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Candidates' Websites Blocked by CyberPatrol, N2H2
Yet another topical censorware report by Bennett Haselton and myself. Is this getting repetitive? It turns out that politicians' websites are being blocked in schools and libraries as inappropriate for viewing by children (and, in many cases, adults). The report,
"Blind Ballots",
takes a look at two dozen candidates whose campaigns have been censored in our public schools and libraries. One of the products blocks pretty equally across the political spectrum; the other takes a big chunk out of Republicans, Libertarians and conservative third parties. One Republican candidate (so far) has changed his position on filters because of this report.
ESR should write it "HaX0r" to avoid censorware.
this would have been quite easy to overlook in the Peacefire article, but the article did say that these censorware products block "everything" at free web sites such as Angelfire, Geocities, Tripod, etc. It isn't quite accurate to say that political speech is being censored on purpose. If politicians want to get their message out, surely they can afford the $20 a year for the domain registration and $60 a year for web hosting, which is all I pay for my multitude of sites. Censorware sucks almost as much as parents who use the Internet as a babysitter, however let's not go off half cocked here folks. Anyone with a Geocities page is going to be blocked by these programs, not just politicians, activists, hate groups, beany baby collectors and IRC addicts.
Remember, voting for the Libertarians will end all of this.
Neither education or libraries are a function of government as defined in the constitution.
No further funding for libraries and schools means no more censorware.
Get out and vote today, and do the right thing.
who else would get off on sowing chaos with a prnak like that right before the e-lection?
They make funny haha like they're a joke religion, but in reality they're a drug-fueled death cult. Just be sure not to drink the coolaid after the hoo-haw.
They pretend to be uninvolved and disdain the elctoral process. Don't be fooled. They have enoromous wealth and power -- 23% of all computer programmers are Discordians! They control the computers that control the Swiss banks.
"f0ck this sh1t, illuminate them all"
How can anyone decide if blocking software is fair or doing unconstitutional things or unscruplous things (e.g., blocking access to competitor's web sites), if the filtering algorithm is secret?
Sex in the Bible is not "bad." Adultery, yes. Fornication, yes. But sex? Let's see:
"God created humankind in his image, . . . *male* and *female* he created them" (Gen. 1:27, emphasis mine)
"Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh." (Gen. 2:24)
"How fair and pleasant you are,
O loved one, delectable maiden!
You are stately as a palm tree,
and your breasts are like its clusters.
I say I will climb the palm tree
and lay hold of its branches."
(Song of Solomon/Song of Songs 7:6-8)
May I remind you that the Israelite priests were a *hereditary* class, which is rather hard to accomplish without sex. Not even Paul, who is not exactly known for being pro-marriage, *ever* described sex as in itself somehow tainted. He discouraged marriage because it tended to promote divided interests rather than a single-minded focus on God (1 Cor. 7:32-33), yet even he had said that to marry is not sin (1 Cor. 7:28,36).
Considering sex to be bad in and of itself is not Biblical, and Christians or Jews who think sex is bad are not paying enough attention to their own Scriptures.
It is possible to run a filter that operates on *all* traffic on certain port numbers that it propigates. For example, here at UW-Madison, all web traffic goes through a proxy (for cacheing purposes, not censoring purposes), whether you like it or not. Anything going out on port 80 gets filtered through the proxy at the IT department, regardless of your own settings. I've even seen error messages from the proxy server show up in lynx. (when the remote site is down, the UW proxy server issues you an error message. Were it not for that message, I'd never have realized the proxy server existed. None of my local settings on the browser say anything about it.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
So they can use cpu-expensive algorithms to look for meaning in phrases and censor more accurately, but doing so means they don't have enough CPU time to examine more than a small part of the WWW. So if they want to filter enverything, then they have to do it clunky and badly so they can build the lists quickly enough.
Now, you might argue that hardware will get faster and thus be able to examine content faster, but that ignores the fact that the WWW itself is also going to be growing during that time too, so the problem space will be larger when the software is faster, so you probably won't gain any ground.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Well, if you want to check Smartfilter, Security Dynamics provides a web-based form you can type some URL's into and see how they're categorized: SmartfilterWhere. Unfortunately, it really depends on local site configuration on what is blocked or not though because the admin of the proxy is the one that would actually choose which categories to block. You could see if it came up as something weird like "sex" or "hate speech". Those are generally blocked obviously.
Filtering is done at the delievery end; the goal of filtering is to limit what content that a select subgroup of the whole can see; the content still goes out regardless.
Censoring is done at the producing end; the goal of censoring is to prevent content from even being distributed to anyone.
A lot of /.ers related these two issues, and they *are* closely related. However, we are talking about filters for children (who do NOT enjoy all the rights given by the Bill of Rights, by law), which is a small subgroup of the entire internet audience.
Compare filtering in the states to what's happening in China; the government is *censoring* web sites such that only offically approved news stories and other information is carried.
The arguement that groups like Peacefire and others make is not the filtering is bad, but filter programs that are out there today are inheriently bad such that at times they will act as biased filters (blocking certain information when other similar information isn't). An excellent example is this story; if even just one political site is blocked, assuming the site to be legitamite, then the filter software is bad, because that one candidate or issue is unfairly biased against. Another example are the number of sites on abortions that tend to get blocked... are the filter writers pro-life, or is it just the software catching one word that triggers an offensive flag?
Now imaging all the possible situations of where and when you'd want filtering, and all the possible problems that could come up. You'd realize quickly that there is no way that current software today can unbiasly filter the net; the only alternative is to constantly monitor the activities of the children as they use the net such that you can evaluate the page in real time and decide if your child can look or not. Thus, making the arguement that the ideal filter program is a dream, and anything that currently claims to filter the net is a failure and should be tossed aside.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
It may not be "sufficiently idealistic" to say:
If demonstrating this pragmatic fact to be true has the effect that the "dumb politicians" see the point that they can't censor, then it can have the required result.
What do we say "when their error rates become lower"?
It's not a problem because the error rates can only move from spectacularly horrible to being terribly bad.
The software won't ever do what it's "supposed" to, because there's no good fixed definition of what "should" be censored.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Yes, we must protect our children from seeing adult womens' nipples! OUTLAW BREAST FEEDING IMMEDIATELY!!
Seriously, though, I think the reason we tend to shield children from pornography is because we've been told all our lives how these things will stunt their growth and cause them psychological problems later in life. These beliefs most likely started because parents don't feel comfortable talking about sex to others, especially their obsessively inquisitive children. So, to hide our modesty, when our kids ask us where babies come from, we make up stories about a stork. This satisfies the kid, and we don't embarass ourselves explaining something we're not comfortable talking about.
Once these views become ingrained in a culture, they turn into law. This, I believe, is the reason we have laws prohibiting minors from viewing any kind of nudity. It's sad, really.
--
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
You can see the hacked version of the website here .
Seeing as how the hacker finishes off with "As such, I must vote Gore, and I urge you to do so." and then links to Al Gore's web page, I doubt it was a Green sympathizer. Of course, it could be a Green trying to make both Democrats and Republicans look bad, but now we're in conspiracy theory territory.
(score: -1, offtopic)
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Same here, I cannot access peacefire.org from work... This is my first job in years that I have not been the proxy admin, or I'd just override that entry. I guess I'll have to wait till I get home...
Or when they get elected pass leglislation to make it illegal to "censor" or filter "official" political campaign material/sites.
If violence and sex in media has NO influence on people, then why is advertising a multi-billion industry?
From my original post:
"I have yet to see any studies that show that the viewing of violent or sexual images has a negative effect on the majority of the viewers."
I didn't claim viewing violence or sex had no effect. If fact viewing sexual materials has a definite effect on me. A pleasurable one.
I simply pointed out that I have see no studies that show it has a NEGATIVE effect. Everyone seems to assume it does, at least on children. Show me the evidence.
The fact that those supporting such censorship don't have any sceintific evidence is rather telling. Because if there was any you can sure the pro censorship crowd would be trumpeting it.
Of course, the idea that sex = bad could be so ingrained in our culture it never occurs to most people to question it. Kinda like believing the world is flat prior to Copernicus or that commies were bad in the '50s.
Steve M
As a potential parent, unlike you, ...
What do ya mean I'm not a potential parent? I am too! And I'm a potential immortal as well. I'm not dead yet!
More seriously ...
If I choose to not have my children curse, or watch violence, I expect that society will not make the decision impossible.
Agreed.
I dont have any problem with the fact that kids 'end up' seeing porn, and hearing cussing. My problem is when my tax dollars are being used to PROVIDE that. I dont agree with that.
I object to my tax dollars being used to censor materials at a public terminal. Why should your objection take precedence over mine? Especially when yours violates the first amendment?
I have no problems with censoring, and I completely disagree that the internet has ANYTHING to do with it.
As you've no doubt gathered, I do have problems with censorship. And if the internet has nothing to do with it, does that mean that you also favor banning books if they have sexual or violent themes? Or use curse words?
As for the supreme court you may wish to check out the Dread Scott decision. In which the supreme court ruled that slaverly was legal and that congress could not outlaw slavery.
I doubt we'd get a similar ruling today. So perhaps it is not the case that they will always rule the same way.
Steve M
The idea itself (filtering the net) is good,...
This does seem to be a popular assumption.
