One day I was running late for my ethics class and realized I was missing a few pieces of information for a lecture I was about to give on social mores. On the way to the auditorium I visited a colleague's office to ask if he could do a quick Internet search for me on Puritanical influences on mass media. With a printout or two, I figured, I could refresh my memory and wing it in class.

"Sure," he said. At the time he was working on a text document. He minimized that screen only to reveal thumbnail images of naked women in sexual poses. I was looking for a Bay Colony and got a nudist one.

In all honesty the images might have popped up unintentionally. It happens. Porn operators routinely purchase domains whose registration has lapsed, boosting traffic on their sites. Then they offer to resell the URLs to former owners, a practice known as "porn napping." (For more information on the subject, visit the Online Internet Institute.)

I myself have been a victim of porn napping. One of my publishers allowed his domain to expire without notifying authors that the address had been napped. I had linked to the site via my home page, blithely directing students, teachers, and visitors to the link to read about family values.

In any case my colleague and I gawked at the women on his monitor. He seemed genuinely puzzled. He exited the site and another X-rated seductress popped up on his monitor. "What's she doing there?" he said and then navigated finally to the search engine. He turned and faced me. "What was it again that you wanted to know?"

"Puritanical influences on media," I repeated hurriedly.

My colleague frowned, uncertain whether my remark was a genuine query or a snide quip.

Read the rest