Vigilance on the frontier

The New York Times looks at the phenomenon of online vigilantism and finds that frontier justice in cyberspace may not be such a good thing.

Part of this do-it-yourself approach to justice flows directly from the same quality of online life that makes bad behavior so easy to pull off: anonymity. That's something that Internet advocates on both sides of the law jealously guard from regulation. "Historically and currently, anonymity is part of how constitutional democracies are supposed to operate," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, "and it would be bizarre to say, 'Oops! Can't do that any more.' "

But even more broadly, the appeal of online vigilantism stems from the persistent sense that the Internet remains a very Wild West kind of place.

And from a general belief that existing law enforcement agencies and key corporate players (i.e., Microsoft) aren't doing enough to keep hackers, spammers, scammers and pedophiles -- the main targets of cyber-vigilantes -- under control.