How does it sound when we change one word? Let's see: The idea itself (censoring the net) is good,...
It doesn't sound so innocuous anymore.
I have yet to see any studies that show that the viewing of violent or sexual images has a negative effect on the majority of the viewers. Of any age. (Just as some people are more susceptible to alcoholism it may be the case that a small segment of the population cannot safely view violent or sexual images, but the case is far from settled.)
I've heard quite a bit about protecting children from porn on the net, but I have seen no compelling reasons for doing so. We seem to take it for granted that sex = bad. This is certainly not the case elsewhere, I've seen X rated movies on the French equivelant of HBO, topless women in English newspapers, and similar elsewhere in Europe. What social problems are a result of children growing up in such an environment?
Yet both sides of the filtering debate take it as a given the children should not be exposed to sexual material. Seems to me that this assumption is flawed.
I think it was Frank Zappa (I don't have a the reference) who told congress that he wanted his children to be exposed to this stuff in the media, so that they would be inoculated against it in real life. That makes sense to me.
And despite the scape goating of the media over violent content, violent crime is down again this year. Perhaps video games serve as an outlet for violence and not a cause?
Censoring is wrong. Period. The internet doesn't change that.
SteveM
Don't forget Dick Tuck, the Democrats' master of dirty tricks.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
There's more to it than this.
Did you know that the volume of English literature didn't surpass Ancient Greek literature until
1971.
Obviously, a "New ecomimist" is a tacit term for "pompous asshole" The internet, as wonderful as it is, contains very little of our heritage, our writting, and our virtue.
If DeTocqueville were to travel abroad through the internet, we'd be a bunch of viagra eatin, sex starved, chattering dot-com spam-schmucks that argue over stupid bits of "information" and freedoms on a medium that is half matketing platform, half toyland. He'd think that we were nuts.
But even these days, the sanctity of libraries is questionable at best.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
I sympathasize; it reminds me of when people defended DeCSS on the basis that it could never be used to pirate DVDs on the 'Net, even though we all know that someday you'll be able to download 5 Gig in a second. These types of arguments are strawmen-in-the-making.
But I think that improved filtering is a long way off (much further off than 1 second DVBD downloads), and I won't lament when it gets here. Why? Because I think that the prerequisites for good filtering are extremely high; it basically requires strong AI. Pattern matching just won't cut the mustard. You need a real AI that has gone to law school and has lived in the community for a few years. If the Cyberpatrol guys manage a breakthrough that the computer and cognitive scientists have all so far failed with, they'll have my heartfelt congratulations.
Besides, it's just so damned funny! It's like reading a threat from the CueCat guys.
So, in the mean time, I enjoy stories like this and hope they receive very wide publicity, because it makes the censors look foolish and makes Joe Schmoe at least stop and question things for a second.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Those 'ancient fertility cults and Roman religions' are so good, they were assimilated into Christianity, that's where they are.
The holiday we celebrate on Dec. 25 comes from the birth of the sun god Mithras. Christianity assimilated it, and renamed it, much like microsoft did to CP/M er.. DOS..
The holiday we celebrate as the 'ressurection' of Christ comes from the celebration of a fertility goddess, in fact it still bears her name, 'Eastre'..
And Christianity and Judaism hardly have a corner on the idea of keeping it in your pants. All religions purport to deem when it is approriate to engage in sexuality and reproduction.. and all religions also wish to control people and their offspring.. coincidence? Hardly. It's all part of the standard meme, just like how all chain letters urge you to 'pass it on'..
Praise the Force Field! Praise the Laser Project! Slackware Loon #19830573
'People do not go around shouting "Convert or Die!"'
Oh, that's right, I forgot, the Inquisition never happened.. nor did the Crusades.. or the Spanish conquering of South America.. damn history books always lying..
Praise the Force Field! Praise the Laser Project! Slackware Loon #19830573
Ad Hominem. I think this is where I came in.
Praise the Force Field! Praise the Laser Project! Slackware Loon #19830573
In the case of N2H2 at least, there's a process by which every page is stamped with an N2H2 header. On this header, there's a 'submit for review' button, which anyone can press if they think they've gotton to a site they shouldn't be able to. This all sounds good in theory, except that by submitting the page for review, it automatically adds the site to the "naughty" list until someone actually gets around to testing it. Proof of point, www.n2h2.com was (briefly) added to the naughty list by a friend of mine... very amusing.
The point is, very little intelegence, machine or otherwise, goes into the censoring of pages. On N2H2's defence however, i'd point out that every "blocked-site" page is also given a header, so that joe-average-user can submit a censored page for reavaluation. This usually takes several days, but I was able to get the "Hacker Anti-Defamation League" un-censored.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
you, sir, are an idiot.
I just ran these new sites through the search engine, and again Cyberpatrol claims it's not blocking the sites! They must monitor these reports really closely, and quickly remove sites from the list when there's a question about how appropriate it is to block them.
This all ties in with their refusal to let people browse the contents of their lists. You could claim they're practicing corporate censorship, but really it just looks like incompetence on their parts, since they are banning sites regardless of political party.
--
It seems perfectly reasonable for me to have censorware block sites promising obscene amounts of pork in exchange for screwing the voter.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
> [One has to wonder] what these politicians are putting on their sites to get blocked.
Well, "gore" would be blocked by a violence filter, and "bush" by a sex filter.
And of course, "nader" is an obscenity in any businessman's dictionary.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In addition to what everyone has already said about this, there seem to be subtly different objections to censorware. Whereas (apparently) many people here on slashdot (incidentally including myself) are opposed to all forms of censorship as a rule, there are people who would support the use of censorware iff it actually worked, but believe that the whole class of software just can't work reliably; i.e. there just isn't any reliable way to tell objectionable material from acceptable material.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Gee, it's convenient that you forget all the admonitions against fornication, sodomy, lewd behavior, etc, all throughout the Bible.
Sorry, I don't buy your extremely narrow reading of one verse from the Bible. Thanks for playing.
As to your questions:
Out of wedlock pregnancies are bad because it is likely that the child will not be brought up with two loving parents, nor the appropriate emotional, moral, intellectual and financial support. It's common sense, and is being borne out in study after study that a loving mother and a loving father are your best bet for a happy childhood and a happy, successful adulthood.
We should shield our children from portrayals of sexuality (like almost all popular media) that treat women as simply a mobile carrier for things to stick your pecker in. We should shield children from the depravity of unnatural acts, out-of-wedlock sex (which drives people to kill viable unborn human beings in ways so brutal that you wouldn't even see them in an id game). We should shield our children from a view of sex that treats people as objects to be used for our own gratification, despite the strong emotional or psychological bonding that sexual congress produces. We should shield our children from a view of sex that causes the massive spread of disease and emotional damage. Instead we should teach our children that sex is something natural and beautiful, when it is used in both is unitive and procreative ways with the sacred bonds of marriage.
I'm sorry you are no longer a Christian, but it's obvious your knowledge of doctrine is extremely superficial if not out-and-out wrond, so I can understand why you left.
Experience will not being knowledge and wisdom without a thorough underpinning of logic and morality, both of which are almost completely absent in our society.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Condoms prevent STD's? What planet are you from? Condoms are only 85% effective against pregnancy and that can only happen about 5 days a months.
The AIDS PSA industry is deluding you into believing you're safe simply because people would otherwise not even bother at all if they understood the real risks. Translated: They;re willing to mislead you because they know people value meaningless boinking over life itself.
I have to laugh at these PSA's that tell me AIDS can affect anybody. I can tell you it will _never_ happen to me (unless I get it through a medical procedure). On the other hand, a gay friend of mine is always getting AIDS tests and seems to have a fatalistic attitude about it all.
As far your comment about war, that is almost beneath replying to. You clearly are extremely ignorant of world history if you thing that Christians and Jews corner the market on war. Get your nose out of the computer and try reading a book.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The superficial trappings of some of these festivals were assimilated into Christianity the same way local culture is assimilated into the Mass in places like Africa and Asia. It's a good way to help people make what would otherwise be a sharp cultural transition when they convert to Christianity.
Show me the temples being built to Diana or Zeus in the last 2000 years. Who walks around with a symbol of Mithras or Lug or Thor or Ra these days? I think you'd have to look long and hard.
Don't pretend for a minute that these religions play any significant roles in the modern world.
Christianity isn't out to control people. People do not go around shouting "Convert or Die!", nor was that ever a significant method of conversion when compared to other religions or political factions and even when it did happen, it was clearly against what Christ taught. Christianity is not about control but bring people to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As you can see in John 6, if you don't like it, leave. No one's holding a gun to your head.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Yeah, it has the complication that people don't want to follow the rules set down. But actually, that's not very complicated at all.
Just because something is an ideal that most people are unwilling to attempt to follow doesn't make it any less true. Your complications are nothing more than disagreeing with the morality.
Life is not always simple, but there is a basic morality spelled out by Christianity that is really not very hard to understand and is not hard to follow if you are really willing to try. Unfortunately, very few people are... including me sometimes (I'm not perfect either).
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Just because no one is perfect does not mean that there is not a moral absolute that is worth pursuing. Your argument is another exmaple of the following:
Rick: If you didn't do A, B wouldn't happen.
Response: But everybody does A, so you're wrong.
