Is it a Crime to Think?

Cybersex - The Seventh Sense

Modern Witch Hunts

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Once upon a time computers had keyboards for inputing instructions to perform any function desired. Eventually voice control evolved, to save the day for executives who never learned to type.

Consider this scenario:
Hackers rushed to fill a void—larger than the American plains when the Oklahoma Territory opened up with free land for settlers. Efficient at typing, and aware of the power of a relatively low-cost modem-equipped computer, hackers flourished like orchids in an Amazon jungle. They were capable of using voice control years ago, but many considered that might leave too many tracks. "Might as well sign my name," was a quote of the times.

The next advance is on the horizon. MindDrive was the first computer peripheral to allow computer control by thought waves'. Sitting in the reflected light of her computer, a captivated young screenager muses over the potential power of this new hardware/software. Within a week she has mastered the 15 basic software programs provided with MindDrive.

"If I can learn to ski, bowl, fly, play pinball, chess or checkers, operate a lie detector, compose music, create art, and enhance creativity and concentration-moving into The Zone that athletes and writers talk about--what else can I do that hasn't been accomplished? Replace anything my fingers can do!"

Soon another multi-point invasion is noticed throughout the planets—as major data bases, government, military and scientific operations, universities and sectors of the corporate world become aware of electronic attack. The standard counter-offensive to locate such a hacker is activated from several dozen locations, all finally being coordinated by one supposedly expert official.

The screenager deliberately leaves enough of a sophisticated trail so that she will be trapped within three months. It took five. She gave them too much credit.
When arrested, she is far too cooperative and polite for a screenager. When arraigned in court, she pleads not guilty. The prosecutors present evidence. On the stand, she swears she never touched her keyboard during the past six months. A fact that can be technically proven. How can she be guilty?

She does not deny that the instructions that penetrated all the institutions mentioned on the charge sheet came from her computer, but she didn't physically enter such instructions.

The accused admits that she did frequently fantasize about becoming "the Queen of the Hackers." She used mind alone to do what her colleagues could accomplish only with their hands.

"What law covers my thinking?" she asks. "Is it illegal to think?"
These questions resemble ones posed about the status of synthetic pornography, where only computer-generated "synthetic children or adults" are involved. Can there be harm and criminal intent if no real person is involved? How will society handle such dilemmas when we are not even aware that such things are possible?

We have approached a time when not only are there two worlds, one occupied by the "knows" and another by the "know-nots," but now by those, usually always "know-nots," who are restricted to the past world of rigid, conforming, constrictive, compulsive linear thinking, and acting. Yet outside of all that dissolving, once-concrete environment of institutional beliefs, others exist that operate in a world no one can see, feel, or touch, that doesn't exist, and yet is real.

The lawyer for the defence speaks. "Your honour, ever since our civilized system of justice came into being in Egypt about 4000 B.C., courts have operated on the sound basis that a crime must be proven, the accused must be physically connected to the incident, and substantial evidence must be presented to show that the accused is guilty, unless the accused is considered mentally unbalanced."

Even the Chief Prosecutor in this case would not likely suggest the accused wasn't in full control of all her facilities. She may be the most intelligent person in this court room. With, of course, the exception of yourself, your Honour.

To suggest that this intelligent young lady was able to penetrate all the billion-dollar defences of the largest and strongest diplomatic, military, educational, and cor-porate worlds by sitting in a chair fantasizing, and looking at a screen, is to accept an unreality that hasn't occurred in 6,000 years of jurisprudence.
The defence rests.
 

Cybersex - The Seventh Sense

It's been joked about for some time. But the elements required to provide such a sophisticated experience are hovering on the horizon. When cybersex hits Main Street, it's going to make crack look like Ovaltine.

For people over 18 (the younger ones can already build them), basic equipment includes a powerglove containing most of the elements of a state-of-the-art wrist computer. With the latest 64-bit chips, the cyber-suit could be thinner than the foam in a Scuba divers wet suit. The present PowerGlove, like the one made by Mattel Toys to play Nintendo games, is a bit bulky for dating, but works just fine for all kinds of "games."
The current headset, reminiscent of a bikers helmet, is being more seductively molded and contains two tiny LED television screens that appear inside the helmet centimetres (inches) from your eyes.

The really active device is the body stocking, made out of a blend of silk and Spandex, and contains aromas and light-carrying materials. Built-in piezo-electric, vibro-tactile actuators provide the sensuality-Consider this scenario: You think back about your very first real sensual date. The two of you went around together for some time and had lots of fun. You probably can't even remember why you parted, unless one of the families moved and the other didn't. You were heart-broken. You never really forgot. You never really do.

So during one boring day in later life, you start tracking that person down. With the street smarts now prevalent among digirati, it isn't that difficult. You find out she/he has moved to Santiago, Chile. Little matter. An e-mail address is found and you correspond. He/she wants faster action and replies by phone. You have a great conversation and suggest a date in cyberspace. Tonight? Why not?
"Where will we go?" you foolishly ask. "I'll surprise you the way I use to do. Suit up. I'll call back in 20 minutes."

