But the Net is no longer a territory colonised only by those brilliant idealists who created it. More and more, what happens on the Internet erupts into the physical world and affects real people - for good and ill. People meet over the Net.
Criminals use it to evade the law.
The debates taking place in this country and elsewhere in Europe and in international forums such as the OECD are being seen by some as a battleground between the individual and the State. They fear that the Net's success is creating a familiar itch in governments for control. More likely we will see the real problems and conflicts of the non-virtual world seeping into cyberspace as use spreads. Reports in America suggest that fraud cases on the Net quintupled last year. The posting of MI6 agents' names on the Internet this week, dangerous to individuals and damaging to British interests, illustrates the problems governments can face.