Beginning of Essay
Cyberspace was once a place inhabited largely by government agencies and academics linked together through a decentralized collection of computer networks that came to be known as the "Internet." The late 1980s and early 1990s gave birth to a torrent of commerci ....

Middle of Essay
.... "new mass information market."4 Today investors are in danger of being taken for a ride on the cyberspace. State securities regulators around the U.S. are concerned about the explosion of illicit investment schemes now flourishing on commercial bulletin board services and the informal web of computer networks that make up the Internet. An estimated four million U.S. households that already have access to the major online services are being exposed to hundreds of fraudulent and abusive investment schemes, including stock manipulations, pyramid scams and Ponzi schemes.5 The online frontiers are aware of some of the major rip-off techniques now in us ....