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Mandated Mediocrity
My favorite block was the Traditional Values Coalition. Can I say "you reap what you sow" or would that just be rude?
In other news:
(an unrelated) Coalition To Promote Voluntary Net Filtering, Standards
"A new coalition of high-tech companies and industry groups is hoping to shift the focus of the national debate over Internet filtering by promoting the value of filtering software as an exclusively voluntary parental tool. ... the Committee on Internet Management and Safety will tout the value of filtering products while at the same time opposing legally mandated filtering."
Did they say "exclusively voluntary"? Good on 'em! Let's have a real debate about the value of this software, so that people can make up their own minds rather than having the government decide what's best for our schools and libraries. A level playing field would be a lot better than what we have now.
I'm a student at a school that has BESS as our filter, and I have to say it sucks. It does not see the difference between porn sites, and sites that have no reason for being blocked. In fact, it even lets some porn sites through, while restricting viewing to educational sites.
It can't block the porn, but it can keep those awful psychopathic, raving, criminal politicians away from the kids. Way to go!
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
I always thought it would be easier to have a portal like Yahoo create a white list, rather than try to delete all of the stuff that is not good. Or how about a .kids for stuff that is ok for kids??
Mark
This is a pretty empty article. Jamie asserts that three websites were blocked by N2H2. We all know censorware doesn't work, so what is the point of this article?
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E_NOSIG
I can't see censorware ever working worth a crap, so let's investigate some more reasonable alternatives.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
If we filter EVERYTHING then no one will see anything offensive. after all, that is the only way we can filter everything that will be offensive to anyone. Remember the southpark episode?
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
Posted by polar_bear:
.xxx or maybe .N17 - then filtering programs become unnecessary - you just set browsers not to allow those sites...
I wonder if someone could make a case for this being a violation of First Amendment rights? If the filters specifically block political speech, the most protected of all varieties of speech, and they are mandated by the government then would that in fact be a violation of right to political speech? I'm not sure. They might be able to make a case for saying that they're letting you say what you want, but that no one has a right to LISTEN to your speech, you just have a right to say it. But, if the government is specifically blocking the content... Hmmm. I see an interesting legal case should anyone care to make it.
This may be on shaky ground in K-12, but if public libraries are being required to use the same software then that's restricting adults from the same content... could be a different story.
As I've mentioned in earlier Slashdot posts, the most simple and elegant solution I've been able to think of is to require porn sites or sites with adult content to have different TDLs like
They do this at my kid's school, first, I'll find out what software they're using. Then, in the privacy of my home network, I'll sit down with my 12-year-old and we'll figure out how to break it.
k-12 student
meaning a gradeschool student who is between, or at the grade levels of kindergarten(lowest) and 12th (highest)
traditionally associated with public schools
I quote my sourceS: 2600 Magazine
Obtain the IP address of the server you are attempting to connect to (through networksolutions whois if you wish). Then, take the individual octets and convert them to their binary equivalent (make sure to pad them with leading zeros to get the full 8 digits). Next string the binary numbers together and convert that (I suggest scientific calculator) to base 10 (decimal). Then you can just take that number, and go to http://thatnumber.
WalkThrough
www.2600.com
207.99.30.230
207 01100111
99 01100011
30 00011110
230 11100110
11001111011000110001111011100110(base 2)
equals 3479379686 (base 10)
http://3479379686 to get to 2600.com
I'm 15 years old and attend a public high school here in suburban Denver. We surf through the Bess proxy which has blocked articles from Wired [the infamous Courtney Love speech], Salon [these articles are "constantly changing" and often include "sexual content." In my opinion, we go out in the hallways and hear far worse.], and even /. [some quickies have been blocked]. Luckily, the sysadmin isn't the brightest guy. A few other /.ers at the school and I have edited netscape.cfg so we could change the proxy at will. Bess involves censorship of unpopular ideas and must be stopped immediately.
Second. Library's should NEVER be a place for censorship. At our local library they have initiated a novel idea. Two computer rooms. One with a person sitting all day making sure porn isn't on the screen of some kiddie, one with no monitor. You MUST be 18+ to go in the room without a monitor, just like you do if you want to buy the latest issue of "The Worlds Biggest Titties".
You can NOT legislate common sense. It is common sense a 10 year old should NOT be looking at porn. But you know what, what I was 10 I had a Penthouse collection. If you put filters on every PC on the planet, kids will still have access to porn, just like I did before the Brens-Lee changed the world.
Parents, sit with your children and talk to them. You might be surprise just how cool of a person they really are.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Aren't there certain technical limitations that need to be overcome for this stuff to work correctly. Such as the interpretation of words in the context they are being used in.
In the "Second Amendment" site linked above, it sees the words militia, violent and gun. The software would need to not just search for instances of those words, but identify their meaning in the sentance.
I don't support filters. It may be a halfway decent idea but it's poorly implemented. Besides, there could be better ways, such as site ratings in the http header. And don't get on my case for trying to regulate anything, I just think the idea of filters reading a site to determine if it needs to be rejected is stupid. We all know that software running on a clients machine can't handle the task of simulating a human's eyes.
The only practical purpose I can see for a filter, is not to reject sites, but to possibly remove certain bad words from text, or deny a site based on a bad word being in the url.
This seems to be especially aparrent in the US, where there's very little middle ground. A good example is the war on drugs which is so histerically fought because of the reefer madness (whatever that is).
