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Censorware to be Mandatory in Schools, Libraries
The massive spending bill has been passed by the House and Senate, and President Clinton is expected to sign it soon. Despite some noises from the Clinton administration mildly protesting censorware, the small amendment making it mandatory is not considered to be an important enough issue to veto an entire appropriations bill.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a longtime proponent of censorware, introduced the amendment.
As the ACLU says,
Earlier this year, an 18-member commission appointed by Congress rejected the idea of mandating the use of blocking software, which is notoriously clumsy and inevitably restricts access to valuable, protected speech. A wide spectrum of organizations have opposed blocking software mandates, including the American Library Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the conservative Free Congress Foundation and state chapters of the Eagle Forum and the American Family Association.
"There was an Alice in Wonderland quality to this debate," said Marvin Johnson, a Legislative Counsel with the ACLU's Washington National Office. "With its vote, Congress rejected the advice it asked for from the panel it appointed."
The "wide spectrum of organizations" extends from educators to The New York Times to strongly conservative political/religious groups. For more on the COPA Commission and its recommendations, see our stories from July and August.
Essentially it says that any school or library which receives federal funds to build its network must install censorware. Since these funds are the chief way that poor and middle-income areas bring the internet into public institutions, effectively this means that only rich counties will have the option of an uncensored internet.
The text of the self-declared "Children's Internet Protection Act" is available from CDT. It uses the term "technology protection measure" to describe the software.
In related news, Peacefire, an advocacy group for youth free-speech rights, released a tool to provide one-click disabling of some popular censorware programs.
Meanwhile, the ACLU will be suing to stop this bill from taking effect. This is not a slam-dunk like the CDA was. They're in for a tough fight. Here are three reasons why:
1. The CDA's language was very broad. This bill targets its material precisely: obscenity, child pornography, and "harmful to minors" material. Of course there is no "technology protection measure" in existence which can censor only this material, or even claim to censor only this material.
2. The CDA covered speech. This bill addresses the right to read that speech in a public institution.
3. This bill regulates institutions which are taking public money and how they may use it. Legally, and also in many people's minds, it is more permissable to enact regulations which go against the grain of the Constitution if they are tied to acceptance of public funds.
(The classic example is that the Fourth Amendment protects our homes from unreasonable search and seizure, but when the government provides public housing, it sometimes tries to say that the 4th Amendment does not apply. Same situation, different Amendment.)
Brock Meeks is more optimistic, saying the bill is "doomed." The key issue, I think, will be whether censorware can work. If it does not work, if it cannot work, then the language of the bill is irrelevant; our Congress might as well have demanded a "technology protection measure" to give all our kids 200 IQs and an lifetime supply of free donuts.
When I get in the mood to be optimistic, I think about all the stories we hear from students who are already forced to use this software. It seems like everyone has an anecdote about how they were blocked from doing legitimate research for school.
So maybe if this legislation survives, in ten years, all the kids who grew up with first-hand experience with censorware will start to vote. That's about the only bright side I can see.
For now, Brown v. Board of Education is the example I'm keeping in mind. The Supreme Court, after a half-century of segregated schools, decided that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" -- the theory might be OK, but it had failed in practice.
The courts should evaluate the "technology protection measures" by what they do, not by what the law demands they do. The theory might be OK, but in practice, all the technology that I've looked at blocks much more than it should. I'll be hoping for a verdict that reads: "technology protection measures are inherently censorship."
And, hopefully, now -- not after a half-century.
but all you anti-gun dumbasses have taken my good ones.
Actually, Oxford and Cambridge university libraries includes all the periodicals every published in britian, including all the porn mags.
I wonder if it would be acceptable, under terms of this act, if the schools used a free and open censoring tool. If so, this could be something as tough as a squid proxy preloaded with, oh, six or seven Really Bad sites to block. Of course, the self-appointed censors would want to block more. So then you could set up some review committees (I'm sorry, the committee to consider that met just last week. They won't have another meeting until next semester.), with appropriate oversight (Oops, that must be considered by the deputy assistant superintendent, who's on maternity leave right now.) and so forth. It would be possible, if this works, to have everything in place but nothing works. Except the internet connection.
Or, to use equally inflammatory language for the other side of the argument, if libraries want to let junior high kids access porn sites with women fucking dogs, don't spend our goddamn tax dollars to do it, is that so hard to understand?
You really don't have to get to school to see censorship. You have quite some of it right here on slashdot. If you say something that is not in line with the typical slashdot thinking (everything should be free/there is no need to make a living/copyright is all bad etc) you WILL get moderated down. This is also censorship!!
:-)
You will not see this posting get higher score than 0, that's for sure
The first amendment guaruntee's this? The first amendment is the right to free speech....go say whatever you want....but then don't bitch when the people on the other side of them fence just get more vocal. Your not solving anything. Use a little tact and diplomacy....and if you actually RIGHT about it, defeat them with sound reasoning. If you can't win via sound reasoning and good solid grounds.....your probably not as right about it as you want to be.
There has been repeated documentation of the fact that various censorware blocks sites whose content is clearly what was intended to be protected by the First Amendment: minority religions, political parties and organizations, criticism of censorware , etc. The owners of those sites should sue every library they can to get software that blocks access to them removed. Specifically, they should get injunctions requiring that libraries not block them. Make the list of injuctions long enough, and they will be violated. It will reach a point where the libraries will have to have a contract with the censorware provider specifying which sites must never be blocked. This will just underscore the technical infeasibility of fair, accurate, automatic censorship.
Doing the "bare minimum" (Visions of Office Space flashing by) may work for now, but if this strategy began being used in many institutions, it'd only be a matter of time before Congress adjusts the requirements to say something like "effectively blocks most objectionable content" or whatever. Requirements can change.
Wandering off muttering to myself...
I can't believe people actually wanted McCain to be President. Imagine what kind of world we'd live in if he had won.
Those that don't want to wear one only hurt themselves.
Seatbelts help keep the driver behind the wheel of the car; in many cases, this may reduce the severity of an accident on other drivers, as the driver may be able to make adjustments after the initial contact that reduce the damage of further contacts. Keeping the front seat passenger in his place also prevents him or her flying into the driver's lap. So it can possibly hurt me. Since the roads are a public resource, rules on what can be driven on them and how one muzt drive seem reasonable to me. (Build your own road and you can do whatever you please.)
Motorcycle helmet laws, on the other hand, serve just to protect the driver. Frankly, we could use the organ donors...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
There is NOTHING stopping you from going up to the proxy's admin and asking that a perfectly valid site be exempted from the filtering.
If you can't see it, how can you know it exists for the filtering to be removed?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
In fact, it might even be more effective to thump a block of wood with a leather cover that says "Holy Bible"...that way there'd be no temptation to read it! ;-P
--
"Should I be subscribing to the official Slashdot doctrine?" I'm sorry if I've made you feel like the rebel, proudly standing up to the oppression of the conformity-demanding majority. When I said "Are you new here?", I was referring to your apparent ignorance of facts frequently discussed here. Now it's clear that you actually are aware of these facts, even though you ended your original post with "This is no different.", which, knowing what you know, you must know is false.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
This is just absolutely hilarious to me. It's this kind of thinking that breeds such ideas as homophobia, racism, etc.
If you don't believe me, just take a quick look at his forum for right-winger, turbo "christians", and you'll see his posts all over. Yet another instance where a "christian" demonstrates his true colors to the world.
What a lunatic!
Please explain to me what parenting has to do with the hypothesis that being strung around on a chain of hyperlinks is an inferior way to learn.
/. don't become moronic trolls by trolling /. -- no circular reasoning -- they are already morons.
Correct. Nothing.
And you're saying it is you're students who are morons?
He's saying it's not the internet that makes someone dumb, it's the sum of their environment, especially parenting. Moronic trolls on
How you came to think that books == good and internet == bad is beyond me, but then again I'm not sure you aren't one of those trolls. You think a library is just a bastion of knowledge, and the internet a bucket of smut? Please, enter reality while there is still time. There is so much literature in the library that is nothing more than smut in the form of words. Don't believe me? Read anything by John Norman. How smart will your second twin after reading "Tarnsman of Gor"? Right.
A book is just a medium -- it can contain anything. You'd think an educator would know this. But you'd think wrong, since apparently all that fancy book-learnin' didn't necessarily result in a smarter fellow.
The enemies of Democracy are
censor
n : a person who is authorized to read publications or correspondence or to watch theatrical performances and suppress in whole or in part anything considered obscene or politically unacceptable
v 1: forbid the public distribution of; as of movies or newspapers [syn: {ban}]
2: subject to political, religious, or moral censorship; "This magazine is censored by the government"
censorship
n 1: counterintelligence achieved by banning or deleting any information of value to the enemy [syn: {censoring}, {security review}]
2: deleting parts of publications or correspondence or theatrical performances [syn: {censoring}]
If we assume, by tacking '-ware' onto a word, we mean 'a program does the job of that word', and we likewise assume that we can extend 'publications or correspondence' then we find that what we're refering to as 'censorware' does, in fact, perform like a person does under noun defination 1 under censor and makes material be 'verb defination 2 under censor'ed.
Aka, it acts as a censor, and censors things.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Oh, like public parks? No one is forcing protestors to use public parks. If you use a public park to protest, then you must play by the government's rules and only protest what they want you to protest.
Hey, pay attention. All government money is our money. The mere fact an organization gets our money from the government doesn't allow the government to make that organization follow rules in violate the constitution. If they could do that, all they would have to do is tax us all 100% and require us to testify against ourself if we every got charged with a crime to get any money back.
I personally did quite well in school without access to pornography...
How about that biology textbook? How'd you do without that? What about health? Oh, wait. Information wasn't banned from your school cause it had the word 'sex' in it.
Well, what about your banned history book? Wait, you meant that wasn't classified as 'hate speech' because it mentioned Malcolm X and the 'Black Power' movement, or had an Abraham Lincoln reference to to 'negros'?
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
First of all, for those interested in labels, I consider myself a libertarian. I really dislike censorware; its inaccurate, ineffective, and it only benifits the companies that produce the censorware. I expect that in the near future, as some schools and libraries install "phony" products (lets say the product only censors 2 or 3 sites :) we will see the gov provide a list of supported censorware products.
/. flames) is a collective right and not an individual right then why should anyone assume that the 1st amendment is an individual right? We started down the slippery slop of judicial activism long ago. When we first started, the left didn't mind (and was actually in favor of it) and the right was crying foul. The left didn't mind because gun control has always been part of the left's agenda (note: i'm not saying here that gun control is either good or bad). This upset the right because they viewed this as an attack on individual rights.
But, getting back on subject, is anyone really suprised by this? When the US Supreme Court tells us that the 2nd amendment (getting ready for
Now, I know that someone is going to make the point the people can use guns to murder and that speech can't really hurt anyone. However, my argument is not about the merits of gun control -- in other words I'm not saying that guns and gun control are either good or bad. What I am saying is that the way we have tried to go about implementing gun control is all wrong and we are now reaping the consequences of this.
Instead of setting a precidence of questionable interpretation of the constitution (which will be used again to support censorware), the proper way to go about supporting gun control would have been to have congress amend the constitution and change the language of the 2nd amendment. I know this is very difficult to do, but its that way on purpose. If there is not overwelming support for revoking an individual right (free speech or gun ownership) then it should not be revoked (51% of the populace should not dicate the law).
To sum it all up, the general attitude of special intrest groups in the US is that the ends justify the means, and its only when these same means are used against these groups that they complain. However, by then its too late because precidence has already been set. If you want to say the everyone has the individual right to free speech then you must also say that everyone also has the individual right to own firearms. Otherwise, the constitution is bacially meaningless and we end up with no individual rights.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
i'd have to seriously argue against that. this is _not_ the only solution we have available. and, honestly, most of the time a broken solution is even worse than no solution...with no solution you know, at least, where the problem lies and can keep an eyeball on it...with a broken solution, there's no telling where the new problem will erupt, how long till it does, and how bad it will be.
arbitrarily banning things left and right is not a particularly good solution as the nazi party, christian religion, and most other morally righteous groups have proven quite effectively over the centuries.
instead of forcing an inherently broken solution down everyone's throats, what congress ought to be doing is giving the question over to a committee of people who are qualified to recognize the brokenness of the solution and propose a different one. as always, education is the _best_ solution and should be looked at first.
children need supervision and guidance to help them grow, yes. they need to be able to explore in relative safety, yes. what they do _not_ need is some wierd digital overlord arbitrarily defining areas of their world as acceptable or not...especially when that overlord has no fscking clue what he's talking about. what they need is goddamn parents. if you don't want your kid going to www.farmsex.com or somethin like that, you're just gonna have to suck it up and pay attention to what they're doing. i know it's a wierd idea pople, but really...watching your kids isn't all that horrible a prospect. the same thing goes for schools...teachers, pay attention to what your students are doing in computer classes, just like you'd catch them with a pr0n mag hidden inside their algebra book. if we're so concerned about it and the teachers feel that it's beyond their ability then we all need to pony up some more dough and hire more and better educated teachers.
-dk
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
Great Post, my friends and I talk about this sort of stuff all the time. I'm glad there are other people out there that want to raise their kids. This country was built on freedom, but most of the people have forgotten that, and it will take something harsh for them to remember what freedom reall is.
You are wrong. Web censorship can work, it can block sexual sites. The problem is that it blocks a lot more than just porn. That is really the main issue (one censorship software I have tested even blocked Alice in Wonderland and some chapters of the Bible).
But everything on a .xxx TLD would be 'porn'; if someone decides to put a website there, there would be no question about whether it should be blocked or not
I can't see how this accomplishes anything if there are plenty of porn sites available that end in .com instead of .xxx. This would only give parents and politicans false sense of security and ultimately they would find out that this doesn't really prevent their kids from seeing porn on the Internet and would demand that everything on the Net except .xxx to be a kid safe area. You see where I'm getting at?
This could lead to much more censorship as sites such as Geocities, Yahoo and AOL (which do offer some sexual content) would be forced to become kid safe. Not to mention all the sites that offer advice on sex, sites that offer arty nude photographs etc. (is Playboy a pornographic magazine or rather an erotic one?). There are just so many grey areas, what one person calls art other can call pornography.
And I certainly don't want those grey areas to be pushed into the .xxx zone.
The .xxx/.sex solution is in fact no solution at all. It would only create
more problems and a false sense of security. .com if they promised to offer no sexual or harmful content?
Do you really think current sex site operators, Playboy.com, Hustler.com etc. would just roll over and give up their precious domain names?
And even if you would somehow devise a forwarding solution so that "guests" to playboy.com would be forwarded to playboy.sex (and therefor blocked) you would still not have solved the sex on the Net problem. There are literally thousands of sites that "may" offer sexual content but are yet, not primarily sex sites, such as Geocities and Yahoo and even AOL, people can have personal webpages with "artistic" images of Britney Spears.
And should NSI maintain some kind of censorship policy so that it would only allow companies to have
So no matter if we had .xxx domains we would still need filters to prevent
minors to see all this filthy sex on the Net.
I think it's in the part saying:
"provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States"
stay frosty and alert
Well, I didn't realise I was talking to someone from Taiwan. I know nothing about Taiwan, which makes talking with you, I realise now, quite difficult. I don't understand your frame of reference, your cultural context, your point of view. We're both talking in english, but I fear our words are used quite uniquely and differently.
For me, there is a difference between what the original poster was talking about, and "free-for-all". To me they are not the same thing. To you they appear identical.
Are yours somehow more valid than mine?
Maybe. What if they were? How would you know? Anyhow, to me you seem to display scorn for the "Jung, psychotheraputic" etc. etc. Maybe you don't mean it that way (scorn). One thing I would like to say to you about this is that these people have a contribution to make to what humans understand. They don't give the final answer. You are familiar with the idea of evolution? In knowledge, in science, in art, in consciousness? All these evolve, and I don't think dismissing entire fields of knowledge (like Jung) is appropriate. They made a contribution. So do the Buddhists. And the Daoists. And the Sufis. And ... the list is endless. Ask rather what you might learn from each, rather than dismissing Freud because you think he's labelling you a sexual misfit (he's not).
And this was the point of my message: where one accepts the presuppositions of modern Western psychology -- a certain reductionist view of human nature, a hyper-scientific understanding of the human psyche, a denigration or outright scorn of spirituality -- their insights make sense. Where one's presuppositions differ, their value is reduced. And, it would appear, even large segments of your own society do not share those presuppositions -- at least where it comes to human sexuality.
I have the impression now that while we started out arguing these points, our worldviews and interests in general are more similar. Have you read any Ken Wilber? He tries to show how all knowledge can be integrated (and annoys a lot of people who think their own fields are the only answer).
From the preface to Integral Psychology:
The full preface is available online. And I was reminded of it by your point that modern psychology is at best a poor repackaging of the ancient insights.
Generally, Wilber is in full agreement with the Great Chain of Being. And if I understand him, he does make a point that each system focusses on a particular level of the Great Chain. So the Eastern systems generally emphasise the higher levels, while the West pretty much ignores their existance.
But in the East's emphasis on the higher, they perhaps pay less attention to the lower levels, which is where western psychology has focussed it's efforts. But the lower levels are also important, for they influence and distort the potential higher levels -- for example, trying to teach meditation to a child with autism is rather futile -- for the child's development has been arrested at a very early/low level -- so we need to find something that works at the level of the problem.
Wilber emphasises that we need to acknowledge and include all levels of the Great Chain, from the pre-personal, to the personal/egoic, to the trans-personal. He "plugs" the various therapies into their respective levels:
Sorry about the long post... I thought you might find it interesting.
Peace.
Doing the "bare minimum" ... may work for now, but ... it'd only be a matter of time before Congress adjusts the requirements to say something like "effectively blocks most objectionable content" or whatever.
The best way to fight censorship is to force the process out into the open and make the proponents of censorship specify exactly what is to be censored. Of course this is very difficult (they probably won't agree among themselves).
And a good way to force the issue is to do the "bare minimum" and let the courts try to figure out exactly what the law requires - or toss it out if they think it's too vague.
So please eth1, bash it out and GPL it and put it up on Freshmeat before schools and libraries are forced to spend billions on censorware snakeoil.
This just appeared in the Calgary Herald:
Earlier this year the Calgary Public Library spent $18,480 on BESS censorware.
"Since June 1 parents applying for new cards for their children, or renewing old ones, are asked what level of internet access they will permit."
The result:
Children (12 & under)
Total cards 89,886
Unrestricted 93.5%
Filtered only 5.0%
No access 1.5%
Young Adult (13-17)
Total cards 37,496
Unrestricted 98.6%
Filtered only 1.1%
No access 0.3%
One alderwoman received 180 emails in favour of censorware. She was never able to reach any of the authors and now suspects they were all sent by just two or three people.
Tom Crites of the Canada Family Action Coalition "doubts most parents understood what they approved" and says unfiltered access for pre-teens "shouldn't even be a potential question".
-----------
Shortly after the BESS purchase I received a letter from the Public Library Foundation asking for donations to help buy books.
Libraries, last time I checked, where not visited exclusively by kids. Indeed, for those who can't afford their own computer and internet-connection the library migth be the only way to gain access to certain kinds of info.
Is it fair, or constitutionally legal to deny adults access to material protected under free speech on the grounds that same material is claimed to be "harmful to minors" ?
If a filter is going to be used in a school (and I don't think it should), then the school should be able to see exactly what sites are being blocked.
wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
Here in Seattle, we have two ways to use the net. The first is through PCs, and of course censorware will work there just fine. The second, tho, is through text-only terminals that use Lynx as a Web browser. How will this new law work there?
