I had an odd experience this week, which while not uncommon on the internet or in the course of my duties, surprised me with its cruelty and irony. I looked up from monitor to find one of our team-members with an urgent look on his face. “Did you see the death threat?” “Yep.” My tone…
I’ve worked online for over a decade now, in a variety of capacities, and I’ve watched the Internet change, mature, devolve, quake and thrive. In all my various roles I’ve experienced moments of shock at the strange trolls and ogres lurking within this great web of knowledge, but nothing compares to the Anti-Piracy world and…
The problem of online piracy is not one of sheer, random malevolence; that is, pirates don’t do what they do just for the sake of hurting people, and they don’t do it just because they can. There is something in it for them—a way to turn a profit, to rake money in without actually having…
Imagine the following scenario: A local car dealer says he is going to hold a drawing and randomly choose one person in town to receive a free automobile. It may be a publicity gimmick, but it’s a pretty good one; we’d rightly call this a smart promotion, and the dealer in question is likely to…