Now, the problem of course is that the lowest common denominator has to be found, which indeed is pretty low. But of course kids have to be spared by discussions about female breasts, the responsible application of recreational drugs or opinions that are not quite politically correct.
Censorship stinks it's that easy. There is always somebody who decides what crosses the line and what not. More often then not those blokes have a very different opinion then me.
I'm reluctant to admit that censorship (or editorial filtering if you wish) is acceptable with a newspaper (while the publisher influencing the editor is most definitely not). But a newspaper is a private entity. I don't like what they print, I don't buy it.
The net is very different and nobody should have a right to decide what's good for me.
Not too long ago the same thing happened and was expressed in book burnings. It was a time when Europe (and a lot of the world) was shrouded in deep black. It was a bad time fueling the hateful, the fearful and the fanatics. I don't ever want to see history repeat itself in this context.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I'm in a Miami-Dade (florida) school, and I can't get to Slashdot. Maybe because it's a discussion site, or maybe because it encourages non-Microsoft OSes. Either way, I'm forced to use one of the various anonymizers (although the majority of them are blocked). With the help of Google's Browser Buttons, and a little perl script on my server, I've got my alternate address box - which provides uncensored access to the web.
Bess really sucks because it tries to be user friendly. N2H2: Why don't you stop patronizing me and just state it up-front that you censor the web! Why should I not be able to discuss ideas on web-bulliten boards? Why should I not be able to read about medical conditions? Why should I be subjected to censorship when I am a Senior, and over 18 years old?
-------
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
I find it interesting that there is this constant repeat of raging over censorware, yet I have heard very little about Apple's Kidsafe program. See their press release. ;)
I find this to be a much more intelligent way to implement "safe" viewing. By having teachers and other educational professionals approve sites. That way you can have children be able to read sites that have things like penis, quake, and republicans on them.
I think it qualifies as a much better way to have "approved" content for children. It also allows libraries etc the ability to keep out pr0n sites and other such objectionable material.
All in all... why try to filter content, when you can simply approve sites that show acceptable content.
Maybe MS will provide us with a solution. Maybe when it finds a bad site, it will take you to a special screen. Perhaps a single bright color that will get your attention. With a little message in the middle of the screen.
u by
%"Y452HG4G534535634tg3rve54$YNQ#%UYq3yq/3oyQ#%Yq3
; Whoops, sorry about that, I guess they already implemented that feature.
What are the alternatives to content filtering? Aside from leaving the Net out of the classroom, I don't know that there currently exists any decent solution. As the Net grows, and perhaps eventually replaces TV as the dominant media, cutting children off from news, from "the discussion" so to speak, will lead to dumber children, children less inclined to care about society, it's ills, and so forth.
Is there a decent alternative? Yes, content filtering doesn't work. But we need something in place. I don't think anyone can honestly say that kids have a right to view hardcore porn in the classroom. Still, I'm not so sure how to deal with "hate groups". Those groups do have a right to their opinion, and do have a right to try and encourage people to join their ranks, at least as far as the US is concerned.
Suggestions are welcome at your local school board office.
I think this may be preaching to the choir here, but this is my take. I'd love to hear any other refinements of this brief rant aimed at those less familiar with the concepts.
[stock rant on the subject]
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of sXXXch, or the right of the people peaceably to XXXemble, and to peXXXion the government for a redress of grievances.
[end of stock rant on the subject]
[
"Obtuse Anger is that which is greater than Right Anger" - Lewis Carroll
Once upon a time I had a great professor (Yale Patt) who made it his business to bring up "unmentionable" subjects in class. His rationale:
If I tell a student "we don't say that here," that's all they learn. That they can't say whatever offensive thing in public. I've done nothing to combat the idea itself. On the other hand, if I drag that weird, racist, crazed idea out into the light and subject it to the same sort of scrutiny to which everything else in this room is subject, the student might actually learn something about the validity of his prejudices.
All we accomplish by censorship is to teach perverts, racists, bigots, and other morons to keep quiet. Unless we can talk about an idea, we can't disprove it.
Out of curiosity, is anyone here actually supporting censorship?
So far, the Internet has turned out to be:
- Commercial marketing material
- Everything you wanted to know and more about the PC industry
- Up-to-the-second news; email
- Lots of profitibility-or-bust e-commerce sites
- Innumerable personal interest pages
- Acadamia and research
- General entertainment
- Adult content
Of the above items, the only two that I think would be useful for a grade- or high-school student would be the news and academic research. And how is accessing this information via the Internet better than picking up the newspaper or research journal?I agree that filtering software shouldn't be installed at schools and libraries. What libraries and shools need isn't a filter, it's a brick wall. Dissalow all Internet access except for what public schools and libraries are supposed to be used for: academic and intellectual amaterial. All commercial, personal and adult content should be forbidden.
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
xdata.org/ip.html. Just type in the domain name, and off you go. The output for slashdot.org, for example, is:
Decimal
8/8/8/8-bit. http://64.28.67.48
8/8/16-bit.. http://64.28.17200
8/24-bit.... http://64.1852208
32-bit...... http://1075594032
Octal
8/8/8/8-bit. http://0100.034.0103.060
8/8/16-bit.. http://0100.034.041460
8/24-bit.... http://0100.07041460
32-bit...... http://010007041460
-- Anne Marie
Presumably someone would be gracious enough to make a CGI thingamajig, but it'd be easier just to always take a perl interpretter with you.
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You are not what you own -- Fugazi, "Merchandise"
I've got a question. Bess filters by serving pages through a proxy. The filtering database isn't local, it resides on their servers. Each time you make a request for a page it goes across their servers. From their site...