Marxist dogma will always fail, because without a moral context into which the economic philosophies are placed, no one is going to do what it takes to make it work... and we all know that most Marxist societies exist/existed in a relative state of moral vacuum. It presumes that people are naturally perfect, and if treated perfectly equally, ambition, envy and greed would magically disappear.
Christianity treats everyone as naturally good, but subject to the constant temptation to do wrong, against which we all must strive to overcome with the grace of God.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Bingo!
:) ).
You're the first person I've heard so eloquently and logically describe the issue.
Children cannot innocently walk into an adult book store... why should the Internet be any different?
No doubt that the filtering issue is sticky, what with plenty of legitimate things being filters because of the filters' stupidly primitive criteria. Nonetheless, it is perfectly acceptable and in no way falls into the realms of censorship to filter public terminals. After all, you can't get hardcopy pr0n in any library I've ever been to (not that I've asked
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
So you are saying if you had a satellite dish with all the channels, you'd just toss your five-year-old the remote and say "Have Fun!"? If she feels bad, are you going to send her to a fully stocked medicine cabinet and say "Take something." Are you going to give her exactly what she wants to eat even though she asks for chocolate cake three meals a day.
Think about what you're saying.
Despite what you might think, children are not mature enough to understand certain things until there is a solid logical and moral foundation built. Otherwise they have no way of distinguishing right from wrong. Children are not completely independant and autonomous people otherwise they'd have the right to vote and we'd kick them out and let them get jobs. Your ridiculous notion that protecting your children from harmful things is wrong "infuriates" me. You might be willing to abdicate your responsibility to give kids a chance to learn the right things _before_ all this stuff comes along. I will not. Furthermore, even when my children (I have 4) are old enough to be out on their own, when I don't have total control of what they see or who they are with, there will still be the same rules at my house that there are now. And yes, I practive all the things I teach them.
As far as this creating "closed-minded" people. Well, guess what? There are some things you should be closed-minded about. Some things are wrong. Period. This moral relativism that we are constantly bathed in is intellectually bankrupt and just an excuse by people who are unwilling to stay away from immoral behavior yet somehow care about the fact that others may disapprove.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
So you're saying that children cannot distinguish which drugs are good or bad, but they immediately discern whether something violent or pornographic is good or bad (or I guess you are saying it's all fine). Obviously you don't know any children or anything about them. They are not just miniature adults, capable of making reasoned and informed decisions. Even most of the teenagers I know are incredibly immature. Kids do stupid things because they don't know better. They are not rational people. My kids are all sweet, wonderful children with above-average intelligence (based in my observations of their vocabulary, math ability, etc), but they still have the common sense of cabbage. This is no fault of their own, and I'm confident they will develop this normally, as do most people, in time. However, I'm not living in a fantasy world, like you seem to be, that kids will just magically discover the rights and wrongs of the world by themselves.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
To reiterate my point simply:
We must shield children from what's harmful until they have the capacity to learn how make that decision for themselves. You don't hand a medical student a scalpel and set him loose in the OR before he's completed his education. Why should sending people out in a world with many real dangers be any different? We have to learn to walk before we can run. That has nothing to do with not respecting the rights and freedoms of children and everything to do with educating them in the right order.
And as far as literal Bible interpretation... it's one thing to say that the Earth was created 5000 years ago because of some tortured logic resulting from reading Genesis, and it's another entirely that when St. Paul says something is wrong to believe it is wrong (after all, Jesus granted St. Peter the right to rule on moral teaching, which has been passed down through his successors to today). Christian tradition holds that Scripture is divinely inspired and therefore transmits the message the Creator intended even through flawed human instruments, but this understanding can only be learned properly through the combined wisdom of the Magesterium, which as a whole is guided by the Holy Spirit from teaching error (again with a strong Scriptural basis, see Acts). However, just because secular customs of behavior fluctuate wildly, the underlying morality of these behaviors does not. Furthermore, eaither you believe Scripture is divinely inspired, or you don't. But if you don't I have a hard time seeing how you (not you personally) would bother to follow Christianity in any form as a religion rather than just a loose guideline of nice, but optional ideas to live your life.
The Bible can, in fact, be interpreted (or more often selectively read) to mean almost anything you say, which is why understanding Scripture must be tempered with interpretation of Tradition as passed down over the last 2000 years. Otherwise, people simply pick and choose what they like and you end up with 40,000 different sects of Christianity that differ on every conceivable aspect of anything even remotely connected to the subject.
I greatly appreciate your polite and reasoned response, but must agree to disagree.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Why?! If you don't believe them, why should it matter what they say? Why is it that people have such a hard time when someone tells them something they don't like? Everyone shouts "Freedom of Speech", but then often get all bent out of shape when someone else exercises it too.
As far as the Ten Commandments go, religion aside, they are a significant basis for all moral code in the Western world, like the Magna Carta, the U.S. Constitution, the works of the ancient Greeks, Roman ideas of government, even the code of Hammurabi. I don't know exactly how the posting of these is handled, and don't necessarily agree with it from a Constitutional pointy of view, but the fact remains that they constitute an extremely important historical document.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Please read my post again. You have a talent for a clever quip, but obviously not one for reading.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Let's just put it this way:
Before there were Internet terminals in libraries, did you ever hear of parents complaining about their children finiding pornography at the library? Did you ever hear complaints that children are innocently or purposefully walking into adult bookstores?
Ideas and images are just that, but they can still have a very deleterious effect on immature people who are incapable of understanding them. Do you think a young child should see the commendable "Schindler's List"? I think you would just terrify the poor child and he or she would gain no understanding of what the movie is all about. Adults on the other hand will gain an understanding of the events portrayed in the movie and the significance of protecting against it happening again.
We don't let medical students perform surgery, we don't let pilot trainees land a jumbo jet, we don't let incompetant poeple write mission- critical software (well, except for Microsoft...). Similarly, you cannot expose children to every conceivable concept and expect them to assimilate and understand it all. You must walk before you can run, and I think it is in society's best interests to suffer this inconvenience and imperfect implementation in order to repsect the rights of parents to feel safe about their children using a public facility.
If public filters in libraries (however poorly- or well-implemented) used by children is censorship than so are rules against children buying pornography or seeing X-rated movies.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Ummm... maybe for Unitarians or the typical vacuous MTV-watcher who claims to be Christian only so his Mom won't hassle him, or some content-free feel-good Protestant sects, or some psycho-babbling talk-show evangelists. But "believing in Christ" for the majority of Christians implies a moral code based upon and extrapolated from the teachings of Jesus, and handed down by His Church, guided from error by the Holy Spirit.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Nice troll, Chester.
If you think literature that exploits and objectifies women is OK, then that's fine, but don't foist your ire on religion.
The fact of the matter is, if people adhered to Christian morality regarding sex there would be no STD's, no out-of-wedlock pregnancies, AIDS would be extremely rare (or might have never gotten past a few isolated incidents), no women or children being enslaved to prositution, no sexual predators kidnapping children, no president Clinton and Monica in the Oval Office. The list goes on.
Furthermore, if those ancient fertility cults and Roman religions are so good, where are they now? The fact of the matter is Christianity and Judaism for thousands of years have had a logical, consistent, natural and workable morality of sex that, if followed, would eliminate a whole lot of suffering.
Gee, those are some pretty dangerous ideas.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
After a study of this so-called report, it becomes increasingly obvious that this is just another of Hasselton's lies. Over 70% of the sites he reports to be blocked are not. Hasselton is the real problem here.
What Fools These Mortals Be!
God, I hate the "overrated" moderation setting.
At +2 it's overrated? +2 is my default posting!
Why not try to give a real reason, and see how the metamoderators react, eh?
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The moral argument is indeed strong, but my morals and your morals do not necessarily match the morals of anyone else in this matter. Morals exist at an extremely low level in our minds...they influence everything we do. Call it a kernel-level feature.
The problem is not that the moral stance of censorware proponents is that censorship is an outright good thing. The moral ideal they are normally working with is that certain things (pornography/drugs/hate/whatever) should not exist at all. Obviously, a solid moral stance against censorship will conflict with this, resulting in one ideal being chosen over the other.
Changing someone else's morals is not easy. It usually requires a desire to change from within. What you can do, however, is make slow headway on other items related to the moral question. For example, do you think the US population in, say, 1850 would do nothing if the law/tax/etc systems of the time were immediately changed to the way things are nowadays? But it wasn't an immediate change...it was a gradual change with one item at a time.
If we can convince people that current censorware solutions are wrong, then at least we've gained some ground. And with the nature of the internet, I really doubt that anyone will ever make "perfect" censorware. There will always be "bad" things that slip through the cracks, and "good" things that get blocked from view. Sure you could make a censorware product whose lists are updated daily by actual humans, but the internet is simply too big and too ephemeral for this to ever be a practical solution.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
When both sides of an issue like this are very dedicated to their stances, you have to try to find ways that don't necessarily outright discredit the other view. If you just walk up to a pro-censorware person and shout, "Censorship is wrong!", they'll just say back "We have to protect our children's eyes!" And you'll have many merry hours of saying basically the same things to each other for as long as the both of you can put up with each other.
