The tendency for oppression to waste resources. Derives from the observation that erasing a banned public file does not destroy the information, but merely creates an uncountable number of private copies. It was first diagnosed in September 1984, when the BYTE8406 forum was removed from the IBMPC Conference.We’re seeing a worldwide example of this at the moment, with various Muslim protesters and even the cartoonists who drew them attempting to suppress publication of some cartoons that appeared in Jyllands-Posten, a newspaper in Jutland in Denmark.
One result has been copies of the cartoons have already appeared in other newspapers in multiple countries, plus a compendium of representations of Mohammed across the ages. On the Internet, the uncountable number of additional copies aren’t just private: many of them are public. Continue reading