Thanks to the Internet, extroverts have a venue to demonstrate their talents. And that should not disturb anybody, unless things are exhibited that should be kept for private viewing.

Point not taken? Consider this. It's the story of a young Norwegian, identified only as a man in his early 20s, who posted a video called "Driving in Norway" on the website youtube.com.

The recording showed the car's speedometer hitting 240 kilometres per hour on a public highway.

Over the video, which the driver removed from the website after it made national news in Norway last week, a voice could be heard saying: "We're touching 240. We know it'll do it. This is fairly nice."

That's quite a lick, given that even on Formula 1 circuits, they only manage 300kph.

The car, a Skoda Octavia, hit its high on the E-18, near Oslo. The top speed limit in Norway is 100kph, and lower on most roads.

Obviously the young man did not rate the police as likely to be among his audience.

But the police are indeed in cyberspace these days. They trailed him on the Internet, caught him and slapped a real-life fine of 8,500 kroner (Bt50,000) on him.

"It's disturbing that young people test high speeds on highways like that and then on top of it use the Net to boast about their misdeeds," said Morten Hassel of the local police traffic unit.

Yet if the young man had not wanted to show the world how cool he was, he would not have been caught. At least now he knows even the Internet can be a double-edged sword.

achara_d@nationgroup.com