But, if you can give a censorware advocate firm examples of the failures of such products, you run a slight chance of putting a crack in their defenses on the subject. With enough examples, you may even be able to convince them that there is no current censorware solution that doesn't have these problems. Then you can work on convincing them that automated censorware that actually has a 100% success rate is probably never going to happen. Then you can get them to realize that the only blocking software you really need is heavy parental involvement in children's lives.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Though interestingly, my mum was talking about the new terminals they have in the library she works in. They're (Herts, England) talking about bringing in censorware but in a couple of the places they've had it a while they get a couple of old men coming in, grabbing the terminal and getting down to it. The staff are too embarrased to do anything about it and the machines are ina seperate room. it isnt a nice thought though.Wouldn't it be simpler to have a setup where the internet access could be switched off remotly?
I've heard quite a bit about protecting children from porn on the net, but I have seen no compelling reasons for doing so. We seem to take it for granted that sex = bad. This is certainly not the case elsewhere, I've seen X rated movies on the French equivelant of HBO, topless women in English newspapers, and similar elsewhere in Europe. What social problems are a result of children growing up in such an environment?There are actually plenty of things children shouldn't have access to from school on the Internet. Porn would be in the "stuff with no educational value" catagory, which also includes a fair bit of commercial stuff aimed at children. Especially if they are running MS Windows there is also an "accessing this site can mess up the machine", typically sites which allow easy downloading and running of software (including web browser plugins).
The reason porn is specifically targeted is because of parents. e.g. child A prints off 50 porn pics, child B prints off 50 promotional pics for children's films. The former will cause the biggest stink even though both have wasted the same amount of time and resources.
And despite the scape goating of the media over violent content, violent crime is down again this year. Perhaps video games serve as an outlet for violence and not a cause?
Hardly the newest of claims, why do you think the Romans had such violent public entertainments?
The instinct to protect children is correct, it's what guarantees the survival of the species. The big question is, from what are we protecting our children? Seeing an adult woman's nipples?
If it's so important that children not see nipples then best pass a law mandating bottle feeding...
Different cultures have different ritual prohibitions. In some countries it's against the law for a woman to show her hair in public. In other places, they can even show their pubic hair if they wish.
The vast majority of countries are multi-cultural anyway. Especially geographically large countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia.
Seriously, though, I think the reason we tend to shield children from pornography is because we've been told all our lives how these things will stunt their growth and cause them psychological problems later in life.
These arguments are possibly circular or self fulfiling though.
These beliefs most likely started because parents don't feel comfortable talking about sex to others, especially their obsessively inquisitive children.
"Started" is like arguing if the chicken or the egg came first. Once such attitudes get established they will tend to self propergate.
Ancient Israel was opposed to Babylon and other civilizations which had fertility cults in their religions. Therefore, "if our enemies have sex in their religions, sex must be bad". Likewise, early Christianity was opposed to the main religions in the Roman Empire, most of which had a relatively tolerant attitute towards sex.
There are still echos of firtility cults in celebrations co-opted by Christianity. e.g. Rabbits and eggs being associated with Easter.
The fact of the matter is, if people adhered to Christian morality regarding sex there would be no STD's, no out-of-wedlock pregnancies, AIDS would be extremely rare (or might have never gotten past a few isolated incidents), no women or children being enslaved to prositution, no sexual predators kidnapping children, no president Clinton and Monica in the Oval Office. The list goes on.
Except what actually is the "christian morality regarding sex", most of what people like to claim is appears to have been simply made up by priests, there is very little to find in the bible. Also remember that one of the closest friends of Jesus was a prostitue, Jesus was apparently unmarried at his death and Christian churchs have not always embraced marriage as they do now.
The holiday we celebrate as the 'ressurection' of Christ comes from the celebration of a fertility goddess, in fact it still bears her name, 'Eastre'..
With some of the fertility symbols intact too...
And Christianity and Judaism hardly have a corner on the idea of keeping it in your pants. All religions purport to deem when it is approriate to engage in sexuality and reproduction.. and all religions also wish to control people and their offspring.. coincidence?
This will give you attempts to restrict sex to procreation, it may also give rise to relationships being ratified by priests...
We should shield our children from portrayals of sexuality (like almost all popular media) that treat women as simply a mobile carrier for things to stick your pecker in.
But portrays of mens sexuality which are demeaning are ok...
We should shield children from the depravity of unnatural acts,
Usually when someone says this the "unnatural acts" they refer to are actually perfectly natural. Whilst humans do plenty of unnatural things having sex isn't one of them
out-of-wedlock sex (which drives people to kill viable unborn human beings in ways so brutal that you wouldn't even see them in an id game).
Married women never have abortions?
Instead we should teach our children that sex is something natural and beautiful, when it is used in both is unitive and procreative ways with the sacred bonds of marriage.
Except that marriage is one of the "unnatural behaviours" which humans practice...
Of course, Websense's ratings are based on a human being actually setting eyes on the site and categorizing it
Many such companies make this claim, quite a few of them have been caught telling outright lies about how they compile their lists. Where is the independant evidence that Websense does use humans?
The main reason why sex is "bad" is religious. The mainstream religions in the US and Europe are Judaism and Christianity.
You missed out Islam, anyway all these 3 religions (and many more if you consider the various sub sects) originate from Judaism.
What probably matters more is organised religion and religious dogma, rather than actual religious faiths and holy books.
I completely disagree with you on all of this. The words "We should shield our children from.." infuriates me. It is people like you that create a close minded society where nothing changes.
Or it can raise children to behave in exactly they way they are told not to. Especially if the parents doing this are in anyway hypocritical.
Let's suppose you meet someone in a tennis club. After a few minutes of talking, you find that both want to play tennis, and both have somewhat compatible skills. Would it be "bad" for you to play tennis with a stranger, with no further regard to who your partner was? Or would you want to know better you partner, have a more meaningful relation with him/her, etc?
Depends if you have made an agreement with another person to be their exclusive tennis partner. The biblical prohibition against adultary is about dishonesty, rather than sex.
Peacefire.org is categorized by Websense as being an activism site. My employer has decided to block political activism sites just as much as porn or gambling. I don't blame them though; strong activism can be just as offensive in a work environment.
Interestingly what does Websense classify the Microsoft "Linux Myths" pages as?
However, Websense is guilty of generalizing in their categorization. ESR's home page is categorized as "hacking."
Looks like they are using some sort of web spider, rather than the people they claim to use...
A common problem with using software is that there are very few words which are unique to catagories people want to block. e.g. is something refering to "toys" porn or not?
I think its safe to say that all *.gov, *.mil, and *.int domain names are safe.
Really? I'm sure there would be a few who would see *.mil as being for the block list, possibly *.gov too...
Politicians are finally going to have to wake up and realize that no one wins when it comes to censorship. "Go ahead and burn the all the books. Whoa, hold on, those are MY memoirs. I meant burn EVERYONE ELSE'S books".
Cue story of feminist advocate who's own writings were banned under the laws she helped write...
So they can use cpu-expensive algorithms to look for meaning in phrases and censor more accurately
Except that even the best such algorithms are poor compared with humans. Being unable to understand such things as satire and humor or even the difference between parts of a mammal and parts of a bird.
You need a real AI that has gone to law school and has lived in the community for a few years.
Which opens a whole other can of worms. Such an AI may well have it's own opinions as to what is important. e.g. establishing it's own citizenship rights over filtering the internet for human young.
If a human really is deciding that these sites should be blocked, can they track down who did the blocking and question him or her as to why the hell he or she blocked these?
They probably don't want to admit that they have far fewer human reviews than they'd like people to believe.
One rediculous example is the blocking of information about the Ford Escort car due to the word "escort"!
Exactly the kind of thing you expect to happen where the blocking is done by a program, with no human seeing the results (unless someone complains.) There are very few words which are used in porn and porn only. Many of the terms used in porn are also used in things completly unrelated, so attempts to bar porn also bar information on cars, buildings, toys, cooking, fixings, farming, sports, etc.
A kid who stumbles onto a porn site will most likely simply move on to disney.com
Maybe the filter is there to protect teachers form being embarrased when a child findd a "wack a mole" porn site and can't get out of it without help...
However, with a divorce rate approaching 50%, in wedlock pregnancies are bad because it is likely that the child will not be brought up with two loving parents.
Is it worst for the child to start with two parents then at some point change or to simply start with one?
We seem to take it for granted that sex = bad.
This is because there is no shortage of people/institutions that do their best to define sex (and host of other things) as bad. If we buy into that defination, they are well on the way to contolling out sex lives. The logical extension is that those who define/control sex would then have power over the ones who accept that defination. And power is much more valuable than money.
Ever pondered why organized religions are so into defining their beleivers sex lives?
Jonathan Moran
Oink, Oink!!
If people adhered to those lessons, we'd all be frollicking happily in green meadows under a smiling sun and watching nice videos on each others tummies.
Life has complications, though. And when you actualy open that Bible, instead of just waving it at people, you see it has a bit more depth and substance than that.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Bad idea for the kids. In some schools, attempts that are blocked are logged and can get the kid in trouble.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Recall that Richard "Dick" Armey's site is blocked by Netnanny, Surfwatch, Cybersitter, N2H2, and Wisechoice because of his nickname. Of course this is more than mildly funny only because Armey is one of the many conservatives who believes that Censorware is the solution to the country's problems.
More information is available at http://dfn.org/Alerts/contest.htm
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
What will be interesting to note is how the politicians respond to this. I see that one changed his mind about it.
