Mandated Mediocrity

I took some time over the last few days to sample what kind of political speech is censored by a typical filtering software package. The result is a report released jointly by EPIC (EPIC's copy) and Peacefire (Peacefire's copy). The software this time is N2H2 Bess, and if you're an American K-12 student, there's roughly a one-in-three chance you're forced to surf the net with its 'help.' It bans political speech ranging from campaign finance reform to the Second Amendment to Minnesota newspapers' election coverage.

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.

Comments

Bravo!

[NecroPuppy]

It can't block the porn, but it can keep those awful psychopathic, raving, criminal politicians away from the kids. Way to go!

First amendment

[gavinhall]

Posted by polar_bear:

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 .xxx or maybe .N17 - then filtering programs become unnecessary - you just set browsers not to allow those sites...

Re:First amendment

[interiot]

Actually, the proposed law was worded to get around this.

The law says that libraries and schools will be required to use software which blocks sexual images that are illegal already. These images can't be found in libraries on the shelves anyway... examples include child porn and images which fall under the legal definition of obscene.

If libraries block additional sites, then it's their choice (read: their problem) and have to publicly display their filtering policy.

Depending on your point of view, it's either a nice way to get around that problem because software is inherently fallible and libraries will have pressure on them to use the software that blocks the least amount of legal material... or it's a way to push the whole 1st ammendment thing off onto the libraries and conveniently ignore the fact that the federal government is indirectly forcing 1st ammendment violations.
--

Re:First amendment

[Liza]

No no!

The current proposal actually goes much further in violation of the First Amendment. It requires the blocking of already illegal (meaning not constititutionally protected) material, namely child pornography & obscenity, AND "harmful to minors material," which as far as the Internet is concerned, is in a legal grey area since the COPA decision in the 3rd Circuit. This proposal ALSO explicitly allows local schools and libraries to filter and block anything ELSE they consider inappropriate for minors. Everything else, no matter how offensive you or I might find it, is protected by the US Constitution, so filtering anything else will run into legal problems for the libraries and schools in question.

The current proposal also opens schools up for privacy litigation as it requires "either technological or supervisory" monitoring of students using the Internet. Maybe that works for in class use, probably a teacher should be around. But I think a lot of schools are going to feel pressure to use monitoring software...and then what happens to the records of where a minor surfed for 12 years? Who gets to see those? What if that kid is nominated to the Supreme Court 40 years later? Or goes through a messy divorce in his or her 20s? If there's a personally identifiable record kept, litigators are going to track it down and try to use it.

Liza

Re:First amendment

[interiot]

Okay, try this. Go to thomas.loc.gov. Search for "Children's Internet Protection Act" by phrase.

It looks like the act has been introduced several times into different bills, and each time it's faltered. The three requirements you gave appear in bill hr4600 which was introduced on June 8, but didn't go anywhere.

Then there's bill hr4577 (Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001), title VI, which seems to be the bill that was discussed in the earlier slashdot article and has the most/latest activity.

hr4577 has only the two criteria that I listed, which only calls for blocking things that are already illegal. (along with anything additional the library chooses to block, which I previously surmised was for the purpose of covering their butts)

I couldn't find your third requirement hidden within any currently active large appropriations bills.
--

Re:First amendment

[Rocinante]

Are you kidding? Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but the whole problem here is that the First Amendment is getting trashed in the name of "saving the children". I would very much hope that when a law mandating universal use of censorware gets passed (and it's really only a matter of time), it gets shot down in the Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds. Of course, depending on the outcome of the election in November, we might be stuck with a Supreme Court that thinks that "there ought to be limits to freedom" because the internet turns children's hearts dark.

Also, no offence, but mandatory self-censorship, which is what your idea about .xxx TLDs really is, is a terrible idea. While we're at it, let's just add a TLD for political views which the Republicrats don't like, and one for religious views which they'd rather not have their kids thinking about in the Bible Belt. Then we can just get rid of all that, evil, evil, heart-darkening internet filth all at once and be left with nothing but goodthink. Now, I agree that we need more TLDs, and .xxx would be a cool one, provided nobody is forced to mark their content as "bad".

