Why do folks do such stupid things, given the explicit warnings and inevitability of the consequences (jail)?

Answer
I don't know about you, but those people made me ashamed to be South African (only for a moment!). I wondered if the target there was South Africa ? set up yet again for the insults of people who don't think our country has progressed in recent years and who don't care if we are brought down in the eyes of the world.

Obviously, there is a link: fear itself. The events of September 11 have continued to draw the "global village" into a spiral of fear, because it is clear that terrorist groups have the ability and will to do things previously unimaginable.

Now that it has happened, we can imagine what it might be like to be on a plane bound for a fiery death, to be in an office building that burns and collapses.

We did imagine it. We felt those things in our own souls and will never forget.

If you get off on other people's fear, if that "knowing spectator" role over other people's anxiety or whatever they do to stay safe makes you feel powerful and clever, then perhaps it's irresistible to join in.

The thing about September 11, and the biological attacks, is that they have imbued very ordinary, taken for granted things ? a domestic plane flight, a box-cutter, a letter from an unknown source, a bit of white coffee creamer ? with a sinister aura.

And people DON'T think they'll be caught, just like computer hackers who have a similar mentality.

It's the same cocktail of motivation that gets children to ring doorbells and run away ? only with a twist of nastiness and an umbrella of antisocial hostility that's far from amusing.

We don't want to think that some people have removed themselves from compassion or from unifying against the common threat, but they have. In a way, the terrorists and the people who set up hoaxes are after the same objective: power.

It makes them feel powerful to see others inconvenienced, having to change their routines, scared, suffering in some way. They do it, because they can, because they have the imagination to fantasise about it, but not to perceive their actions through the eyes of others, including the authorities.

They probably don't even have the imagination to visualise getting caught, even though working in IT as was the case with the Sanlam people, they certainly should have known better. It's the ultimate cheap thrill...

Unfortunately, it isn't always easy to catch a hoaxer, since not all of them leave a trail. Certainly, those who are caught should face stiff penalties; I'd like to see the consequence fit the action in some way. Perhaps they could join the queue of "volunteers" for action alongside the Taliban?

After the tragedy of September 11, Shimon Peres of Israel said that we are vulnerable to terror, because of our sophistication and not in spite of it. It is because we depend on electronic communications, trade through central exchanges, travel frequently across the country and the globe by air that we are available to be terrorised.

Unless we are prepared to give up these things (which seems most unlikely), it looks as though we are going to have to get used to the way certain people abuse the situation for their own ends.

Stiff penalties might deter, but aren't likely to stop it completely.