"In 1995, the creation of the Bess® Filtering System -- the Internet's first server-based filtering proxy network -- quickly established N2H2 as the market leader in education. Today, more schools use N2H2 than any other available filtering system. Over 13.4 million students in North America viewed more than 4 billion Internet pages delivered by the Bess Filtering System last year alone!"
Does anyone else see the privacy implications of this. Forget doubleclick, they get too see every site you browse.
Can anyone confirm if Bess uses any kind of GUID?
There are a number of really good ways to beat censorware.
- Lawsuits. Sue the people trying to keep your child from seeing dangerous things like the Writings of Rush Limbaugh
- any trick found on 2600.com
- Bootable BEOS CD reconfigured to use the school's or Library's internet connection
- Bootable BSD CD reconfigured to use the school's or Library's internet connection
- Bootable Linux CD reconfigured to use the school's or Library's internet connection
- Bootable QNX CD reconfigured to use the school's or Library's internet connection
- I'd say Do your web surfing from home but that is not an option for students who cannot afford a computer at home.
This is all an annoyance for people who have a home computer with an Internet connection, but a real disaster for people who do not."Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
When I went to high school we had Bess (damn that $@$@#$ retriever) too.
It's been a couple of years (3.5),
but you used to be able to circumvent BESS
by opening the site you wanted to view
in frontpage AFTER SEEING THE BLOCKED
SITE ANNOUNCEMENT
it's not perfect but at least it
(used to?) works
Try this out --if it does or doesn't
work, I'd like to hear about it
good luck,
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
For example, what would a functional semantic checker do with your sentence: "English is far to multivariable a language to provide such an easy solution."? (How far is it to that multivariable, anyway?)
Radical views corrolate with poor grammar, both because of the poor education received by the radicals, resulting in their departure from social norms, and because of differences in regional heritage. So, we'd have to preprocess everything with a grammar checker, and we all know how successful that'd be.
-- Anne Marie
/rant/ I would rather have a democratic government making the laws than the current system, where only corporate money has a say. I would rather listen to "yahoos with wild intentions" than hear Gore and Bush debate over non-issues that don't matter to me, while ignoring the ones that do. And I would damn sure rather pay for your broken arm than for the shit I'm paying for now, like the joke they call the Drug War, billion dollar nuclear weapons, and putting bullshit internet filtering in schools and public libraries. I'm getting somewhat pissed off at the Libertarians that hang around here. Government should be a service to those that are governed. I'm sick of paying for a government that wastes our money on so many deliberately failing and useless programs, but I don't want a Libertarian government that does nothing at all. /end rant/
That said, I am voting Libertarian for my congressman, because I believe the first step should be giving the power and rights back to the people. But I hope to see some more Greens in congress as well, because we also need to realize that government has a responsibility to the people.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
They can spout that filtering is a good idea, and decide that it helps more people than it hurts. If you want to read those other sites, you're going to have to do it some other way. The First Amendment doesn't cover this, because they're not blocking the speech...they don't stop the speaker, they allow him to have its outlet...but they're deciding who can read it.
And that's not illegal. Government makes broad sweeping decisions based on age all the time, and it's perfectly legal, and 'moral'.
And remember, "the man" and his spin doctors aren't saying "we support a filtering system that filters out the good with the bad"...no, instead, they're saying "we support filtering, to keep our children away from smut"...they aren't going to mention the means to an end, they don't actually care, as long as it gives them some brownie points.
I think some defense and rationality is required here in defending N2H2, to a certain extent.
N2H2 by the very nature of its business plan doesn't decide what is "blocked" or "unblocked". They have a staff of people that categorize sites into certain areas based on specific criteria.
These categories include pornography, hacking, violence, et al; but they also include educational material and the like.
It is up to N2H2's *clients* to decide which categories are blocked and are unblocked.
N2H2 has a much more flexible filtering capability due to its design -- it utilizes a human element in its site categorization.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but it gives some flexibility.
Ultimately, it is up to their clients to decide what categories are left blocked or unblocked.
Don't be so quick to blast a company because of its use or misuse. N2H2 is actually one of the better implementations of "censorware" that makes an attempt to be flexible and customizable.
--Chris http://chris.quietlife.net/
I just read this on N2H2's site. I cannot believe that they actually say this publically. "Own the Education Desktop Own the education desktop by reaching teens and tweens where they learn the most--the classroom. N2H2 is the leader in filtering Internet content for schools all across the United States. In doing so, we reach over 13.5 million* students who view 4 billion online pages a year. And our sponsorship and advertising opportunities let you be a part of every Web page they explore. Through our various properties, including Searchopolis.com, the N2H2 ResourceBar and the filtered search and homework resource channels of StarWarsKids.com, we deliver you unprecedented penetration, exposure and public relations opportunities in the difficult-to-tap education space. And because we deliver the largest online audience of tweens and teens in an educational environment, we know what students are doing online. In the classroom, 1800 different sites comprise 80% of the page views, making it virtually impossible for a company to launch an effective online advertising campaign during the school day--except with N2H2. To learn more about what students are doing online, and what this means to your brand, download a free copy of the N2H2 1st Quarter Learnings Report White Paper. Experience the success that N2H2 has delivered to leading companies such as Nickelodeon, Microsoft, Chevron Cars, Family Education Network, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and more. We invite you to navigate through our site, view our Online Media Kit, and contact us to receive more detailed information on how your brand can own the education desktop." Can a company actually be classified as evil?
sorry about the re-post, I formatted poorly, bad me.
