That it could take you to the doorstep of any inhabitant of any country around the world. You've just imagined the Internet. We cannot imagine how our children's lives will be changed by the infobahn. And they won't be able to imagine what we did without it. Everything about the Internet today is news.
People write dirty stories all the time.
His mistake was to do so on the Internet. Had Baker stuck to traditional publishing and written a novel or just sent off a letter to Forum he would've found life a lot simpler and might've even made some money in the deal. Now he's out on bail, is forbidden to go back to college or speak to his friends on the Internet, and needs to prepare for his trial. It means that a lot of people, including the people who enforce our laws, have no idea what to do with the Internet. The Internet is as alien to the older generation as the drug subculture was to the older generation of the sixties.