Slashdot Mirror

I agree that the "domain land grab" was very silly. It was all about greed and promised very little in return for the $50,000+ that some companies and individuals paid for their domains.

However, I am compelled to point out that the "mindshare" for which these organizations compete is real. Consider the example of whitehouse.gov vs whitehouse.com. The latter definitely exploited the mindshare of the former in order to grab a larger audience.

Even SlashDot has a piece of your mind.

Every time the tech world comes out with a new toy (e.g. the internet, T.V.), people who barely understand the technology themselves have an incredible desire to regulate it and control it.

The internet is the epitome of free speech; that's it's greatest quality. Anyone can say or show anything that they please. This is what free speech is all about: the expression of thoughts and ideas. I don't understand what is so wrong with this kind of ethos that parents and government officials who know approximately "how to turn on a computer" scream for regulation.

If we regulate the internet, we condemn it to oblivion. This amazing new world which has functioned completely fine by its own, without regulation, suddenly has recieved a surge of the technlogically incompetent. These people, whose internet skills roughly equate to knowing how to click on their AOL buttons, suddenly stumble across something they don't like. "Oh no! That kind of stuff is on the world wide internet world web thing! This is evil and terrible! I must find a way to take it off so that other people aren't exposed to this horrid filth!" Has anyone else noticed that the only people who complain are those who just started using "that web thing"?

Guess what? The internet is the way it is because it came there naturally. Enough people laugh at things on College Humor to allow that website to survive. Enough people look at porn to make it a profitable business. Enough people find Something Awful's Awful Link of the Day stupid enough to keep going every day. The internet isn't THEIR world; it's yours, it's ours, it's everyone's.

These people don't understand that the internet survived simply because it was an unlimited and unrestricted venue of the freedom of speech. They don't understand that voluntary ratings, governmental regulations, emailing with threats to sue, and any other measure won't work due to the decentralized structure of the internet. It won't work because they have no idea how the internet even truly functions. It won't work because they have no idea of the history of the internet, and how it came to be how it is. This is a Good Thing(TM).

When the internet becomes as heavily regulated as T.V., it will be the incarnation of the true evil in this world that keeps showing it's face over and over again: human beings telling other human beings exactly what they can and can't fucking do.

...now he's looking for a few of the million stories in the naked net.

It was a cold, bianary day on the naked net. At least I think the 'net was naked, all the URLs I visit seem to be that way, even the White House. Just pics of girls so hot they'd melt the GLH* off of Ron Popiel. But of course there were also lots of pics of girls so ugly I'd swear my monitor whinced. Pics of guys looking like girls, girls looking like guys; it was obvious to me that the naked net was a dangerous and confusing place to be...

To Be Continued...

*GLH = Great Looking Hair - "Hair in a can" kind of thing

Funny you mention typos and the governement. There is an interesting article just about that on the whitehouse site.

Cheers,

--fred

I think the the President of the USA had a statement on that subject. Check out The White House site: www.whitehouse.com.

Do sex sites have domain names like microsoft.com? As amusing as that would be, the answer is also no.

Good point!

(Seriously, I do agree with you and besides this venerable exception and the oft-mentioned difficulty of getting good clean musical fun after typing "Britney Spears" into a search engine (although lately even the official Britney material is becoming delightfully unclean), there really is no real possibility of confusing porn and non-porn sites. IMO while a .sex domain might theoretically bring some benefits, the potential for censorship of every other tld and the blocking of .sex would be too great if it existed.)

Just check out www.whitehouse.com.

Need I remind you of the domains www.whitehouse.gov and www.whitehouse.com?

2) Web users don't grok it. Let's face it, most Web users think AOL is the Web. They don't know about .gov or .org, they don't even know .mil exists, and if you throw a .ru or a .uk at them, they can't cope.

I bet these are the same people think that www.whitehouse.com is the correct page for the real White House in Washington D.C. instead of www.whitehouse.gov.

2) Web users don't grok it. Let's face it, most Web users think AOL is the Web. They don't know about .gov or .org, they don't even know .mil exists, and if you throw a .ru or a .uk at them, they can't cope.