I just read this on N2H2's site. I cannot believe that they actually say this publically.
"Own the Education Desktop Own the education desktop by reaching teens and tweens where they learn the most--the classroom.
N2H2 is the leader in filtering Internet content for schools all across the United States. In doing so, we reach over 13.5 million* students who view 4 billion online pages a year. And our sponsorship and advertising opportunities let you be a part of every Web page they explore.
Through our various properties, including Searchopolis.com, the N2H2 ResourceBar and the filtered search and homework resource channels of StarWarsKids.com, we deliver you unprecedented penetration, exposure and public relations opportunities in the difficult-to-tap education space. And because we deliver the largest online audience of tweens and teens in an educational environment, we know what students are doing online.
In the classroom, 1800 different sites comprise 80% of the page views, making it virtually impossible for a company to launch an effective online advertising campaign during the school day--except with N2H2. To learn more about what students are doing online, and what this means to your brand, download a free copy of the N2H2 1st Quarter Learnings Report White Paper.
Experience the success that N2H2 has delivered to leading companies such as Nickelodeon, Microsoft, Chevron Cars, Family Education Network, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and more. We invite you to navigate through our site, view our Online Media Kit, and contact us to receive more detailed information on how your brand can own the education desktop."
Can a company actually be classified as evil?
There's a pretty large problem with this approach: it won't let you go to any website that's hosted using virtual hosting, so if example.com, and example2.com point to the same IP address, but show different pages, you will most likely not get the site you're looking for.
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.
As I recall, the quick and dirty method of getting around lots of censorware was to add the [proper] trailing dot. So, http://slashdot.org/ would become http://slashdot.org./ - Or have they defeated that?
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
My parents decided we need a filter to protect us. So our isp runs Bess. It sucks. It blocks even slashdot now. I can't even find out my daily mp3 news with it. On older versions you can get around it by deleting the proxy server info in netscape or exploer. On the new versions I have found no other fix than to find the password. They also have blocked all ports besides 80 as with the latest version. Sucks to be me :( No icq,irc,ftp, or napster.
Yes his absolutely ridiculous handling of both nuclear energy and free trade. The stupid populist that he is opposes free trade because many people think its bad despite its economic benifit for nearly everyone (if not in fact for everyone).
Don't get me wrong I like some of his ideas but they seem to be even less based in careful rational thought than those of the other canidates.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Since it seems that the thing that most people want to block is pr0n, why not filter images rather than pages? I suppose the filter could have a list of innappropriate sites from which images cannot be loaded. Or if you wanted things stricter, a list of approved sites that are the only ones which can have images.
;-)
Or, I suppose, an easier solution would be to make all the school kids surf using lynx
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"The people. Could you patent the sun?"
"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
--Henry David Thoreau
Although everything in me automatically says no to any form of censorship I suppose there is a case for stopping kids viewing hard core porn and the like, even if the methods of doing so aren't very effective. Parents of course have the right to bring up their child any way they see fit. Schools have a duty to protect children from any harm, so their use of blockers is understandable. I suppose they are only doing what they think best.
What is REALLY objectionable is the increasing use of blocking software in public libraries. Even if society decides that it doesn't want people looking at 'objectionable' material in libraries, the amount of pages blocked in error by such software is ridiculous (according to Peacefire, 27% of sites blocked by BESS don't contain any objectionable material by BESS's own standards, and BESS are the best by far on that particular score).
This is depriving people of a wealth of information which they have every right to view.
If anyone doesn't yet know, http://www.peacefire.org tells you how to get around most of the popular filtering software with (relative) ease. Trouble is, just about all filter/surrogate parent software blocks peacefire. You could try viewing it from a friend's house or something though.
-"Oh, THAT power switch"
I have *not* read any postings suggesting that filters be outlawed. The problem most slashdotters have with this is that filtering software is being *mandated*. It's a massive windfall for the makers of these shoddy products, and a tragedy for students everywhere. If you want to install filtering software at your house, I don't think anybody here (unless your own kids are on slashdot, in which case, it's probably too late) will have a problem with that. OTOH, most slashdotters don't think the idiots writing this crap deserve the gift being given them by our legislature.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
It is particularly ironic that Bess is in such wide use in K-12 schools.
My former job was to manage this website for the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA). Clearly, ACSA is an organization devoted to the furtherance of public K-12 education, and one which is listened to and sponsored by the same people who make decisions about software filters on school networks.
I received a call one afternoon from one of my regular users, calling from his school district office. He said (I'm paraphrasing, here), "I can't get to your site. Bess is giving me an error message that your site is not on the approved list. Can you help me?"
Apparently, somebody at N2H2 had made the call that, by default, a website specifically for school administrators was inappropriate for use by schools.
If this is indicative of how Bess and other filters work in the real world (ignoring first amendment issues entirely), I can't imagine any justification for mandating that filters be used by public schools and libraries.
MacOS, Windows, BeOS, GNOME, KDE: they're all just Xerox copies
It's probably been said before, but:
What happens when 'disturbing' content is good for a child's education?
