherhood and fairy spirits and the notion of achievement. In this world and the next.  All said and done in two minutes. With tears. And dignity.

At the time, I remember thinking it was all a bit stupid. Only when it was explained just how this poem had found its way into my friend's hand did I realise the extent of the risk that some people were prepared to take in pursuit of their goals. And the role of communications in that pursuit. And the risks that might be taken in order to read a poem to a stupid foreigner (that's me).

Their goals were higher (and their means far more basic) than today's ersatz Viagara or fake Rolexes or get-rich-quick stocks or cut-price loans. Yet their goals came down to a poem.

I don't see an iota of poetry in the scamsters and spamsters who assault me via e-mail each day and I reckon that the carriers and ISPs who currently funnel Internet traffic across their networks and just count the revenue are equally at fault. They don't lift a finger to change the situation. They don't understand 'freedom of information', only its monetisation.

This is outrageous on one of two counts:
• either ISPs and PTOs know the identity of the criminals that they support;
• or they don't care.

In the first case, if they know and they don't act they are culpable. In the second case, if they don't know they are useless and negligent.

And if anyone has the bare-faced cheek to fall back upon freedom of speech as an excuse, I will direct them back to another world, where the words 'freedom' and 'speech' really meant something. A samizdat world where a poem carried a jail sentence. As opposed to the junk-headed junk-mail mentality that now seems to be the norm among those who 'police' the Internet.

Back to the poetry: four letter word, rhymes with 'duck'... three letter word, rhymes with 'cough'.
Jim Chalmers