Granted, Lynx as a Web tool sucks rocks. No pictures means you'll miss a *lot* of the Web, true, but you'll still be able to read the text. Isn't that what's important, on the non-pr0n sites being filtered?
Also, don't count on this being defeated in court anytime soon. Remember, it's our own US Supreme Court that staged the country's first bloodless coup with GWB, simply because they could.
Lemon curry?
censorware in public schools and libraries would pass with at least a 60%-70% approval rating. All you need is 60 mintes to show how detrimental pornography is to a child's mental and social development
Sjees! you must be living in a sick community!
The problem is not blocking porn, it's the impossiblility to define porn!
What we in Europe see as just a picture of a human being in it's natural and god-designed way is exactely the same picture that is perceived a threath to society by certain sick and retarded right-wing control freaks. I know the US of A has a wide and diverse population and they will NEVER agree on the same definition of porn, so leave it up to the individual to decide what's good or bad.
I realy feel sorry for the simple people you would be able to fool within 60 minutes into believing that porn has such a bad effect on young peoples devellopment!
Yuck!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Why, back in my days we used to have porn images jump out on our screens every second.. and we *liked* it!
-- ATTENTION: do not read this sig. It doesn't say much.
Maybe forcing this set of crap software on lots and lots of people is the only way to gain a big enough momentum against them?
Nothing else seems to work. We can put forth evidence all day long that these things don't work, but who's listening? Apparently not the people with the power.
Let everyone taste the crap, let them politicians join in too, and then we'll see if there won't be enough people with power to make sure these programs never resurface in schools and libraries again.
Or am I just being naïve again? <sigh>
Belief is the currency of delusion.
"Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they don't conflict with the Constitution - which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate The Future..."
- Frank Zappa (The Central Scrutinizer, "Joes's Garage, Act I")
You can go and sort it out. :)
john
Yes what you say is true. But I'm going to argue against it from sevel points. First some people only have access from school or public libraries. Consider that those in poorer areas are dependant on publicly provided internets. No other way to use the internet. Second most filters are horribly broken. Look through some of the past articles on the site for how horribly wrong the filters are. How many sites they block accidently. How often you can't gather information that you really should be able to. Third there seems an inherent problem using public funds to limit any form of speech. "Well you can use unfiltered internet but the gov't won't pay for it." "Well you can use unfiltered books but the gov't won't pay for it." Really what is the difference? How many times have people tried to ban books on the grounds of moral outrage. Huck Finn, Scarlet Letter amongst many. And everytime it has been decried as an evil abomination to try to restrain a library from putting whatever information it deemed appropriate forward. This on the other hand is viewed as a good. Fourth - finally - borrowing their arguments - think of the children. If we give up some freedom, if we allow others to remove parts of what we feel is right, then what is to prevent other parts from being removed? From slowly eroding our freedoms into something none of us want. OK that's scare tactics. But so is what the bills are using. -cpd
Recently, president Clinton signed a law stating that any state which did not set a 0.08 blood alchohol level standard for DUI would lose (some) federal funding for highways. The DUI laws (and standards) are entirely in the states' authority, not the federal. In effect, the federal government has usurped a power reserved for the states.
Sorry pal, but I'm pretty sure that if you asked your local governor, state delegate, or Supreme Court justice about this one, he or she would tell you that Congress is just regulating commerce among the states. Article I, section 8. You know -- drunk driver hits a tractor trailer on one of those federally funded Post Roads mentioned in same section.
Why is it that states' righters always complain about things like federal speed limit laws and DUI laws? It makes it sound like you're saying "I want to be allowed to recklessly endanger my fellow citizens" rather than "I want the governor and state legislature to decide what's dangerous and what's not."
I agree that there's a big case to be made for states' rights these days, but DUI laws are not the proper angle of attack.
Another pet peeve I have with states' rights advocates, and this is something I _didn't_ see in your post, but you should still watch out for when talking to others, is the fellah who'll argue that a federal regulation is a violation of constitutional liberty and how only the states should be allowed to regulate this sort of thing, and then when a state tries to regulate it, he keeps on going about how government _in general_ should not violate our _philosophical_ liberties...the impression I get from this is that these folks (who write for the CATO Institute, BTW, I'm not talking about people I read on alt.flame) assume that federal govt.=strong and therefore =bad, and state governments are naturally weak and confused, so they're OK.
OK, if this goes through, which i hope it doesn't, then we should be thinking of ways to minimize it's negative effects -- damage control.
If censorware _has_ to be installed, then let's attmept to make acceptable censorware (i know, i am starting badly, already into oxymorons...)
call it GNinteen84, for now
1. open source / free / etc.
2. start with _no_ sites blocked.
3. material can be proposed by anybody, submitted, reviewed, noted, voted, and pok-ed with a stick, and added to the blacklist if everyone agrees, more or less.
no material is ever "automatically" blacklisted. no material is _ever_ blacklisted untill it gets a solid "this is really bad" rating. say, aim for a 80% majority, or something like that.
4. who is everyone? _any_one who wants to be part of the process. make it like slashdot moderation. ok, bad example, but something like that. don't like what's on the balcklist? well, get in there and work on making it better.
5. set up certian safety measures so that a black listing can easily be contensted, by a frustrated user, the site's owner, joe modem. re-review procedures, etc. sites get put back in the review list, or something.
6. the blacklist is open to anyone who wants to inspect it, test it, click on the dirty links on an unfiltered line, poke at it with a stick, whatever.
etc.
So, this system would proceed very slowly, but at least we would be relatively certian that no decent material got blacklisted. of course, some porn will get in. don't like it? make it better, work on it, vote. of course, groups working together can influence the list to ban, say, ppolitical or religious views they oppose. of course, people who oppose those oppositions can also group together and cut out the cartels. but it's gotta be open.
step two: promote it. say wonderful things like "This is the only American way to censor! Democracy!". Note that because it is open and free and democratic, companies will not be swayed by financial or political pressures. etc.
Anyway, if there has to be censorware installed, we should really be working towards making it something only mildly displeasing.
just an idea.
if anyone is interested in working on such a project, talking about such a project, or thinks i am a complete idiot and wants to flame me, send me an email.
maybe someone like Jamie might be a good person to get such a project going. hint hint.
adrien cater
boring.ch
Point and Grunt
My proposal mentined nowhere the requirement for 1 single central list.
that's part of the idea, it's open. wanna diffferent list? make your own. are there other people around with the same taste as you? collaborate, share your lists and form a group.
there can be one or many 'large' lists, which, if they are reasonably acceptable, will be used my a majority of people.
-----
the whole thing is disgusting to me. i hate the idea of blacklists. the only idea here is to have a system that is _not_too_bad_, if we are forced to install the stuff, at least there should be an open, democratic, honest, quasi acceptable alternative. it would be better than seeing cyberpatrol & company everywhere.
just a thought.
adrien cater
boring.ch
Point and Grunt
I'd be glad to create obscenechildpornharmfultominors.com if I could figure out a way to get income from being blocked. Should be cheap to operate, as it wouldn't need content.
Perhaps this is because "right and wrong", "moral and immoral", etc., are more or less arbitrary cultural conventions that must be learned (and taught), rather than inherent properties of the universe that can be discovered. As long as people want to indoctrinate children into their own prejudices, and to perpetuate the belief that some information is good and some information is evil, censorship of this kind will continue to be "necessary".
-bonzo
Has it been brought up yet hat people were having troubles with censorware filtering content having to do with "Gore" and "Bush" just recently?
Talk about getting hoist by your own petard!
If you claim that is not easy to filter out, then you are running the risk of even more heavy-handed laws, because, after all, this is the only way to regulate "bad" stuff.
It seems to me that reasonable censorware should be easy for all the great open-source programmers that read Slashdot. Of course, filtering everything "bad" would be impossible, but filtering a substantial portion should be easy to do with very little of the dumb filtering we keep hearing about. A lot of people want reasonable censorware. Why not give it to them?
election day should be on April 16th. It's totally unacceptable that they can waste tax dollars in this unaccountable way, but here they are getting away with it instead of swinging from lamp-posts for trying to implement the stupidest idea in a long time.
JMR
(no, I don't care about "karma" here, I just call 'em as I see 'em.)
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
Yes! High five, you the man!
I'm serious. This is the kind of thing I like to be hearing - parents who understand their role in relation to their children.
What if this side effect was completely at random?
What if they threw out occasional issues of magazines, again completely at random? What if they threw out books? And not just the gray-area "erotic" books- Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Story of O, anything by Danielle Steele- but opuses like Moby Dick? Oops, bad example. Let's try for opuses-without-Dick-in-the-title. The Tale of Peter Rabbit? The Catholic Catechism (a book by John A. Hardon)?
What if they threw out books for non-funny reasons, say because the book contained the sentence, "This chemical has been shown to decrease the sex drive in rats". Or, "The church members were hard pressed as it was; how could they possibly fund the erection of a new chapel?" Or "Mount Everest is the highest of the Himalayas". Or "The hot, steamy weather of Atlanta hung over that year's olympic games like a curse".
If you're going to mandate an "improvement" in a public service, for god's sake, don't shoot yourself in the foot.
--
keete
Those that don't want to wear one only hurt themselves.
Yea, and what about all the taxpayers who have to pay for the brain surgery for the guy who didn't wear his seatbelt? Or the extra time the nurses/cops/doctors have to spend on a patient just because he got flung out of his car instead of remaining in it? It costs money you know, and I don't feel like paying for stupidity.
Hmmm. Now if Poland were to introduce mandatory censorware (which is unlikely under Kwasniewski - yay), the eager young students of the new filtered regime would sadly be unable to write projects on this wonderful groundbreaking bill.
It would be filtered by their school censorware, because "cipa" is Polish for "cunt".
"The truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination." -- Garak, ST:DS9
a while ago,(about the time of the smart filter article) my high school sysadmin noticed a site that was popular and temporalily blocked by the school's smartfilter firewall. he therfore manulay added slashdot to the block list. there it stands. my high school has no access to slashdot.
distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes!!!
Could be a good thing! Just think: Are the "cool kids" going to beat up the nerds in this scenario, or are they going to be nice to them so that they can check out www.whitehouse.com too?
goatse is virtually hosted, and so access via the ip address (in any form) will not work alone.
The bill states that to receive federal funding, schools and libraries must "[install censorware] that protects against access through such computers to visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors..." Also note that one of the definitions of being harmful to minors is material that "taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as to minors". (Here's an example)
There are two ways to read the provision. One is that censorware that allows any image that meets the above criteria to pop up in front of Timmy's eyes disqualifies your library or school from federal funds. If this is the correct interpretation, the only way to legally qualify for funds will be to install censorware that filters all images, or to force everyone to browse with Lynx.
The other way to read the provision is that censorware that blocks any (but not necessarily all) images that meet the above criteria will qualify you for federal funds. In that case, a school or library can install a simple proxy filter that blocks access to goatse.cx, allows all other content through, and be eligible for federal funds.
Of course, that's not what the authors of this legislation had in mind. They simply wanted to be able to use federal funds as a weapon in their war on communities that do not impose the specific censorship agenda that they are comfortable with. But there's no way to codify that in a piece of legislation without being in blatant violation of the First Amendment. And for good reason.
Corby
If only the ratings system took off. Then most of the professionsal porn vendors would or could have had their sites voluntarily blocked.
Yes, I know there would be people who would lie about whether thier site has no porn or not, but what can we do? I for one, an sick of having geocities.com blocked.
The biggest reason for censorware is goatse.cx
Got a beef? Plug a name into the Bizarre Rumour Generator!
Bullshit. First this measure is not just about schools but also about libraries. Second, censorship and clumsy automated mandate censorship at that has no place in a free country. That is supposed to be one of the values of this nation.
"The high school years must be the most important years in shaping
the social consciousness of young people, because at no other level
do parents and school officials become more hysterical at the possibility
that the students will be exposed to ideas which challenge the authority
of government, of school administrations, of parents"
-Howard Zinn
When you consider this is only in Schools and Libraries, this is not a big deal. Libraries cannot afford to pay people to watch what kids do in the libraries. Besides, how many parents go with their kids to the library? When they are young you take them, but there comes a times when you stop taking them and they go by themselves.
Also, how many teachers do you know smoking crack in school instead of teaching? I HIGHLY doubt a majority of them do this.
You can still look at porn all you want at home. If censorware gets used more often, people will complain about the effectiveness of the software, and the companies making the software will improve their reliablity.
The only way I would have a problem with this is if they tried make censoring personal or corporate computers madatory.
When you consider the trend in recent days regaurding public building and property, it should not surprise you that this happened. Recently in my area, a nativity(sp?) scene that has been displayed in the center area of the town for many years can't be displayed any more. The reason why? About 5 people complained about it. These same people later suggested displaying various other things for other religions including (but not only) somethign to symbolise the Atzec religion for sacraficing humans, skeletons (and such) for witch craft, and several other things.
Society as a whole has been moving to non offensive toward as many people as possible. While I doubt this goal will ever be reached, the trend is still going towards this. The censorship of internet computers in public building, such as schools and libraries, is just another extention of this.
Expect more of this to happen i more areas until enough peopel wake up and tell these few people to shut up and get lost.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
This is how government works, and this is how government has been working for almost 70 years now. Power has been moving away from the states for a long time, and actually, if you pay attention you should be happy as a states rightist... because you guys are actually gaining power!
A long time ago, in a far away place, the Supreme Court started applying more and more federal laws to the states. like.. say, the first ammendment. The downhill ( for you ) slope started with Gitlow v. New York (applying the first ammendmand to a state issue) and selective incorporation (applying X ammendmand to a state issue). and it just kept on snowballing into hell until a few years ago when the supreme court started telling congress and the president to lay off. now, the Surpeme Court is doing things like Federal Gun Free Zones in schools and striking down VAWA ( Violence against Women Act ). These are big current examples of the SC using the 10th amendment to get the gov't to butt out.
So, Mr States Rightist, you tell me who is 'meddling' and who is too powerful:
1) Fed Rights - Selective Incorporation -- lets us use the bill of rights in the states. i like my privacy
2) States Rights - Overturning Fed laws -- now i don't get punished as much when i bring a gatt to my public school, and i can beat the shit out of women and not worry about the gov't beating down my door. hell yeah, @$^$ the gov't
I really don't see your point mister. The gov't is doing these things because people want them too. It's not some conspiracy. Fr#%ckin black helicopters.
-- Don't hate me because I'm a troll, hate me 'cause I'm black!
>...there isn't ANYTHING out there that 'effectively blocks most objectionable content.'
Block everything but a list of government-approved sites. That presumably was the intention from the beginning.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
I think you are remembering the German who tried to register a name like teenpenpals.com (or .de perhaps) for teenagers to exchange messages. The registrar rejected the application because 'teen' was reserved for 'adult' sites.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
Why do you say involuntary filtering is not censorship? In the USSR printing the Koran (or, more famously, the Bible) was forbidden, and it was also illegal to bring a copy from overseas. If the first restriction was censorship, why wasn't the second? In any case, this law does not (usually) apply to either the sending end or the receiving end of a communication. It applies to an intermediary. Even if filtering is not a kind of censorship, it doesn't follow that:
>Thus, this bill does not threaten anyone's 1st amendment rights in any way.
IANAA, but doesn't the First Amendment forbid Congress from abridging free speech? If I'm not allowed to say something to the general public, or to my children, or on the phone, or in English, or in a squeaky voice, that is a restriction, even if I'm still allowed to say it in some specific way to some select subset of the world's population. (The fact that I would not be the person committing an offence if the communication took place does not mean that the law would not affect my rights. For example, if there was a law preventing officials from registering me to vote, my right to vote would be affected.)
Pedantry aside, your idea of community censorship sounds both disturbing and disgusting. 'Communities' are stifling enough already, without giving them the legal power to censor what their members may read. Although if you just mean that people should be able to use the library without having goatse.cx displayed everywhere they look, I have no quarrel with that. But that has nothing to do with community standards: it doesn't matter whether 100% of the community dislikes it, or 50%, or 10% or 1% (the Slashdot community). And no federal or even state law should be needed for that - is it a federal offence to shout in a library? I suspect not.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the compelling interest of the government in protecting children from exposure to sexually explicit material.
and
As stated by the Court: "It is evident beyond the need for elaboration that the State's interest in safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor is compelling."
are two wildly different things. But perhaps that's very European of me. Sorry, can't help where I'm born...
If they all did this, even Horsehead McCain would have to fold against it.
I'd like to be that optimistic. Really, I would. But let's face it. In your neighborhood, when you were taking things apart, playing video games, or (if you were fortunate enough and in the right generation) geeking around on a home computer... what were all the other kids doing?
Right. Outside playing in the mud with tiny plastic human shapes. It is very true that there *will* be more geeks along the way, but there sure as hell aren't going to be many.
To take on an exaggerated conspiratory point of view, all the [insert favourite conspirators here] want is to have *most* of the kids completely passive to censorware. They want *most* of the parents to go along with it so that they can eventually control *most* of the information that gets public. Most is all it takes, and to our great disadvantage, most of the people who exist today are really, really, stupid when it comes to complex things like freedom and liberty.
Also, see the (free software) SquidGuard add-on to the Squid proxy server at http://www.squidguard.org.
Line Item Veto
Nipok Nek
Why choose white shoes?
Hmm, would a closed-circuit monitor of the computer area count as a "technology protection measure"? How about facing all the computer screens so they can be seen by passers-by?
No so amazing, when you think about how vast the Internet is, and how constantly it changes. In reality, it's actually impossible for the censorware companies to do what they're advertising--so it should come as little surprise that it doesn't work. The only way to properly rate a website is for a real person to look at it, and there are far too many sites for this to be feasable.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
I try to limit as much as possible how much porn is presented to me while I surf the net. I do this mostly by, of course, choosing which web sites to search for and visit. But I have found some software necessary. And that is ad-blocking software. Mainstream sites like Yahoo! and Deja.com have a penchant for banner ads featuring scantily clad women. If there's any software that should be installed, it's ad-blocking software. Otherwise, if censorware must be installed, it should be left up to the user.
How much porn is viewed is 99% up to the user. Not much slips in to those who don't want it, and not much stops those who do.
Thank you for this, you really hit it right on the head, in probably the best phrased and most interesting comment I've seen on the subject anywhere.
I think one of the problems is that the paranoia is so hard to penetrate. How do you get through to someone that it's Ok to be a sexual creature? That it's acceptable to have desires and wants? To make it harder... how do you get through to them if they live in Wyoming and you're in California? Porno sure won't do it... it's too absurd to actually present a message. Hollywood hasn't done it, even when characters are honestly sexual in films, it's often labeled as smut. The call "for the children" isn't really a call for the children at all, but for the immature child who lives inside everyone who's scared of their body who never left mental puberty and grew in to themselves. How can you reach a person like that?
I'm really hoping the next sexual revolution comes along soon, because we could use it. From what I understand, the first was in the 20's and it liberated women (sexually at least) then the second was in the 60's (and still continues somewhat) with gays and women. What needs to happen next is a male liberation that doesn't exclude heterosexuals. Or perhaps a stronger women's lib movement that really hits the people who need it. But it's fear of ourselves that puts laws like this out there, and you're definitely right... it's a social form of mental illness.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
I've heard this one before. Believe me, we aren't going to create a generation of illiterates if the fed is removed from education. (At least no more illiterate than now.) Society has an interest in education, so it will continue. The slack will be picked up by the individual states, that's all.
The founders knew the danger of overly centralized power. They envisioned a union of states, not the nation of districts we have today. This may sound archaic to everyone that believes we live in a democracy (we don't, it's a republic, to prevent the tyranny of the majority from happening) but this is the reason that states get equal representation in the Senate. It's the reason that the EC electors are chosen by state laws. There's nothing that says the state has to hold a popular election for the president; they could have the state legislatures vote. In fact, Senators were originally chosen that way, until the 17th Amendment. The Senate was supposed to the states' voice in the federal gov't.
