We bombed in New Haven

A fretful article this morning in the NYT, supposedly warning of the various ways malefacters can abuse the internet to communicate with one another, can actually be read as a primer in postmodern secret communications. Among the methods covered:

"At one Web site, spammimic.com, a user can type in a phrase like 'Meet me at Joe's' and have that message automatically converted into a lengthy bit of prose that reads like a spam message: 'Dear Decision maker; Your e-mail address has been submitted to us indicating your interest in our briefing! This is a one-time mailing there is no need to request removal if you won't want any more,' and so forth."

"A group ... provides the same user name and password to all of its members, granting them all access to a single Web-based e-mail account. One member simply logs on and writes, but does not send, an e-mail message. Later, a co-conspirator, perhaps on the other side of the globe, logs on, reads the unsent message and then deletes it. 'Because the draft was never sent,' Mr. Hinnen wrote, the Internet service provider 'does not retain a copy of it and there is no record of it traversing the Internet - it never went anywhere.'"

"A simple withdrawal of $20 from an account in New York might serve as an instant message to an accomplice monitoring the account electronically from halfway around the world, for example."

What fun! Perhaps my browsing for, but not buying, electronic equipment today on amazon.com was a signal to Fijian dissidents to blow up a mailbox. The internet is amazing!