Murphy's Law - A Can of Worms

Some initially simple-looking public affairs issues turn out spawning so many complications that solving them becomes impossible. The Hong Kong Police has just opened a can of worms. Murphy’s Law had said that the only way to stop a can of worms from growing out of control is to have a bigger can.

At first it looked like a simple case of publishing pornography on the internet. Then it turned into a case of theft.

Then it became a conspiracy with overtones of fraud as some photos were supposedly manufactured by superimposing pictures of some starlets on to other people’s naked bodies.

Then it became really complex. Which picture actually was stolen from the hard drive of a computer under repair, which ones were manufactured elsewhere and by whom, and who published which has now become the essence of an increasingly intricate case as nude pictures of starlets popping up all over the internet like leaves in spring.

Tracking them all down and putting events in the right perspectives and sequence is as difficult as finding which leaf first sprouted in Hong Kong this spring.

Hundreds of police hours were spent hunting porn on the net. Nine ‘miscreants’ were arrested, one remanded in custody for 8 weeks. But this is not yet the end of problems.

Meanwhile, some of the pictures were assessed by the Obscene Articles Tribunal and the ones found with the jailed suspect could only be classified as Indecent, not Obscene. The police had charged him before the articles in questions were judicially assessed, so two weeks later, police had to offer no evidence against him and he was released immediately. But he had been jailed for two weeks and deprived of Chinese New Year celebrations.

This is extremely embarrassing. The issue has been transformed from a simple case of pornography or theft into one of use of public resources and of rights to privacy versus other rights. The line between law enforcement and intrusion has become increasingly blurred.

And now, Edison Chen, ‘star’ of the fiasco, surfaced and admitted that the pictures were taken by him, declared ownership of intellectual property and threatened to take action against anyone for reprinting some of the pictures without his permission. The bigger can urgently needed to contain the small can of worms is not yet insight.

However, the moral for the public is simple:
1) Before you send a computer for repair, clean it up or encrypt it first.
2) Don't let boyfriends take compromising pictures or videos of you unless you don't mind them showing up on the internet someday.