It's the duty of the states to look after the interest of their residents. The duty of looking after the people is being unrightly assumed by the federal gov't, distancing it further from influence by the people. If asked which you'd think would be more responsive to petition, would you say a county, state, or federal agency? My money's not going to be on the feds.
Constitutionally Correct
I think that's an overly broad reading. And the 10th Amendment agrees with me.
If it's not explicitly given to the feds, they shouldn't be doing it. Education is the parents' right and responsibility and it should not be taken from them. The states may set up programs to assist, but the fed should stay out.
Presidents in the 19th century would not sign disaster relief bills because the fed wasn't given authority to be a charity. (I wish I could find the quote again.) Quite a bit different than today, eh?
When a government is big enough to give you everything you need, they're big enough to take everything you have.
Constitutionally Correct
So they can keep you right where they want you, feeding at the federal trough. Once you're on the dole, it's hard to leave.
That's why gov't aid to religious charities is equally evil. It would corrupt these independent organizations and make them beholden to gov't.
Constitutionally Correct
Then let society do that...at a state level. It's not the fed's responsibility.
Isn't that what I was just saying? They didn't trust a strong centralized agency to not muck up their states! The US under the Articles was envisioned as even weaker, not much more than a mutual defense contract, if I may oversimplify. The Constitution made the US a bit stronger, but most power was still reserved for the states and the people.
Explain to me how this has anything to do with education and why the fed is taking control of it from parents.
I don't buy this at all. The same argument could be said of states in relation to counties. One state has no jurisdiction in another state. How could it influence the residents there? States will cooperate out of mutual interest and benefit. Sure there will be competition, but that will improve all parties.
Yup. People with money will always have power. That's another reason to curtail the authority of the fed. Why centralize the power grab? There's also the question of what is the overall country. Are we states forming a union, or are we a nation with districts? I believe the founders made us states first, and I believe that was a good idea.
Bleys_of_Amber makes a good point that you haven't addressed. If I feel the gov't is not doing a good job at education and want to pull my kids out, I am still compelled to pay for it. This reduces my ability to provide for them the kind of education I want them to have. You say that only the monied would have access to education if the fed didn't fund it...I say that only the monied have access to good education when the fed does fund it. What defines "good" education? The parents of the children. It's their right and responsibility to have the final say, not the fed's.
It comes down to wanting control of my own life, free of gov't interference. I can't provide for my own retirement, because Uncle Sam takes my money so he can do it for me. I can't provide my own children's education, because Uncle Sam takes my money so he can do it for me. The list goes on. I'd rather keep my own money to take care of myself rather than have it filter through inefficient gov't bureaucracy! The fed must assume that its populace is becoming less and less competent. Maybe some are incompetent. Well, if I had any money, I'd be able to donate more to private charities to look out for them.
When the gov't is big enough to give you everything you need, it's big enough to take everything you have.
Constitutionally Correct
So just tweak it to get by... Besides, there isn't ANYTHING out there that 'effectively blocks most objectionable content.' Or even comes close.
Just use Andrew's Law: "There is always a loophole."
#!/bin/bash
# IP of site that's obscene
$OBSCENE_SITE=""
# IP of child porn site
$CP_SITE=""
# IP of site that's harmful to minors
$MINOR_SITE=""
$ROUTE="/sbin/route"
$ROUTE add -host $OBSCENE_SITE netmask 255.255.255.255 reject
$ROUTE add -host $CP_SITE netmask 255.255.255.255 reject
$ROUTE add -host $MINOR_SITE netmask 255.255.255.255 reject
However the murder rate skyrocketed.
The number of murders per 100,000 people skyrocketed from 1920 to 1933 and then drops off sharply. It took more than 50 years for the murder rate to reach that level again.
> I wonder what would have happened if liquer
> could not be acquired from our neighbors?
A moot point, since it is, and always will be. No drug can ever be prohibited sucessfully. There will always be a way to either make it, or smuggle it in. ALL prohibition EVER does is create wealthy black markets, and put non-violent people in jail.
Even in Iran, where all of the liquer stores were burned to the ground when the shah came into power, and alcohol was immediatly outlawed.... still today you can buy liquer. Its available to anyone who wants it. (A good friend of mine was iranian). The ONLY efect that it had was to increase the number of people who went blind from methanol consumption (some of the people making the alcohol didn't know what they were doing).
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Prohibition was a good idea?
It was, perhaps, a well-intentioned idea. That doesn't make it a "good idea".
Like this, well intentioned, but just plain bad. Yes... they want to prevent harm and do "good". However, they don't realize that the solution does more harm than it can possibly do good.
That makes it a bad idea, no matter how well intentioned it is. Just like prohibition did not work, and continues to not work today (only 1 form of it actually ended).
The sad thing is what prohibition teaches us. Whilke individuals may learn from their mistakes, they may even make mistakes with such consequences as they serve as warning to others, Governments and societies do not apear to learn from their mistakes.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Liza
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
Local schools and libraries are already actively working to ensure that kids have safe, age-appropriate, useful online experiences.
For example, in the Chicago Public Library, they have chosen to hire teams of people (mostly college students) to help guide Internet users to interesting, fun, age-appropriate sites. They find this is an effective way to help both children, teenagers, and adults have good Internet experiences. They don't use filters, nor do the Chicago Public Schools, because they think that filters give the adults a false sense of security. Another example of a local decision that will be overturned by this, should the library want to continue recieving any federal support, is the much touted voter referendum decision not to filter the library's Internet access in Holland, Michigan.
A large number of school systems use filters in some locations, but not all. For example, they might use them in elementary schools, but not high schools, or in classrooms, but not the library.
Other libraries, like Loudoun County, in Virginia (the subject of earlier litigation, have a system (post-litigation) where parents decide whether or not their children should have filtered or unfiltered access to the Internet. (Adults decide for themselves.)
All of these locally developed, reasonable policies will have to be thrown out. CIPA isn't going to improve the safety or age-appropriateness of Internet user experiences in any of those places.
Liza
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
Any minors who want to get around censorware, contact me or look at peacefire's site (link above in story). I'll be more than happy to stick it to McCain.
Another way around this stupidity is to set up thousands of random proxy servers that will allow content through. This may have already been mentioned here, but I'm lazy and didn't bother to read the other comments first. :P
-Legion
Until the passing of this bill (if it passes), the federal government did not restrict access to information. Currently they claim to only be interested in blocking pornography. A few years down the road, something else may be tacked on, say for example information about drugs or hate speach.
Chances are nobody will object. And nobody will object when other things are blocked.
Slowly, over the years, this will move from just filtering school and library access to the internet to home and business use. Slowly, it will move beyond internet access to books, newspapers, television (if it exists then), and music.
By the time most people figure out what has happened, it will be too late.
"Reality is less than television."-Brian Oblivion
This is super scary. As much as I would like to have a free web for everyone, there are some types of content that really aren't appropriate for schools or public libraries. So I'm a proponent of filtering, right? Wrong! The problem with filtering is that it doesn't work. Not only does it fail to protect free speech in terms of things like women's and gay issues, human rights, and sexuality, but it censors pages that are inarguably G-rated. The software just doesn't work, and the software companies seem more intent on whipping up hysteria than making technology that filters only hard-core pornography and nothing else. It frightens me that the government is promoting technology that just doesn't work in the interest of "protecting our children". In fact, because it often limits the ability for individuals to use the Internet as a legitamite learning tool (remember it censors completely innocent sites on a frighteningly common basis) it harms children. The government pushing this type of technology is irresponsible and would be analogous to promoting car seats that occasionally explode or shear off the arm of the infant. I find it interesting that John McCain is a huge supporter of filtering. I saw John McCain speak and he talked about the Internet bringing freedom and democracy to China. He also talked about promoting filtering. GET A CLUE! China has the Internet, the reason that they don't have freedom or democracy is because that Internet access is highly censored by the government. The reason we have things like freedom and some semblance of human rights in the U.S. is because we have great things like the protection of free speech. If not for the gravity of the issue, it would be funny to see how politicians at McCain thought the freedoms of the Internet abroad but take a step towards the policies of the Chinese government in their own country by wantonly trampling on free speech and the education of their children. The course of action that the government should take is to develop free and open Internet filtering software that allows users to KNOW what is being filtered and to fine tune the filtering to block only content that is genuinely inappropriate. Only then should filtering even be considered in schools or libraries. I think the free software/open source community should work to develop free, open, and rational filtering software so that institutions that would be forced to use filtering software could have a software alternative that minimizes the free speech impacts. Furthermore, everyone should write their representative explaining why they are opposed to mandatory filtering. Also remember, no computer can (at least not yet) replace supervision and guidance by a good teacher or librarian to ensure that individuals receive the greatest value from Internet resources. Finally, if this policy is enacted, the guys at peacefire have created software to bypass to filtering software with the click of a mouse. It is available here: http://www.peacefire.org/bypass/.
Ditto. Unbelievable what the filtering software on the district's proxy server did to kids in a high school advanced placement biology class trying to use the Net for research. Would you believe the word "zygote" was on the blacklist?
yes please, rant again!!! At least french laws about dvd are the extension of already existing laws passed to protect a way of expression ...
They we re not pushed by the movie theater lobby, who are into tv and video anyway, but pushed by the directors who , here in france, happen to have more power than producers...yet
So yes, go in your "public" library and watch unexistant offensive-speech-blocking software but real censorware !!!
No more Dick Cheney and Bible in the US libraries!!!
Yes mock french laws again ! Please!!! I can use another good laugh !!!
Same here. Glad to see I'm not the only one thinking this way. /dev/null ...or something to that effect.
Lessee... route add 206.251.29.10
--
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
Although it's not a bad idea, it's completely unenforceable. One of the strengths of the internet is that it's an international community. Do you really think goatse.cx cares if a U.S. lawyer wants to sue them for violating their ratings code? I think not.
--
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
But still, doing research on the Net is next to useless.
Really? Maybe you should look at some WebQuests. The well-developed ones give opposing viewpoints, and let the student decide where his/her own opinions lie. Let's not let the kiddies think anything outside what the mainstream textbooks tell us!
The accuracy and validity of anything on the Web must be questioned...
Absolutely. Questioning (a.k.a. skepticism) is something we should be teaching our students, don't you think?
In a time when schools are removing libraries to make room for computer labs,...
Source? Certainly some oversized libraries have had sections rearranged to make room for a computer lab, but I know of nowhere where any books have been made inaccessible by "making rooms for computer labs", much less of a school "removing a library".
What would you trust more, the Oxford English Dictionary, or Encarta.com?
No more straw men, please! (And besides, you're comparing a dictionary to an encyclopedia.) Which do you trust more, Any of these textbooks (which purport to be conveyors of fact), or This variety of internet resources?
--
Sleep is just a poor substitute for caffeine, anyway. -Bob Lehmann
I suggest everyone embed keywords to your HTML pages as comments such that they are detected as smut. For example, "this page does not contain any sex, drugs, nor porn regradless of what filters might think. It's not XXX."
And another generation of Hackers are raised. Like a water, courious minds will find there way around blockages in their course. Like the leveys built to guide the course of a river, the "technological protection" measures create more problems down stream, and provide a sense of security that is not truly there. "Give someone something to resist against, and they will" -Ishmael
But what informationwill they base their vote upon, if their access to information has been compromised?
-Eldurbarn
Take 2 identical twins. One spends a lifetime on the internet, the other in a library. The second will have little grasp of reality, having only ever heard about it, and will not be able to put any of this knowledge into practice. The first will have had an opportunity to interact and actually try some of it out. There's a lot more to the internet than hypertext, you know. Indeed, it is easier to absorb academic knowledge from a book than it is from words on a screen. Ever hear of printers? They're a device for type casting to hard-copy. It is also easier to find specific and accurate information in a library, as much time has been spent cataloging and sorting it's content. That doesn't affect the quality of the content. Nor does it stop a person from finding the information if it's not sorted.
I recall something like this in one of JonKatz's Hellmouth series. Go figure.
By the time it affects my place (they get it installed) will probally be three years down the road. afterall, they hire out thier lame excuse of "service" to someone else. My hope is I'll be out of here by the time that junk gets installed. My feelings go to the people that have to put up with this. Don't forget to visit peacefire.org at school, while you can. Boy do I bet there are gonna be a lot of pissed people when stickdeath.com is blocked! =)
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
Score: -1, Flamebait + Troll
This is one of the carefully crafted trolls that attempts to market itself as a legitimate opinion, but is actually just a big hunk of flamebait. Make it go away, mommy.
Nobody is forcing anybody to install filters. The mandate is that if you accept government money to build your computer network, you play by the government's rules, which include filters. If some outfit wants an uncensored internet, then they don't have to take government money for it. It's that simple.
Do you really think that censorware will cripple our children's education? Is it really so important that they can look at pictures of naked women at school? I personally did quite well in school without access to pornography, and you probably did too, since most school libraries do not have a subscription to Playboy.
Let the (poorly spelled and logically flawed) flames roll...
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Rather than whipping out our thesauri to see how many derisive labels we can slap on our opponents, I suggest a more productive approach would be to start by assuming what we have is a legitimate difference of opinion rather than a conspiracy by psychopathic "domestic terrorists". Aside from incenting the choir (or, in this case, the moderators), rants like yours tend rather to set back the debate than to advance it. Whether you agree with them or not, the first step in winning over your enemies is to acknowledge their humanity. Respect your enemy and he will listen to you. Spew verbal abuse, and you will only entrench him.
(BTW, what the heck is an "instinctual imperative"?)
Yes, scorn is a good word. I frankly see little in the way of insight from modern Western psychology which rises above a repackaging of the insights of ancient philosopher-theologians from Gung-Tzu (Confucius) to the Buddha, to the insights of medieval Christian mystics from Anthony to Walter Hilton. In large measure, in fact, I find the ancient insights superior.
In any case, modern psychological theories remind me of the weather in Seattle: if you don't like the current batch, wait ten minutes and it'll change.
these people have a contribution to make to what humans understand
My point was that within a certain limited cultural context they have some valid things to say. Divorced from that context, however, their worth is greatly diminished. In, for example, a Buddhist culture such as Taiwan's, which presupposes a vastly different understanding of human nature, Western psychologists have much less to say.
And this was the point of my message: where one accepts the presuppositions of modern Western psychology -- a certain reductionist view of human nature, a hyper-scientific understanding of the human psyche, a denigration or outright scorn of spirituality -- their insights make sense. Where one's presuppositions differ, their value is reduced. And, it would appear, even large segments of your own society do not share those presuppositions -- at least where it comes to human sexuality.
All these evolve, and I don't think dismissing entire fields of knowledge (like Jung) is appropriate
But if I don't share their premises, how can I accept their conclusions?
dismissing Freud because you think he's labelling you a sexual misfit (he's not).
Certainly, he isn't. But Angst Bear was so labelling me, or at least a point of view which I happen to share.
But to get back to my original point: rather than acknowledge the possibility of a legitimate difference of opinion on the part of his opponents, Angst Bear chose to launch an ad homineim attack against their character. Rather than engage their arguments, he chose to question their sanity. All of which might play well to the /. crowd, but does little to advance the quality of debate.
Terror? Opression? Really? "Typically"? By whom? The society in which I live does not, by and large, support the kind of sexually permissiveness attitude (yes, "free-for-all" was my word; but then after Angst's tirade I think I'm due one) that Angst Badger's post reflects. I guess by Angst's (and your? and Freud's?) definition my culture is insane.
In any case, my point was that Angst's entire post was simply an extended ad homineim (as an AC pointed out) which was much more interested in attacking the character of his opponents than it was in addressing their arguments.
you may wish to ask yourself just where "your" opinion came from
As should all of us, of course. But I suspect all of us -- you, me, Angst, Freud, Fromm -- would come up with the same answer: a combination of upbringing, cultural influence, and personal experience. Are yours somehow more valid than mine?
It's our very own ...
Your very own, thank you.
western psychology and psychotheraputic studies which have produced insights into our unacknowledged sexual "stuff".
I'm truly happy for you that Western culture after all these thousands of years finally has the tools it needs to analyze itself sexually, (though I bet those "repressed oppressive" Aristoteleans would be shocked to discover they were incapable of any meaningful sexual insights simply because they were born a few millenia too early). However, the rest of us were having insights into our sexual natures centuries before the world was blessed with Jung, or Masters and Johnson. And, sorry to say, we don't always agree.
Why? First principles. Any conclusion is only as good as its presuppositions. And modern Western psychology's are not shared by a good portion of the rest of us. Nor even, it would appear, by a significant portion of your own society. Does that mean you're wallowing in sanity while us Victorian domestic terrorists are being driven by our sexual phobias to the edge of mental illness? If so, then I'll keep my sexual phobias, thanks.
Leaving aside for the moment that the discussion was about differences in opinion over human sexuality in general, and whether public facilities should be permitted to facilitate certain aspects of it in specific, let's discuss the treatment of women (by, I suppose, men).
You and I certainly stand shoulder to shoulder in our belief in the fair and just treatment of any member of the human race, regardless of sex, race or social status. This includes, specifically, any behavior which maltreats or abuses women and children (but also includes behavior which does the same to men).
Where we probably diverge is in how we define this. I specifically include pornography and explicitly erotic imagery in this -- whether male or female -- because it objectifies the subject, be it women, men, or, increasingly today, children. In the case of pornography and erotic imagery, the viewing of such conditions the viewer to reduce his ("his" because the consumers of pornography are overwhelmingly male, though the reverse, where it occurs, is equally true) view of the subject to an object for the satisfaction of his sexual cravings. This seems to carry over to his view and treatment of women in general, though often in subtle ways which can be hard to measure.
The essential problem with this is twofold: first, it denies or minimizes the essential humanity of the subject (generally women) in favor of that person's utility as a tool for the pleasure of the viewer. It also is conveniently ignorant of the real nature of the pornography industry -- its abuse of women, the drugs, the crime, and the disease -- which produced the material. This is, fundamentally, an issue of social justice. Second, it abuses the proper role of human sexuality, reducing it to a mere pleasure pursuit and divorcing it from its intended context. This is the issue of a right understanding of human sexuality proper, and, I suspect, the area where we disagree the most (and where, BTW, I also find myself in fundamental disagreement with modern Western psychology).
My question is: why should I not wish to protect my children from such offensive material? You seem to be simultaneously decrying the objectification of a significant portion of your society and yet defending its legality and the right of children to view it. This strikes me as hypocritical.
Another point of possible disagreement between us on the issue of the sexes is what in America has at times been characterized as the "separate but equal" argument. There is a signicant portion of America which recoils in loathing at the mere suggestion of any distinction between the sexes. I have personally (attempted to) converse with some feminists (admittedly extremists) who all but explicitly stated that the biological differences between men and women are simply a plot by the male half of the race to keep women barefoot and pregnant.
While I grant the extremity of that position, the fact remains that in lesser and more subtle ways, that kind of insanity has permeated American culture, to the point where any suggestion of differences -- physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual -- between the sexes is immediately and automatically suspect as a Victorian hangover of misogynistic religious fundamentalism. And modern Western psychology bears complicity in the fostering of such (in my book, irrational) notions.
