Web art criminalized

/ web / police / halfwits /
The thing really buzzing in the greek blogosphere today is the arrest of web artist Dimitrios Fotiou, on charges of internet fraud, due to a website which he put up (as a web art project as he stealthily but clearly explained linking to his personal website - a sure sign of a con man eh?) titled dirty-works greece (the site has exceeded its monthly traffic allowance already due to all the fuss), which supposedly could, for the right price, find you a job in Greeces corrupt public sector, or indeed in its private sector as well. The thing was pretty damn obviously a spoof, lampooning corruption and favouritism in Greece. His sin, though, was to include a seemingly real credit card submission page (google cached here), which the technophobic press (and that's most of the Greek press unforunately) took seriously despite the fact that (as a quick look at the cached page's source can easily demonstrate) it submits nothing at all...

For more information: Academia Nervosa has a much more thorough take on the story.

We're all waiting to see how this thing plays along, given the fact that the press reports had sarcastic comments about "his art project" and the fact that the Greek cybercops are very obviously clueless. I wont be surprised if I'm back with a petition to support the imprisoned artist in a week, especially given the tradition of web-related idiocy the country is establishing.

Update 15/02/05: kathimerini misses the whole point too. Wow, this is becoming quite telling in regard to the complete lack of the slightest web savvy among greek journalists in general...
Update II: Kathimerini finally gets a clue...
Update III: Anatomy of Melancholy provides the story's background.