Copyright (c) 1995 by Maclean's Magazine.  All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission.

Maclean's Magazine
May 22, 1995, p59

   REALITY CHECK

   `There are plenty of things in the world
   that don't need a computer'

by Joe Chidley

Clifford Stoll's 1989 best-seller, The Cuckoo's Egg, an
account of how he tracked down a German hacker ring that was
stealing American military secrets, made him a cyberspace celebrity.
Now, in the eyes of many computer enthusiasts, he is a cyberspace
turncoat. In Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information
Highway, Stoll, an astronomer and computer expert, debunks the hype
of the Information Revolution. He contends that the Internet,
launched in 1969, is now so cluttered with trivial information--much
of it in the message-sharing section known as the Usenet--that it
will never live up to its promise. Last week, the Berkeley,
Calif.-based author, 44, spoke to Maclean's Associate Editor Joe
Chidley about the Internet and the outrage Silicon Snake Oil has
created. Excerpts:

Maclean's: What prompted you to write this book now, after more
  than 20 years on-line?

Stoll: I've been hearing this thick hyperbole for the past two
  years about the wonderments of the Digital Age. But there's such a
  gulf between the promises and the dreary reality that I face when I
  turn on my modem, that someone ought to call the bluff. The
  falsehood of the Internet is that it will provide us with close,
  meaningful relationships, with cheap, good information and with
  useful life skills. Within each one of those promises is a grain of
  truth, but on balance they are simply false.

Maclean's: Critics say that you are trying to shut the masses out
  of the Internet, that you want to reserve it for yourself and other
  scientists.

Stoll: Am I this antidemocratic down-on-the-Internet guy? Almost
  the opposite. I don't yearn for the good old days when computers
  were expensive and I was one of the digitati. I think it's
  worthwhile getting on-line--but then asking real obvious questions
  like, `Am I getting anything out of this?' There are plenty of
  things happening in the world that don't need a computer. When my
  computer goes down, I can live quite well for a day or a week or a
  month. But when my drain plugs up, hey, I can't get by for two days
  without a plumber. Might it not be better to teach some basic crafts
  and skills rather than computer literacy?

  What I fear is that techies have set up so many promises that
  others, when they come on-line, are sure to be let down. The
  Internet is not the key to the future. It's not going to provide
  great, wonderful information. Instead, it will continue to provide a
  rather mundane view of our very, very mundane world.

Maclean's: How would you like to see the Internet improved?

Stoll: I got my first modem in 1971, and I've been connected ever
  since. And it's not like the Internet is worthless--it's just that
  there's not much there. It's a low-grade source of information.
  There's a lot of ore, and not many nuggets. And with every year that
  goes by, I find fewer and fewer nuggets and a lot more chaff.

  The Internet needs content. It's a medium in desperate need of
  something to say. In the next 10 years, somebody will figure out how
  to charge for information over the Net, so you won't get things
  necessarily for free. That will have several good effects, including
  a way to pay authors for their work. And because of the economic
  incentive, it will become easier to filter out the good from the bad.

Maclean's: Does the Internet need to be regulated?

Stoll: I don't think legislation can do anything. It's mechanically
  impossible, because much of what transpires on the Internet is
  international. Very tough to control, tough to regulate.

Maclean's: Are you concerned about the abundance of pornography on the Net?

Stoll: Well, I can't get worked up over it. Some people say, `Oh
  no, my kid just downloaded this image that has explicit sex in it.'
  Yeah, sad to say, it's true. Sad to say that just like every place
  in society, there are reptiles who will exploit children. Certainly,
  the child molester will find a way to use the computer networks to
  find victims--just as child molesters take advantage of cars and
  ordinary roadways to get around. But the concerns with cars and
  roadways go deeper than simply the fact that child molesters use them.

Maclean's: What about the cyberpunk movement, which sees the information
  highway as the last--and an endangered--bastion of free speech?

Stoll: The cyberpunk movement typically springboards off the idea
  that it's 1984 all over again--you know, there's a Big Bad Brother
  breathing down our neck, burning books and keeping us from getting
  the real information. I think that's bogus. Much closer is Huxley's
  Brave New World, where Big Brother controls what we think not by
  preventing us from reading something, but by filling the airwaves,
  the Usenet, the Internet--all our information sources--with gunk. By
  so diluting our information sources with trivial garbage, important
  literature never gets read.

Maclean's: How has the response been to the book?

Stoll: I've been flamed up and down the Usenet--I don't even look
  anymore. And if e-mail could carry knives, I would have to be carried
  away from my keyboard in a plastic bag. I feel like I am trying to
  roust the money-changers out of the temple--and they don't like it.

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