I am reminded of my high school global issues class a few years back. At that time, the atrocities in Kosovo were all over the news. To illustrate the point, the teacher showed us sites with links to quite graphic pictures of the victims of torture, murder, and rape. Although everyone was free to leave at any time, no one did. These 'obscene, wrong, and terrible' pictures helped bring the plight of the Albanians out of the realm of statistics -- those images are burned into my mind forever. Although I would not want my 5 year old cousin to see those pictures, I feel it is important to introduce children to the fact that the world is not all sweetness and light. Without knowledge, nothing can be done. I envision a future in which reports of atrocities like Hitler's Holocaust are forgotten because they are obscene and no one should be exposed to them. And, as it has been said, those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
Our school (district) has filtering, and it is a pain... BUT, if students are smart enough, though most aren't, one can find some kind of site which translates web sites from one lang to another or any other variation (or build one's own page-loading script, which I did) to bypass the filter. I love the feeling of beating the system...
"As I've mentioned in earlier Slashdot posts, the most simple and elegant solution I've been able to think of is to require porn sites or sites with adult content to have different TDLs like .xxx or maybe .N17 - then filtering programs become unnecessary - you just set browsers not to allow those sites..."
.xxx decisions thinks it is(this happens in school librarys more often than you'd think)?
I don't know what porn is for sure. Do you? Is Hustler porn? Is Playboy or 'Fratjock' magazine porn? Probably, but what about the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition? Or nude renaissance paintings and sculptures? Some people think they are. What about Robert Maplethorpe photography? Will sex education resources have to be considered "porn" because some prude on the board that makes the
If you define porn as something that is meant purely for entertainment purposes and contains no informational value, then who decides what has information in it!? Who are you to say I cannot derive information to write a paper like "the effect of pornographic media sales in the early '90's on the entertainment industry as a whole" by using content information from Swank magazine! You can't!
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Disney. Toysrus. Goatse.cx?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Given that most of what "well meaning" politicians/policy makers are trying to block is photographic pornography it would make sense to try and filter mostly just pictures. But rather than filter sites which may contain pictures of naughty bits, I wonder how feasable it would be to filter the actual images... and by filter I mean alter.
/. stories would still be accessable and if an image was required then a teacher could bring it up on a non-filtered browser.
I'm not talking about placing black squares over where some (bad) software determines a teet is showing, but rather doing some horrible dither down to 1 bit black and white images. Site navigation should still be functional provided no horrible color scheme has been chosen, and looking at 1 bit porn has got to be about as satisfying as ASCII porn.
Sure "hate speach" and story based porn are going to still get through, but subjects that cause people that much anger are likely to be the source of great classroom discussions and story porn would lose probably 90% of its accidental or intentional viewers just by its very nature.
It would certainly seem to help situations like this one - interesting
Just a though. any comments?
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
"Unsafe at Any Speed"
He knew that the problems he described were non-existant or minor, but he destroyed sales of the Corvair. Now, he should have either found a flawed car, or made his arguments in an alternate fashion, because lies are lies.
itachi
Non-existant or minor, if you exclude the fact that a marginally reckless driver (like the teenagers who made up most of the market for the Corvair) can flip the fuckin' thing over just going around a corner. They solved the problems, and they still didn't sell. That wasnt Naders fault. Michelins (spelling?) tires are no so shitty that they explode, and Ford isnt agrivating the problem by underinflating them either. But people aren't exactly flocking to buy them now either.
We run something even worse - X-Stop. Anyone can experience the censorship FIRSTHAND by putting in proxy.uen.net/grproxy.pac in the "Automatic Proxy Configuration". Filtering criteria is weird - sites like Peacefire.org don't get blocked, while free email sites, anonymizer.com, mirc.co.uk, and various others are. It's slow and ineffective.
Think for a moment about the kind of people who dream up and program the content lists for these filters, and those who add to these list by request. What do you think?
I propose a simple test. Use the filtering system to look up the subject "Babtist" or maybe "Catholic". Then use same system to look up "Satanism" or "Witchcraft". Check returned entries to see if they are merely references or actual data.
Has anybody actually done this? One would think, with the separation of church and state being such a big deal and all, that a school would be under the onus to make sure that ALL references to differing religion were treated equally. If replies came back in a stilted manner, perhaps the best solution would be to set the filtering software to exclude all references to religion and religious materials, regardless of type.
Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
I'm 37 -- my old man told me "I don't care what you do, as long as I don't have to bail you out or identify your body at the morgue" and I try to be that respectful of my 13 year old son.
Since when did children become these priceless "trinkets" that must be "protected" at all costs?
Christonacross!
Of course, if you frame the question that way, you're merely begging the question.
Alternatively, I could ask, "Does anyone here support allowing kids to access porn?" An equally badly-formed question.
Of course, *everyone* supports censorship in one form or other. Stores aren't allow to sell Hustler to minors. Much of what Hollywood produces is rated "restricted". Certain words are banned from broadcast media. Yelling Fire! in a crowded movie house is verboten. The expression of racist ideas is -- while not illegal in the US -- frowned upon and outright banned in certain fora. It would be inappropriate to display the publicly-funded "Piss-Christ" in publicly-funded schools. The list goes on.
The question, even in America, isn't so much "do you support censorship", but "do you support inappropriate forms censorship?" This is where the real battle is: Who gets to define "inappropriate"?
Lee Kai Wen -- Taiwan, ROC
Set me straight on something here: Are you saying that with BESS in place it is impossible to view the above anywhere on the Internet, or only that some particularl site which happened to contain these particular three inoffensive topics get caught in the filters?
In other words, if I'm a student at a BESS-filtered school, and I type "Second Amendment" -- or "political speech", or "Minnesota election coverage", or "Slashdot" even -- into my favorite search-engine, do I come up blank? Or is it just that three out of the, say, 17,208 sites carrying the 2nd amendment get caught in the filter?
