Ah the pitfalls of the Wild West Web

Here's a couple obvious examples of how the World Wide Web remains a Wild West world:

1) On the one hand, I can think of a jillion ways that the resources available online have made covering the news easier. On the other, you can't believe everything someone sends you in an E-mail. (No!)

Apparently that shocker is news to an MSNBC newsgatherer, who caused the network to give credit for the leak about Sarah Palin's Africa continent-vs.-country confusion (Gafferica anyone?) to a clever hoaxer who's snared other journalists in his, um, web of deception. (See "A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence" in the New York Times.)

While it sounds careless, this fake expert is slick, an example of the lengths people will go to to game the news system. (A la Steve Jobs is sick.)

2) Did you know, as the New York Daily News reports, that "Drug dealers are doing a roaring trade on Craigslist?" I am shocked! On Craigslist? No way!

But a solution is at hand that actually makes money for the C'list.

Craigslist, the Daily News reports, could require drug dealers to do the same thing it did to "erotic services" providers so its ads aren't used to procure prostitutes or exploit children: to pay $10 for each listing paid with credit card, providing tracking data cops can then subpoena.

I see a new business model here. Wait. Bad idea. Never mind.