I bet these are the same people think that www.whitehouse.com is the correct page for the real White House in Washington D.C. instead of www.whitehouse.gov.

God forbid they be used to access forbidden sites like the DNC or like the Whitehouse.

Neiter www.yellowpages.com nor www.yahooo.com are pr0n sites. If you are looking for misleading pr0n sites, there's whitehouse.com. Wait a minute, with all the clinton-lewinsky scandal whitehouse.gov ain't much of a G-rated site either :)...

Wow, I just realized something. This new Slashdot now has smart tags. See those domain names in brackets? I never put those there. You are putting words into my mouth! This is even worse than the damned Smart Tags IE6 wants to use! Slashdot!

Then, all of us armed with the swords will first go get Dimitry freed, then proceed to the whitehouse to make some demands.

I'm with you! Fight for what it's our God-given right to have, even if non-geeks just don't understand! Go OPEN source! Down with monopolistic money-milking!


(Uh, that is .com you're talking about, right?)

Hmm... www.whitehouse.gov seems to have been hacked. It's a porn site!

Kidding, kidding!

According to this article, does that mean the death of sites such as Whitehouse.com?

Will the US Gov't now sue whitehouse.com b/c of whitehouse.gov???

So you can't have a mispelling, but you CAN have a whitehouse.com instead of a whitehouse.gov? (why bother hyperlinking the second?) I fail to see the distinction.

If I have a site describing how dreadful pornography is, I don't want some other twat coming along and linking words to sex sites.

It utterly changes the meaning of the text. I have nothing in particular against pornography or in fact people who hate pornography, i'm just using it as an example.

Oh and don't tell me that trojan/virus writers won't find this xml file to be a fantastic target for exploitation.

How stupid Microsoft are.

If I have a site describing how dreadful pornography is, I don't want some other twat coming along and linking words to sex sites.

It utterly changes the meaning of the text. I have nothing in particular against pornography or in fact people who hate pornography, i'm just using it as an example.

Oh and don't tell me that trojan/virus writers won't find this xml file to be a fantastic target for exploitation.

How stupid Microsoft are.

If you were a smart porn operator, you would. One of the biggest problems the porn industry faces is legislation to "protect the children." If porn were easily filterable, then the protecting the children is easy, and no longer a good reason to persecute the purvayors of porn.

Please explain www.whitehouse.com in the context of your pie-in-the-sky theory.

The porn industry has a (rather large) least-common-denominator segment which will attempt to gain market share using any and all means possible.

The existence of your "smart porn operator" is meaningless in the face of the existence of all the others; ".xxx" or ".sex" only has a use if all porn is there, and that ain't happening.

I can see the pro's and con's for new domains. Obviously the con's have been spoken for by the previous posts so I won't bother posting them again. (waste of time). The Pro's on the other hand is that whenever there is a .com .net .org domain, their easy to find. The average american and others in the world knows those three. You start adding into the mix too many others, you'll never be able to find what you're looking for.

A prime example: a kid in grade school wants to look up the whitehouse for a school project. There's all ready too many domain names, he doesn't know..... he types in http://www.whitehouse.com and WHOA... What do we have here? Little did he/she know that you were supposed to type in http://www.whitehouse.gov. To me, I think that this is wrong. Domains should remain easy and simple to remember.

If they plan on having 118 new domains, then someone out there better find a better way to search then yahoo and google... The web is getting to big to cataloge.
By creating a better searching method, new domains are possible. Until then, keep .com's for commercial, .org's for organizations, .net's for personal, and make one especially for the porn sites... maybe .ooooooh
And then police them. Just because McDonalds is a business and has the rights to a .com name shouldn't mean they should automatically have the rights to a .org name too....

My $.02

http://www.whitehouse.com/. 'Nuff said.

I would in half a heartbeat be happy to not allow porn sites on my system unless they ended in .porn/.xxx.

This is the real problem I have with .xxx. It would quickly become a quasi-legal standard, like the atrocious movie ratings system here in the United States, or those "voluntary" Parental Advisory labels that Tipper Gore made so incredibly important in in the sale and distribution of records here.

