I referred to Tom Standage's book The Victorian Internet two and a half years ago. That particular reference was basically no more than a passing remark - a lead-in to the assertion that new technologies bring with them new opportunities for scams. But scams weren't, of course, the only developments that the telegraph afforded. Standage found numerous other parallels between the way the telegraph was perceived in its day and the way the internet is perceived in ours. What's most enjoyable about his book (to my mind at least) is the realization that something we thought of as original in our age actually had an almost identical counterpart back then, be it long-distance gaming, the quest for world peace, or romantic relationships that flourished over the wires. It would seem that Koleleth was right.