FIRE STORM ON THE COMPUTER NETS

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More damaging to Rimm are two books that he wrote, excerpts of which have begun to circulate on the Internet. One is a salacious privately published novel, An American Playground, based on his experience with casinos. The other, also privately published, is titled The Pornographer's Handbook: How to Exploit Women, Dupe Men & Make Lots of Money. Rimm says it's a satire; others saw it offering practical advice to adult-bulletin-board operators about how to market pornographic images effectively.

Neither Carnegie Mellon nor the Georgetown Law Journal has officially backed away from the study (it was allegedly placed by a Journal editor who is an antiporn crusader; the university is also forming an investigative committee). Rimm's faculty adviser, Marvin Sirbu, a professor of engineering and public policy, continues to support him, saying the research has been deliberately mischaracterized by people with a political agenda. But Sirbu himself has been attacked by Carnegie Mellon colleagues for not properly supervising his student and for helping him secretly gather data about the pornography-viewing habits of the university's students. Meanwhile, some of the researchers listed as part of Rimm's "team" now say their involvement was minimal; at least one of them had asked Rimm to remove his name.

As a rule, computer-wise citizens of cyberspace tend to be strong civil libertarians and First Amendment absolutists. Some clearly believe that Time, by publicizing the Rimm study, was contributing to a mood of popular hysteria, sparked by the Christian Coalition and other radical-right groups, that might lead to a crackdown. It would be a shame, however, if the damaging flaws in Rimm's study obscured the larger and more important debate about hard-core porn on the Internet.

--Reported by William Dowell/New York