It's the difference between legitimate research and witch hunt. Personally I think, without having done any of the former, that this is merely a case of the latter.
Lee Kai Wen -- Taiwan, ROC
I doubt that the real purpose of filters in libraries is censorship. I have been to libraries where they filter out things like webmail access. They simply don't want people wasting their resources on sites that don't have any educational or research value. (Not that porn doesn't have an educational or research value)
How to rationalize theft.
you might have problems if it's as harsh as the security software we had on the macs at my old highschool....what was it called again???
oh yeah. FoolProof (TM).
you better be careful, shit like that takes a good 3 or 4 minutes to crack.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
No, the corvair is fine if you aren't a moron. But the same holds true of every car. If you don't drive too fast in a car you don't know how to drive on a road you don't know, you have a greater chance of dying. The point is, his criticisms of the Corvair were not valid. The car was redesigned in 1964, and he released his book in 65, I belive. The Corvair is not the deathtrap that Nader claimed.
itachi
A few years ago when I was still in HS I was challenged by some (non-geek) friends to get around bess. I accomplished this feat in less than a min. How you may ask? Bess is only half of the block. If a school does not set up their TCPIP settings right, the smart kids can tell their browser to directly connect to the internet instead of connecting through a proxy (in the Preferences). Assuming a school has properly specified the subnets and declaired the ability for only specific subnets to access unfiltered, all you had to do was change your subnet and select directly connect. As poor of a job Bess did when filtering, the schools do not do a good job implementing it either. In the end, one may ask what is the point of filtering anyway because if a person wants porn, well suffice to say there is more than one way to skin a cat.
-Mr. Macx
Moof!
******
OK. One point that is missing in all of this is the fact that BESS and other filters are the path of least resistance for schools and administrators who feel bound to bring the Inernet into their classrooms. The debate about usefulness aside, the fact of the matter is that teachers and administrators, on average, have little cluse about what effective practices are. Because of this lack of focus, it is a lot easier to shift the discussion to other topics.
I worked for a very high tech and connected school district, and I spent almost as much time working on "network security" issues as I did on curricum development and staff training. After I left the district adopted BESS to solve its big problem, but to this date is still not really doing anything truly worthy of the millions (literally) invested.
The porn issues is easy for parents, the public, and the school board to understand. It is easily solved when someone like BESS makes it look like a cheap solution that does not involve investing in things like real curriculum development and good technology management. Why is everyone so surprised about filtering technology's penetration? I would suggest contacting your local schol district and asking to look at their tech plan as well as examples of how it is being used instructionally. Then get pissed off.
--chris
Why should I not be able to discuss ideas on web-bulletin boards? Why should I not be able to read about medical conditions? Why should I be subjected to censorship when I am a Senior, and over 18 years old?
Again, as I said in much greater detail in my other comment, this is not N2H2's doing. My high school uses N2H2 filtering software and we have access to slashdot, kuro5hin, mp3.com and many others.
N2H2's normal filtering does not block such sites. If they are blocked for you, it is almost certainly the result of decisions made by your school administrators or school board members.
On the other hand, keep in mind that the school has no obligation to provide you with unfiltered (or "uncensored", if you prefer) internet access or even internet access of any kind. If you want to read about medical conditions or get into web bulletin-board discussion, pay for your own internet access at home like the rest of us.
I'll answer your question with a question: why should you be given free internet access when you are a Senior, and over 18 years old?
I don't mean to poke fun, but consider the implications of what you are demanding. I don't recall seeing "government-sponsored internet access" in the Bill of Rights.
Also keep in mind that you are not being subjected to censorship. If anyone, the author of the blocked content is being censored. But just because I don't buy a DVD movie for you and give it to you to watch doesn't mean that I'm censoring you or even the movie studio that produced it. I'm just choosing not to provide a favor that someone else might.
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
I have to assume the tests that show filtering software filtering out thousands of legit sites and letting hundreds of porn sites through is simply botched. I've never had the kind of trouble that these folks are coming up with. I think the tests must be bogus.
What I would hope is this: if children are to be manipulated like this, let them be warned.
Now... how do we get the message through the layers of censorship when it cannot be viewed in schools or libraries due to being uniformly added to the blocking list for politico-economic reasons?For tyranny to be backed by the people, the people have to believe that the ones tyrannized are subhuman or 'don't count' in some way. The history of war is full of situations where entire countries felt automatically superior to everyone else. Making personal contact with people in other countries neatly undercuts that- in fact on the Net you can't be sure who's from where, as an awful lot of people all over the world can and do speak English (it's like Star Trek syndrome, and just as convenient).
For many, many years, schools have done cute little things like assign 'pen-pals' overseas, or send foreign exchange students: the first is rather disconnected, the second too exotic to seem like an everyday thing. So one word: "IRC". Suddenly it becomes possible for schoolchildren to not just communicate but shirk, misbehave, bicker etc. with schoolchildren across the world, just like they were in the same room. And this may seem like a pointless bad thing- but back up a second, wasn't the goal of such exercises to _break_ _down_ the distance and help establish more of the sense of an interdependent global village, where you can _know_ someone overseas in a more immediate and direct way than sending postal mail? This is a very significant development, that should be encouraged not stifled.
