EDITORIAL\Don't fight the Net\Government restrictions on what's allowed in cyberspace is a misguided\idea.

NO matter how noble their intentions, those in Congress and elsewhere who attempt to block sexually explicit material from the Internet - the international web of computer networks - would have as much luck trying to halt the ocean tides.

The unregulated and highly decentralized nature of the Net helps explain its popularity. But it also means that censoring cyberspace is a virtual impossibility - despite provisions in the pending telecommunications bill, which call for restricting free speech through the Internet.

Whether or not anyone likes it, the Internet has no editor-in-chief or other top boss to approve information posted on-line. There are no regulators, no hierarchy and no political borders in cyberspace.

As a result, a keystone cops scenario occurred recently after prosecutors in Germany cautioned CompuServe that its German customers were using the on-line service to receive access to more than 200 on-line sex discussion groups. This is in violation of German law.

CompuServe reacted by temporarily shutting down direct access to those discussion groups, which are also known as newsgroups or bulletin boards. (Because of limits in its technology, the company's blockade extends to millions of customers worldwide, not just those in Germany.)

However, it is significant that neither CompuServe nor the German authorities permanently disabled the offending newsgroups. They remain fully active and, ironically, are still accessible to computer users in Germany and the rest of CompuServe's subscribers worldwide.

All that those customers have to do is use CompuServe (or another service) to dial up another computer anywhere in the world and instruct the second computer to link up to the "banned" newsgroups.

Such decentralization and multinetworking capability give the Internet a large degree of immunity from the sorts of governmental constraints that have been possible when dealing with the print and broadcasting media.

So, rather than aiming for heavy-handed patrolling of cyberspace, law enforcement authorities would be smarter to use tools already at hand - such as laws against child pornography - in prosecuting those who produce obscene material or knowingly make it available to juveniles.

In that regard, CompuServe and the other commercial on-line companies already have shown a willingness to restrict the range of access available to children, and to censor indecent language from the information services the companies do control.

Also, devices are available (and software is being developed) to block out material deemed unsuitable for children. But those measures are effective only on individual computers - not the Internet at large.

Such an approach is ideal. Under parental supervision, those measures can restrict the material available to children without interfering with adult Americans' right to free expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment. And they would spare the on-line world any more of the futility underway in Germany.