I read nonfiction and history books at the exclusion of others, technical, fiction, etc. almost to a fault. Someone previously mentioned the idea of tracking "undesirable" books such as Mein Kampf. I've contemplating reading the original text, but in my stuffy little world I don't want to add fuel to fire, I suppose in some little corner of Washington, there's a file with my name on it... :w00t:

Seriously, there is, and I don't need anything additional in there.

But all that pales in comparison to what I think is a much larger problem. Let's suppose one day someone gets the idea that group X way back in history is being unfairly targeted/tarnished/exposed/whatever... I think it would be a much easier task to have someone go out and creatively edit a "file". In this case, the file is distributed across everyone's electronic version.

For example. Let's suppose Da Man didn't like the exposure of certain elements of the Imperial Japanese Army and their conduct during the occupation of the Philippines. Wouldn't it be so much easier to simply edit a few paragraphs, delete a page or two, "lose" a picture, etc then to go in actually accept that some people did some horrible things? I'm sure there are a bunch of Germans wishing they had thought of that...

I think the potential for revisionist history is a very near, and very grave danger. For the SW Geeks in the crowd, wasn't there a certain little creep that erased a planet's history/placement in the archives? And it was that other green muppet that cleared up the issue for Obi Wan? There aren't any green muppets here, but there are plenty of creeps who might want to hide something.