I don't want these people on my Internet First it was the Israelis with their disgusting "electronic bullhorn". Now it's the Lebanese; the following is an e-mail message received from a Lebanese journalist whom I'd assumed could think matters through a little more carefully:


From: FOOBAR
To: FOOBAR@gmail.com
Subject:cyber soldiers - Arab IT experts, it's your turn
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:48:51 +0300


Arab IT experts, we need to fight back. spread the word. Remember the 2000 electronic intifada? We need 10 times that.


With a link to this.

I don't want people like that on my Internet; I consider such behavior and the encouragement of such behavior worse than spamming and spammers.

My reply, in case it interests anyone, was this:


There's a difference between standing up for one's country and
encouraging juvenile keyboard warrior behavior.

I'm sorry for what happened to your country, and I was lucky enough to
get out a few hours before the airport was bombed.

Notwithstanding, my lasting impression has been that you are clever and
I'm sure you can do better than exhort people to abuse the internet just
because the other side is doing it.

Maybe Nietzsche can speak more eloquently than I:

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
  ¶ 5:21 PM