Hamilton, New Zealand.
8-Aug-1995
A Hamilton (New Zealand) Analyst Programmer, Simon Travaglia, was caught last week baking a cake from a recipe he found 'On the Internet..'. Police were called in when neighbours became suspicious about 'bakery smells' wafting into their homes from Travaglia's residence. Police noted that Travaglia had in his posession sophisticated cake-baking apparatus including an oven and several professionally crafted spatulas, which, if used properly, could have produced 10 or more cakes in a single day.
Police also found a stockpile of cakes, including several banana cakes, two chocolate cakes, and a self-saucing pudding. At the time of his arrest, Mr Travaglia was apparently in the process of making several scones which were appeared destined to be stored in 'scone-caches' around the city. The Police also found was a larder full of ingredients with an estimated street value of several dollars.
Experts who examined one cake surmised that it had an estimated yield of "8 slices, possibly 10 if you cut it up thinner".
A well-known member of parliament has renewed his calls for censorship of "Usenet News" groups which distribute such material. He says: "We are faced with a situation whereby school-age-children, without the knowledge of their parents, can download recipes by the dozen, and store them in encrypted form on the computer. Parents cannot be expected to Police this information, and it is time legislation was put into place to prevent the distribution of these recipes and punish those responsible for attempting it."
When it was pointed out that several similar recipes were available at many public libraries, the Minister indicated that libraries were in a position to control access to these books both by placing them in prominent places under the watchful eyes of library staff and also on the top shelves of book stacks. He similarly refuted claims that cakes such as the ones found could be made by any third year cookery student.
"These cakes" he said "were not made by trial and error. I have been assured by experts that the icing on the top of the chocolate cake in particular was applied by a practised hand. If this information is out there, it will be found and used, and it's obvious that the Internet has NO conscience when it comes to the distribution of sweet foods. We must act, and we must act now!"
Meantime the Police have confirmed that despite all attempts to the contrary, three of the seized cakes had 'gone off'. On this occasion, no-one was seriously injured, although one officer was taken to sick bay with 'a sore tummy'.
spt@waikato.ac.nz