Unfortunately, I don't think most people who would like to filter porn have ever spent any time trying to figure out what pornography really is. I certainly have no idea what is "pornographic." Just about everyone would agree that a site like www.whitehouse.com definitely falls under the common definition of pornography. But what about the disgusting site rotten.com? Certainly, it contains a great deal of disgusting stuff that certainly isn't pornography, and some stuff that might be. Where it go?

Or, for a more difficult distinction, what about a site like photo.net? Certainly, there are plenty of photos of naked people there (or, at least, there were the last time I looked, about 5 years ago). Is it pornography? What about a document describing all sorts of disgusting perversions, like The Starr Report? Is that porn? Do we have to protect kids from that?

On an even more omininous tone, how about a totally serious political activism site, that just happens to be a political activism site for disgusting sexual perverts, like The North American Man-Boy Love Association? Where on earth do we put constitutionally protected political speech when that speech is considered the worse form of pornography available by many people?

Filtering already opens a big enough can of worms, even when the criteria for the filtering is (nominally) in the hands of the reciever of the information -- each person browsing theoretically has some chance to decide for themselves what criteria to use for "bad" sites. But to pre-apply the "pornography" criteria to a huge number of sites, and to apply it based on the discretion of people who are neither the content providers or the content consumers, is asking for a system rife with abuses and problems.

And if you believe your narrow definition of pornography is going to be the definition used by all sides when it comes time to start segregating the sites, you should spend some time really listening to what people are saying. No-one is going to be happy with the definition of porn, escpecially in a world where movies like Eyes Wide Cut can be defined as "Adult Only Pornography" by the American standards.

Countries can do whatever they like with their TLDs. That doesn't explain why we should "open up a few more"....

That's exactly what i'm talking about. Countries can do whatever they want, but they really shouldn't. the entire purpose of the TLDs are to seperate the internet into categories. I know someone already mentioned that people get .net's because the .com is already taken. I still think that unless you run your business out of tonga, you shouldn't register a .to. This is EXACTLY why we need more TLDs because .com is too broad, along with and since .org and .net are filling up fast, we need more TLDs to work better. a .gnu would be more that just kr4d 1337. it would make an easy way to get to what you want. www.gnu could have a nice little index page of the free software out there. I think we need to tighten up the domain registration thing. I mean, what would you expect at www.whitehouse.com Certainly not what's there. Same thing with www.com. shouldn't that be something like an official WWW page or an index of Companies online or something? nope, it's the "worlds biggest online music provider." that makes a lot of sense. People try to fool users with misleading domain names, and i think that more TLDs would help curb this practice.
-Superb0wl

Dude! Here's a few URLs that look very similar but have different content:

www.whitehouse.gov
www.whitehouse.net
www.whitehouse.com
www.whitehouse.org

Wonder what that judge would have to say about these.

• For instance, wouldnt it be nice if Network solutions could haul off and revoke all the stupid domain names that point to pr0n? (www.whitehouse.com springs to mind)

Point taken. I agree with what you are saying. On another point, if I were to register a business domain I'd certainly register all the TLDs. Just go to the Whitehouse to see why. On the other hand, the guy using this website sure is capitalizing on it and I can't see any reason why he shouldn't.

Even if I think I can guess the address Google is going to list the real site first. After all I would not want to wind up somewhere like www.whitehouse.com by accident.

Of course that means that I have to trust Google...

Incidentally (slightly OT) speaking of people tracking what you are doing and all that, what is the scoop with @HOME's proxy servers? The only reason that I can see for them wanting you to use their proxy server is to track users. And boy do they go out of the way to force people to use their proxy server!

Cheers,
Ben

No I'm wondering why people get all in arms about people complaining about taxpayer money going to subsidize someone's porn surfing habit at a library.