Oh, by the way. You might want to video tape the evening for future replay. Use a long tape in extended play mode.

You sit comfortably on your couch, fitted and wired in more ways than one. Waiting. Suddenly there you both are.- on the moon.  You are ready to ski through a coconut plantation. Cyberspace is restricted only by the imagination. Political, social, imaginative, and physical laws no longer apply. As they used to sing in the 1920s flapper days, "Anything Goes."

You start a pleasant ski run. Making a smooth turn, you look up and see Planet Earth looking almost exactly like that classic picture taken back in the 1970s by the astronauts. The whole scene is just too romantic. Let's go to the virtual villa for a drink.
Body perfume, re-created and enhanced, drifts from aroma tubes hidden within the body stocking. Mood-swinging modifier lights emanate from fibre-optic glass threads woven seamlessly into the now naturally and molding-feeling suit. Is this suit giving off heat or is it me?

A subtle flickering of diamond-shaped lights is creating subliminal images dictated by personal thoughts. The technology has been around for years. Now it's almost perfected.

Now you understand convergence, intellectually and emotionally. It's working on you. When your arm is caressed, you feel it. Those tiny piezo-electric, vibro-tactile actuators ripple along your super-sensitive skin as an intimate caress. Did that really feel better than real, or is your mind moving into a wider sphere?

Not bad for openers. Think about it. This could be the ultimate in safe sex.
 
 

Modern Witch Hunts

Just as Salem held Witch Trials in 17th century America, a similar movement today prepares for battle against an imagined evil some cannot understand and none can actually feel, see, or touch. An imagined fear of the unknown seems to increase violence.

The province of Alberta may want to think twice before taking any steps that may result in later regret-even though Virtual Reality, the latest technological foe on their horizon, will bring psychological addiction to some. So did golf, which even brought a new phrase to the language: golf widow. Now golf is so establishment, it is considered healthy. Views change.

Cybersex is the first real competition prostitution has encountered in 10,000 years. The Alberta government wanted the streets cleared of that menace too, didn't they? Cybersex is possibly a non-violent, out-of-sight personal route to solitary satisfaction. The technology may offer a release for the lonely that might as a side benefit reduce the incidence of rape.

Every coin has two sides. Attacking the unknown menace began in Europe in 1231 when it was formally instituted by Pope Gregory IX. Within a few years, heretics, on the orders of the Pope, were burned at the stake (as church law prevented the shedding of blood). Use of the stretching limbs "on the rack," burning with live coals, the violent squeezing of fingers and toes, and the locking victims in the strappada (a vertical rack) became common. It only took two unknown informants to instigate such distress. A plethora of false confessions resulted.

This continued for 200 years and swept through all of Europe, with persecutions being especially virulent in Portugal and Spain where the Inquisition sought out heretics, led by the diabolical Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquema, who developed bigotry, cruelty, intolerance, and religious fanaticism to new heights. In the two centuries before 1650, thousands had been executed as witches. Like most bureaucracies, the Inquisition grew as changes expanded to include sorcery, alchemy, blasphemy, sexual aberration, and infanticide. The number of witches and sorcerers burned after the late 15th century appears to have been far greater than that of heretics. Widening the rules is not an unusual bureaucratic practice.

The Inquisition in Portugal used even more evil tortures than in Spain but affected fewer people because the country was smaller. Several inquisitors' manuals listing activities have survived.

Imprisonment and confiscation of property were hallmarks of the Inquisition because of the secrecy and facelessness of officials involved in searches and the power of the Church at the time. In many ways the Inquisition's power is not dissimilar to the secrecy in modern times of the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S. and Revenue Canada Taxation in seizure and confiscation tax policies.

Joan of Arc, Galileo, philosopher Giordano Bruno, and the religious order of Templar-Knights were a few of those people eradicated in the barbarism of the Middle Ages, one of the darker sides of Christian history. "Often serving political ends, the inquisitors also exercised their dreaded functions among the converted Indian populations of the Spanish colonies in America."

According to the Grolier (Electronic) Interactive Encyclopedia (1997), "The Inquisition was finally suppressed in Spain in 1834 and in Portugal in 1821."
Because the Inquisition was so pervasive throughout Europe, it did not seem strange that the concept landed on New England shores along with the Pilgrims and erupted in the March to September period in 1692. By September 22 of that year, 19 people had been hanged, one was pressed to death with stones, 50 had confessed, 100 languished in prison awaiting trial, and accusations had touched another 200.

"In 1711, heirs of the alleged witches were voted compensation for their losses." Views change.

Strong opposition to startling and perhaps shocking new developments to come within the next decade, especially in the fields of Virtual Reality and bio-technology, could erupt into similar events again in North America.

Tread softly. The veneer of civilization is thinner than your skin.