The truth is, I highly doubt that anyone really wants students to have un-controlled access to ANYTHING on the net in school, provided by our money.
Its not like people advocate playboy (magazines) to high schools (no matter how educational it might be, grin)..
The idea itself (filtering the net) is good, its just the implementation that is, was, and will be (for a long time) crap.
At least, IMHO..
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Can you imagine Orrin Hatch walking into a middle school and trying to show kids his web site on their computers, only to find himself BLOCKED!
Then he'd have to circumvent an access protection device to access to his own web page, and we could lock him up for 10 years for breaking a law he sponsored!
Oh my dear god, i'm nearly creaming my pants thinking about it.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
The paranoid in me wonders whether the Republicans did it themselves, just to smear the Democrats...
Hey, this is the party that brought you Watergate, and Iran-Contra..."dirty tricks" are their speciality.
No I don't really believe this, but if I found out it was true I wouldn't be floored.
Paranoid Stevis
We've got two lives, one we're given, and the other one we make. --Mary Chapin Carpenter
I don't have the time, money, or computer systems to install, configure, and test urls with different filtering software. Is there some web site that I can go to, submit a url get a summary of what filtering software thinks of a web site?
Given that these filtering companies encrypt their lists, there probobly isn't an easy way to set up a site like this. Do the filtering companies maintain a query for their piece of software? If not, why not?
It seems to me that this is something that web masters are going to have to worry about from now on, just as they have to worry about placement in search engines now.
That's kind of the point. Filter software doesn't work. One shouldn't wonder about what the candidates are putting on their sites that get blocked, one should wonder why the filtering software blocks the espousal of political ideas.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Can anyone post a link to, or comments on, what the other side of the story is? Can the filtering companies really explain why these sites are blocked? If a human really is deciding that these sites should be blocked, can they track down who did the blocking and question him or her as to why the hell he or she blocked these?
The idea of filtering does have merits -- why would there be support for it. However, these problems are serious. What is the explanation?
is illegal for minors to view out of the hands of minors
Not even that clear cut, I'm afraid.. It's not illegal per se for a child to view or have material the standards say is pornography; Most laws merely state that the minor cannot purchase them. I'm assuming parental consent would be good enough, so long as the material cannot be judged to have so damaging an effect as to be 'child abuse'.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Thats right! We can protect our children by shielding them about the truths of our world. This will make them happier and healther children!
Please. If I understand this correctly the reason why canidate web pages are being blocked is that they want to discuss some tough moral and ethical issues. Canidates have stances on contraversal issues like abortion, violence in society (gun control, violence in entertainment), gambling, law enforcement and they want to tell people about them. Unfortunately, this puts them squarely behind the taboo mongers.
What good is it to hide this information away from our kids? What is wrong with letting our children know that there are unpretty moral and ethical issues at risk that will effect their lives now and in the future? It is very true that 10 year old children don't have the right to vote nor should they but blinding children to important issues isn't the answer especially since there is a lot of hoopla around this election.
This stuff presents the biggest problem with censorware. Kids have legit, non-vulgar questions but censorware doesn't have a clue so they stay unanswered. I just hope children are smart enough to keep asking questions and their parents and teachers are good enough to answer them fairly because censorware certainly is failing them.
I'm also unclear if it is justifiable to block canidate page at the workplace. Sure it constitutes visiting web pages that have nothing to do with work but civics shouldn't be automatically ignored once you step into your cubical.
seems to me that politicians are going to have to learn to become web interface developers in a sense...
instead of having to worry about whether a site can work on the two major browsers (at the least) on the top platforms with different monitor settings...
they'll have to worry about whether their content can make it through the majority of libraries and school systems with the different censor programs set at different levels of "accessibility" while still retaining their "message"
Let's see you maintain this when you are convicted and sentenced to death for a murder that you did not commit.
We have appeals for a reason!
First posting isn't trolling. It's...first posting.
Muck-rakers was what early news reporters called themselves.
60 used to be the leader in muck-raking (investigate reports). Slashdot is a tool for private muck-rakers.
And don't give me that shallow crap about how people make language. People also need language.
It's not a game in a statistics course.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
The censorware companies simply block all pages that come from free sites. It's just a lot easier to block all content from a site than it is to weed out the pr0n and sadism. Most of these candidates host their sites on these free services, so they are blocked. It really has nothing to do with their views (well, maybe it does: they can't or won't spend exorbitant amounts of money on a pay site, so Mattel deems them unworthy of being viewed...).
That's what you get for trusting the Tipper Gores of the world...serves them right!
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
If everyone consistently adhered to morals PERIOD, none of those would happen. Christianity is not the solution to everything and it tries too hard to do just that. At least, PEOPLE try too hard to make it that. They read into it things that just aren't there. Any kind of morality regarding sex being one of them.
I was born a Christian and I underwent all of the ceremonies up to and including confirmation, so I know what I'm talking about. All Christianity is is a set of guidelines for living one's life.
These guidelines constitute a moral code but nowhere in that code does it say that sex is bad and should be avoided. As Page Smith said, "The 7th commandment states 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' The 7th commandment does not say 'Thou shalt not commit fornication,' which is sexual relationships between unmarried men and women." The 7th commandment implies respect of others, not a moral lesson that sex is bad.
Christianity teaches a respect and tolerance of fellow man and his beliefs, and respect for life. That's why all of those problems would go away if people faithfully followed Christianity. That's why they would go away if everyone followed any intelligent moral code based upon respect.
I'm not advocating Christianity over any other religion or belief system. I'm not currently a Christian by current opinion though I still share the same beliefs of respect. Over-zealous Christians piss me off because of this. Kind of the same situation with over-zealous linux 'advocates'. They ruin the perception for outsiders.
Some of those fertility cults you mention were destroyed by invading armies. The invaders then either wiped out or assimilated the conquered simply because they didn't share the same beliefs(and didn't respect them).
So in closing, I'd like you to answer some questions. Why are out of wedlock pregnancies bad? Why is sexual content evil? Besides providing unfounded and baseless religous sentiment can you provide me with any reason(s) why we should shield our children from these things as if they were the most terrible things ever?
I would put to you that the way we treat fellow men and teach our children to continue treating them this way is worse. Curbing that trend involves exposing everyone to these things, not shielding kids from them. Knowledge and wisdom come from experience, not from being not from being shacked up and protected.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
The only harmful effect I can see in sex is when people do it so much that they forget how to make war. They are then in great danger of being eliminated by war-worshippers, like Jews and Christians.
That's pushing it. I think you mean fanatics. Being a Jew or Christian does not mean you love war. All Christian history shows is that humans are a poor misguided lot that often think too much of themselves especially when they takes things literally(or too seriously even). Unfortunately, people do this too often for my liking and VERY often with dramatic and unfortunate results, ie. Crusades.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
The bible itself has also seen so many revisions throughout history as peoples' prejudices have changed that you honestly can't tell me that it's original message is stated so plainly as you seem to believe, ie. passages against sodomy etc. If you care to recall, every story about Jesus carried a message of forgiveness, tolerance and respect of man no matter what they did in their lives. Not once do I recall Jesus lecturing of how evil sex is or any such thing. The only thing consistently frowned upon was breaking one of the Ten Commandments none of which state that we should shield our children or ourselves from sex. Someone's interpretation said that.
The point I'm trying to make is that the only thing that would survive such change are the underlying principles. That's why I believe there exist so many books: so that despite the fact that the stories will change to accomodate the ideas of the time, the principles will remain intact. You must read all the books to truly see the underlying thread which binds them all, and that is the message. That's why you should not read the bible literally, but philosophically.
We should shield our children...
Bzzzt... wrong!
Instead we should teach our children...
Right! I know exactly what you're trying to say and why you think that way; your intentions are good. My natural reaction/instinct is to do the same. But the more I think about it the more I'm convinced that shielding anyone from anything is wrong. Shielding accomplishes nothing, teaching is accomplishes everything. Teach your children to think for themselves and show them the respect of fellow man through example and they learn. When people stop being influenced by these media images you so loathe, they will go away simply because there won't be any market for them. That's the way it works.
Though I may not necessarily agree with all your views on sex, I understand where you're coming from and you have the right to your own opinion. I personally don't feel that we should treat people as objects for own gratification(like you said) but I also don't think you should necessarily wait till your married to have sex. If two people are attracted to each other and and consent I see no reason why they can't have sex. I don't like it when they do it out of ignorance or when drunk or under the influence of anything mind altering, but besides that I think it's ok. But the key is always clear headed and intelligent adults making intelligent decisions for themselves.
I also understand why you think that two parents are better than one, and for the most part I agree with you. In a perfect world they would be, but I don't think I need to remind you that it's not a perfect world and so two parents are not necessarily better. Sometimes one is better. You shouldn't frown upon on single parents just because of how you think things should be. There's always a reason for the way things are and just because you don't know what it is, doesn't give you any right to judge. Nothing gives you the right to judge.
I'm sorry you are no longer a Christian, but it's obvious your knowledge of doctrine is extremely superficial if not out-and-out wrond, so I can understand why you left.
