Cyberspace

Cyberspace was abuzz yesterday with the news of the death of Timothy Leary, the nation's foremost prophet and proselytizer of LSD and other psychedelia. The mourners were chatting by computer because that's where Leary, the media-savvy LSD guru of the '60s, had decided he'd be when he breathed his last. Dying of prostate cancer, Leary, 75, characteristically vowed not to go silently. Rather, he would document his demise on a World Wide Web home page and, he even reportedly told a friend, might even commit suicide on-line.

Back in the days when ants the size of Winnebagos invaded Los Angeles, when the giant colossal man came to Las Vegas for reasons other than getting in the Caesars Palace buffet line, Hollywood had a foolproof, sci-fi way to explain these oddities: radiation. Four decades later, the creative minds of television and film are turning to a new area of science to allow characters to battle monsters as well as visit dreamscapes and fulfill assorted fantasies. Cyberspace is becoming the hip new TV plot device.

He lives in Austin, Texas, and, not surprisingly, doesn't want his name used. That's because the man - an elderly retiree - feels a bit foolish. He sent $10,000 to a complete stranger and never saw it again. The recipient of the 10 grand was a person with the self-appointed title of "skilled money manager. " "Send me a check," the manager said. "I'll invest it for you in a mutual fund, and you'll get rich. " Or something to that effect. According to Texas securities officials, the offer was a scam.

Without realizing it, I wore the same shoes to my divorce proceeding that I'd worn on my wedding day 14 years earlier. "I don't know," I later said to my Aunt Norma. "There must be a poignant message or lesson there somewhere. " "Yeah," she said, pulling on a Newport. "Time to get new shoes. " So I bought a pair and signed on to Match.com. A study from the University of Washington shows that online dating services like Match, eHarmony and Perfectmatch report that their fastest-growing dating population consists of people over 50 years old. This is my cohort now. And cyberspace - not the bars or concert halls - is where we're supposed to find one another, sparking electrons vibrating in the endless ether.

Sister Jean Anthony, a professor of music therapy at Immaculata College, believes the field's future is intimately connected not to musical instruments but to computers. Make that computer-generated musical instruments. Sister Jean Anthony and Rebecca T. Mercuri, director of the computer consulting firm Notable Software, have been working for the last year on ways to use cyberspace, the phenomenon of a simulated environment also known as virtual reality, with traditional music therapy techniques.

Just what is too sexually graphic to be considered "indecent" if not downright "obscene"? Who decides? And when it comes to the free-wheeling, democratic universe known as cyberspace, should government have the right to censor? Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to step into the fray. It will be the high court's first foray into cyberspace law. At issue will be a federal law called the Communications Decency Act, Congress's first attempt to regulate the Internet.

Cyberspace is being handed to us wrapped in bright paper with a ribbon on top. But what will be in the box when it is finally unwrapped? There was never a time when leadership by independent and thoughtful representatives was more important or more conspicuously absent. But it is also a time for the American public to take responsibility for monitoring the law of cyberspace, just as they monitor tax law and land use law, the laws that affect their lives most directly. Cyberspace is being touted as an utterly new phenomenon, as a new frontier.

The day after Kevin Mitnick was arraigned in North Carolina on charges of committing cyberspace burglary, a group of government, industry and science leaders met here yesterday to discuss how - and whether - to regulate the information superhighway. Mitnick is the latest in a line of computer hackers accused of using telephone circuits to break into computer systems and steal information. Their cases pose a conflict between the individual's desire for privacy and law enforcement's need to track such crimes, between the dream of unrestricted access to information and the fear of electronic banditry.

That powerful human urge to sit down at a computer keyboard and talk, or, rather, type dirty remains under assault in Washington - and with it, the fundamental right to discourse freely on any subject. But in the Capitol's non-virtual chat room - the U.S. House - they've rebuffed the blunt-edged assault on computerized naughtiness that the Senate made in June. The Senate is eager to crack down on anyone who transmits "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent" material over the global Internet or any other computer network.

Mischief-makers are finding the Internet is like a bookshop with a large "how-to" section - full of naughty, mad-scientist, do-it-yourself stuff that everybody's Mom warned them against a hundred times. So it's no surprise that younger browsers of cyberspace sometimes take the information found on the global computer network, and do stupid things. Last week, a pair of Audubon, Montgomery County, teens concocted a pipe-and-matchsticks explosive that blew up in their faces. Police said the two boys pulled the recipe out of cyberspace.

TORONTO - Canadian police said yesterday that they still don't know what caused the death of a student from Beijing who was last seen alive on a webcam by a friend who witnessed her struggling with a man before the camera was abruptly shut off. Police said the body of 23-year-old York University student Qian Liu was found Friday in her apartment in Toronto a few hours after her friend in China witnessed the attack. She was naked from the waist down, but there were no obvious signs of sexual assault or trauma that would have led to her death, police said.

