ABSTRACT

Deviant ingenuity is the dark side of human resourcefulness. Crime once took skill, but now it often relies on clever misuse of everyday objects. Until September 11 the humble box cutter was the Yankee counterpart of the Swiss Army knife: rugged, versatile, curved for a powerful grip, the master key to our corrugated-clad cornucopia. The honest screwdriver is a basic part of the criminal repertory, standard in burglary and, in the view of the 1980s New York subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz, even armed robbery. In the United States, antisocial kids prime the Super Soaker, a steroidal squirt gun that would otherwise be the height of youthful hilarity, with bleach solution instead of water. The war on terrorism has turned these annoyances into matters of life and death. The Internet is only one of many channels; technological changes from dry-process photocopying to inexpensive fax and long-distance telephone service have also sped the flow of knowledge.