Web art criminalized
/ web / police / halfwits /The thing
really buzzing in the greek blogosphere today is the arrest of web artist
Dimitrios Fotiou, on charges of
internet fraud, due to a website which he put up (as a web art project as he
stealthily but clearly explained linking to his personal website - a sure sign
of a con man eh?) titled
dirty-works greece (the site has
exceeded its monthly traffic allowance already due to all the fuss), which
supposedly could, for the right price, find you a job in Greeces corrupt public
sector, or indeed in its private sector as well. The thing was pretty damn
obviously a spoof, lampooning corruption and favouritism in Greece. His sin,
though, was to include a seemingly real credit card submission page (
google
cached here), which the technophobic press (and that's most of the Greek
press unforunately) took seriously despite the fact that (as a quick look at the
cached page's source can easily demonstrate) it submits nothing at
all...
For more information:
Academia Nervosa has a much more thorough take on the story.
We're all waiting to see how this thing plays along, given the fact that
the press reports had sarcastic comments about "his art project" and the fact
that the Greek cybercops are very obviously clueless. I wont be surprised if I'm
back with a petition to support the imprisoned artist in a week, especially
given
the tradition of web-related idiocy the country is
establishing.
Update
15/02/05:
kathimerini
misses the whole point too. Wow, this is becoming quite telling in regard to
the complete lack of the slightest web savvy among greek journalists in
general...
Update II: Kathimerini
finally
gets a clue...
Update
III:
Anatomy of Melancholy provides the story's background.