You're absolutely right. By this definition my knowledge of what is taught is very poor(not superficial) because I don't listen to what others try and teach me. I see and think for myself. I have not been indoctrinated because that's not how to understand the bible. And what makes you think I left Christianity? I said I'm not a Christian by popular definitions because I don't follow the pope, and don't listen to popular doctrine(unless they have a good point in which case I always listen then think about it myself).
Experience will not being knowledge and wisdom without a thorough underpinning of logic and morality, both of which are almost completely absent in our society.
I agree 100%. But experience is useless or more accurately, absent, in a society which constantly tries to shield it's children.
If you want to build your society through underpinnings of logic and morality, then don't literally accept everything the bible says. It was written by flawed human beings who were trying to convey an important message. Listen to the message, not the prejudice that is a writer can never escape. Logic and blind faith do not jive. Think and show children, and they will understand.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Well, put. :-)
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
So you are saying if you had a satellite dish with all the channels, you'd just toss your five-year-old the remote and say "Have Fun!"?
:-)
That probably wouldn't happen because I think tv for the most part is a huge waste of time, but in short, yes. I would trust my children and show them how to make mature decisions through example. I would let them make intelligent decisions for themselves once I feel they are not ignorant of the situation.
If she feels bad, are you going to send her to a fully stocked medicine cabinet and say "Take something."
Of course not, because children are ignorant of the harmful effects of drugs. I think it's obvious that no kid wants to feel sick and they don't know that drugs will do that to them. But I would teach them and once they are educated, I wll trust them to make their own intelligent decisions. Now you're probably saying, "well what about the harmful effects of sex? You shield them from drugs because of harm, why not sex?" Well, the parallel you draw isn't the same. Doing drugs is not the same as seeing sex. If my 5 year old was having sex, that would be an accurate parallel to taking drugs. Watching sex, or seeing sexual images is like looking at pills and wondering what they are. Looking a drugs is not harmful. The only way for them to truly understand and to mature enough to make intelligent decisions and is to let them see what it is and teach them. It's may not be the only way, but it's one way.
As for the rest of what you say, it's your decision how to raise yur children. I'm glad to hear you practice what you preach, and I hope it works out for you.
As far as this creating "closed-minded" people. Well, guess what? There are some things you should be closed-minded about.
I certainly don't think one should be close minded about anything. I think people should never close their minds and always think about anything no matter what. They then should make an intelligent decision about it and stick with it until someone makes a convincing argument against it. Then you should think about it again and make another decision.
Some things are wrong. Period. This moral relativism that we are constantly bathed in is intellectually bankrupt and just an excuse by people who are unwilling to stay away from immoral behavior yet somehow care about the fact that others may disapprove.
Perhaps. I haven't made a decision about that yet.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
after all, Jesus granted St. Peter the right to rule on moral teaching, which has been passed down through his successors to today
:-|
;-)
:-)
:-)
EXACTLY my point! Each time it was passed, the story changed just a little due to the views and prejudices of the conveyor. I argue that the only thing that remains intact is the message, the principle behind it. Changing the story does not necessarily happen on purpose, but by nature it is impossible for people to completely separate themselves from their prejudices. Everything they see, hear and say is filtered through these prejudices to some degree.
And on the subject of divinely inspired, I do believe that the original message was divinely inspired, but that its' writ form was(and is) not guided by His hand in the literal sense that you are implying. Nor do I believe that any organization belonging to a church to be divinely guided in the sense that you believe it. I do believe however, that everything that happens is divinely guided in that everything carries with it a lesson. So in that sense, the Bible in it's current form is divinely inspired but that the lesson may be not to look for truth on a superficial level, that truth is always profound and must be sought out. The pope himself can also be a source of divine messages but not in the sense that God is telling us what to do through him, but that He may be showing us what not to do by using him as an example(He uses us all for examples) and leaves it to us to learn or even see the message. For example, a lack of forgiveness or intolerance on the part of the pope or other religious figure would be a lesson in those very principles, and how not to cultivate them. This involves the very logic and morals of the society which you so desire, but it's different than you imagined I think. I hope I conveyed it clearly enough, I'm having some trouble articulating at this moment.
On the subject of being a true Christian, I say simply that I follow the spirit that Christianity is based upon(and was founded on) but not every whim of the pope, or opinion versed in the Bible. I try and see past cruft that may have been added to passages because of the writer' prejudices and see the underlying principles that live in the heart of the religion and how they relates to its' true spirit. If everyone lived Christianity' principles instead of just going to church and listening to whomever happens to think himself appointed by God at the time, the Crusades would have never happened. Perhaps that statement is a little inflamatory, but it's truth laid bare.
The Bible can, in fact, be interpreted (or more often selectively read) to mean almost anything you say
True.
which is why understanding Scripture must be tempered with interpretation of Tradition as passed down over the last 2000 years
Perhaps. I don't think that always applies because circumstances change and that sometimes necessitates re-interpratation. Re-interpretation always leads to disagreement. This leads to the kind of division over issues like abortion, divorce etc(I'm not arguing for or against either here). That's why I believe the Bible should be read philosophically and metaphorically for it's lessons because those are eternal and those are important.
Otherwise, people simply pick and choose what they like and you end up with 40,000 different sects of Christianity that differ on every conceivable aspect of anything even remotely connected to the subject.
Agreed. That's why I don't listen to every opinion voiced in the Bible literally nor do I listen to anyone who claims to know what the Bible is really trying to say. I instead try and follow the message and lessons embedded in each story.
We must shield children from what's harmful until they have the capacity to learn how make that decision for themselves.
Now I also see that we are approaching the subject of children from wildly different angles. You are saying that you want to protect children from harmful things. I agree, because until they can fully grasp the implications of doing something it would be irresponsible to let them do it(ie. drugs). I'm saying that sexaulity and associated images are not necessarily harmful and I believe that this is where you still disagree with me. After all, if you did agree with me, I don't think we'd be discussing this for so long.
I'm also arguing that shielding them is not beneficial. That may seem like a contradiction to you though, and I think this is another source of misunderstanding btw. us. When I say protect, I mean don't let them do something that would harm them until they truly understand the implications. But when you say 'shield', I immediately think that you are trying to prevent them from even discovering this harmful things' existance until you think they are ready. I do not think that is a good idea at all. They will inevitably encounter that same thing when you are not around(ie. with friends) and I think you would rather they learn about something and understand the true implications from you before they face it in life and have to make a decision.
In a perfect world, you may not want your children to learn about sex until they're 16 or 18, but that's not going to happen in this world. Consequently, holding out on them till you feel they're ready is unrealistic, because it will inevitably be too late.
I greatly appreciate your polite and reasoned response,
You are welcome. Thank you for yours.
but must agree to disagree.
That's your prerogative.
-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
So you're saying that children cannot distinguish which drugs are good or bad, but they immediately discern whether something violent or pornographic is good or bad.
;-)).
:-)
No, I'm not saying that they know what is good or bad because for the most part they don't. They do know some things from experience though and if they saw violence, I would think that they would understand something that hurts. At this point I think it becomes important that an adult is with them to explain things they are seeing so that they learn and understand why violence is not good. Now about pornography, you and I are in disagreement. It is bad, and it is neutral in my opinion. When it is used to distort perceptions and objectify women, that is not good(as you mentioned in a previous post). But sexual imagery is not inherently bad for children to see in my opinion. They will encounter it, and I would rather my kids encountered it while I was around to explain it to them, than with their friends. I would rather they have a proper, mature and informed introduction to anything than half-truths and rumours propagated by ignorant children(because they really are ignorant, not trying to be insulting). I would educate them so they understand what it is instead of trying to hide it from them, because hiding it is simply impossible. I feel being open and honest is best.
Obviously you don't know any children or anything about them
On the contrary, I know plenty. I've been a swimming instructor and lifeguard and I've taught very young kids to swim and dunk their heads under the water and other such things. Those are very important skills you know, at least for a kid to know. I have young cousins who I see very frequently(and who are also very annoying by the way... they follow me... everywhere... it's very irritating...
They are not just miniature adults, capable of making reasoned and informed decisions.
Very true. When I think about it now, I would say that the only thing that truly distinguishes them from adults is their understanding, whether that be from experience or knowledge(and their size obviously, but that's not the issue here). Give a kid true understanding like an adult(though whether adults have true understanding is debatable in itself) and I don't think you can make a good case that he/she would not be an adult.
That's why I feel that it's important to give kids understanding when they encounter something, or they'll try and find out for themselves, and that can turn out worse.
Even most of the teenagers I know are incredibly immature.
Very true. I was embarrassed of my age group when I was that age(and I'm not too far off now), but I understood them and I still do. They behave immaturely because people treat them that way. They're not taken seriously, so they don't behave seriously. You'd be surprised how well behaved they are when you treat them with respect and talk to them as equals. "Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will be become what he should be." (Jimmy Johnson)
Now, I would never excuse their actions simply because they aren't always treated fairly. That's not fair in itself. In my opinion, teenagers are pretty much adults at that point and if they do something serious, they'll have to bear the full consequences of their actions.
Kids do stupid things because they don't know better.
Exactly. That's why adults are there: to explain things to them.
They are not rational people.
Sometimes they are. I often try and reason with my little cousins who follow me everywhere(privacy?), so I know how difficult it is to try and understand how they see things. I usually fail miserably to understand their reasoning just as I fail misreaby to explain mine. But sometimes it seems to click. I know well the futility of children and logic, but I still feel it's worth the effort.