How to Deal With Filtering Software

[Homebrewed]

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.

Re:How to Deal With Filtering Software

[Just Some Guy]

Why not? Should we be good sheep and go along with whatever the government wants us to do?

Not a chance. I would rather teach my daughter to base her decisions on independent thought than some arbitrary "It's for the children, Tipper!" standard. If some law conflicts with my (or my children's) rights, then I don't have a problem with practicing civil disobedience. That's how we Americans got what few liberties we still have left.

Re:How to Deal With Filtering Software

[Lord Ender]

When I was in high school they had BESS. They claim that it only blocks sites that have been reviewed by humans. However, they had freshmeat.net blocked! After bitching them out on email, they unblocked it. What is funny is that BESS blocks a big linux site, and ironically, BESS runs on linux!

But I got around it. I wrote a perl GGI script which I kept on a server bess didn't block and would fetch the URL I submit to it and print it to the screen. Since BESS works via blocking by DNS/IP, I easily got around it. It was sweet, I put password protection into the script and sold accounts to people in school for $5 each! Oh and I later found out about another program that works much like my besspass.cgi perl script, only it is more evolved. It is called GGIProxy. You can get it here.

Re:How to Deal With Filtering Software

[Teach]

...we'll figure out how to break it.

On a well-administered network, this shouldn't be possible.

I guess it's time for me to stick up for N2H2 (a.k.a. "Bess") again....

I'm a computer science teacher at a public high school. We have N2H2's filtering "software" installed and I must confess that I like it. In my computer lab, in addition to my C++ compiler, all the computers have internet access. My job is to teach my students computer science, and incidentally programming in C++. As a side effect, I can also be held legally responsible for their actions while under my care. Without filtering software I would spend so much time "monitoring" to make sure they abide by the conduct rules set up by our school board I'd never get any classwork done. N2H2's service frees me up to do my job.

Keep in mind that schools voluntarily subscribe to N2H2's service. Also, though we have a public mandate to provide access to a good education for every child, that mandate does not include "allow the students to download/view whatever the hell they want using the fat internet pipe at school paid for with your hard-earned tax dollars." The internet is not "education". It is merely "raw information". Education is about teaching students how to think and how to filter that information.

Admittedly, part of an education is teaching students how to evaluate information sources themselves, but I don't think being unable to get to playboy.com is going to hamper our ability to do that.

Now, to get back to my original point, here's my understanding of how N2H2's filter works and why it won't be hacked by most twelve-year-olds. This is not your typical client-side dumb censorware.

In exchange for our monthly payment, N2H2 places a linux-based web proxy on our local network. All outbound traffic is funneled though that machine by setting the proxy value in Netscape to proxy through the "Bess" server. A packet filter at the switch discards any outbound traffic with a destination IP other than that of the Bess server, so just removing the proxy or changing it to some other address just gets your packets thrown away. If they're going to leave our network, they've got to go through Bess.

When Bess receives a connect request from a client (HTTP WGET, FTP, etc), it first checks the remote server address against a known-bad list (generated by human employees of N2H2 and updated nightly). If the remote host is on the black list, the connect request is discarded and a standard web page is returned with the message "Bess can't go there" and an option to mail N2H2 requesting the site be unblocked. A few trials indicate that many sites are blocked by IP address and not merely domain name, and those that are IP-blocked are still blocked if you convert the IP to decimal.

URLs which pass the domain screen are also parsed for keywords. For example, I get a reject message for any address containing the word 'fuck', even if no such page exists.

Finally, URLs which pass this screen are requested and the remote page is returned. However, the proxy can be configured to search for dirty words in returned pages and optionally throw away those that pass some frequency threshold or also optionally replace those words with XXXXs. At our high school, this is currently turned off.

Some sites are blocked at the root because of known inappropriate content (e.g. playboy.com). Others are blocked at the root because they allow free web pages and so 1) change too quickly to effectively police and 2) have very little of value anyway (e.g. geocities). Still others are blocked at the page level (e.g. not foo.com but foo.com/users/pr0nboy).