Second, you've are wondering why taxpayers should support "someone's porn surfing habit at a library." Should taxpayers support research at the public library? I am a children's librarian at a public library. No, we do not use filtering software. Yes, we have an Acceptable Use Policy for patrons wishing to use our Internet terminals. Yes, on occasion someone brings up some porn. However, the majority of our Internet users use the Internet to research homework, to find a job, to check their email, to buy airline tickets, etc. Often, we have middle school students doing health projects for school, in which they are required to learn about various sexually transmitted diseases. While we have books on this topic, kids would rather find the same information on the computer. It's cool. Would they be able to fully research gonorrhea if we used filtering software? I don't think so.

So, what exactly are we using taxpayer money for? To educate. I teach Internet classes to children, teens, and parents to instruct them on how to surf intelligently and safely. You'd be surprised how many people think you can simply type in "www.(your subject).com" and find what you're looking for. It doesn't work like that. You'd be surprise how many people think the address for the Whitehouse website is http://www.whitehouse.com. Most people think that ALL websites end in .com. If you click on the above link, you'll find it has absolutely nothing to do with the US government. Why? Because it's not the Whitehouse website. The Whitehouse website is http://www.whitehouse.gov. Dot gov for government, get it?.

Indeed, when patrons get into porn sites at the library, it's usually by accident because they don't know what they're doing. They take my class, then they know. Hopefully, they also figure out that they make better parents than a computer. Personally, I don't want to put the safety of my child in the hands of a computer. You would let a computer raise your child instead of yourself?

So, what's a better use of taxpayer money? Spending money on filtering software that doesn't work and gives parents a false sense of security? Or educating parents on the dangers of the Internet, educating children and teens how to search intelligently, and encouraging parents to come into the library TOGETHER to surf the web? Personally, I like the idea of parents taking an interest in their child's life and education, don't you? Incidently, while the religious right is in praise of filters, most of the laws dictating that filters must be used in schools and libraries have been written by Democrats (left-wing) who seek to "protect" the masses. The Republicans (right-wing nuts?), who want less government, are generally opposed to them. Me, I'm a Libertarian Librarian, and I damn sure want less government, and I want to be able to make decisions myself, not have them made for me by Bill Clinton, or anyone else. IMHO. One more thing before I go: Yes, there are patrons who purposely look up porn at the library. If I see someone viewing porn, I immediately explain our Acceptable Use Policy, which addresses the issue from a sexual harrassment standpoint. A traditional problem in public libraries has been flashers. Yep, the ones in the trenchcoats that hide in the stacks waiting for some unsuspecting person to come down the aisle looking for a book. If you're viewing porn in a public setting, it's really no different. Often, I don't even have to explain the policy, because the person is usually so embarrassed to be caught by a 29 year-old female, they leave. Oh yeah! The phone companies pay for a good deal of the Internet connections in most public libraries, which means your taxpayer money is NOT being used to support the "bad element."

I agree with the position of the article, and for the most part agree that porn doesn't just pop up when you don't expect it. But there are exceptions.

Probably the #1 porn URL for errant type-ins is whitehouse.com, whose initial page greets surfers with small pictures of topless women in traditional porn poses. This is a site that gets an estimated 60,000 users typing in the URL each day, most of them seeking whitehouse.gov, which gets an estimated 4,000 type-ins a day. (Note that this is type-in traffic only, not link traffic which is larger and presumably better targetted). They go so far as to omit RSAC tags and several other easy voluntary systems for flagging the site as having adult content (they do have one meta tag indicating adult content, but it's an obscure one), and the meta description is also ambiguous as to its nature ("this White House is a heckuva lot more fun than the other White House.").

It's not just about pr0n though. It's the whole censorship thing. For instance, if you allow access to Altavista, kiddies can get access to banned literature. At least I'm guessing it's banned in the Holland Library. Next thing you know, it's showing up in a plain brown wrapper at the unsuspecting parents' house.

Open access can also lead to open research into crime. It's not all pipe bombs. You can actually get pictorial details of RAPE.

There are some arguments to be made in favour of the censorware. For instance, suppose your aging and unindoctrinated grandmother accidentally enters www.whitehouse.com thinking she's checking on the president's latest bout of good work... She's in for a surprise. With NetNanny, CyberSitter, SurfWatch, or CyberPatrol in place, she won't be shocked into cardiac arrrest. (And if she does survive, she'll NEVER get rid of the annoying pop-up windows that show up when you try to close the browser.)

