Miasma theory - wrong in the 1840s, wrong now

My generation draws the Internet as a cloud that connects everyone; the younger generation experiences it as oxygen that supports their digital lives. The old generation sees this as a poisonous gas that has leaked out of their pipes, and they want to seal it up again.

Bill Thompson and Nick Carr are worried about governments interfering too:

In the real world national borders, commercial rivalries and political imperatives all come into play, turning the cloud into a miasma as heavy with menace as the fog over the Grimpen Mire that concealed the Hound of the Baskervilles in Arthur Conan Doyle's story.

Except, if you have read or listened to Steven Johnson's excellent The Ghost Map, you'll know that the miasma theory of disease was a fatal error for urban England in the 1840s - the real problem was not the bad smells in the air, but the diseases in the water. The fault, dear governments, lies not in our clouds but in your pipes.