Author Bruce Sterling says the net is a "god-awful mess" with virus writers, spammers and scammers and organised crime wreaking havoc.Author Bruce Sterling says the net is a "god-awful mess" with virus writers, spammers and scammers and organised crime wreaking havoc.Author Bruce Sterling says the net is a "god-awful mess" with virus writers, spammers and scammers and organised crime wreaking havoc.

"This is the birth of a genuine, no-kidding, for-profit ... multinational criminal underworld," he said. "I don't see any way it can't happen. We're going to end up getting pushed around by bands of international electronic thieves in a very similar way to the way we've been pushed around by gangs of international Mafia and international Mujahideen terrorists."

Sterling reckons we need a lot more tech savvy law enforcement forces on the ground and fewer dopey laws created by gesture politics.

I've always liked Sterling. Talks a lot of sense.

Meanwhile the EU are concentrating on introducing more laws to produce a uniform approach to combatting "cybercrime". Sigh. There's no such thing as "cybercrime" just crime. And crime is now facilitated by hi tech tools. We need sufficient numbers of law enforcement people enobled in the art and craft of new technology, not more inappropriate laws.