Regarding pr0n, I see no reason not to stifle that unless the students are in Sex Ed *g* there, they'd better get full and accurate information! And regarding saturation advertising of a legally captive audience of impressionable age (what's next, _subliminal_ saturation captive advertising? No, wait, _viral_ subliminal saturation captive advertising!), I quite agree that this should be outright forbidden. Advertising is all very well, but it becomes a torment if you don't feel you can walk away- if you are LEGALLY FORCED to remain, we are no longer talking about advertising, we're talking about brainwashing- and that is completely unacceptable- and of course that is exactly what N2H2 is hyping for all they are worth.
I would not consider it wildly excessive to have "conspiring to engage in mass compulsory commercial brainwashing of children" punishable by death. I think _all_ those terms would have to be there for it to be that severe a crime- for instance if you drop 'mass' we're talking a case of weird child abuse, if you drop 'compulsory' the child is allowed to walk away, if you drop 'commercial' you could apply that to many sorts of religious and moral education with some plausibility. But the full extent, 'mass compulsory commercial brainwashing of children'- how can this not rate at least a hell of a prison sentence? Why is this not a felony? It should at _least_ be a felony crime, rendering the criminal permanently unable to vote as a citizen.
Don't tell me the only thing that will work is vigilante justice- we have a government for a _reason_. Let's make forcible commercial brainwashing of children in schools a crime.
My high school has the privlige of using it for its "net filtering" capabilities, but what really distresses me is that it also blocked the fish. My school had it rigged onto the primary router, and I was able to get around it by incrementing the fourth zone ip number (0.0.0.x) by one and setting the poxy port to 80 to allow for unfiltered internet bandwith. It killed any other useful program, such as ftp, but at least I was able to read my email. :)
You see, my personal experience with drugs was not positive. In fact, I dove into them with such intensity that it was all downhill until I finally got some help and quit 'em- and I currently feel that there's no way _I_ personally can 'responsibly' apply such drugs. YMMV. I am just saying that for me, drugs were HARMFUL, that I got very dependent on them and got into a vicious circle, losing all perspective and chasing 'soma' until my life was shit, frankly. It's taken some years to get back out of that trap...
Now, here is the problem. I feel I have a right to have any search on 'drugs' return the stuff I just typed, just as much as you've a right for such an inquiry to return _your_ viewpoint. I know good and well that the kids in the schoolyard and on the back streets are going to be taking _your_ viewpoint for the most part- they haven't had time to see a downside to it, and they probably don't trust the hysteria of teachers and authority figures.
Once censorship blocks all discussion of 'drugs', those kids don't have _access_ to random thoughts from people arguing on a web page. They're cut off- I can say, here and now, that drugs _sucked_ for me and I got really compulsive and nothing was ever as good as the first buzz, which I futilely chased for years, and it's obvious I'm just saying that because that's how it was for _me_. You could say the opposite if you wanted- eavesdropping kids could make up their own minds, some might decide they weren't going to mess with their brain cells after all (or would be more wary about it). It's all communication among peers.
If censorship blocks the whole subject, it is denying _me_ the chance to say my piece just as myself, as a peer. Sure, I could easily write a 'Drugs Bad Mkay?' page and put it up somewhere and have all the teachers and censors specially let only _my_ side be heard- but guess what? That puts me on the side of the brainwashers- to hell with that! I would rather be _censored_ than side with them- I'm not like them- I'm just a dope addict that chooses to not drink or use anymore, and I'd like to think that choice could be seen as one of many, that it wouldn't automatically align me with censoring manipulative authority figures. But as soon as the issue is censored for 'childrens' safety', it's be silenced or side with the brainwashers- because the context of having an independent opinion (namely, "Drugs were bad for me, I quit doing them because they did me harm") is _gone_.
Yikes- didn't mean to get so carried away :) anyhow- even on an issue that's personal to me like that, I'd rather see 10,000 people whispering 'do it, go on, drugs are good, never hurt anybody, it's cool' without being silenced- if that gives me the chance to go 'Uh, NOT' in the SAME CONTEXT. Being made to take a position as some authority figure makes the message meaningless! (People who do drugs don't like authority figures :) ) I realise this is a weird perspective, but this is one issue I understand pretty well, and you just can't _make_ someone stop doing drugs- the only thing that works (even when they're really sick and their life sucks) is if you're the same sort of person but you can tell them that not using works better for you- from a position of FREEDOM.
Censorship silences that along with the enticements to use. That cost is just too high.
(though it could be worse- I've heard of NA meetings in South America in which the recovering addicts in the meetings are hunted by drug lords, since the message of 'you never have to use again' is seen as competition! :P After all, the NA people do intend to teach addicts how to do continuous abstinence- and that's bad for the drug business. Now that's censorship- 'use our drugs or we kill you!')
Hang on- his problem with the Corvair was oversteer, and I think that's a legitimate complaint. I personally like oversteer :) but that's because I'm a crazy bastard, and anyhow it's a moot point as I bike instead of drive. However, for almost anyone on the road, there is a huge difference between oversteer and understeer on a rainy road or a patch of grease or leaves- picture traffic, and then picture the car that loses traction. The understeering car noses into something or goes straight off the road. The oversteering car SWAPS ENDS, in a hurry. It might be fun on a race track or in an empty parking lot but it's a really _sucky_ behavior for a vehicle in traffic :)
A friend who works as a web developer at a porn company once told me that one of their peak hours is lunch time when office workers have their daily porn break.
Today was just a day fading into another-Counting Crows
because we've *already* run out of space in the prisons - we'd never be able to fit in about 70% of the population.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Come up with a list of "inappropriate" sites (guns, drugs, pr0n, Congress, etc.) that are not blocked by Your Favorite Censorware Package. Then go into Your Favorite School and load 'em up. If taken to task over it, you have a ready defense: "But we're using censorware!"