My kids are all sweet, wonderful children with above-average intelligence (based in my observations of their vocabulary, math ability, etc), but they still have the common sense of cabbage.
lol. Well put. I know what you mean.
This is no fault of their own, and I'm confident they will develop this normally, as do most people, in time.
I'm sure they will.
-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
If you want to install a filter to block out whatever it is you don't want your children exposed to, be that sex, violence, hate, alcohol & tobacco, other drugs, or whatever it is that you worry about, I recommend looking for one that matches your values at GetNetWise.
But your values might be different from mine. Or from your next door neighbor's. Or from your local librarian's. Or from your child's school principal. You might have very young children, while your neighbor might have a teenager with an unhealthy interest in things that go *boom*. The same filter may not work any two of those families.
For example: It's easy to imagine that both a conservative Christian family and a lesbian feminist family want to keep their children from seeing "pornography on the Internet." But one will probably still want access to sites about gay and lesbian political issues, promoting the idea of gay marriage, etc. And the other will probably still want access to the American Family Association and conservative anti-gay organizations. There is available filtering software that blocks each of those latter categories. But a family wanting to block one of those categories MOST LIKELY does not want to block the other. Those 2 hypothetical families want different filtering software.
What happens if they live in the same school district? Use the same neighborhood library? Which family gets to pick the filtering software?
Liza
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
I can kind of agree with this.
On another note, the viewpoint some who are in favor of censorship would like to foster about sex (it's evil, bodies are nasty things and must be hidden, etc) is roughly equivalent to showing a Christian an anatomically correct picture of the Madonna laying on her back nude, legs spread, with a needle full of heroin in her arm and a sleepy smile on her face.
Did that image disturb you? Should it be censored?
If so, consider the other viewpoint. This all boils down to a simple statement about not letting your children be raised up with values you cannot support or agree with.
In my case, can I censor out your censorship or am I stuck with your values?
If I am, what does that say about this whole equal rights, everyone having a right to their own religion and philosophy thing?
Think about it.
"Why did your software block [list of sites]"?
It'd be pretty interesting to hear them explain why their software censored these sites.
Then again, they probably just wouldn't have answered the question anyway.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
so it's really him blocking the Republican sites ;)
Consensus on /. was that this would never work right and the company was a bottom feeder trying to scam money out of scared parents and republicans.
Looks like the consensus was right, too. The company's site is a seething mass of "Under Construction" notices and 404 errors.
Those sites are on virutal hosts. For example, www.edmarkey.org rides on the same server as www.yirahaparicio.net which is categorized as porn (among other things). This is something that has always been a problem. Per usual, Peacefire misrepresents -- it's hardly something to do with malicious intent. It does suck that (in this case at least) innocent politicians are getting hit. I just hope any legislation they try to push through is sane and reasonable. The last thing we need is Bush setting policy. Strategery!!!
Out of curiosity, what is the point of all these (admittedly redundant) articles about how bad censorware is at telling the difference between porn and non-porn? If one believes that censorship is a Bad Thing(tm), then attacking the efficacy of censorware is essentially a non-sequitor. By attacking the technical feasibility of censorware, you're implicitly saying that, if it worked properly, you'd be fine with it. Is that really the case? Or is this just a roundabout way of attacking censorship?
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
* mild mannered physics grad student by day *
* daring code hacker by night *
http://www.silent-tristero.com
Imagine that...They DO respond to issues when it slaps them in the face. Now how do we get other issues to slap them around a bit before things go too far?
I don't usually post, but I have to respond to this. Where are people getting the idea that Christians think sex is bad??? That is not the case at all. Sex is a wonderful gift from God, something special to be enjoyed between two people who love each other and are devoted to each other. Making love is what sex is all about (or should be). The "bad" part is when sex is portrayed as an act people engage in merely to satisfy a physical desire with no regard to who their sexual partner is. Anyway, I just wanted to voice my opinion. I am not speaking for all Christians, just myself.
I'm starting to be really bothered by this type of approach to criticizing censorware. Why are we focusing on things like effectiveness, and these cases of mistaken blocking, instead of issues of free speech? Software does get better, and eventually these errors are going to become pretty rare. What exactly are we going to say when their error rates become lower, when these types of mistakes stop happening frequently? We're going to be totally out of luck, facing a bunch of people saying "See, the software does what it's supposed to." We can't then start pointing out that what the sofware does (censorship) is wrong. We need to be saying that now. And that's something that's barely mentioned when people talk about censorware.
Eric Henry
Just to play devil's advocate for a moment here, just how often did the censorware programs block a political site? We only see examples of ones that were blocked, but not how many were allowed through. It might be nice to see what percentage of sites were blocked.
The lazy brown dog jumped over the quick dead fox doens't have an 's' in it. It should be "the lazy brown dog jumps over a quick fox", which has all the letters in the alphabet. "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs" will also do, but less efficiently, since it's longer, i.e. has more repeated letters.
That's what's wrong with Christianism. It's a religion for angels, which was brought to humans by mistake.
Haven't you ever saved a file, and later found you didn't save it in the directory where you thought you did? If they could ever find it, they would take it back...
Ancient Israel was opposed to Babylon and other civilizations which had fertility cults in their religions. Therefore, "if our enemies have sex in their religions, sex must be bad". Likewise, early Christianity was opposed to the main religions in the Roman Empire, most of which had a relatively tolerant attitute towards sex.
If something has to be censored, I would vote for censoring religious teaching. Looking at the current and past wars, nothing seems to incite so much violence as religions.
So what is stoping them from block one canidate under the terms of "bad" and letting another pass as "good". Seriously, if these guys where hard up for Y canidate, allow his site and block all the others.
A simple, but effective way, the media could "force" their view on to the American public.
I wish I could get a good example for this. Oh wait, TV.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
...don't let them view Bush or Gore online.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
There have been plenty of reports about how the filters over-filter, even about politics. I'm just too lazy to call up the dozens of web articles that have carried it. Ok, so someone did yet another report. Big whoop. Its nothing new.
what these politicians are putting on their sites to get blocked
:)
Porn site banner ads for campaign financing of course!
I disagree, the idea that any autofiltering of the net can be done is rediculous. The only way to protect kids in schools and libraries is adult supervision. Pay someone, an adult, to sit there and watch usage. I can't see many 16 years accessing playboy with Ms. Crabtree the assistant librarian watching over them. Monitor usage with a human, and keep a strictly enforced acceptible use policy.
It's impossible for a national or global company to dictate the standards that every community should use, and its impossible to keep the blocked sites list up to date and well pruned. Let people from each community watch over usage of the internet by minors. Paying someone to monitor, is by far cheaper and more effective than software.
-jef
Politicians websites arent going to be the best source of information instead they are probably a source of influenced information that doesnt really pertain to the situtation. Look at political ads, you cant derive anything from them, and that is what their websites are. There are more idependant sources of information for political candidates. Block all of their websites.
The point is it doesn't do what it is supposed to do and does things that it isn't supposed to do.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
There are attempts to detect large amounts of flesh-tones (caucasian only I believe) but neither of these products do that yet. I doubt anyone is looking for 'soft focus' since a pixel is a pixel once it's saved to a file.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Do some of these filers block by graphical content? One of the blocks sites I lokked had a lot soft focus imagery--the typical mom, apple pie & the American flag stuff. Now, I also know that a lot of pron and erotica stuff also use the soft focus effect. Can anyone comment on this?
At best, you occasionally read a statement that filtering "sometimes" incorrectly blocks sites.
The decisions get made by politicians who are trying to please (or placate?) the everyday citizens. The everyday citizens just knows that there is a lot of porn on the net and that filtering software is supposed to keep kids out of it. That over-simplified perception won't change until their favorite local TV personality tells them otherwise.
What can we do to make this information well-known, rather than just preaching to the choir?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
...I want it banned from the classroom, and installed on my TV.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
... the "useless propaganda" checkbox.
Politicians are finally going to have to wake up and realize that no one wins when it comes to censorship. "Go ahead and burn the all the books. Whoa, hold on, those are MY memoirs. I meant burn EVERYONE ELSE'S books". Yeesh.
Now, if we could only make other geek-ish issues like DMCA, IP-law, and guaranteed anonymity hit home as clearly, we could probably get something DONE inside Beltway-gridlock-land.
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
"I support breast cancer research"
*oops* blocked by censorware.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
they're awfully quick to cry "foul". But when it's my ox, who sticks up for me? Not the Republicrats.
I can just see it now... inside the filter...
...Ah, better, my job is done... what's this? Now the tykes are trying to look at a site about Bush? Naughty-naughty, they're too young to be looking at ladies' privates. ---CENSOR--- Hum. What's this "Nader", then? Sounds like a dirty word. ---CENSOR--- Ho hum... )
(... ho hum... another page... should I let the kiddies see it? Hmm... it seems to be about Gore. Violence and blood is a no-no and bad. Children shouldn't be seeing this... ---CENSOR---
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
Now, maybe the affected politicians will actually think a bit about these issues!
--- Speaking only for myself,
I'm sorry, but where does that article say Greens were responsible? It doesn't. Could have been Democrats for all you know. or Libertarians. Or the Slashdot Cruiser party.
