October
27
Actually, there are precious few things that can't be used in the commission of a crime, some less successfully than others, as innovative scofflaws through the ages have demonstrated. And there are even new crimes invented to take advantage of new technologies. For instance, someone made the first obscene telephone call. Think of that! There was no precursor of the obscene phone call unless you count writing an obscene anonymous letter, which would certainly lack the spontaneity and the participatory nature of the obscene phone call. How about the first counterfeit money? It was very difficult to make counterfeit seashells or sheep or anything else that was legal tender until we had actual money, either coins or bills. But as soon as those things came along, someone thought up counterfeiting. I have no idea what the first computer crime was, but almost the second that there was an Information Superhighway, there were people ripping off their clothes and yelling and screaming and jumping up and down on all the overpasses. And of course there is/was Jennycam, the first for-profit cyberexhibitionist. I'll bet her parents are proud. Now, as for the title of this essay, I don't know if you can make a bomb in a blender. You CAN make very good mayonnaise, though:
On
to October 28
|
This
is a picture of a 1901 De Dion Bouton gasoline automobile. Since it
wasn't the only automobile being manufactured in France at the time,
I cannot be sure that it was this vehicle that was the first car ever
used for a robbery getaway, but the first one looked like it, more
or less, as it "sped" away from the Parisian scene of the
crime on this day in 1901. The perpetrators must be given credit for
this novel use of a new technology.
