Technology abuse

When pondering the future, it is easy to paint all positive pictures... but as futurologists we are always conscious that every technology developed for positive reasons will likely be used by some people for less desirable purposes.  There are many examples of this already, never mind the future.  In the BBC news today was an article about cyber-bullying guidelines being produced in the Czech Republic.  I myself was involved with the production of similar guidance over a year ago for the education sector in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Guidelines themselves don't prevent bad things happening, but they do bring to public attention the issues that should be addressed and not swept under the carpet.  Such guidelines are relatively simple to construct retrospectively.  It is more of a challenge to predict in advance what will be helpful for technologies which are yet to be developed or become mainstream.