Here is the link (pdf format), and a good summary quote of what the article talks about. I think this is an area that will become increasing more difficult to control in the future. Technological change is inevitable, and organized and un-organized crime have the resources, and in many cases the intelligence, to use it to their advantage.

“This article examines the monetary control scheme being considered by Congress, and the possible consequences of using it as a method of enforcing a prohibition on Internet gambling. To this end, the article identifies related issues involved in Internet gambling, money laundering, and the emergent technology of electronic money. This article will seek to show that the current proposal pending in Congress to ban the use of credit cards and other payment systems as a means of preventing Internet gambling will not only fail to achieve its intended result, but may in fact unleash market forces that could have vast and unintended consequences–including the promotion of both Internet gambling and money laundering.”

Here is a very interesting (albeit dated) article about a northwestern Ontario gold mine called Red Lake.
The mining community was flabbergasted when Rob McEwen, chairman and CEO of Goldcorp Inc., based in Toronto., triggered an internet-age gold rush by issuing an extraordinary challenge to the world’s geologists:

We’ll show you all of our data on the Red Lake mine online if you tell us where we’re likely to find the next 6 million ounces of gold. The prize: a total of $575,000, with a top award of $105,000.

To find out if this risky business decision paid off I suggest reading the entire article.

The city of Alexandria played host to the renowned Italian novelist and scholar Umberto Eco, who gave this lecture on November 1, 2003.

“We have three types of memory. The first one is organic, which is the memory made of flesh and blood and the one administrated by our brain. The second is mineral, and in this sense mankind has known two kinds of mineral memory: millennia ago, this was the memory represented by clay tablets and obelisks, pretty well known in this country, on which people carved their texts. However, this second type is also the electronic memory of today’s computers, based upon silicon. We have also known another kind of memory, the vegetal one, the one represented by the first papyruses, again well known in this country, and then on books, made of paper.”

He argues books will continue to exist well into the future and continue to play an important role in our lives.