I would go so far as to classify such thinking as "insane" (to use your word) itself. It denies a fundamental truth about men and women that has been universally recognized throughout human history. In part, separate social roles have developed in human societies as a utilitarian response to these male-female differences. While I will not deny the complicity of the inherent paternalism of male dominated societies in the development of women's social and domestic roles in those societies, to the point where those roles have been distorted and permuted to serve the dominant segment of that society, the universality of separate roles is a powerful argument against the position that such roles are merely an imposition by male power-holders on disenfranchised women. The denial of such a fundamental truth by significant portions of Western culture is equally "insane" because it, too, perpetuates certain myths about women -- namely that they are fundamentally nothing more than men with longer hair. Such insanity can never foster a true sexual justice because it denies a proper understanding of the natures of women and men.
In short, while we probably agree on the principles -- just and equal treatment of all -- I suspect you will continue to denigrate an authentic Asian approach to this rather laudable goal as "insane" simply because it disagrees with certain presuppositions you hold, however errant those suppositions may be.
Note: I am admittedly presuming a lot about your beliefs based on the reading of exactly two posts. Where I am in error as to your personal beliefs, I apologize. Merely re-read those portions of my post as an address to certain general tendencies in Western society, rather than as a diatribe against anything you believe specifically.
Unfortunately, I will not be here to continue this excellent dialog, as I am leaving for several days to prepare for the Christmas holiday.
Peace,
Thanks indeed for the long post. I have much to say in reply; unfortunately, I have no time to say it, as I'm heading out for the weekend, so I must leave it unsaid, except to say that we do indeed share many of the same interests. I will look further into your references. Thanks again for your reply. Peace, Lee Kai Wen -- Taiwan, ROC
The main problem with filtering software is secrecy. When we don't know what sites are being blocked, then the error rate is also secret, so we can't know whether we're being duped. Since we don't know the content of most sites on the web, if a legitimate site is blocked through error or deliberate choice (e.g., blocking Peacefire as porn) we never find out what we're missing -- unless we try to go there with prior knowledge that it's legitimate. And website owners can't know when their sites are wrongly blocked and labeled as pornography or bomb-making instructions.
But filtering software relies on secrecy in a very fundamental way; a filterware company's marketable product, their added value, comes from the quality of their blocking lists. If the lists were freely available, then all filtering companies would go out of business. There would be no incentive to come up with a good list, someone else could just copy it.
I'm sure some people would very much like for this to occur (and a lot of them have posted above). But I don't think, from a public policy perspective, that we're ever going to convince a Congressman to pass a law sending censorware companies out of business when there doesn't seem to be any alternative method of filtering. Parents have a real desire, one that I think is legitimate in a lot of cases, to shield their kids from 'objectionable' material. Right now the only ways to do that are to monitor your child's Internet access all the time or to install filtering software -- and now we're seeing that spread to schools and libraries.
Another option, and one that I think a lot of parents or schools might take, would be to deprive their kids of the Internet entirely and not give them access at home. As far as freedom of information is concerned, I think we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot if we fought to promote free access to the few sites that censorware wrongly blocks and in doing so caused a lot of kids to lose their access to the entire wealth of the Internet.
I don't see any easy escape from this, but one possibility would use the open-source model. The reason why we celebrate the use of open-source software is because we believe that software open to public scrutiny will be of higher quality than if it were closed-source. Why don't we apply the same reasoning to blocking software and blocking lists? Lists are currently secret, not for any technical reasons, but because the companies who maintain it have to make money.
Imagine, though, if a non-profit foundation (American Family Association, etc.) maintained an open list and put together a filter that would make use of that list. Anyone could submit sites to the foundation, which would then use real humans to check them before adding them to the list.
Because the profit motive and secrecy would be gone, there would be no incentive for the group to add sites that they knew to be unobjectionable. Also, since the list is openly available, there would be constant attention (from the press, watchdog groups, website owners, etc.) to see whether sites were listed erroneously. If people felt that the list had too many errors or used the wrong categories (for instance, a site might not separate sex education information from pornography), they could start their own competing list, copying and modifying the original one. The open filter list would be unable to hide accidental or deliberate errors, and it could be adapted to make use of any group's list at the parent's request. The result would be a system in which errors were self-correcting and parents had both the knowledge and the freedom of choice to make real decisions about what their children should see.
I see two potential problems with this model that would have to be addressed. The first is that the lists would not be adequately maintained without the profit motive -- it would just cost too much money to employ people to scour the web or read through the submissions for objectionable sites. This may be true, but I have the feeling that some conservative billionaire (or Paul Vixie type) would be happy to endow a foundation to protect kiddies on the Web forever.
Secondly, there's the danger that the list would simply become a 100 MB text file of "Where to Find Porn on the Net." Since it would have to be publicly accessible, there's a good chance people might look for objectionable sites by scrolling through the list. But as long as the categories were reasonably vague, then they're no better for that purpose than a search engine. I can type 'porn' into Google and get as many hits as I want; the list wouldn't make my search any easier.
I don't know whether a project of this type would ever come to pass, but I think that it would be greatly beneficial for the Net as a whole. If an open-source alternative exists, then it would be possible to get the public consensus behind shutting down commercial, secrecy-based filtering sites. If we don't have any alternative, then Peacefire and their supporters are going to be fighting a losing battle.
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http://www.freshmeat.net/projects/charities.cron
http://freshmeat.net/projects/charities.cron/
I respect the ideas brought forth by such a bill, but I think most of us know that there is no way they can block specific material from being viewed. Sure, it can block specific addresses, specific words, and so on, but new stuff pops up every day, and there's always a few sites that use a "questionable" word in a completely different manner, thus allowing their site to be censored when it definitely should not be. And then there are the sites that should definitely be censored, but because they do not meet the criteria of the typically censored sites, they are not. It's a lose-lose situation; the only way to prevent webtrash from prevailing is by taking out specific sites individually (a near impossible task, and by taking out I mean making them childproof and whatnot), or hey... Why don't we put a little more faith in the people for a change? Warn them of the trashiness of the web, convince them to avoid it. We all know that very few people will ignore it 100%, and some will bury themselves in it... But those people that choose to do this... doesn't that make them trash, anyway? While I am not an advocate of degrading any human soul, why should we try to raise them from the depths they sink themselves into any more than they try? If they don't care about themselves, I do not see why we should care so much. Granted, caring should be expected, but no more so than anyone cares for him-/herself.
Write a censorware program, keep the list open, but more importantly keep the list short.
4 or 5 sites that have been confirmed in person to be objectionable ought to do it. That way the public institutions have their legally required censorware and we have a reasonably free internet.
Create a censorware package that guarentees not to censor any protected speech - there will be no competition (it just doesn't guarentee it'll block all objectionable material, but then neither does any other package).
The one point that stuck in my mind was that one worked on detecting flesh tones, as a result is let black and white pornography through as safe, but blocked close ups of peoples faces.
Perhaps people grinning could scare little children? And maybe by virtue of being in greyscale a picture becomes art instead of pornography.
I can't define a bad law, but I know one when I see one.
Does it seem a little odd that McCain supported this? Isn't the GOP supposed to be the party of minimal government?
computers are affordable for most people? i think that's an incredibly unfair assumption to make. $800 to $1000 might be pocket change for you (or for me), but it's a alot of money when you're struggling to pay bills, keep your kids clothed, and keep the heat on through the winter.
as a public librarian serving a community where my patrons can't afford to pay off their library fines, i see this daily. many of my users don't have telephones because they either can't afford them or they've been turned off multiple times. one of my regular library users just got a full-time job for $6.50/hour, and she's thrilled, because it's the most she's earned, ever.
these are the same people that frequent my building to use our internet access. over the past couple of years, they've become savvy net users - using free email to keep up with family rather than the phone, surfing for discounts and coupons, and gaining skills that just might someday help them move up and out of minimum wage jobs.
but for now, having a computer at home is a luxury these people cannot even fathom. their kids need school clothes, it's cold and snowy and their boots are falling apart, and public transportation and/or cabs are gets expensive, but there's no other way to get to work.
it's probably not wise 'round these parts to mention how my community is bridging the digital divide, but we're working very hard every single day to promote responsible internet and PC use, IN the public library.
"Show me a computer expert that gives a damn, and I'll show you a librarian." -- Patricia Wilson Berger
Take heart. The problem of government interference is now in the open. What you need to do now is look for public libraries that are NOT funded with federal dollars. As a second method, look for libraries that use Linux for their workstations.
I don't think that this will get very far, as there doesn't seem to be an enforcement agency for this. Hard to use "technical means" if they don't exist, and the censorware that actually blocks all porn works only by killing your network connection. Image the Federal Bureau of Networking trying to suggest the appropriate "technical means" by which your library can be in compliance...
The Internet has no garbage collection
Or, they can use the lovely Secure Shell tool to remotely login to their *NIX shell accounts and run lynx or forward Netscape via X11... hrmm. I already have a friend of mine doing this from behind his school's crappy firewall (which fails to block port 21 of all things, so I run sshd on 21 for him) which only allows outgoing HTTP connections via a proxy (a Microsoft Proxy Server that is down more often than not... sigh, and if its down, he can't browse the web). Its easy to imagine this scenario being pulled off on censorware. My next goal is to establish a VPN tunnel between his computer and mine so that he can tunnel all of his traffic right by the firewall like it didn't exist. And I wonder about those Anonymizer-type services -- since the page is "coming from" Anonymizer or others, would censorware that matches based on URL fail to detect any "objectionable" sites viewed through one of those types of services?
Those who do not know the past are doomed to reimplement it, poorly.
Even if those definitions were correct (although I believe they are more the result of "us vs. them" propaganda,) I still don't see the relationship to censorship. Of course, the Nazis and the Soviets made considerable use of censorship and propaganda, but so do all governments when pushing nationalist agendas. In some ways, copyright and patent laws can provide a highly effective vector for censorship, as can the Puritanical attitudes that prevail in the US.
Anyway, this is getting off-topic. Suffice to say that I think that the whole idea of censorship is incredibly dated. It appears that the main reason it is still being used is because it is far cheaper than education. A truly sad state of affairs, wouldn't you agree?
How so? Socialism does not inherently censor or limit free speech anymore than capitalism encourages it. I believe that you are referring to totalitarianism, or in the extreme, fascism.
I think that it is odd that Americans seem to feel that socialism is a dirty word. I suppose that it is simply a reflection of indoctrinated ignorance. Most seem happy to condemn socialism as evil while simultaneously lauding many of its principles when they are applied in friendly nations. As I said, it is odd...
Which is faster, the exploit or the development staff?
I think we'll see more and more of this as software moves to a service model either via self-updates or a server component.
The answer thus far is that it depends on the commitment of the development staff. For examples see AOL vs MSN Messenger, online games, secure music delivery systems, etc.
In response to the original post. I'll bet on the hacker kid, but it's up to the development staff how long is work trickles down the grapevine....
Henry Fnord
During prohibition robberies, muggings and dosmetic violence were all but gone. So from that point of view it worked.
Unfortunatly it made the black market incredible wealthy, and powerfull.
I wonder what would have happened if liquer could not be acquired from our neighbors?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Whether or not censorship works has nothing to do with how easy it is to circumnavigate the software.
By your logic censorship would work if you couldn't get around it.
Censorship does not work if you want to keep a society free, consorship works quite nicely if your goal is to control the populace.
If you get stuck on the fact the the software doesn't work, what happens if some genius figures out software that does?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
another survivor of the PET machine - i remember when the school installed a dual floppy - no more tape loads - and finally allowed to peek and poke!
uh oh - im getting old! (how about pay $400 for a vic-20?)
(ok so i'm ot a little)
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Then why doesn't Congress pass a national blood alchohol level law, instead of coercing the states to do so? Or a bill mandating censorware? There are limits to the "interstate commerce" argument. A sufficiently liberal court might say that DUI laws fall into interstate commerce, but not so long ago the national speed limit struck down as outside federal authority.
Pretty much anything can be said to effect interstate commerce, but that doesn't mean the federal government has authority over everything it is not specifically denied.
It makes it sound like you're saying "I want to be allowed to recklessly endanger my fellow citizens" rather than "I want the governor and state legislature to decide what's dangerous and what's not."
And yet, most of us are saying exactly the second of those statements. I acknowledge that the federal government has done a lot of good by bending the rules, but it bothers me that the bending has happened sneakily. That concern applies to the good laws as well as the bad.
If America wants the advantages of a strong federal government, and is willing to accept the disadvantages, fine. The way to go about it is to pass a Constitutional Amendment, not to use taxation as a coercive tool.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
You seem to think that the means are the bad part of what is happening here. The ends are much more insidious. Censorware is a very direct threat. Removal of access to information causes people to not question current events. This is a dangerous, and usually unconcious, road to travel.
Read "Farenheight 451"(sp). It is not about government censorship. Information removal usually comes at request of the people. Every group of people has some bit of information they would like to see gone. It is not just the "religious right".
By the way, we are a long way from what this nation(USA) was founded upon.
The definition of libral is now more closly aligned with Socialism than Libralism. The Democrats are NOT librals.(Neither are the Republicans) The US was founded upon the new, at the time, ideal of Libralism.
At our school in southern Oregon, we use Squid and squidGuard. We had been using Novell's "Border Manager". We discovered it to be crap (as many before us have, I'm sure), and thus the move was made.
Anyway, my point is if schools were to use free software in place of the Microsoft/Novell equivilants, imagine how much more money could be put to more workstations for students, more powerful servers, etc. Heck! If we went totally Linux, we could probally even give the poor teachers a raise!
No it isn't. The sentence isn't wrong just because you can't grasp anything beyond a literal statement arranged as subject-verb-object.
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TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Overall, I think you are correct about the problems with over-protectiveness of children from negative influences. However, it isn't quite as clear cut as you make out.
At various ages, children have differing capacities. A five year old must be protected from more things than a fifteen-year-old. Children under three should not be given toys with small parts lest they choke on them; children of age six can handle that danger easily.
These obvious examples have more obscure counterparts when it comes to information and ideas. There are ideas that can be damaging to very young children and from which they should be protected. Children exposed too early to too much sexuality can (not always, but more often than one would wish) become over-sexualized, with higher risk of problems in their late teens than children who were kept relatively ignorant until say, age 10.
It is wrong to keep all negative things away from children and let them grow up to believe that mommy or daddy or the Government will always protect them from anything icky. But it is also wrong to let children be so overwhelmed with negative things in society that they are not yet ready to deal with, having none of the equipment and psychological tools and armor that adults have, so that they resign themselves to living in a world in which they'll never feel happy or loved. I'd say both are bad. Parents must protect their children but not over-protect.
I hope this middle road can be taken by thoughtful people, but it seems like the extremists always drown out the moderate voices. I hope that isn't the case today.
Writing is the only socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. (E. L. Doctorow)
Even assuming that we have a lot of sites that refuse to move to the .xxx domains, we haven't lost anything (web censorship doesn't work anyway...), and we've stopped blocking sites that should be allowed. Sounds like an all-around win to me.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I kinda agree, although with some reservation. ,like, messing the pricks up... NOT by blanket enforcement by censorsoftware. Kiddie porn is evil because of the act of it's production. Consumption encourages production logically) Quite simply whe are missing the point of a democracy by alocating what is acceptable speech and not acceptable to an institution. It's *OUR* job to tell institutions what to and not to do. Call me an anarchist perhaps, but I'd never signed no social contract that stated that.
I *do* think that it's just nuts to enforce censorship on an adult populus. (Perhaps kiddie porn of the real variety needs to be stomped, but that's best done by identifying the perpetrators and
I also have some reservations about govt enforcing of censorware on kids, principally because (A) In schools, common sense sugests that internet *should* be SUPERVISED. Ie if a kid finds porn, a teacher can promptly nail the connection and then procede to discuss with the kid the issues behind the sexuality involved with a disclaimer to the effect of "Wait till ya grow up kiddo", and (B) Any parent that doesn't supervise their younger kids on the net needs a good but kicking. But not a legislative one.
Kids being as they are will see porn. Far out. Despite my parents best attempts, as a young lad I managed to see porn with high school buddies. Perhaps if my parents explained it a bit more I would of found it all abit less... interesting?
There is some research done however that suggests hard-sexual images (Ie not titties, but the full whackin' action) and particularly hard violence can have mild behavioral implications.
There is a little slogan that I learned in my uni days (studying media), "It's not what media does to you, it's what you do with the media". I'd say it's a priceless little parenting thought.
I gotta admit though coming home and finding my 10 year old lookin at hard porn would kinda disturb me greatly. Perhaps at 16 I'd be less fussed about soft tittie mags. It'd be a great oportunity to discuss some life-lessons on how to treat a lady as she deserves.
Just a thought.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Reminds me of a funny story my mother told me
She was in a local catholic parent group in the 80's and the local priest there who would take songs like Madonna's 'like a virgin' and reinterpret it into being a moral dictate that being catholic is like being 'like the virgin mary'. I think he also decedided that some metal, like sabath was OK, because it provided warnings as to how bad-ass the devil was
Cute, but I'm glad I'm athiest.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
right. and just how are we supposed to just not let them, huh? Send them to private school, even though we can't afford to because we still have to pay for public schools? The point is, the government shouldn't be acting en loco parentis in the first place; it shouldn't be up to the parents to make sacrifices to avoid it.
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"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
It's the right to unrestricted free speech, and that means free listening too. it means the government isn't allowed let people say whatever they want but stop people from listening.
If you say things the government doesn't like, and they still let you say them as long as you live ten stories underground in a padded cell with no one around for hundreds of miles, is that free speech, because they still let you talk?
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"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
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"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
It's amazing how 0.01% of bad information outweights 10% of good and valuable one!
I am sure that in my bookmarks there would be a long list of "smart proxy" servers, "just in case".
It also never stops to amaze me how paranoia drives Congressmen (most of whom are computer-illeterate) to block, rather then cherish information access. The benefits BY FAR exceed the losses and everybody knows that. Well, except the Congress that is...
If only Slashdot/GNU/Linux users could prove to the whole nation how lame the system is and how easy it is to "go around" it, then we'd get somewhere!
Take, for example, the inventor of the Java Programming Language, Patrick Naughton
It's also interesting how most people associated with Java are pedophiles, too!
Great. The 7 gazillion things you can't browse in public now include "$hi+ m0th3r fu<k3r <o<k su<k3r di<k pu$$y and +i+s."
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
Fight for your own family's "safety"... mine doesn't need your help.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Interesting. Everything under "Free Market" is restrictions from a free market, none of which would be in a true free market.
Schools have a great amount of control over what is taught in the classroom - the hiring/firing of teachers, textbooks, course outlines, etc. are usually determined by or approved by an entity representing the school or school district. However, the internet is not a classroom and is not controlled by a school, nor should it be - it is usually used as an extension of the school library, not a replacement for a teacher; the internet is no more a teacher than an issue of Newsweek. No content filtering software installed on school computers should block anything that the school library would be allowed to obtain or that a student would be allowed to say in a hallway. Sure, kids shouldn't be looking at porn at school, but when the internet is involved, the precedent to follow is the policy on bringing physical porn to school and distributing it - punish the kid who breaks the rule. Until software can block at least some "bad" material without blocking any good or neutral material, it should not be used. If the software companies actually checked every blocked site (as most of them falsely claim) and release the list of blocked sites, then blocking software would probably be acceptable to most people, assuming that the blocked content was obviously inappropriate for the specific environment (porn in school, etc.). The alternatives are to monitor internet access and punish anyone who breaks any rules, block the internet entirely, or block all sites except those specifically allowed for classwork or research (only allow access to what you want to have in the school, as is done with materials in a school library). As for "instilling values," that's a job for parents, not teachers, legislators, or software.
What about the guy who would have died in a car crash but wore the seatbelt to comply with the stupid law and he lived to be 90 in a nursing home and the tax payers halp pay towards that. And FYI, George Lucas is alive because his seatbelt failed
-Compenguin
I've always thought that this would be the best way to 'censor' anything, if you really wanted to. Voluntarily, and with a public voting mechanism for getting sites on the list. You would still wind up with some stuff that you might not want on the list, it would depend on what balance you chose (5% don't like it, it makes the list?)