TAMPA - College football's Last Emperor was talking about discipline, circa 1944. He was talking about a Jesuit priest at Brooklyn Prep, a former boxer named Father Frederick Engel. "Father Engel was prefect of discipline," Joe Paterno was saying Tuesday. "If somebody was out of line, he gave him a shot in the head. He used to be a boxer. Can you picture something like that happening today?" Joe did not ask the rhetorical question dismissively . . . I had 3 years of first-hand knowledge of Father Engel, whose fingernails-on-a-blackboard voice triggered a wave of fear if directed at you - even if not directed at you. Legend has it that Fred Engel got some smartmouth from Paterno teammate Gerry Hart, who was a sophomore when Joe graduated.

As scores of high school and college students raced from event to event, tracking down opportunities afforded by the business of information technology Thursday, a group of experts talked about the frightening challenges created by this ever-evolving field. Not just challenges, but actual threats to national and industrial security, from the Internet user in his or her home office to weather satellites feeding data to forecasters tracking a Category 5 hurricane. The experts were panelists at a conference at the Philadelphia Marriott sponsored by BDPA, a nonprofit organization of people involved in the industry of information technology.

The other day, 14-year-old Nathan Flath may have set the long-distance record for a Chinese take-out order. It happened when Ning Wu looked Flath, a Quakertown Community High School freshman, directly in the eye and asked what dishes he wanted to order. Flath hesitated, then said, "Zheng jiao," the Chinese words for steamed dumplings. "Is that enough?" Wu asked, coaxing him to order more. But Flath couldn't remember the Mandarin words for Beijing duck, Coca-Cola, bottles of beer, and other menu items that Wu had taught him. "You have saved lots of money," Wu said, laughing.

First in an occasional series. The other day, 14-year-old Nathan Flath may have set the long-distance record for a Chinese take-out order. It happened when Ning Wu looked Flath, a Quakertown Community High School freshman, directly in the eye and asked what dishes he wanted to order. Flath hesitated, then said, " Zheng jiao ," the Chinese words for steamed dumplings. "Is that enough?" Wu asked, coaxing him to order more. But Flath couldn't remember the Mandarin words for Beijing duck, Coca-Cola, bottles of beer, and other menu items that Wu had taught him. "You have saved lots of money," Wu said, laughing.

The state budget battle is now being waged on YouTube. Yesterday morning, Gov. Rendell began airing ads about Pennsylvania's budget crisis on the Web sites of 10 newspapers, from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The YouTube video features a somber-looking Rendell explaining why his proposal to raise the state's personal income tax is necessary - and why an alternative budget plan being pushed by Republicans in the Senate contains, in his view, catastrophic spending cuts. The cost to run the spots every day for the next week: $15,000, which the governor is charging to his campaign account, Rendell for Governor, flush with almost $1.9 million as of late last year.

Garden Wellington-Logan, a 36-year-old mother, wanted to connect with people online, but figured she was born too late for one of the top Internet hangouts. "We're not the MySpace generation. We missed out on that," said Logan, who avoids the popular social networking site. "It's a little overwhelming. There's always some sort of wild and crazy video. It just seems a little too racy for where I am now. " Instead, she turned to MomSpace.com, a site for mothers created by two women: Joani Reisen, 41, of Chadds Ford, and Erica Rubach, 32, of Garnet Valley.

Drexel University professor Jean-Claude Bradley can log in from his lab or home and teleport to his organic chemistry classroom, fly around his three-dimensional molecular models, and teach wearing a cat suit. Bradley, 38, uses the virtual world of Drexel Island - an e-campus shaped like a dragon, Drexel's mascot. "We chose a dragon shape to distinguish ourselves. No one else has done anything like it," said Bradley. This online Drexel universe - which gets 100 visitors daily - exists in Second Life, a program created by San Francisco-based Linden Labs in late 2003.

Drexel University professor Jean-Claude Bradley can log in from his lab or home and teleport to his organic chemistry classroom, fly around his three-dimensional molecular models, and teach wearing a cat suit. Bradley, 38, uses the virtual world of Drexel Island - an e-campus shaped like a dragon, Drexel's mascot. "We chose a dragon shape to distinguish ourselves. No one else has done anything like it," said Bradley. This online Drexel universe - which gets 100 visitors daily - exists in Second Life, a program created by San Francisco-based Linden Labs in late 2003.

Without realizing it, I wore the same shoes to my divorce proceeding that I'd worn on my wedding day 14 years earlier. "I don't know," I later said to my Aunt Norma. "There must be a poignant message or lesson there somewhere. " "Yeah," she said, pulling on a Newport. "Time to get new shoes. " So I bought a pair and signed on to Match.com. A study from the University of Washington shows that online dating services like Match, eHarmony and Perfectmatch report that their fastest-growing dating population consists of people over 50 years old. This is my cohort now. And cyberspace - not the bars or concert halls - is where we're supposed to find one another, sparking electrons vibrating in the endless ether.