In the early 1990s the Internet provided a clunky but usable method of exchanging technical information and files. In those days, command-line tools such as gopher (for file exchange) and eudora (for reading email) provided my interface to the Internet. List servers and news servers distributed messages around the world. Most of the Internet’s domains ended with “.edu”. Most Internet users were helpful and respectful of others in a collegial way that’s found at educational and research institutions. We trusted each other — I didn’t think that criminals with malicious intent would ever plague the Internet. What was missing was commercial content of any sort. As I recall, Mosaic, the first web browser that I used, preceded the opening of the Internet to commercial content.It was the opening of the Internet to commercial traffic that changed everything. Manufacturers shut down their dial-up bulletin boards and opened web sites where they provided tech support. Shopping carts came on-line, average people began to surf the Web, and porn sites appeared the next day.
About the movie (finally!)
A movie will be released on Friday titled Middle Men. I heard George Gallo, its writer and director, interviewed on Doug McIntyre’s Red Eye radio show. Apparently some of the characters are composites of real people, but a few represent real people who did real (if bizarre) things. According to Mr. Gallo, a couple misfits with negotiable ethics wanted to use the Internet to download porn for their own consumption. Then they saw that there was financial opportunity in producing porn. The epiphany came when they realized that they didn’t need to produce any content: they just needed to enable porn transactions and receive a piece of the action. These guys made millions of dollars in no time and stumbled into trouble with truly bad guys, including the Russian mafia.
Details: Internet Movie Database (This movie is rated R in the USA.)
It sounds like a hoot.
Russ' space 