/. itself uses. After all, you could compare porn with spam :) (hmm ...a.b.p.spam? )
However, this would still suffer the same problems of implementation that other people have brought up for more restrictive censorship: what, when, how.
Dunno what MAPS and RBL lists are, but the mechanism for voting could be similar to the moderation system
Lac
Vidi Vici Veni
Thanks for the sig
They also seem to want to make the government more like a parent, you can do this, but you can't do this. Yes, many thing should be against the law, murder, rape, robbery, etc., but forcing the use of censorship software in publicly funded institutions is just wrong. If I go to my old high school library and ask to get on the net, I have to sign, along with my parents, a "User Agreement." If I violate that, then I will be punished, be it losing my net connection at school or a 3 day suspension.
Why can't the parents of this generation take responsibility for their own actions and their children? End parental responsiblity rant.
Amigori
-------------
Parents, take control of your kids.
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
You could get Playboy in my (Catholic!) high-school library if you were 18.
You forget that Catholic schools have an overwhelming desire to raise children according to a certain moral/ethical code. The best way to affect this (according to the more enlightened) is to expose them to stimuli that are considered tasteless and/or questionable and discuss it in an elightened manner in a classroom setting. While Playboy may not be considered educational in any way, certain works of literature that the less enlightened want banned (i.e., The Chocolate War or Smilla's Sense of Snow) due to some adult material are read and discussed in classrooms so that students can learn about what goes on in the real world, and be prepared to deal with it according to the moral/ethical standard espoused by the Catholic Church. The English Literature teacher at my sisters' (Catholic, all-girl) high school said almost exactly what I just wrote (in many fewer words) when a group of parent's tried to get the aforementioned Smilla's Sense of Snow banned from the curriculum. Needless to say, their effort failed. The nice thing about private schools is that if you do not like the way things are being taught, you have every right to withdraw your children from that school. Unfortunately, not everyone has that option, but I won't get into the whole school voucher thing (which now that I think about it, would doom the private schools to the same Luddite fate as the public institutions).
Here's a proposal that'll upset folk who don't want to be branded as collaborators, yet might be well worth doing:
How about an open-source, absolutely minimal censorware? Something that blocks an absolute minimum of sites while complying with the law. If the law's going to be there (1) libraries should prefer something free to the current idiot products at any cost and (2) most librarians favor maximal free speech too.
If the software needs to keep lists of truly offending sites (Russian child slavery or whatever), it could even let the librarians build such lists themselves, both locally and collaboratively (with local librarians being able to weight the input of individual librarians elsewhere (Kansas Librarians: -1 "If they don't like it in Kansas, keep that channel open here!")).
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
It sounds like the bill TAKES AWAY discretion from school districts since there's not a public district in the country that doesn't receive federal aid.
And while school districts have been allowed to restrict access to certain material in the past, also in the past the districts have been able to NAME the material they are restricting and to say WHY they are restricting THAT particular material. Not so with this censorware. In fact, school administrators will have no freeking idea what, specifically, material they are restricting access to. That sounds capricious to me.
And to me the worst part is who is making the shit lists? Mattel? Disney? WTF? This is just another example of the corporatization of America. Ralph Nader was right!
HAHAHA! That reminds me of the story about the censoeware that blocked anything with the word "teen" in it. The people maintaining the list had decided that "teen" was an adult word.
In order to determine the Constitutionality of this law, we should follow a well-defined process. I'm basing my anaylsis of this on the general guidelines at http://www.ssrn.com/update/lsn/cyberspace/csl_less ons.html
under the free speech section
First, we must determine the role that the government is acting under. Is the government acting as a subsidizer? Or is it acting as a sovereign? An argument can be made that it is merely acting as a subsidizer. However, I doubt that will fly in the case of a library. The government has more freedom when it is paying someone to create speech on behalf of the government. For example, if the government pays someone to develop an anti-drugs campaign, they have the freedom to do so. However, no one would reasably consider the materials in a library to represent the government's viewpoint. Instead, libraries traditionally represent a wide range of ideas. Hence, I think the court would give full protection to the library. Now, as it was mentioned before, in the case of ordering books, the library has only limited resources. Hence, that is a lot different than actually placing a content-based restriction on the use of the Internet.
Next, we must consider whether the restriction is based on content. Clearly in this case, there is a content-based restriction. Because this law makes a content-based restriction on free speech, it is presumptively unconstitutional. To justify it, the government must show that there is a compelling government interest, and that the restriction is the least restrictive alternative to maintaining that interest.
Now, in terms of preventing obscenity, the government can do that. There is no question that the government can prohibit obscenity.
However, speech that is "harmful to minors" is another story alltogether. I think a careful reading of ACLU v Reno is in order here. I'll let you make up your own mind. However, the way I read it, in order for such a provision to be constitutional, it must contain a clause that specifically exempts material that has "serious social, scientific, or literary value." (This is one of the prongs of the obscenity test established in Miller v California.)
The case where indecency standards are upheld have been in forums that recieve only the most limited forms of 1st Ammendment protection (such as broadcasting), or cases where the law was not targeted at limiting the speech itself, but rather at the secondary effects of the speech (such as in the case of a zoning ordinance prohibiting adult theatres in residential neighborhoods in order to preserve the property value in those neighborhoods.)
Why is broadcasting (i.e. radio) different from the Internet? Because you are pretty likely to have kids inadvertantly hear a radio broadcast, but the Internet requires affirmitive steps in order for that to happen. So, although it is constitutional for the FCC to require indecent material to be played after 10PM, it is not constitutional to prohibit people from calling dial-a-porn numbers (because the dial-a-porn numkbers have little risk of someone accidently hearing their contents.) In ACLU v Reno, the supreme court felt that the Intrernet gets full protection, and that it requires affirmative steps for someone to reach indecent content on the Internet. Thus, the Internet is given full 1st Ammendment protection.
Also, requireing filtering software is not the least restrictive alternative. Library's could just as easily educate their users that accessing obscene content was not permissable. Finally, it would be pretty easy to show that filtering software was too restrictive. Hence, any kind of balancing test would work against the government.
Unlike libraries, I think schools could be forced to install filtering software. Because they are acting on behalf of the parents.
I could spell out what cases I'm basing my analysis on if anyone is interested.
Randy
P.S. I'm not a lawyer.
Randy.Flood@RHCE2B.COM
How much are you paying for the state employees who enforce the anti-stupidity laws? You don't think cops could be spending their time more efficiently than enforcing seatbelt laws? Sometimes they even have roadblocks to check for seatbelts - not that you couldn't put the belt on while waiting in line...
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
So, Porn isn't what's at issue here...
Any school (or public) librarian walking around the school (or public) library could easily notice big, glowing, 32-bpp, 1024x768 Naked People on a monitor... And if they don't want porn, that's what Acceptable Use Policies are for. Little Johnny gets caught downloading fake Britney Spears porn when he's supposed to be researching the French Alps, and Johnny gets detention, or a phone call home, or loses access privileges temporarily... Fine.
Censorware raises a different issue. Who decides which software is used? should a fundamentalist school librarian, or, for that matter, principal, be able to decide that the software that blocks plannedparenthood.org and pflag.org, but maybe misses some of the borderline sites that many would consider "hate speech" ?
If nothing else, censorware is unreliable. Websites come and go too quickly to maintain useful blocked-sites lists, and filtering is too stupid to block porn sites and still allow sites that detail the mating habits of the blue-footed booby.
The fact that Peacefire has released its one-click disabling software demonstrates the severity of the situation: for the entire time it has existed, (five years, I think) Peacefire has refused to distribute hacks/cracks/etc. to get past censorware, rather emphasizing grassroots efforts to prevent the use of blocking software.Until now.
This is just going to make things worse... what happens when a nosy librarian starts checking out the logs of failed attempts to access 'restricted sites?'
When 'Little Johnny's' user account shows up on 56 failed attempts to access sites that offer support to gay or questioning teens, who's there to protect his privacy from the school administrators in the small bible-belt town where he lives?
Many of the benefits of the internet may be jeopardized by censorware. When the net is free, everyone is connected. Building walls goes against the nature of the net. Many networks could be more secure if we didn't mind losing the level of connectivity unfettered internet access gives us. But that's something not many people are willing to give up. I'm not. And functionality demands that the net be allowed to exist without regulation or interference.
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
Define 'inapproprite' please. If you don't get the idea of this post, then you shouldn't be avocating for censorware. If you do, then you know why it shouldn't be advocated. --Demonspawn
I'm sorry, but I just don't buy into their 'stuidies.' Most of the kids I grew up with saw porn at one time or another, none of them grew up to be rapists or murderers. Could you point me to some of these studies? I'd like either a good laugh or some somber reading, whichever they turn out to be. --Demonspawn
Some AC not worth mentioning posted:
...
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Oh Puh-lease
Can YOU point to ANY serial rapist that DID NOT fuel their desires with pornography??
-------------
You are confusing cause and effect. The porn did not cause the person to be a rapist. The rapist pursued the porn.
I would go so far to say that the availability of porn sedated the rapist to some degre that the rapist didn't partake in as many victims as if (he) didn't have porn available.
--Demonspawn
Sometimes even mindless rants need to be corrected. Perhaps they can alter their estranged thinkings. Perhaps not.
While many only want your money, there are many sites whose aim is solely malicious.
I suggest reading the following ARTICLE.
And you are correct: It is not difficult for children to find their parents' credit card number if parents are not discerning.
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
What is really alarming is the choices our municipal governments use as filtering software.
Take for example OPLIN (Ohio Public Library Information Network), the ISP for 249 of Ohio's 250 public libraries, has a connection to pornography via a kid's site. I have been warning parents that you can and will find pornography with this network. For those of you who want to check out how easy it is, below are two ways you can find it.
OPLIN testified against us at the state house last year on a number of occassions. They said filtering software wasn't necessary!
OPTION A:
1. Under a search, type OPLIN
2. Options are given. Click onto "Ohio Kids"
3. More options given. Click onto "web teens"
4. Many options given. You'll have to scroll down a little ways. Under the subheading "teen stuff," click onto "high school central"
5. A few options given - click onto "environment"
OPTION B - short cut:
1. Type http://www.oplin.lib.oh.us/EDUCATE/WEBTEENS
2. Many options given. You'll have to scroll down a little ways. Under the subheading "teen stuff," click onto "high school central"
3. A few options given - click onto "environment"
You will instantly get a porn site, no other options. Scroll down the entire page. Is this what you want kids to see? And OPLIN told the Ohio legislature that libraries can handle this on their own!! OPLIN is being funded with our tax dollars.
I hope I am not the only one outraged at this!
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
The fact of the matter is, that if these are the things you want to see or read, then do it from home. Computers are affordable for most people and with internet appliances, just for that purpose, well you can see where I am going.
The point is, that a public instution owns the machines, its thier right to do what they will with them, the kids will just create holes anyway and I see this as no infiltration into my personal browsing rights.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
This isn't a valid comparison. Libraries have to spend money in order to add to their collection, and have to deal with issues like storage and shelf-space. They make decisions to buy stuff that the public wants, mitigated by their budgetary and physical space storage limitations, and yes, at times obscenity as defined by "community values".
If I am able to find a library affiliated with my local public library that has porn or bomb-making instructions in its collection, and I try to do an inter-library loan to borrow those materials, my library should not bar the transaction from taking place, and in fact has an obligation to make sure that it happens. The traditional excuses that keep porn, etc. off of most library shelves do not apply to the internet; the reasons why porn isn't available at most libraries on the shelf is different from why it should/shouldn't be blocked online.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Who needs porn when they're surrounded by all those tight, luscious, underage...
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Actually, this could be easily overturned as unconstitutional, assuming the attorneys are savy enough to approach it the right way. After all, no such software exists, unless congress cuts off funding to all schools and libraries, they have violated the law. And as far as I can tell, no such software is possible. First it would require a definition of what is harmful to children. As far as I know, no internet content has been proven to be harmful to children, and you would be lucky to find two people who agree on what is obscene. Furthermore, any filter software required by law to be installed would have to be regulated by the government, otherwise, what filtering software qualifies. I could make software that filters all websites that use the color pink, after all, I find that obscene (well, I would probably throw in any sites that refer to Barney also, as that has to be harmful to children), and sell it as filtering software to schools and libraries. Of course, the Supreme Court did just decide that the votes of 20,000 people didn't matter, when the election came down to less than 300 votes. And the next President will most likely deemphasize technology in education in favor of privatization of schools, and the whole issue will become a moot point.
Most censorware providers advertise taking care of the problem of "damaging" email as well as web content. This means incoming and outgoing email. If your only access to email is via a public library computer and a Web-based free email service, which gets blocked by the censorware, what does that do to your free speech?
....if you are allowed to control content viewed, then doesn't that make you responsable for the content viewed? In that case if I saw something that was supposed to be filtered out and wasn't, and I was offended, then I could hold the school / library responsable for content that was supposed to be blocked. If this is the case I see a lot of lawsuits in the future. Any /. lawyers with input towards this?
There is a war going on for your mind.
The closest thing we had was a "spidernet" that connected a room full of PET's to a dual-floppy drive. And if you had the right disk, you could put stupid messages on other people's screens.
Despite the "In God We Trust" spiel, Americans are also deathly afraid of religion. Most censorware removes all non-Christian or non-Catholic religious material.
So kids who are doing projects on Christmas time around the world have a lil bit of trouble.
Censorware is no substitute for human supervision, or human explanation.
Your biggest threat isn't blocking porn in the libraries or schools, it's blocking questionable material.
What constitutes questionable material?
That would depend on who defines the filter and the laws - right now it might be porn, and information on making bombs or drugs. Tomorrow it could even be deemed that reading about world events that become censored. Future people might not be able to read contrary (contrary to the state's views) opinions on open bulletin-boards.
Although you might have control within your own house, why should people who do not have that in-house access be subjected to different laws. These are public sites and should be left free.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
And so State funded censorship is a good idea? I just personally couldn't trust the buggers - especially if I were living in the USA. As I said before, it wouldn't be long before something new became "questionable material."
If I wanted 'Giant Jugs' and 'Bomb Making for Dummies' at my public library for whatever purposes, then I would normally go through regular channels to acquire them through the library. It's just nicer now that the internet can bring this information to me far faster. And having that public is great! More information, more education!
More information, more education is much better - gives the general citizenry a better stand to make decisions for themselves instead of relying on Government or Religion. It gives them the freedom to do so.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
====
All things in life are subjective. At least that's what I think.
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"white bread, redneck, chicken-shit, motherfucker" -- Dr. Dre on "Straight Outta Compton"
I think it's a good thing too - but not for censorship reasons...
If my school hadn't installed security measures, if my work hadn't proxied out gameing sites, and if my library hadn't filtered pr0n, then I wouldn't be the network/tech savvy guy that I am today. Thanks to all the people out there trying to prevent me from seeing what I want to see, I'm able to not only explore ways to learn how to poke holes in todays technology, but also learn how to plug those holes, and plug new ones that haven't been poked yet.
-- ML
If you drink, don't park. Accidents cause people.
At my school, all of the computers go through a proxy at the University of Utah. This proxy server also happens to have X-Stop installed on it.
Not only does this proxy server slow Internet down immensely, it pulls up cached versions of Slashdot.org from the day before.
About two weeks ago, I tried visiting gamefaqs.com. Only 15 minutes ago, gamefaqs.com had been accessible, but it was blocked. I use the old Akamai trick to get around the filter, and it works, of course, but the CGI boards don't work.
Okay, fine, fsck that. Since our system administrater thinks DOS is a HUGE security hole, I can't get the IP address by tracert, so I'm forced to use Internet Explorer to find out the IP address of gamefaqs.com. The other system administrator, who couldn't tell a DOS prompt from his butt, comes wandering over and sees me at the "this site has been blocked" screen.
He then tells me to get off of that site. I tell him that this site had not been blocked five minutes ago, and I was merely trying to find a way around it. After all, doesn't the DMCA allow a way around malfunctioning censorware?
Eventually, I end up being kicked off of the computer by the librarian, because this asswhore sysadmin tells her I'm trying to hack into a site.
The stupidity of this school astounds me.
This fear of sex dates back well before the Victorian Era. The Puritans who settled here had a similar approach to sex. Compared to them, the Victorians were highly librated.
well..public colleges maybe...at public clusters. That's really not too bad. Private colleges can't really be told to do this, I am sure none would comply..
Why to the people with the tightest asses get to make all the rules? Angst Badger is too right! We need, as a society, to use our ignore buttons on these poor mental morons who project their problems onto us. I got talked to at work because I said someone was wearing a beautiful sweater (it was gorgeous, art nouveau). Textiles aren't tits, dammit!
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
In mandating this, the government is requiring the purchase of products (blocking software) from third parties by public institutions with public funds. The measure doesn't go so far as to mandate a particular brand of software, but this is still Corporate Welfare.
But still, doing research on the Net is next to useless. Clifford Stoll's excellent meditation on technology in schools, High Tech Heretic questions the vallidity of ANY internet access in schools, especially pre High School.
The editorial process is a Good Thing. The accuracy and validity of anything on the Web must be questioned, since there is no editorial process over 99% of the content. People want things fast, cheap, and good. You can have two but never all three. The Web is fast and cheap, but not good, like McDonalds.
In a time when schools are removing libraries to make room for computer labs, there are more important things to be worrying about than if your kids can get to Hamsterdance without cracking their blocking software.
What would you trust more, the Oxford English Dictionary, or Encarta.com?
One-ton tomato
Sounds like I might be heading down the same road -- the filtering software at the local public library (Pella, IA) filters Slashdot. =)
I received an email today from a friend sent from a public library....there were certain words missing from the text. They were completely blanked out. Poof!
I would have prefered at least @#$% to just the 4 character blank spaces.
I love worry warts.
Absolutely we must! When they grow up, they might want to look at this stuff too!!
---
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
The point is that National Geographic and the pages that explain the anatomy of the body are going to get blocked.
I think I'd rather believe that George Lucas lived in spite of not wearing a belt.
The Discovery Channel or possibly The Learning Channel periodically runs a series called "Crash". It's a history of automotive crash science. Your odds of survival are far far better with belts and bags than they are without. For every George Lucas, there's probably a score of people wrapped around their brake pedal in a tightly woven mass of flesh and bone.
Don't wear a belt. Darwinism in action. Oh yeah...
Defecation occurs.
This claim makes no sense. The human mind does not work in a linear fashion; it is inherently nonlinear. In the process of learning, the brain has to break down linear presentations of information and convert them to native format. The nonlinear organizational structure of the Internet bypasses this need for translation, so information can be absorbed and understood much more quickly.
It is possible that the retention of facts and details (but not concepts) would be aided by doing this linear-to-nonlinear conversion (much as the process of taking notes helps retention of raw data, even if the notes are never referred to again). However, the amount of information that can be processed is greatly diminished, and the speed and reliability of its absorption is diminished by orders of magnitude.
In the context of a linear presentation, the concepts behind the information are never absorbed by the average individual, and the facts are usually irrelevant without the conceptual framework in place. Even in individuals of moderate intelligence, connections between "unrelated" disciplines are rarely synthesized. Most disciplines are very closely related. I'm sure that the studies you are mentioning do not even look at these issues, and whether the nonlinear form of information on the Internet helps people in forming these connections.
Also, the Internet itself reduces the need for retention of facts or details. Why should I bother to memorize the exact date that some event occurred or the exact spelling of a word if I can find out in ten seconds? I can spend the time investigating why that event happened or where that word came from.
