Cybercrime in the 21st century: linking

As related earlier, Finnish free speech activist Matti Nikki's charges were dropped on a technicality. However, the Finnish state prosecutor basically agreed with the police that posting a link to illegal material can be considered a crime. Now, as in so many other things on this front, Australia is following suit:

Sydney Morning Herald: Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day

The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

The article is worth reading. Here's a tidbit for those of you who don't believe the slippery slope argument:

The site has also published Thailand's internet censorship list and noted that, in both the Thai and Danish cases, the scope of the blacklist had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

In fact, the recently leaked Australian blacklist includes "dentists, bus companies and a tour operator"(computerworld.com), not to mention perfectly legal online gambling site betfair.com.

In the spirit of cybercrime, I'd like to take this opportunity to share a forgotten literary masterpiece with you, courtesy of somethingawful.com: Bruce Gibson's Cracked Copy, a nail-biting account of life on the razor's edge in the apocalypse of a postmodern world.