• http://ethanjones.homepage.com/ - Campaign Finance Reform is blocked at the root; all of *.homepage.com is disallowed.
• http://rosie.acmecity.com/bebe/129/index.html - The Second Amendment is blocked at the root; all of rosie.acmecity.com/* is disallowed.
• I don't know why the Minnesota newspaper or the Traditional Values Coaltion are blocked, but we could request a review of these sites or unblock them locally (more on this below).

In addition to the default blacklist, local administrators have the ability to add sites which they want to block even if N2H2 deems them appropriate, OR whitelist sites which they want to allow even though N2H2 blocks them by default.

Sure, it's possible to stick your own redirecting CGI script on your own unblocked web space, but since as a teacher I'm still paying some modicum of attention I'll figure out you're doing it by catching you in class or by reading through the server logs of requested pages and then add your "proxy" to our whitelist. And then send you down to the principal's office for violating our terms of service (which students and their parents must agree to to get any internet access at all).

All-in-all, it's a flexible system that allows each school to determine what level of filtering they want to allow. As I mentioned in another reply, ours is apparently not too restrictive (we are a high school, after all), as I can get to slashdot, freshmeat, kuro5hin, mp3.com, userfriendly, after-y2k and lots of other good stuff that sometimes expresses "fringe" opinions.

Re:How to Deal With Filtering Software

[mpe]

When I was in high school they had BESS. They claim that it only blocks sites that have been reviewed by humans.

Any company who makes this claim without employing the population of a major city is self evidently not telling the truth anyway.

However, they had freshmeat.net blocked! After bitching them out on email, they unblocked it. What is funny is that BESS blocks a big linux site, and ironically, BESS runs on linux!

Many such products explicitally do have a catagory of "free software", however Linux is an easier target than the vast amount of free/shareware Windows screensavers and "toys". Plenty of the latter is pefectly capable of bringing down the average Windows machine, so would make far more sense to block anyway.

Re:How to Deal With Filtering Software

[SubtleNuance]

Kudos to you

Be sure you print and make copies and give them to other parents. Including the article above.

Getting Past the Censorware with Long Ip's

[Lostman]

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

Re:Getting Past the Censorware with Long Ip's

[rakslice]

Uh... Why are you going to binary?

If the address is A.B.C.D, just enter A * 256^3 + B * 256^2 + C * 256 + D

To make this a bit easier to do on a non-rpn calculator, it's the same thing as:

(((A * 256 + B) * 256 + C) * 256 + D)

Re:Getting Past the Censorware with Long Ip's

[Electric Angst]

The only problem with that method is that you can't follow links. Also, say Slashdot points to something interesting about freedom of speech, and you've never visited the domain before. It's problematic.
The best way to "beat the system" isn't to sneak around it, but to take it away. Even easily-circumvented censerware is still an obstical to freedom of speech.
--

Re:Getting Past the Censorware with Long Ip's

[Col. Klink (retired)]

> The only problem with that method is that you can't follow links.

Well, I don't live under censor ware, but if I did...

Write your own proxy filter that automagically translates domain names into their long-number and then pass it to the censorous proxy.

Bess, NH2.

[kev-san]

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.

Re:New TLD Could Help

[ibpooks]

Yeah...

naked.teens
hot.teens
sluttly.teens
horny.teens
anal.teens
teens.on.teens
etc....

I'm sure that will be an excellent system.

My perspective

[Auckerman]

Bad parents raise children who become bad adults. This is almost always true (with exceptional cases excluded). If you are a smoker, you're kid is more likely to be a smoker. If you are aggressive, your kid is more likely to be aggressive. If you wank your monkey every day looking at porn, you're kid will....

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.

Re:White list them

[ibpooks]

There are already several white-listing methods. Cyber patrol has the commercial version, or if you prefer OSS, squidGuard has a good mechanism for white-listing.

Technological Limitations?

[scott1853]

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.