Personally, I'm against censorware in general, but there are arguments to be made for it. Perhaps what's needed is a new dot-xxx domain for outright pron sites... But then who'll decide what is or isn't classified as such...?

- - - -

..how much bandwidth does "educational material" require? If all I needed was educational material I would not have a cable modem. People don't buy broadband because they are having problems with getting to www.whitehouse.gov. They get broadband because they are having problems getting to www.whitehouse.com (i'm assuming everyone knows the difference between those two links). What I'm trying to say here is "What the HELL are you going to use 3MBps on educational material for?" Let people have their bandwidth. Leave us the hell alone.

~Jester

under this argument, the white house(white house dot gov), or President Clinton, could seek an injunction against the porn site that takes advantage of the user forgetting to put .gov instead of .com (link here)

Now, could I also be getting /. in trouble for having a link to a porn site? possibly... if pat buchanan or bush get elected...

I read the article as talking about RTM's attacks on etoys. Which, btw, is really adult. </sarcasm> There are other ways to fight this battle. Etoys is in the wrong. After all, you don't see the government getting an injunction against whitehouse.com, do you? And RTM's actions will just serve to possibly bring more calls for legislation here in the US, more than anything else.

<sarcasm> Thanks guys.</sarcasm>

it has a .com instead of a .gov

Actually the USPS website is available at both http://www.usps.com and http://www.usps.gov, probably to end the possible confusion caused by differing sites like http://www.whitehouse.com and http://www.whitehouse.gov

To reiterate the analogy, I regard much of what comes out of our media outlets as moral poison. It teaches is to regard ourselves and our fellow women and men as no better than objects -- the plots degrade men and women with casuol sex and casual murder.

On the flip side, is there any point to this kind of law? I doubt it. Bluntly, I vote with my dollar. If a media network refuses to show some reasonable restraint in what they show, I REMOVE THAT NETWORK FROM MY HOME.

So, my cable service does not include networks such as Comedy Central, or even the Cartoon Network (do you really want kids to learn behaviour from cow & chicken or southpark?)

I realize that, by doing this I am sacrificing my "freedom" to watch these materials. SO WHAT?!?! I regard this whole "adult material" standard as ludicrous. If something is not healthy for my child to watch, then how on earth is it worth my time? I have better things to do (like read kernel source).

Unfortunately, this approach doesn't work for the net. Instead of 70 or 80 channels, I have millions of websites. None of the filter companies can keep up. So, I have to watch my son every second on the net. Why can't offensive web sites show some responsibility? Why will they not actively label themselves as to their content? I would settle for a standard <porn> tag. That's all I ask!

In a world where my son can legitimately find pornography while looking for the president's home page (www.whitehouse.com) -- that is, where pornography is deliberately disguised as legitimate information and resists all attempts to get them to label themselves -- how can I (even as a freedom lover) argue AGAINST mandatory labeling?

Are you an ISP? Exercise some diligence on the sites on your servers before the government has to!

• I never got paid for Empire! by Billy Dee Williams (Score: 2) Monday, July 19 @10:22 PM EDT
  
• WHITE DEVIL'S CONSPIRACY by Al Sharpton (Score: 1) Monday, July 19 @10:23 PM EDT
• very funny movie by David Duke (Score: 1) Monday, July 19 @10:30 PM EDT
• S&M in Jedi by Carrie Fisher (Score: 3, Erotic) Monday, July 19 @10:31 PM EDT
• It's chilly down here! by Monica Lewinsky (Score: 2) Monday, July 19 @10:32 PM EDT

see www.whitehouse.com

see www.whitehouse.com ;-)

i think that prety good ilustration of MS owning www.linux.com can be found at http://www.whitehouse.com/ :>

"Another site using the name of the residence of the President of the United States provided pornographic material." Why couldn't they just say whitehouse.com? They don't have to link it or anything, but trying to 'hide' the name like that makes it seem like they think their readers are stupid.