I think this emphasis on linear presentation of information in our educational system is a major cause of the woes in said system, and by extension, in our society. It is, in my mind, a fairly major issue, even though it is one that most people could not even grasp as an issue. This is why I'm taking the effort to respond to this post, even though it will probably be read by about 2 people... :-)
- Firedog
...our Congress might as well have demanded a "technology protection measure" to give all our kids 200 IQs and an lifetime supply of free donuts.
mmmmmm donuts
"Me Ted"
BOSTON SUCKS!
Our nation was based on the principal that the government should not force any one value system upon its members© Schools should not try to define the culture that the government thinks is proper©
Those aren't *really* jr. high girls saying that they want to cyber with you. It's actually a 400lb man, wearing a foodstained shirt and boxers, with his hand in his pants, getting off on his fantasy that he is a jr. high girl being fscked by a high profile exec at a law firm, which is who you are pretending to be.
Now, I wholly approve of this as an outlet for your sexual tension, but please, don't ever believe that they are who they say they are, and for god's sake, never agree to meet with them.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
This is America, where every God Fearing Bible thumper is out to let us know sex is bad. Okay, sure, I don't support child pornograhy, or illegal porn. I do not support sheltering youth from some thing that is completely natural. Yet some how religious fundamentalists feel that it is necessary to control what kids see, think and hear. In other countries, such as Europe and France, or Canada, it's completely normal to turn on prime time TV and see a full nude of a woman parading around. In the US., that doesn't fly. In the US, it's about violence. Killing is our business, and business is good. We wrap(and rap) it, sell it, promote it, and grind it in to our childrens heads that this is acceptable. If we showed them a little more T 'n A we would be showing them that there's more to life than killing. Censorship is a lose-lose situation. Either you make some one happy for a few years, or you piss a lot of people off for generations to come.
a/s/l here. Sorry, adding domain tags to your s
I think that the idea behind the filtering isn't a bad one. I mean, does anyone expect total freedom in a school, really? It's primary purpose IS supposed to be education and preparation. Would you want your kid looking at a porn mag at school? What about carrying a knife? Schools are trying as best they can to make the learning environment as safe as possible for as many students as possible and this does involve sweeping gestures like this. I do agree that the software used seems to be clunky and ineffective, but I can't bash the idea behind it.
Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring.
I think that if this censorship keeps going we will end up like the people in Fahrenheit 451. Censorship will start with putting "censorware" on computers in schools and other public places. But then it will spread to other things like books and newspapers. The censors will hide behind the cause of "protecting" kids from this great evil that is pornography. We wouldn't need filters if the parents who didn't want their kids to see that stuff would teach them values. If we taught our kids right then we wouldn't need filters because kids would click off of porn sites. But no matter how disgusting and disturbing we think some material is we can't just block it. People should have the right to look at anything they want to look at. We can't deny people this right because we claim to be a free nation and by blocking and censoring things we don't like we are becoming less and less free. We must stop censoring now!
I'm not closed-minded, your just wrong!
No, I'm not new here. Should I be subscribing to the official Slashdot doctrine?
No, it is too bad that kids might not be able to read the Masters and Johnson reports. I agree. Filters aren't perfect. But would you rather kids be going to libraries and schools to watch 'Ass fucking teen cumsluts'? Ideally, there could be perfect filters, but the world ain't perfect.
First some people only have access from school or public libraries. Consider that those in poorer areas are dependant on publicly provided internets. No other way to use the internet.
Well, by that same argument, poorer people cannot afford to buy their own porn. Should libraries and schools be supplying it for them?
Second most filters are horribly broken. Look through some of the past articles on the site for how horribly wrong the filters are. How many sites they block accidently. How often you can't gather information that you really should be able to.
True, but what other options are there?
Third there seems an inherent problem using public funds to limit any form of speech.
Again, back to the porn example. Should libraries and schools be providing porn? Are people protesting not being able to get 'teen cumsluts' at their local libary?
Fourth - finally - borrowing their arguments - think of the children.
Libraries and schools are privileges, not inherent rights. The government can control them any way they'd like. It would be different if the US gov't were trying to censor the Net as a whole (with this particular ruling), but they're not.
So then are you regularly protesting your local library and schools about them not providing copies of 'Giant Jugs' and 'Bomb Making for Dummies'? The slippery slope argument just isn't valid here. Libraries and schools have remained fairly open about most material for a long time, while still restricting certain subjects. Just because it's Net related doesn't mean that that is going to change.
And more importantly, libraries and schools are providing this information (stuff on the Net) that wasn't even available a few years ago. If anything, the amount of material available to the public has grown massively in the past few years.
I recall a wise man once saying that swearing is a crutch for crippled conversationalists.
Thank you so very much for proving him right.
You call the congregation of slashdot readers morons, yet you obviously are a contributor here on the forums yourself. You chastise people for speaking off topic, yet your reply had virtually nothing to do with censorware. You criticize the physical development of computer users, which is totally childish and uncalled for.
You do this all... yet your whole post is of no value to the conversation.
I understand that people who are unknowledgeable about computer are consequently afraid of them on many levels. Such people are unhappy with the idea of involving computers and the Internet in many aspects of society... schools are often no exception.
But please try to be more reasonable... your type of person was making arguments against teaching theories of eveolution when Scopes was on trial. Your type of person is criticizing violent video games and media productions because of alleged connections to viewer's violent behaviors. These are not rational arguments but rather attempts to hold back the progress of a new generation for fear that you will be left behind.
I'm sorry if you are left in the dust as my generation advances to better and better times because of technology. I truly will extend my hand outward to all those who wish to hang on and keep up. (I taugh adults to learn computer skills late in their lives for two years before taking my present job.)
But all I would ask is that you not cry out against what is easily one of the greatest resources our population has access to today. The Internet and computing technology will continue to grow by leaps and bounds, and I want my children (if and when i have them) to be given the very best technology - without censorship or half-assed exposure to it - for the very beginning of their ability to learn.
But that's just my opinion, i could be wrong.
You answered your own argument. "Whatever they deem appropriate". With most of this software, you have some level of customization and the libraries may only deem it appropriate to monitor rather than block.
Just my $0.02
I couldn't agree more. Education is in no way related to "Interstate Commerce", and so, by the constitution, Federal Government has no business regulating it. The various states have that responsibility, but I still can't help bu feel that the things which work best in out country are the ones where competition is involved. There is competiotion in the school market now, but only the well off, or extremely dedicated can afford to put their children into a private school, since their tax money still goes into supporting the public school. It's like having a payroll deduction which pays for you lunch in the company cafeteria, and then going out to lunch every day, but the deduction isn't any less. Who could afford to do that? I think educating children dos not "take a village". It takes 2 involved, dedicated parents. I don't mind my tax dollars going to support education, I just wish we knew we were getting something for our money. I like the idea of vouchers, which would force people to evaluate where their children are being taught.
As soon as they're old enough to understand anything, our kids should have free access to as much information as possible about what's happening in the world, they should be able to study any subject in whatever depth they want. The basics you say, like who the president of our country is, like what's happening right now in the middle east, like our history, and yes, if they want, even what's happening in the computer world. Kids should be learning what interests them, and the internet is an amazing resource for that!, but not if you can't access any useful sites thanks to censorware.
Joshua
Terradot
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
Joshua
Terradot
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
niceFire.com - Humor and Lego's or Lego's and Humor or Some Combination of
i'm sure they have the best of intentions, but it sounds like the first step towards a socialist environment. personally, if i were a parent, i rather have the chance that my kid see some porn and be able to access all the other goodies online too. it's just not worth the price we have to pay.
tap 2 blue, I counter that
Then the government would create their own software for it and in 5 years put it into private beta, only a limited number of functions, so that it can be evaluated and then 2 years later it will be implemented on a small number of schools and libraries as a focus group to further evaluated the software and then finally release a very buggy version, then by the time hotfixes and patches are applied it will be 2010. Kinda like what they did with carnivore.
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
It could, it raises many issues that some schools could address. Where I'm going to school, it was brought up in a computer ethics class. The argument is that many colleges are funded by the state, and if the state dumps money into an Internet connection for the college's students, it should be used for education, not surfing for porn. It's a tough issue that I think all colleges will consider, unfortunately.
Back in my high school days, we only had 2 pc's on the internet. Both faced the librarians and were about 5 feet away from them. Well, right below the computers were homemade signs that said "NO CHAT OR EMAIL", and my friend and I looked up at the monitor and there was a bright green flashing banner ad with large text saying "CHAT HERE!" We were so tempted but thought it was more funny than anything. Must...chat...
Perhaps some of you censorware opponents now see the downside of a centrally funded education system? He who pays the piper calls the tune. As long as our local schools and libraries are dependant on federal tax monies, they are vulnerable to federal dictates.
It is simply amazing how we can program operating systems that do miraculous things, but lack the ability to program adequate software that blocks viewing of the things congress wants. Perhaps if the government invested money into a development program that can work on software that meets its criteria all of us would be happy, and the ACLU wouldn't be throwing lawsuits into the courts. Because, frankly, I agree that current blocking software is not properly written. It should be more dynamic and "read" the page before it is viewed. Forget scanning just the URL, try looking at the whole page. Okay, I am off my soap box.
___________
I don't care what it looks like, it WORKS doesn't it!?!
I withdraw the "half-baked" part. I myself was not baked but steamed when I wrote that. Please accept my apology for having personalized this discussion.
My point applied to libraries and other public places as well as to the home. It's equally applicable to private-sector venues such as movie theaters and video arcades. That point was: Don't assume that parental responsibilities can be replaced by a piece of code, or by delegating that responsibility to a third party. Most willing third parties offer a cure that can be as bad as, or even worse than, the disease, since their agendas are very likely based on a different view of children's welfare than your own. And often, their agenda has nothing to do with what's good for your kids at all.
I would agree with the essentially conservative position that federal funds should not be used as a means of micromanaging local institutions. I recall Dubya advocating the cutting of red tape when it comes to how schools educate kids, favoring block grants instead. A similar policy on libraries would let local communities decide how much censorware is appropriate, rather than imposing a uniform standard on, say, Alabama and New York.
In MY community, I would not oppose libraries providing some computers configured with censorware, as long as unrestricted Internet access were also available. I find Internet pr0n an inconvenience, but have often run afoul of censorware in the workplace in the course of non-pornographic research.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Indeed it didn't take a genius to 'evade' the software. I created a remotely hosted perl script which would relay data back from a denied website, with a simple Caesar cyper to seemingly garble the html content. (It worked like a charm)
Of course, I quickly deleted this script! But the principle remains:
Censorship does not work! Of course certain web sites should have restricted access, but, until we have an intelligent AI filter program which WORKS, this cannot be done effectivly.
Daniel
Slashdot style moderation for the entire net!
Think of the possibilities! Schools could block sites modded as porn, while your college buddies could filter out nothing but.
And then your Mom really could be a Karma whore!
This rating is Unfair ( ) ( ) Fair (*) Funny
Sigh... If only. Modding would be so much more fun.
What happens when the government makes filtering mandatory for ISPs? Clearly, this is the way the north american society is heading. It's kind of like the mandatory seat belt law: most people want to weat seat belts anyway and make sure their children wear them too. Those that don't want to wear one only hurt themselves.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
A quote from Chris Hansen, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU: "More than 100 years of local control of libraries and the strong tradition of allowing adults to decide for themselves what they want to read is being casually set aside."
I am only indicating what literally dozens of sociologists and psychologists have confirmed.
My opinions are not half baked. The issue is censorware in public schools and in public libraries, not in your home. The mere fact that such a bill is considered only confirms what I've said thusfar: people dont want their children viewing pornography #1) in places where they are not available to personally monitor them #2) on computers that are paid for by their tax dollars. Dont get me wrong, I am not on a moral crusade and would never force my opinions on another man. You can let your children view what they want when they are at home. But I believe I take the majority stance in saying that I don't want children viewing inapproprite materials on computers that my tax dollars paid for. The majority of americans hold such an opinion.
I think it is is greate!! I am an IT consultant at the largest bank in scandinavia, and the past week I have configured a squid proxy with a redirector called squidGuard, mostly because 60+% of all the internet use had nothing to do with their work. So now all they get when they try to access a porn site or something, they get a message telling them that the site is restricted(and that we know :)
'I sense much NT in you. NT leads to blue screen, blue screen leads to downtime, downtime leads to suffering.' -Uknown
Then again, it's hard to accept a guy who criticizes spelling while not even reading the stuff in the post. By the way, there should be a comma after "himself", and the second sentence is a fragment.
No...I didn't "sleep" through December. I'll have you know that I'm disabled and poor. So I can't get out much, and unlike you rich people, I can't afford cable. So go crawl back in your hole you W-defending-jerk.
I gave up Catholicism for Lent
Why is it that administrators always have to come up with new rules against things that are already prohibited? Students aren't allowed to bring pornographic materials into schools, but I schools would never be able to get away with "filtering" every book or magazine that a student brings in. Likewise, any student caught reading non-internet porn would probably get detention and a call to the parents, sop why not just do the same with the internet? Most students who wanted to look at such sites probably wouldn't for fear of getting caught, those who aren't afraid likelyget away with other things already.
The ultimate plays for Madden 2006
How are they supposed to learn how to avoid something unless you first expose them to it? It's like all the kids who are developing asthma these days because their parents didn't let them get exposed to germs as toddlers -- their immune systems haven't developed the proper resistances.
If you don't expose them to filtering at home, then they'll have to learn about it in schools or libraries or otherwise "on the street". You won't be able to control the process like a proper parent would. If you don't teach them about it at home, then they might get the wrong idea elsewhere.
I found your subject funny -- it reminds me of a variation on the "T'was the night before Christmas" poem:
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
Not a computer was stirring, not even a mouse.
The hard drives were left on in each computer case
With a database for Santa, punched up in dBase...
Read the rest of this comment...
The binding principle on statutory interpretation is the will of the legislature, Congress; not the constrained wording of the bill itself. Congress intends for such software to exist, and whether it does in reality is unfortunately irrelevant to whether the law may claim what it does.
Read the rest of this comment...
As much as I hate censorship, I wouldn't mind software specifically designed to defend against goatse.cx, free-flowers.n3.net, legal-advice.n3.net and other such "terror" sites. Last time I got goatse.cx'ed (by a thousand popup window redirector site..) I managed to save myself from the taint, at the cost of a half-hours worth of photoshop work.
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
Parents who don't want there kid seeing websites with hate messages, pornography, etc., shouldn't have to worry about that being on the schools computer. I'm talking about HS and down. However, i'm not sure that the gov made an educated decision here. Bad filtering software, freedom of speech, government's ignorance of the internet (which they created) are a few of the problems i have with this. It seems to me that these school/library issues are better delt with at the local level. Let the community decide how there children are to be educated. I DO think these issues need to be addressed, though. There are alot of concerned (and scared) parents out there. You can't just say "no cencorship in schools" and everything be peachy. But the gov over stepped its bound on this one. There is no federal aproved book list. There shouldn't be a federal mandate for internet filtering. IT IS A COMMUNITY ISSUE. ACLU gripe: The thing I HATE about the ACLU is that they step in on Civil Liberty issues only to shoot whatever down, and then do not provide a solution. I thought the ACLU was for the people, but lately they seem to be mostly against the people. Now, on this issue i think that they do have the masses in mind. But they take it to the extreme by wanting no censorship and this is were they fall short in my book. -jason
Slap me in the back fat if I am wrong. Is it not the parents job to teach children morals, and how to deal with society (e.g. adults, authorities, instructors, other children) and such. Is it not the task of the school to teach academics (Mathmatics, Grammar, Science, History,)? Where in any of that does "you are not allowed to view electronic material we think is wrong" (we being people totally foreign to students) come into any of that BUT the parents involved? It is a very simple problem to solve. Permission slips, if the parents want's the child to be able to surf freely then make the parents that dont want to allow that, not sign the permmision slip. Problem solved, if parents dont send them back then they wanted to keep kids away from the obejectionable matter (?), if they do send them back they have taken an active role in parenting, and have actually "looked in to it". Hope I have cleared this up and yes I did use contractions, and horrible punctuation, but it is a /. post after all.
People usually don't say what they will do, and rarely do what they say.
If public schools that receive federal money have to censor their net access, it only seems fair that Congressional offices themselves should censor their net access as well. After all, aren't they federally funded too? And if we want to protect our nation's youth, surely we should also protect our nation's leaders.
If it was just down to censoring dirty pictures, or wares trading, it would be creating a shabby little underground basically about trading dirty pictures and warez.
Because it is suppressing access to information and (see the low power radio article) communities' ability to broadcast their own media to themselves, it is creating an underground centered on becoming an information network and community resource- an underground that is so much better for its communities than corporate schlock that even Joe Average has to look at it and go,
And he should be- because those of us who are keeping access to information open, those of us who are supporting community media, we are this country (not our increasingly f**ked up government), WE are Joe's countrymen. And it's both our obligation and our privilege to live up to that.
(OK, end of stirring speech ;) seriously though, I mean it. I donate work, expertise and gear to local community radio. Do you? I don't directly support 'hacking around censorware' because that's not an area where I have expertise. I hope other people take up the slack.)
"The revolution will not be televised" -Gil Scott-Heron (and sure enough- it's being not-televised even as we speak :) )
This is about _process_, not technology. There is NO REASON to assume a centralised control is neccessary- that is really not our business, if a library in Utah badly wants to block all fleshtone pictures we don't have a right to insist they block only what the Slashdot Filter agrees is 'really porn'.
Again- CIPA does not mandate a centralised list. It mandates that a filtering process be in place on all such computers. It does _not_ say who provides the list, and I suggest that is the business of the library or school, and nobody else's business. It should be possible to ask a library, "please block goatse.cx" because a library is a public service. That, too, is a process that can be seen as being responsive to the community. I see no reason to jump to the conclusion that MY community needs to block things based on what some community in Utah thinks. Keep it local. Keep the block lists locally controlled. Sell the libraries on a federally-compliant censorware system that's _entirely_ locally controlled with no central censor- that's open source so they can trust that the control remains theirs at all times (good selling point- "Nobody can LET THROUGH content that you have decided you don't want to allow! Your blocks can't be overruled!" Think devious ;) ) and we'd better come up with this software, because the commercial suppliers are _not_ going to be selling a decentralised system. They're in the central-control business.
And again, thank goodness CIPA does not mandate use of a commercial centralised censor- it simply mandates that _some_ process be actively in place for _all_ computers of this nature. I think it will be a pretty easy sell, to persuade the hapless libraries and idiot legislators that communities must set their own standards. The thing specifies that libraries and schools can censor as much more as they want- the point to insist on is that libraries and schools must also be allowed to define what _they_ want to censor in line with their own community standards, even if that's "just playboy.com and goatse.cx".
After all, if a nutcase like Perot can do it, so can someone who presents a real alternative (*cough*McCain*cough).
Umm, *cough*McCain*cough* introduced this amendment. He's a real alternative to himself?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
As a network admin you have to accept a certain risk and leave it at that. Porn browsing, inappropriate network use, etc. is a management issue and it should be left to that. The same goes for schools and libraries as well as homes. A computer cannot supervise your children! A TV is not a substitute for good parenting! Somewhere along the line, someone is going to have to get off their ass and monitor these users in order to enforce the policies of your school, library, company, and home.
There is NOTHING stopping you from going up to the proxy's admin and asking that a perfectly valid site be exempted from the filtering. We use a filtering proxy at our site and it works just fine with hardly any complaints. There are perhaps 2 people a week out of 5000 that send in requests for a site to be exempted that they feel was wrongly classified. 98% of the time I agree with them and exempt it without question. Filter lists are not these static lists that Jamie likes to make them out to be. We get a new categorized list every week or so from our vendor with updated URL's and categories. So quit bitching already... if you want to jerk off to porn then go home and do it and stop wasting my tax money and resources.