Re:Technological Limitations?

[NecroPuppy]

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.

Right. And, AFAIK, there isn't a good, or even a really bad, semantic checker anywhere. English is far to multivariable a language to provide such an easy solution.

Re:New TLD Could Help

[MostlyHarmless]

Wouldn't work.

If I understand you right, you're saying that kids would only be able to use the .kids domain? So who would put their site there?

Not commentary sites. Not humor sites. Not science sites.
Nor anything else, for that matter. Who really would want a .kids domain? By saying .kids, you project the impression of being _only_ for kids. Therefore, the only sites that would exist on .kids would be kiddie portals. Of course, those sites wouldn't actually be able to link to anything...

In addition, this idea wouldn't cover the billions of pages already out on the web that are appropriate for all ages.
--

Re:New TLD Could Help

[Just Some Guy]

Are they going to audit every .teens domain every month? Week? Day? What about pages on the site that aren't directly linked from other pages, but are shared among friends (http://www.safe.teens/~beth/mynakedbutt.html)?

Unless domain owners are required to either 1) host their sites on an "approved" company's server and let that company continually monitor file transfers, or 2) have a full-access account so that registrars can completely scan the server at a whim, then enforcement is completely and utterly impossible.

Re:New TLD Could Help

[avdp]

So, let me get this straight. In order for teens to see Yahoo! or CNN (for example), these companies would have to register their equivalent domain in the .kids TLD? Like www.yahoo.kids and www.cnn.kids? And all domain other than the .kids would be blocked I assume.

No offense, but unless I misunderstood your suggestion, I have to say that this is a rather dumb idea.

Well, what did you expect ?

[CaptainZapp]

As the net is more and more turning into a huge, sanitized cable TV operation, it's clear that such measures happen.

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.

Slashdot is not allowed either

[xee]

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?



-------

Kidsafe or Apple and psuedo-censorware

[Krieger]

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.

If not censorware, what then?

[Dr_Bones]

As American schools continue to become more like daycare, and less like a learning institution, limiting what children and teens are exposed to will become much more commonplace than it is now. It's genuinely sad that the "school board", that local fiefdom we all know and love, is so afraid of lawsuits that they force this type of censorware on the public. Wouldn't it be a much better education to leave the sites unblocked, to perhaps encourage discussion about whatever it is kids find on the net? Or would that demand too much of teachers? Certainly I'm not taking a position where I think that children should be given unfettered access to the net; it's a given that some things (porn) ought to be filtered.

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.

[stock rant #64]

[Speare]

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]

1. Computers cannot be offended: it's not the censorware computer program that is doing the filtering of offensive material.
2. If it's not the censorware, it's the proponents of the censorware, that chooses what to hide from you. What political slant or prejudices are you entrusting with the filter?
3. Government-mandated filtering via a commercial product means a private company becomes a government bureacracy: think of the complexity of ensuring several million, if not billions, of websites are blocked or allowed according to government-mandated standards.
4. If a government sets the standards for what to filter, then the government opens itself for lawsuits. Millions of lawsuits where website creators feels they are being censored unfairly.
5. [T]he Constitution of the United States
   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]

Bad assumptions go too far back?

[dmccarty]

Somewhere along the line, someone assumed that having Internet access in public libraries and public schools was a good thing. Why? I can't think of very many good reasons to give a K-12 school unmitigated access to the Internet.

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.

--

Re:Details?

[jafac]

it's worse than "doesn't work".

You think the IT labor shortage is rough now?
We're raising a whole generation of technical cripples.

How?

I spoke to my son, and several other members of his class, ages range from 12-13yrs. They all have nice computer in the lab, and decent internet connections, and N2H2 filtering software. Every single one of these kids said that the internet was a useless waste of time, there was nothing on it worth seeing or reading that wasn't filtered. There were a few lame "educational" and commercial sites, and that was it.

In other words, kids aren't using computers, (except to learn Word and Excel). They aren't interested in the internet, only a few, and I'm guessing those are the ones who have access at home to unfiltered connections, who may or may not be looking at goatse.cx, but at least have the wide world of news and information at their disposal through the web.