Or, and I know this is a radical notion...it might have just been one dingbat sneaking in the back door to stir the shit.
Do you have another article to point us to, one that specifically states the Green party was responsible for this, as you claim?
This is a Chao. A Chao says "Mu."
This is old news to us, is it not? I've known for months that shit was going on... but wait.. oh.. now it affects the people with the money.. NOW it's an issue..
now I get it. I think i'm begining to see how things work.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I take no responsibility for any spelling mistakes in the above post.
It's titled Celebrating Pornography Awareness Week.
One political example is worth mentioning here. Dan's Data did a test of Pornsweeper, which is supposed to filter images. This picture of George and Laura Bush was blocked. Filthy porno indeed!
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
Hey!
The fact that these politicians' sites are being blocked is A Good Thing!
The politicians will only do something if they can plainly see that its hurting their chances for re-election.
Maybe they will finally do something about it!
Personal Computers for the library: $1,500 each
Internet access: $40/mo
Filtering software: $100
Republican politician's face when he sees his site has been censored: Priceless
Well, technically, they're correct. ESR's home page *is* about hacking.
Wired article on how a Republican website was hacked. Of course, the Republicans are blaming the Democrats and the Democats are denying everything.
At least both sides still have their integrity. Oh wait, they're acting like a bunch of kindergarteners, guess they don't.
I would call it that...
Got shack?
ShackCentral Network
Worlds best gaming network!!!
Please note that the censorware which was blocking a bunch of conservative sites was doing so as a side effect of those sites being run off of free hosting services, which it blocked automatically. The writeup here on /. didn't make this clear - I recognize /. writeups need to be fairly short, but the impression I had (and which it appears other readers might have) is that this piece of censorware had gone out of its way to be prejudiced against conservatives.
Now if we had a Beowulf cluster of these ..
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
So they think their voters are stupid sheeps:
"It's obviously a dirty trick late in the campaign by the Democrats," Yu said. on cnet
What kind of crap is that?
--------
I fear that my right to bear arms is being infringed upon. When I get my firearms license, I want to be able to fire a shotgun, rifle, or perhaps even a Desert Eagle, and actually feel the recoil from the gun, instead of just playing another FPS and dreaming about holding the gun.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Or if the candidate themself is not the one making the web-page. Somehow I really can't see most of the candidates out there taking time out of their 'busy' schedule of politicing, lobbying and lying to voters to learn HTML or make their own web page.
Thus, they rely on staffers, quotes, and existing stands on positions. Now, given the propensity of politicians in the last several months to bash Hollywood for too much sex and violence, I can easily see why it might be filtered out. Of course, it is also possible to manually set some of the filters so that certain sites, even if they don't fall under the filter, will be blocked anyways. But that takes far more effort, and I can't see a conspiracy of staffers going around to all publicly accessible computers to block the other guy's sites.
Just my 2 shekels....
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Aren't you people out there offended by many of the cantidates views, policies, and actions. If there is one thing that is universally as offfensive as politics I don't know what it is. Perhapse this is the only thing the filters got right :)
End politics for ever C'thulu for president
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
Wow, cool link. What is that? The void? Dark side of the force? Clicking parent is also really ehhh interesting.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
If you mention all those things you want to put a stop to on your site, yeah, then I can imagine things being blocked out...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
As candidates discover that the filters won't let them get their messages out, they will quickly find reasons other than that to deep six the use of such filters in schools and libraries except in cases where they meet the review of an "independent" panel. This panel will just happen to ensure that filters that censor politicians' sites are deemed unworthy of approval.
It's all about the money, honey.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
In a transparent ploy to boost the Green vote, hackers defaced the GOP's RNC website today, according to cNet.
However, no schoolchildren noticed, since their censorware doesn't allow them to view the site, nor did anyone see the defaced site at public libraries.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Ok, so here's how to get around those damn, shits on the constitution, known as internet filters... First off, I only know this on netscape, but I assume it works the same on internet imploder 4.x+... Go up to the edit bar, click on preferences, then go to advanced, and proxies, hit the button that says 'connect directly to internet'... This will disable any proxy servers that you might be going through... Further more, if you are in windoze, you can click the start button, and run, then type the entire web address there (don't forget the http://) ORRRR, if you're on a mac, I think it's like this.... Go to the apple pull down thingy (don't know waht it is called) adn find the network section, there should be a "connect to" option, click on it and then type in the full web address in the space provided..... i would go into detail on how to get around proxies and filters under a *nix environment, but I don't have the time, nor is it relative to the generic school setting as this is based upon (I doubt very many public schools are running debian......) Thanks, and hope this helps out a lot...
p.s. BE forewarned on two things.... You didn't hear this from me if you get cought goin to some stupid porn site with this info, and that if there's any network security built into the terminal computer itself, that any changes to the netscape config files will cause it to crash (novell netware does this, atleast in my cases) so, be careful, and save what you need FIRST....
NGTV|3
I'm not saying that god doesn't exist, merely that he is not necessary - hawking
I wish I could block Allen/Robb (VA Senate Seat) Campaign commercials from my TV. Based on these ads, I believe Pee Wee Herman could win as a third party candidate on the platform of: "I know you are, but what am I?"
I thought I had an appetite for destruction, but all I really wanted was a club sandwich. --Homer J.
what these politicians are putting on their sites to get blocked. While some of the recent political campaigns have degenerated to muck-racking (at best), you would think that the politicians (or someone on their staff) would make sure that their web sites were accessable from public libraries and schools. I know if I were to run for public office, I would make sure of that.
Eric Gearman
--
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!
I rather wish they WOULD say "Convert or Die" instead of their current message which is "Conver or spend the rest of existence in eternal, infinite torture". If that's not putting a gun to my head, what is? And as far as Christianity not trying to control people, what about all the christians who want the Ten Commandments in school, in an effort to make all kids, and people, follow them. That is completely trying to control people, and there are many, many more examples of that.
Today was just a day fading into another-Counting Crows
Today was just a day fading into another-Counting Crows
Today was just a day fading into another-Counting Crows
Which clients select which lists and what attributes they enable is entirely their choice. The censors are the guys selecting the lists, setting up the blocking options or the guys mandating their use in libraries, schools, etc. Not the groups of little old ladies who spend their days looking for sites and rating them based on the instruction from the clients paying for the list. And neither is it the fault of the guys who created the tool, which can be used or abused. The guy who contracted me originally to write it, had in mind only the parental blocking of porn, drug and explosive recipes sites. It was a surprise to him when the primary demand came from government, libraries, schools and the groups which hate the (certain kind of) hate.
The invisible guys with the big bucks, who pay for the lists and for the "free" distribution of the filter to end-user or client machines, dictate the rating criteria for the sites. That's where this political censorship orginates from -- it is the same money which keeps these same "blocked" political candidates off the TV and the rest of mass media (other than to smear them), the same money which paid congressmen and local administrations to enact the laws and regulations requiring use of the filters.
I unfortunately have N2H2 Bess at my high school. I am shocked at some of the sites that are blocked. I am amazed that /. is allowed - there are some very real and deep subjects and opinions being stated here! While I can freely access anything at home (including some sites that clearly should be blocked at school/library, such as ACTUAL porn sites), some kids don't have this, and therefore can't see many sites dealing with certain subjects, or even worse, containing certain "bad words." One rediculous example is the blocking of information about the Ford Escort car due to the word "escort"!!
The scary thing here is, that this may only be the beginning. If the truth about CENSORSHIP (not filtering) doesn't reach the ears of authorities at schools/libraries, millions of peoples' free speech and expression WILL BE DENIED. Censorship is WRONG at any place or time. Randomly blocking sites based on words like dick or gay is a huge joke. The progression to the world of Fahrenheit 451 was gradual and realistic. It started with more people, less free time, and much less quality information. If real viewpoints and real issues are blocked, this is not an unimaginable catastrophe. While this seems unrealistic (and probably is - 451 is a satire), it does show us how scary censorship can be.
Oh, and by the way, Websense does not block any of the major candidates websites, at least by my tests.
To attempt to answer your question, I know Websense and Bess will return pages identifying the program, explaining that the site has been blocked and in some cases why it was blocked. If you are not getting a specific notification of what software blocked your attempt, the censorware must be in some sort of stealth mode, or else you're perceiving some other network phenomenon as Censorware. There are hundreds available, from what I understand, so it may be impossible to divine which one you have from what it blocks. Maybe just try asking?
However, Websense is guilty of generalizing in their categorization. ESR's home page is categorized as "hacking." When I checked it later from another location, it appears that there is nothing even marginally illegal on ESR's page or linked to by it, but it does have the word "hacking" in there somewhere, albeit in the old-school context of "clever programming."
I have seen other generalizations in categorizing, including Freedom and Accuracy in Reporting, and ironically the Bill of Rights being blocked as "activism." This is a form of soft censorship, in that Websense dodges the accusation since the decision to block is on the part of the administrator, and the administrator dodging the blame because they did not make the categorization, and it's an all-or-none deal.
If we take all the censorship away, maybe the little kiddies that think it's cool to sit in back of the classroom and try to get into pr0n will get tired of it... It seems to me, that the only reason they do it is so they can break the rules. and feel like |337 h4X0rz. No matter how big n2h2 filtering gets, there's always a way around it. --- Witty quote goes here ---