Just throw up your hands. Admit that this is inevitable, recognize the KalibanNet for what it is, filter everything, punish anything, tax what's left, advertising slots are still available so don't delay. Give up give in shut down quit. Perhaps the revolution will eat its own children.
I look forward to a bright shiny world owned and operated by AOLDisney, scrubbed polished with all the unsightly places swept underground. Where the mudpeople toil to give us our illusions in a clean white protestant sanitized trademarked Oprah approved group hugfest. I look forward to the death of hope and thought. I look forward to a sex free world with 6 guns blazing where John Wayne never dies and the Coolies are forever appreciative. Where good never completely vanquishes evil but we know it could if the sponsorship ran out and we had to cancel the series. I want a universe where the coefficient of friction is zero. Where everyone agrees with everyone else and everyone is slightly above average. I want an internet where "Leave it to Beaver" is a webcam documentary. I want a low fat smoke free no phones while driving the SUV toys for tots not in my backyard world where all the men are handsome and the women wear pearls.
This is all because no-one will build a school or
a library or anything else that can't profit.
We get the "government" to do it because nobody
else will, not because that's the first choice.
It's public apathy in the extreme that leads to
government being the party responsible for public
institutions. Local governments and/or small groups of citizens could have done it, but they didn't. Instead, the burden was rested on the
shoulder of the government. It's an excuse for
more taxes so they don't offer to give the obligation back to the regional levels of government (because they'd have to give up the tax money).
Taxes marked for education go to support bureaucracy first, then education. And it gets
applied toward education only grudgingly. This
example is just one of many. They're constantly
looking for excuses to withhold money.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Perhaps this is good. Some political actions, no matter how popular, are still a bad idea. Politicians will work furiously for these short sighted goals to serve a short sighted public.
Remember prohibition? It was a good idea - remove all social ills through the banning of alcohol. This bill has similar good intentions.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
The roots of Western prudishness obviously go back to the tangled warren of late classical monotheistic religions that eventually produced Judaism and Christianity (and Islam). I mentioned the Victorian era only because many present-day attitudes are directly attributable to it.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Based on what I know of the way women are treated in China -- and admitting that I don't know how Taiwan differs from mainland China in this respect -- then I'd have to agree that yes, I think your culture is insane, just as a significant portion of mine is. The treatment of women in the far east is legendarily barbaric. I certainly hope that I've heard wrong and that women over there treated as fully independent equals, or that it is at least a goal towards which your society strives.
And modern Western psychology's are not shared by a good portion of the rest of us. Nor even, it would appear, by a significant portion of your own society.
I can only cite the Western ideal that people have certain inherent, inalienable rights that are not subject to review by popular opinion or government fiat. No one denies that the West has more than its fair share of sexually-stunted misogynistic bigots. We have made great strides in the last century -- well within living memory there was no concept of marital rape but it is now recognized prohibited by law in most places -- and hopefully we will continue to move forward. If your society chooses to take a different course, I understand that such is your society's prerogative, but I can't reasonably be expected to respect a policy of inhumanity as if it were something trivial like driving on the left side of the road.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
> If anyone forgot about this link, it is the best way to explain to people why censorship software is bad.
No it isn't. This is another "censorware is bad because it's inaccurate" site. The implication of this is then "censorware would be acceptable were it to implement only the mandate of the censor, blocking out only those sites which contained the ideas deemed offensive, the concepts these infallable guardians of all that is good do not smile upon". The very idea needs to be challenged at its root, without compromise. Take control of your own mind.
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> Or are you advocating the right of the first-grader to find hard-core porn on publicly-funded computers?
Absolutely, positively, unapolagetically, yes. I don't recall there being a global exception to the first amendment because some kids might see or hear it somewhere sometime somehow. Get a fucking spine and raise your own fucking kids, people.
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> For adults, child porn shall be blocked
Child pornography is already illegal. This bill is more jowl-wagging moral posturing and doomed to die like the sacrificial lamb it is. Because when it is struck down, they can gain even more from the backlash against the godless heathen judges and politicians that killed it. Same trick the left does with affirmative action.
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Arguing that the technology is finally modern enough to support the implementation of moral strictures from the victorian age?
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Was I the only one that would have modded that warning up as "Funny" if I hadn't already excessively yammered on this topic already? C'mon, he gave detailed instructions on how to get to this site. That took some research!
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Here's another possible side effect of this insipid mandate: do any of y'all know of any kind of filtering software for Linux or BSD? If not, then schools will be forced to install WinXX or use Macs until a Linux or BSD version becomes available.
The Free ODMG Project needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
You can find the relevant software here. It's about 135k to download. It also only runs under Win98.
The Free ODMG Project needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
It would apply well especially that government money is bound to the regulations, the constitution especially applies to it.
--
Game over, 2000!
very true, and what saddens me...altho the point has been made many times before...is that this type of thing (telling our children what they can/cannot should/should not do) _used_ to be the province of parents, teachers, and adults in general. replacing good parenting with tv addiction, beyond being an exercise in extreme apathy, is bad enough for our kids...but we're beginning to see people (legislators, apparently) ignoring the fact that none of these things works as they are purported to and would theoretically be more damaging to a growing child's psyche by dint of their brokenness (how twisted would a child get if he/she grows up believing that doing research on the topic of breast cancer is evil or something of that sort).
i do, however, have a lot of faith in the current generation of children. even though their parents, teachers, lawmakers, religious leaders, etc. seem to think they're all mildly retarded AND don't seem to think enough of them to take the time to teach them right from wrong themselves, i think they'll turn out all right.
locking the next generation of this country's leaders, teachers, lawmakers, etc. up in a mental cage throughout their formative years isn't going to teach them right from wrong, all it's going to teach them is: parents, teachers, etc. don't want us to see this stuff and we need to develop a skillset that will allow us mental freedom. as a side-effect they will probably also develop a healthy contempt for both those too lazy to teach their kids and the mindset that derives from that laziness
-dk
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
why is that some folks insist on labelling any who don't agree with their free-for-all attitude toward sex as "morbid", "deeply afraid of sexuality", "loathing of females", "repressed"/"oppressive", "Victorian", and/or otherwise "mentally ill"?
I think it was Freud. But seriously, did Angst Badger really use the term "free for all"??
Anyhow, I feel that the comment which you dislike,
institutionalized form of mental illness, a phobia of sexuality that manifests itself in the form of political oppression on the grand scale and domestic terror
is not completely out of place. It's our very own western psychology and psychotheraputic studies which have produced insights into our unacknowledged sexual "stuff". And 'terror' and 'oppression' are the sorts of words used in connection with these issues, exactly because 'terror' etc. are typically experienced. Now I'll stop there, as I'm not qualified, but let me add that Angst Badger's post bears some resemblance to the issue of how we go about measuring sanity -- ie. 'the degree to which an individual has adjusted to society'. This definition of sanity raises the issue, as extensively researched by Erich Fromm in "The Sane Society", of whether society itself is sane.
So while I agree with your principle of reserving the right to a "difference of opinion", you may wish to ask yourself just where "your" opinion came from.
It outrages you, it outrages me. Do the right thing.
Find a local ISP willing to donate bandwidth to a non-profit organzation (tax deductible)... find a computer shop in your area willing to sell at or below cost to a non-profit. Buy the computer for the library/school, and install it such that it uses the donated internet access. Voila, you're not using public funds anymore, and the machine need not be filtered.
As much as I dislike the concept, if the school/library is going to suck off the government tit, they're going to get the flavor of milk the government is spewing. Give them good clean fresh milk. :)
D
Thanks for the extraordinarily insightful comment. If there were any sensible way to do it, I'd frame your words on the wall. To say nothing of what I would do if I had moderator points (besides saying nothing ;-)
I think in the long term, a positive view of sex in America will eventually prevail. It was only a few short centuries ago, after all, that blacks were considered less than human. In another hundred or so, this folly will too hopefully be relegated to old history and anthropology books.
iSKUNK!
http://3522329841
cpeterso
One slight flaw in your argument is that although libraries currently do not provide pron (except in rare cases), they do so more due to cost issues. The cost of getting that porn outweighs their benefits that it would bring.
The addition of internet filters actually increases cost, and reduces information. Neither of which are in any libraries goals.
-cpd
That's completely beside the point. You're library might not have smut in the stacks (although I'd double check that before making the assertion. Libraries carry a lot of surprising stuff for research. You just might have to ask for it specifically), but the library doesn't pull The Age of Reason just because it uses some of the same words as Hustler. That's effectively what current censorware does.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
I think the next generation is going to grow up even more cynical and distrusting of authority than this one... and that's a problem. More and more people believe the "System" is so broken that there's no point in even trying to fix it. Witness the apathy of the 2000 campaign season (at least before people started complaining about only be able to vote once). When we think the system can't be fixed, it can't be fixed.
/. folks leads me to believe that majority of people here think that children can be given, at an arbitrarily young age, the magical ability to discern what's right and wrong without fail. I hate to break the news to those folks, but kids are as dumb as a sack of hammers, and almost everyone below the age of 18 has the common sense of cabbage. Having an "open mind" won't change this. The process of educating and indoctrinating (in the non-perjorative sense) children to survive in the adult world is an on-going process that really only ends when they are adults.
/., SourceForge, Freshmeat and other math and computer sites, so it doesn't really affect me. However, it sets a dangerous precedent, but I think the people in charge think that a flawed solution is better than no solution and I actually have to agree with them on this one. Something better will come along, eventually, and we should strive to educate people about how truly awful censorware is (from a practical point of view... it _might_ be a valid concept in theory, but it can never be implemented short of having true AI). People in these forums like to rant a lot, but I really haven't heard any good alternatives. There are many restictions in meatspace restricting "adult" material (which usurps a word and completely twists its meaning) and you rarely hear cries of censorship. But the moment someone even considers something similar with respect to the online world everyone gets their pocket protectors all in a bunch. The idea here is not sound you're angry because you can't access http://goatse.cx at your local branch library, but to raise consciousness about the fact that censorware is a bazooka trying to do a scalpel's job. I don't think the public at large realizes this.
So here's what we do: we must strive to find political candidates that understand the issues we believe in. There seemed to be a strong contingent on Slashdot that supported Nader, and aside of the fact that he's a total kook, this was a good thing, and that more and more people want different alternatives than the two slightly different shades of grey we normally get to choose from. I think the time is right in the first decade of the 2000's for an altenative candidate to gain some credibility and perhaps even some electroal votes. After all, if a nutcase like Perot can do it, so can someone who presents a real alternative (*cough*McCain*cough).
Secondly, at the end of the day this censorware issue is not the end of the world. It is a broken solution to a real problem. Everyone complains (rightly) that parents have to take responsibility for their children. Well, I know my child won't find a copy of Hustler at the local library, but if he or she can point-and-click up, say, donkey porn on the public Internet terminal, then I, as a parent, feel the obligation to be there. That was never true in the pre-Internet days, so something had fundamentally changed.
. A lot of conversations I've had in the past with
Personally, I spend all my time on-line in real nerdnests like
If I sound like I can't make up my mind on the issue, it's because I really can't. But I think rather than pigeonholing Congress on this issue as being some kind of medieval Neanderthals (to mix metaphors) for even contemplating something so hideously awful as censorware, rather consider that they are trying to deal with legitimate concerns about a new resource that society really hasn't gotten its mind around. Like I said before, it's a bad solution, but I think it's the best one we have available right now.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Fair enough. But he does represent more of an alternative than the choices we had this time around.
No doubt, McCain is part of the "establishment", but he is also someone who bases his actions on principle and isn't afraid to propose an idea people might not like. No one that high up in politics can not have sold his or her soul, but I think there are poeple who have sold it less than others.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Get the gov't out of the schools and we cease to have these problems. If private individuals wish to censor, who cares? Let 'em be stupid. It's when you let the State in that the real problems start.
As for applying the Bill of Rights to the States, I honestly don't think it does make sense, except where it applies by the language used. `Congress shall' does not effect the states, and should not. But every state should guarantee free speech in its own constitution, as should every town. OTOH, when it says that a right `shall not be infringed,' then it's obvious that no-one may infringe upon it.
Why not allow a portion of society to be as ignorant as it wishes? Why do you attempt to force your version of what is appropriate on them? I do not force you or your children to believe what I believe, even though I find your outlook to be ingorant. Why should you not, then, return the favour (I am certain that you find my outlook equally wrong-headed:-)?
And I do not believe that my intereste should override anyone's. Nor do I wish anyone's to override mine. Live and let live. Quit stealing my labour for your schemes--I promise to do the same. If you want to educate society, go ahead, do it. But don't make me. You may be surprised, though, to find that I will be anyway. You see, I'm quite willing to give. But the key is willing--theft is unacceptable.
I've never been able to figure out why people are so intent on "protecting" people from porn, smut, obscenity, etc. etc. I've never seen anything in my life that I would consider inherently harmful to anyone. Sexually explicit yes, distastful sometimes, disturbing every so often, but harmful? I didn't get it when I was a child, I didn't get it when I was a teenager, and at 28 I still don't get it.
I've come to the conclusion that this "protect the children from things we don't like" mentality is simply one of the ways in which our society is irrational. None of us are completely rational and neither is any society. In some places women are treated as property and even sexually mutilated due to some twisted custom. That doesn't mean the society which does that is as a whole without merit, its simply a little nuts in a few areas, just like every other culture.
Here in america we're afraid of sex and terrified of any little thing that might happen to our children. (We might want to thank the crowd that promotes the idea we're products of our environment for that.) We're afraid to the point that we think simply seeing sex or hearing about it will somehow harm our young. That's pretty messed up but there you have it. There are other examples of ways in which our culture, or one of our subcultures, is pretty messed up. Neo-Liberals (socialists) are some of the looniest people I've ever met, as are many from the right wing. Its no suprise these groups don't understand each other, I can't make sense of either one. Luckily the US government was intentionally designed to keep rival interest groups fighting with each other. The "gridlock" that your double digit IQ types complain about is there for a reason.
There is a good rule of thumb to remember when you encounter one of these areas of irrationality: If something seems crazy, it probably is.
GO PEACEFIRE!!
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
According to this story at ZDNet, Peacefire has released a "one-click" censorware disabler. (Doesn't say if it will infringe on Amazon's patent ;-). It is supposed to work on Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol, Surfwatch, Cybersitter, X-Stop, PureSight and Cyber Snoop. Currently it works on filters installed on your computer, but a networked version is being developed.
Here is an article on a similar theme
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
That would depend on who defines the filter and the laws - right now it might be porn, and information on making bombs or drugs.
In practice the results of some kind of web spider looking for these. One common problem is that the producers of such programs tend to blatently lie about human examination of blacklists.
So, if the bill specifies obscenity, child pornography, and "harmful to minors"
All three of these are subject to interpretation, but the last one is utterly meaningless.
Is advertising "harmful to minors", is this kind of politics, that kind of politics, this kind of religion, that kind of religion, knowing about this historical event, not knowing about that historical event, etc, etc. How about expression of corporate interests or for that matter is the current "censorware" software itself "harmful to minors".
Why to the people with the tightest asses get to make all the rules?
Because people who arn't are less likely to think ways of forcing their views on others in the first place.
Only extreamists (of one kind or other) actually feel that pushing their views on others is either desirable or practical.
Also how do you lobby a legislature to restrict itself?
Rather than whipping out our thesauri to see how many derisive labels we can slap on our opponents, I suggest a more productive approach would be to start by assuming what we have is a legitimate difference of opinion rather than a conspiracy by psychopathic "domestic terrorists".
Sounds find in theory but all too often people pushing extremist views tend to take a "if you are not with us you are against us".
Question the views (or motives) of an established group and they will have a standard label ready to stick on you.
That reminds me of the story about the censoeware that blocked anything with the word "teen" in it. The people maintaining the list had decided that "teen" was an adult word.
Odds on they also included "ball", "screw", "toys", etc.
I think most people DO think that there's a need for "censorware" in the first place. Or are you advocating the right of the first-grader to find hard-core porn on publicly-funded computers?
In other words "I think there is a need for X, otherwise Y can happen". Problem is that X dosn't do a good job of stopping Y. It also does Z, which may be worst than Y anyway.
The salient point is not that site-blocking software is inherently evil or unconstitutional, it's just that it's ineffective -- and in such a way that it blocks more than it constitutionally should.
The real salient point is that even if people could agree what should be blocked it is currently impossible to write a computer program to do this. Were it to become possible to write a computer program to do this then there are ethical issues, to do with slavery, to consider. i.e. it's unlikely to ever be possible to write a program which is capable of understanding human behaviour well enough without creating a sapient AI.
This is America, where every God Fearing Bible thumper is out to let us know sex is bad.
:)
Sorry as The Bible contains references to murder, genocide, rape, incest, etc its been blocked by censorware. So you'll just have to find something else to thump
I do not support sheltering youth from some thing that is completely natural. Yet some how religious fundamentalists feel that it is necessary to control what kids see, think and hear.
Problem is that such religious (and political) extremists start by attempting to redefine what is and isn't natural.
Rather than by attempting to work out what is natural by scientific methods, including studying other primates.
Most of them would probably be shocked by the way Bonobos behave, however they are probably a better analogy of natural human behaviour than pidgeons.
i.e. the truth appears to be something along the line that sex is "natural", monogamy is "unnatural" and "sexual orientation" would naturally follow a normal distribution with hetero and homosexuality being the extremes.
In the US, it's about violence. Killing is our business, and business is good. We wrap(and rap) it, sell it, promote it, and grind it in to our childrens heads that this is acceptable.
But facts like that don't stop people talking about "sex and violence on TV". Obviously "make love not war" passed Hollywood by...
Actually, the point is that usually the first thing that gets blocked is any site criticizing the company that made the filtering software. Then, there are some political sites that somehow "accidentally" got filtered.
Note that with anything they intentionally block there will be other things which get "over blocked" e.g. because they use the same "dirty words" or are similar through some other simple metric. The results may appear to be random.
Golly, congress certainly is being "harmful to minors" and thus should be filtered out.
I really think we need an "Orwellian Clock" in the same way that we have a "Armageddon Clock" representing when the world nukes itself. The Orwellian Clock would represent how far humanity is from the ideals set forth in 1984; however, it would need some refinement of exactly who runs it, what causes moves on the clock, and so forth...
I pay my taxes, I want free donuts!
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
I've heard the idea around here before, but what do people think about Community Censorware? The Block list would be public, and would be optional, think MAPS and RBL type lists. Sites could be added via contributions from the net, and (?!) voted upon for validity. Think Open Directory Project. Is anyone else interested in such a project?
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This message brought to you by Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Re: Loudoun County case... CIPA is a financial incentive, not an absolute mandate like in Loudoun County. CIPA doesn't block much of adult access. Also, "It must also be noted that the Loudoun court did hold that minimizing access to illegal pornography and avoidance of creation of a sexually hostile environment are compelling interests. The court went on to hold that, although the challenged policy was over inclusive because it restricted adult Internet access, it would be possible to create a policy which would protect children. Id. at 567." (Testimony, Jay Sekulow Esq., The American Center for Law and Justice (yuck))
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Actually, it's easier than that. The FCC is put in charge of determining "good enough", so they would probably look down on those who try to comply with the letter of the law while going against the spirit of it.
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Part of the role of a parent is to shield the child from various things until they are mature enough to not be permanently jaded from them. Eg. children are more impressionable than adults. So, while the child is in the temporary care of the state, the parent wants the child to be shielded in a similar manner, especially because the parent is paying the state for the education of their children.
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There's a clause that "allows" local schools to target more material if they want to, but makes local schools responsible for any repercussions of that.
