People and property are safer “than at almost any time since the 1970s”. Last year there were 69 armed robberies of banks, building societies and post offices in England and Wales: in the 1990s there were about 500 a year. Car thefts in New York have dropped from 147,000 in 1990 to fewer than 10,000 in 2012. There are many reasons for this decline: “the West is getting older and most crimes are committed by young men”; better car alarms and other safety measures make it harder to pinch things; DNA databases and CCTV increase the chance of being caught.

But there is also a less reassuring reason: increasingly criminals are migrating to the online world and crimes like credit card fraud “As policing adapts to the technological age, it’s as well to recall that criminals are doing so, too.”(The Economist, reported by The week 26 July 2013)

The internet, once the miracle of the age, is becoming something we have to be extremely wary of, children and teenagers especially. Every crook, hustler and pervert seems to be looking over your shoulder, trying to steal or bully.
Epicureans should spend more time in the Garden and less on the web. That applies to the writer of this blog, too!