Apropos of nothing, "congress" was once a term with the same meaning as "intercourse".
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
Your comment puts you on their level.
Somehow they assume they're "right" and somehow you assume that you're right. Different viewpoints, different opinions. That is what the idea of democracy is about. Instead, we have intolerant idiots like you who want to make it illegal to disagree. How stupid is that? I went to the traditionalvalues.org site just now for the first time, and I see that they disagree with you, but I don't see how they "hate" you or hurt you or personally attack you. It must suck to always think someone is out to get you. It must suck to be you.
Can someone explain to me, logically, why it still isn't illegal to be intolerant??
Fook
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
At our school, we have cruddy security. We merely change the proxy server in IE to get around Bess. (proxy.spaceproxy.com:8080).
If you are uninsured, I'll have to pay anyway. When you show up with your broken arm at the ER you'll be triaged like any other patient. Then I'll pay for the systems and people to send you dunning letters.
Oh, and the melanoma you got under all that Rugby sunshine? I'll pay for plenty of expensive oncology because back when it was just a spot on you skin I didn't have the opportunity to pay for a dollop of liquid N2.
This is, in part, why medical cost are so expensive ordinary mortals can't pay them out of their pockets. Do you think it's just a coincidence that we are number one in the world in per capita helath spending and about twentieth overall in health care effectiveness?
What we have now is national health care without national health insurance. What this means is that the cost of national health care is paid by a subset of people -- those paying health premiums.
Define full medical coverage!
Full health coverage consists of the following: all the emergency services currently paid for by hospital uninsured funds (trauma, treatment for acute illness), plus preventive screening and care (such as but not limited to: prenatal screening and intervention, hypertension screening and treatment, cancer screening treatment, early intervention for developmental and learning disabilities, preventive and noncosmetic dental care), treatment of chronic illness (such as HIV, diabetes, psychological conditions, nursing home care) and hospice care.
That wasn't so hard, was it?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
With the meth bill, which might or might not get killed, drugs seem to be an ideal visualization of the stupidity going on when it comes to censorship issues on the net. Mind you, I believe methamphetamine is about as bad is it gets. Does such a three-monkeys approach make meth go away? Hardly
I am just saying that for me, drugs were HARMFUL, that I got very dependent on them and got into a vicious circle, losing all perspective and chasing 'soma' until my life was shit, frankly.
Well, the key here is that you make it you talk from your perspective. You make it cristal clear that it fucked you up. You very much emphasize this. Quite the contrary it appears that the idea of not being able to communicate your experience, respectively communicating it in an environment that only allows your perspective, seems to piss you off royally. I have very much respect for your position.
Now, here is the problem. I feel I have a right to have any search on 'drugs' return the stuff I just typed, just as much as you've a right for such an inquiry to return _your_ viewpoint. I know good and well that the kids in the schoolyard and on the back streets are going to be taking _your_ viewpoint for the most part- they haven't had time to see a downside to it, and they probably don't trust the hysteria of teachers and authority figures.
I would never preach to anybody that drugs are good, or that recreational drug use is harmless. What I'm advocating is access to factual information. Just choking out talking about the subject doesn't make drugs go away.
In some European countries information went very far indeed. Ravers could have their XTC pills analyzed at raves on the spot. A mobile lab was scratching of a small sample of a pill and could instantly tell what it really is. Now some people might argue that this is bad and this is illegal and that this advocates use of illicit drugs. My perspective is such reasoning is bullshit, because those pills are swallowed. Actually it's quite the oposite. The idea is harm reduction. Also, those labs hand out factual information about E-abuse. Informing the kids that it's not really quite harmless what they're doing, about possible side effects, about unknown variables (neurotoxologie) in the use of this drug. So, in a nutshell: I don't condone the use of MDMA, but I very much support the idea of informing those people that going to take it, factually, truthfully and in a non hostile environment.
But as soon as the issue is censored for 'childrens' safety', it's be silenced or side with the brainwashers- because the context of having an independent opinion (namely, "Drugs were bad for me, I quit doing them because they did me harm") is _gone_.
You're very right here. Having been in the really dark rotten hole and still furiosly defending this opinion actually puts you in a very strong position and gives your perspective a lot of credibility. One of the strongest quotes in my book is
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it (Voltaire)
and your post totally lives up to that.
OK, now I got carried away, actually I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed your response.
Great that you made it. I would have hated not to read about it because you could be shoved into jail for expressing your thoughts.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
These customers have been preselected to be impressionable and easily convinced to give up their allowance and milk money for the latest gadget or service. Sign up today and get your advertisement seen by one of the only customer-bases pre-approved by the Federal Government, the Library of Congress and virtually every Board of Education in the U.S. of A. (The Land of the Free(tm) and the Home of the Brave(c) )
Act now, as supplies are limited and the economics of a Free Market(r) will dictate partnership pricing.
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
As I understand it (and have successfully done in the past) N2H2 will accept teacher suggestions to let thru pages that really aren't bad enough to warrant filtering. No filter is perfect, and they seem to be good at letting this escape valve work... Am I missing something you found otherwise?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Economic benefit for nearly everyone? Tell that to the thousands of autoworkers in Flint who have lost their jobs. Or the thousands of subsistance farmers in Mexico who have lost their land. What we call "free trade" is free for large corporations, but comes at a great price to working people.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!