yone goes. In th e same way the information on the Internet starts outand eventually gets to it's destination. The Internet is full ofanonymity. Since text is the standard form of communication on theInternet it becomes difficult to determine the identity and/or age of aspecific person. Nothing is known for certain about a person accessingcontent. There are nosignatures or photo-ids on the Internet therefore it is difficult tocertify that illegal activities (regarding minors accessing restricteddata) are taking place. Take for example a conversation on IRC. Two peoplecould people talking to one another, bu t all that they see is text. Itwould be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the genderand/or age just from communication of this sort. Then if theconversationalist lies about any points mentioned above it would beextremely difficult t o know or prove otherwise. In this way governmentscould not restrict access to certain sites on the basis of ages. Athirteen-year-old boy in British Columbia could decide that he wanted todownload pornography from an adult site in the U.S. The site mayhave warnings and age restrictions but they have no way of stopping himfrom receiving their material if he says he is 19 years of age whenprompted. The complexity in the way information is passed around theInternet means that if information has been posted, deleting this materialbecomes almost impossible. A good example of this is the junk mail thatpeople refer to as spam. These include e-mails ad vertising products,usenet articles that are open for flames. Flames are heated letters thatmany times have no founding behind them. These seem to float around forages before dying out because they are perfect material for flamewars.Flamewars are long,drawn out and highly heated discussions consisting of flames, which oftentime, obscenely, slander one's reputation and personae. Mostly these areimmature arguments that are totally pointless except t...
