OK, I'm going to admit that I'm so far behind the times that when I saw a headline titled "Paris Hilton Sex Romp" I thought... well, yeah, someone had sex at the Hilton in Paris. So what?

I've been corrected. It appears that Paris Hilton is a person who has been videotaped in flagrante. I clarify just in case I'm not the last person on earth to have heard of this. And you can, I'm assured, download the video from the internet.

It struck me that, despite my years of internet knowledge, my professional qualifications, etc., I have no idea how to download the Paris Hilton sex videotape. Frank Rich of the New York Times can do it, and he's a mere reporter. So how can I not manage it?

Google is no help, though a quick google search does suggest that the porn industry is keeping up to date, and that Ms. Hilton ought to sue for royalties from Network Solutions. After all, I doubt she owns http://paris-hilton-sex-tape.com, http://download-paris-hilton-tape.com, http://whatyouhaventdownloadedthetapeyet.com, or any of the other silly things that pop up.

I'm betting if I had Kazaa or something like that, I'd have no problem finding copies of the video, but I don't like the flagrant security holes Kazaa opens up in your machine. And I'm certain I could probably ask around and find someone to burn it to CD for me, but that's horribly low-tech.

Somehow, this makes me feel very old. I'll be the first to admit that as a child of the late 80's, one of the reasons young boys got into the internet was that... well, look, if you knew where to find it, free porn. Of course, there were other reasons to master the intricacies of TELNET, to figure the obscure syntax of FTP, and (here I'm really showing my age) surf between the shoals of WWIV boards. But it was probably the promise of the forbidden and, yes, illegal imagery that inspired the vast majority of pre-web teen explorers to brave low-bandwidth, slow modems, and unreliable information out on the not-yet-so-superhighway.

Now, of course, it's much easier: Google and the Web have made FINGER irrelevant and sent GOPHER back into its hole. I'm sure I could find porn on the internet without much trouble, especially now that I'm old enough to have a credit card. But I don't know how to stop the thousand of pop-up ads from invading my screen. I'm too timid to brave the World Wide Bordello for fear of picking up some spyware or ad-server. For that matter, I'd be worried that the Columbia systems administrators would send me a nasty note asking just exactly what I was doing with their precious bandwidth. In short, I'm too old to find the Paris Hilton sex video, and that, more than any disappointment at not seeing the esteemed heiress unadorned by jewelry, cuts me deeply.