Basically, all these billions we're spending to wire the schools and libraries is a big waste of money and time.

A cgi converter for the lazy:

[Anne Marie]

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

why do math when you have perl?

[dirt]

perl -MSocket -e 'print unpack("N*",scalar gethostbyname($ARGV[0])),"\n"' <your_hostname_here>

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.

---

Best way to beat Censorware

[doublem]

Most radical ways to demonstrate your point about censorware

1. Go to Library. Use a black marker to "protect" everyone else from printed content that would be blocked by censorware the library uses
2. Do the same at school
3. In public places (Classroom of teacher who advocates censorware, floor of the house or Senate) use a loud air horn to "protect" everyone from anything that censorware would block. This means Dick Army never gets to speak. Ever.

There are a number of really good ways to beat censorware.

1. Lawsuits. Sue the people trying to keep your child from seeing dangerous things like the Writings of Rush Limbaugh
2. any trick found on 2600.com
3. Bootable BEOS CD reconfigured to use the school's or Library's internet connection
4. Bootable BSD CD reconfigured to use the school's or Library's internet connection
5. Bootable Linux CD reconfigured to use the school's or Library's internet connection
6. Bootable QNX CD reconfigured to use the school's or Library's internet connection
7. 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.

Re:Nader and filtering software

[daemonc]

/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.

I cannot believe this

[jayfoo2]

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?

Re:I cannot believe this

[alecto]

In a public school? In a country with compulsory education? That's paid for by citizens with tax dollars? Darn right it's evil.

Ye Olde Dotte Tricke

[boinger]

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?

Slashdot is banned

[Prep__]

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.

Re:misconception regarding N2H2

[schussat]

It is up to N2H2's *clients* to decide which categories are blocked and are unblocked.

As far as I know, that's not really a new idea. The problem persists that the people who make the categorizations can be biased or inaccurate, or that the categories are too broadly defined.

-schussat

Irony

[cube farmer]

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.

What if disturbing content is -good- for kids

[PurpleFloyd]

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.

Re:What if disturbing content is -good- for kids

[radja]

maybe in the US. Here in the Netherlands what you have just described (disturbing content good for kids) has just happened last week: the 'jeugdjournaal' (news for kids on TV) has started showing things like murders, wars, etc.. because parents asked for it. the dutch want their kids to see the world as it is.. and not through pink-coloured glasses.

//rdj

Re: So what IS porn? .....Can YOU define it?

[deglr6328]

"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..."

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 .xxx decisions thinks it is(this happens in school librarys more often than you'd think)?

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!

Always wondered about this...

[Sawbones]

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.

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 /. stories would still be accessable and if an image was required then a teacher could bring it up on a non-filtered browser.

Just a though. any comments?

Chistendom and Satanism, both out??

[human bean]

One wonders if these filtering systems are programmed to pick up more than just porn? What about subjects like Satanism and devil worship? Or Tantric Yoga? Or Wiccan? Or Paganism?

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.

trouble?

[fluxrad]

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

Ye gods!

[Chris Johnson]

Ye gods!

What I would hope is this: if children are to be manipulated like this, let them be warned.

"Your school will use your body to sell Pepsi. Your education will be restricted to content in line with advertiser expectations (no Holocaust- concentration camp pictures make slimness look _bad_! Love, Slimfast for Kids). As you get older your very teachers will be more likely to be paid tools of large multinational corporations actively attempting to propagandise and brainwash you..."

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? :/

No WAY

[Chris Johnson]

You're out of line here, because you're overlooking one of the most important end results of the Internet- it is now possible for little children in school to make PERSONAL contact with other little children in other countries in other parts of the world. Your other points (no commercial, no pr0n) are good but to block personal contact is a serious mistake.

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.

A side effect

[Chris Johnson]

You've reminded me of one of the things that bugs me about this issue- by your mentioning War On Drugs and 'the responsible application of recreational drugs'.

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!')