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But they can if the librarians or the community want to.
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CDA and COPA tried that, but they were both ruled against as unconstitutional.
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You could get Playboy in my (Catholic!) high-school library if you were 18. My how times change.
As best I remember, my school library didn't stock Penthouse, Hustler, or porn videos other.
It seems on shows like NYPD Blue that they can now say some of the curses that George Carlin proved were indeed the "7 words you can't say on TV." Specifically, they say "asshole" "bitch" "bullshit" and "whore". (I know these don't match perfectly with the original 7.) I've noticed though, that if they "asshole" early in an episode, they'll say it again later in that episode, but they won't say "bullshit." Likewize, if they say "bullshit" they'll repeat it, but they won't say "asshole." They'll never have a character call someone a "bitch-whore" or say something like "you bullshit whore"...
My guess is that TV/movie/book lawyers, in cohoots with producers, writers, and FCC/MPAA/PMRC contacts, have begun to contruct an elaborate rule book of what can be said/shown where. The S. Park movie would've gotten an NC-17 if they showed a website about necrophelia, but shit-eating was okay. There seem to be rules that allow one or two "shit" words, but not 3 or more. We all know that an erect cock pushes it into "hard core" but flacid penises are okay.
It's absurd, and insulting. Artists are pressured to make their works conform to these twisted standards. It's a big load of shitty bullshit fucked-up crap by whore-bitch motherfucking (erect) cocksuckers.
So nice to see that the Australian government is not the only one who rams home impossible laws regarding the Internet. So, which members of government used up some of their "IOU" voting favours on this one? Support it, get it through, work off that "favour" and rest assured that it will get shot down after the fact (or, as here in Australia, shoved into the dark 'cos no-one can make it work :)
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
If anyone forgot about this link, it is the best way to explain to people why censorship software is bad.
http://dfn.org/focus/censor/contest.htm
As someone mentioned, this problem isn't so much legal as cultural. It's also very, very human. Wherever two or more people are gathered together, yea, there will be one among them who wishes to make certain that the others are thinking in the same way that they do.
That said, the growing tendency of governments and parents to want children to be shielded from *all* forms of "disagreeable" material (with a defintion of "disagreeable" which tends to be very strongly biased toward political and sexual concepts) is somewhat unrealistic. However, even more unrealistic is the notion that somehow technology is going to be the saviour. Let's face it, over the centuries, technology has focused almost exclusively on creating new ways of getting a mate, keeping a mate, or killing off competitors for a mate. None of which are things of which parents really wish their children to be aware. The most effective "censorware" available is the stuff between a parent's ears - especially when said parent is looking over the kid's shoulder as they surf.
However, saying to people "look, it's *your* responsibility as a parent to look after your kid" is thoroughly politically incorrect these days, so it's better for politicians to just pass laws to shut up the parents, and the "moral majority" types. It's worth noting that most of these laws probably won't actually be *enforced* very strictly - they're just for show. The government has been asked to "do something about the problem of p0rn on the internet". This is something, they are doing it.
My own reaction to this would be to wait for a year, and see what happens. One of the biggest flaw in western-style democracy is that laws are more and more being promised as electoral bandaids, rather than as serious efforts to solve problems. These laws are much the same - they appear to be designed to be pointed at when the Senator/Representative in question is standing for re-election, rather than as serious efforts at limiting access to "non-child-suitable" material. The trick is to prevent anyone from getting bored enough to put time and money into enforcement of them - so keep saying to your local Senators and Representatives that you want more police action on things like murder, speeding, etc. (evil grin)
Meg Thornton.
Perkin's Postulate: Online tech support is designed to provide everything short of actual help.
Geez, no interest in "equal opportunity" here.
If everyone thought the way you did (and thank God you're in the minority), our society would devolve back into a slave society in two or three generations. Of course, as long as YOUR family wasn't enslaved, then why the hell should you care? (In fact, having a couple slaves around the house might be enhance your reputation quite a bit.)
And I disagree with you. If the society doesn't deliberately spread educational resources through all social classes, then the poor will eventually get frozen out. Why should the rich give up their "hard-earned" assets to help educate some little bastard who's just going to grow up to compete w/their own kids? Much better from their viewpoint to make sure that everyone "else" is controllable.
Uh - not really. The founders set up the rules the way they were because it was the only compromise they could come up with to get all of them (who were representatives from the various colonial provinces/states) to accept ANY kind of national government (since they were naturally reluctant to replace a central monarchy with an equally-strong central presidency).
There's nothing inherently sacred about the system they sent up, other than the historical fact that it was a decent, simple system which has been flexible enough to transfer power to whatever level of government is necessary for the overall health of society. In recent times, with the growth of large national & global special interests, the federal government has assumed a lot of power in a reaction to the presence of those entities. State governments can't deal effectively with these trans-state & trans-national companies.
Yes, it's the duty of the state to look after the interests of IT'S residents - even at the expense of the OTHER residents in the country. It's the duty of the Federal government to look after the well-being of ALL the residents in the country. This means that the Federal government might have to make some decisions which will hurt a particular state, for the overall goal of improving the health of the whole country.
Of course, you can argue that the current federal government is not properly representing the interests of the whole country, rather the interests of the monied. I'm afraid I'd agree with you there, although it doesn't change my opinion that the federal government should have the power appropriate for performing its duty of maintaining the overall country's health.
As I've stated above, that's because the feds have to take into account more people's viewpoints to arrive at actions which benefit the country as a whole. I don't want a government which tries to fulfill every resident's desires - I want a government which tries to maximize the health of its entire society. That doesn't mean that it should ignore the input of its residents, but it shouldn't try and do everything that any of its residents want.
(Actually, honestly speaking, I'd rather have a government which fulfills _my_ personal desires as a priority over helping anybody else, but I'm trying to keep a rational debate going here :)
Even if I were inclined to believe your single point of "evidence", it's hardly representative of a statistical sampling of all major world societies over a long period of time. I'm pretty confident I can find more historical examples of societies with no public education with a large illiterate & poor population than you will be able to find with no public education & a broadly educated society.
Also, I'm not sure what your point is by saying that point in time is noted for its poverty and the great divide between the classes. Even if I accept your historical scenario, just because a population is somewhat literate doesn't mean that there won't be a rich/poor class divide. I'd be interested in reading about a society where a large chunk of the population _isn't_ literate, but where there _wasn't_ a rich/poor class divide.
This sounds suspiciously like mindless anti-government drivel memorized from talk-show hosts and people who find it convenient to avoid thinking about any reason for paying taxes.
I don't think a society can afford to allow a big chunk of its constituency to be "stupid"/ignorant - stupid/ignorant people do irrational things, based purely on emotion and w/o no critical thought. If you have too many stupid/ignorant people, and they all charge in one irrational direction at the same time, your society is going to descend into chaos and screw EVERYONE - not just the stupid/ignorant people.
That's why it's a good idea for a society to do its best to raise the education level for EVERYONE, and the most efficient & equitable way to do that for everyone is at the highest level of society, not at the local level. I know it annoys you, but the government is only agent at that level of society which has the duty & the power of organizing such an educational program.
I certainly don't trust private interests to perform such a task competently, since their main goal isn't to educate members of society - it's to make money, and they'll cut corners where they can get away with it so they can make more money.
Allowing lower levels society to be solely responsible for the education of their own residents will inevitably result in inequal education for between those different groups of population (as can already be seen by the widely differing test scores between states with widely differing commitments to education).
No, it's when you have people in charge whose aren't interested in maximizing the health of their society - perhaps for their own benefit - THAT'S when the real problems start. Amazingly enough, a lot of those people sound like you, stating that their interests should be able to override everyone else's. (Or conveniently ignoring or denying that anyone else might have any other interests.)
4. The CDA was a criminal law.
This bill is a funding condition.
``(i) is enforcing a policy of Internet safety that includes the operation of a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that protects against access through such computers to visual depictions that are--
``(I) obscene; or
``(II) child pornography; and
``(ii) is enforcing the operation of such technology protection measure during any use
of such computers.
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/smartfilter/gotali st.php e stevils.php
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/smartfilter/great
I am a high-school freshman.
I am a vindictive left-winger.
And as such, I will have to bear the brunt of this decision. And I believe my children will. And theirs.
It's not easy being a teen geek these days. There are times when I fear for my health.
The big question comes with: Where does it end? If the government keeps taking away freedoms, how will it stop? (An object in motion, stays in motion)
Considering how much faith I have for this country, it won't stop.
I love what Peacefire is doing. They're helping enlighten minors as to what the real story is. But, it can only help so much. There will still be those uppity religionites that are breeding their next generation as we speak.
This is going to get worse people. Keep thinking freely, and you'll find yourself deported in a couple years. I hear Canada is beautiful in the wintertime.
Barak Michener
So, you have to block stuff that's 'obscene', 'child porn' or 'harmful to minors'... I work as a network admin at a school (whose tech committe does NOT want censorware), and from what it sounds like, I can bash out a quick proxy that blocks just one site of each category and slap it on the firewall... sounds like that would meet the requirements! =)
The real problem is that so many institutions are dependent on the Federal government for funding. This is because the Federal government takes so much out of the economy that there is little left for private or state ventures. If this were not so, the local school or the local library could simply ignore this advice. As it is, Federal spending makes up more than 25% of the GDP, and it's imposible to ignore.
Your grandchild might ask you what state and local governments are for, and what power they really have. Then you might try asking yourself how and when all public instutions became defacto Federal institutions.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...and I agree. Federal power is too great because they control too much money.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
When I was a wee lad (insert nostalgic comments here) there was a protected period when messing with computers was the norm as much so as soccer on the green....when the Sinclair Spectrums and Commodore 64 ruled the roost. Now imagine if every one of us had been told then that there was a hole world of porn and brilliant violent games sitting out there just waiting for us to figure out how to get to it..... we'd all have clubbed together until we were there. And every time we see another new piece of censorware come in we would always discover something we liked that we couldn't see anymore (like how long before /. posts a story on how someone couldn't read /. in their local library).
You underestimate I feel the interest in young people in computers (though I'm sure they won't all be learning chunks of the dns->hexIP nightly) , from the most innocent to mischevous (who is going to be first to look for peer-points by setting up a "child-porn" site of their classmates using the school network). I think the uptake of technolgies such as Napster shows us that we are not going to block the possible and people will be bothered to remember the workarounds!
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I'm afraid I'll have to disillusion you. No, there is nothing magical about the age of 18. Kids do not suddenly "grow up" after travelling around the sun 18 times. They do not "grow up" sometimes until after twice that many years, if they even ever do. At the other end of the spectrum, there are the people who are responsible individuals at ages much less than 18. Differentiating between right and wrong is not the sole province of the 18 and older crowd. I also dispute your assertion that the process of education ends when a person becomes an adult. As the saying goes, learning is lifelong. When you stop learning -- that is when you are dead. Liken education to adaption, and you can draw the evolutionary parallels.
While on the subject I'd also like to point out that while parents should take responsibility for their children's welfare, that welfare will not be enhanced by over-protectionism. The world is rough, dirty, and often crooked (to highlight some negative aspects...). Denying the existence of this reality is as harmful to a child as throwing them to the wolves of society. Ignorance is not a virtue. Fortunately, nature was wiser than parents or legislators and instilled in youth curiosity and a sense of adventure, certainly foolish and dangerous at times, but also an important ingredient in engendering change. Granted, the experience of elders is crucial and so long as they continue to recount it, we will continue to benefit from those lessons. Equally important, however, is the questioning curiosity that youth brings; without which society might stagnate. The relevance of the above to censorship and filtering software is twofold:
We should re-examine our motivations for censorship, remembering that education is superior to ignorance
So long as the elders pass down experience and the youth question the elders, we have nothing to fear from censorship.
Those who do not know the past are doomed to reimplement it, poorly.
The more people are raised to not be able to deal with negative situations by being isolated from them, the more oppression will be imposed. It is a vicious cycle. Oppression leads to sheltering people from "bad" things, which when they are finally exposed to them they are unable to deal with and are greatly upset by. These people then scream for more efforts to "protect" people from those "bad" things, and we get more laws and more oppression.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
For those interested in the OLD incident this is referring to, I direct you to a mailing list digest that goes into this in more detail at: http://internet.ggu.edu/university_library/if/hyst eria.html.
In a nutshell:
2 years ago, someone found a link as listed in the previous message under OPLIN (Ohio Public Library Information Network) that took them offsite (http://www.sftoday.com/enn2/hscentral.htm) which is apparently a page that showcases high schools, teachers, etc.
So yes, I'm sure that at one time, there was a series of links that could be followed from OPLIN that would take you to a porn site. After poking through the site long enough, I would say that link is no longer there. I eventually had to do a Google search for "central high school oplin" to find out if Nathaniel was even on track. The thing is, this is old news.
So if you're outraged, as Nathaniel is, I would say that you should check your facts first, before reporting "news" that a) is no longer true, and b) has its facts not completely accurate.
The fact of the matter is that OPLIN linked to site A. Site A linked to site B. Site B had information on the environment at one time. Site B now contains adult themed material. I won't say porn because one browser opened up to an underwear site, and the underwear was men's briefs and bikini bottoms. Garish colors, but not pornographic. Either way, you have OPLIN -> Site A -> SiteB, rather then OPLIN -> Site B. I proclaim OPLIN innocent, and Nathaniel misrepresenting facts.
Opinion: Scientology is a cult you should avoid. Follow the
Censorware is great for that false sense of security people are so accustomed to here in the good ol' USA. It's great that Johnny will be protected by the smart software from our friends at Mattel. Now we can smoke our crack instead of paying attention to our kids and what they are doing behind closed doors.
The jackasses at ICANN could have made this so much easier by implementing a .XXX (or .SEX or .???) TLD. Lawmakers could have forced anyone who displayed porn on their sites to use a .XXX site, levying stiff fines against those that don't comply. Then, the only thing needing blocking would be .XXX instead of trying (terrifically unsuccesfully) to create software that bans any potentially 'harmful' site.
I know they're trying to ban more than porn. I'm sure they don't want 3rd graders able to read about how to make an oven cleaner explosive, but porn represents 95+% of their problems.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
If this had happened two months ago, we could politely point out to Gore's advisors that censorware X was blocking his and his supporter's sites and seemed to have a definite agenda. Then we could politely drop a line to the Bush camp, to express our moral outrage that the censorware package we were using clearly targeted pro-Bush sites.
:-)
Then Bush and Gore would have unwittingly united to do everything possible to stop the madness.
Ah well. It was a nice thought
Seriously, While we should continue the fight, we should also have a plan B in case we lose.
Plan B might involve creating censorware that actually lacks a covert political/social agenda, and is actually transparent enough to maintain this. And errs on the side of caution, (rather than blanket-banning a million sites because of one page (and have the gall to then boast about how many pages the database blocks)).
Basically, there is a lot wrong with censorware besides the fact that it doesn't actually work. So much so that we would be a lot better off using equally unworkable censorware if said censorware lacked all the other crap that the current crop contains.
The only thing that scares me more than government censorship is corporate censorship, yet that's exactly where we are. And that's not good!
(now don't explode, give me a second a read this)
If the government is now going to require its use, then perhaps we can now convince "them" that there needs to be some sort of governing body watching exactly what is censored. To prevent things like Software A blocking websites to competing software B or blocking sites with bad reviews of Software A and the numerous idiotic instances of "censoring for your own protection" If the government is going to require this software then, IMO, it should then govern this software as it can directly affect protected free speach. Perhaps a federally maintained blacklist instead of each company making their own.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I take no responsibility for any spelling mistakes in the above post.
Already, we have people controlling what we can say/show on television, what we can say on the radio, etc, and now we will have people controlling what information on the Internet is acceptable. This is not a good message to send, especially to children.
Ultimately, I believe, it teaches children that they cannot be trusted to decide what is right and wrong for them. It teaches children to rely on the judgement of others. This must be wrong because I don't have access to it, and vice versa, this must be right because I do have access to it.
We need to teach children what we think is right and wrong, and why, and let them make up their own minds on the subject, and then hold them accountable for their decisions, whether good or bad. If you take that choice away, the choice between right and wrong, then you cannot be proud of a child that does something right, and you cannot be upset with a child who does something wrong, because it was not their decision. We are no longer raising children, who are individuals, but training future citizens, who have to learn to play by the rules.
There is a very strong, small, but highly organized group of zealots out there who feel that they must do Something to protect the children. They do care, but they don't know how to go about helping their sons and daughters cope with the realities of a world gone mad (as they perceive it). They were once secure under the iron rule of their religion, and fear the uncertainty inherent in having free will.
Why don't Methodists have sex standing up?
Because it might lead to dancing.
But in modern society with all its temptations, one's immortal soul might go astray and one will be condemned to the fiery pits of Hell for all eternity. Serving God so that we are rewarded a seat at His right hand in the hereafter is what these well-intentioned but misguided souls believe our purpose here on Earth is. "We must keep these images from the eyes of our children, because if they are exposed to them, their soul will become corrupt and they will fall from Grace!"
So when their children finally leave the nest they are wholly unprepared for the realities of Good and Evil in the Real World. These poor misguided people, children of oppressors, must now go out and perpetuate their prison because the Real World is a much scarier place to them than it should be.
That's fine. But why do they have to feel that they must justify their actions by oppressing me and my children? I simply Tell my kids about the evil lurking out there, expose them to it (no, I don't show them porn, but I might show them the links that come up on a search of the word 'oral'), and in good faith and trust give them the power to control their own destinies. It seems to work. The zealots would do well to remember that their God gave His children Free Will for a good Reason, and they might find Great Comfort in Trusting Him that they Worship so much.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
According to part (C) of the definition of Harmful to Minors, ...
"any picture, image, graphic image file, or other visual depiction that--
(C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as to
minors."
So, other than the fact that these are highly subjective(ie, is, say, sluggy freelance(http://www.sluggy.com) banned by this law? Does it have "serious literary or artistic value?"), it only covers images. Thus, highly erotic stories are NOT banned by this measure, nor are plans to build bombs(wasn't columbine one of the catalysts for bills like this?), or a myriad of other concerns broached by right wing politicians.
Additionally, part (B) says,
"(B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what is
suitable for minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, actual or
simulated normal or perverted sexual acts, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals;"
It requires that this be "patently offensive" but again, that is an entirely subjective measure. Things that some people are extremely offended by(pr0n, for example) I find quite amusing. Also, you have to wonder whether this includes images that can be used for educational purposes, such as images often displayed in sexual education material.
I think the funniest passage is included in part (A), though:
"...appeals to a prurient interest in
nudity, sex, or excretion;"
How many children's books are there, and childish jokes, etc, that do appeal to their "prurient interest...in excretion".
Anyway, while some of the wording is vauge, I'm somewhat afraid that this law could live on. It is possible, of course, to attack it on a variety of grounds- ie, the fact that no software yet exists that is this exacting, the vaugeness of the bill, or as the poster of the article noted, the Brown v. Board argument. The biggest problem with the final argument, though, is that Brown v. Board doesn't apply to money, as evidenced by teh Rodriguez(sp? I don't know who it was against, either) that established that wealth is not a suspect class in terms of educational discrimination.
My $.02
Alex Magidow
Does this shit apply to Colleges to?
the technology advisory board for my school district, and we had decided that the filtering/censoring software that was out blocked not only inappropriate material, but educational material as well, and it was also decided that it's impossible to determine what's inappropriate and what's not. Filter it all or don't filter. Censorship sucks.
How Jaded Are You?
So? It's just in school and libraries. People can see whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes. Last I checked, you couldn't get porn in libraries or schools, either, but I don't hear anybody complaining about that. This is no different.
niceFire.com - Humor and Lego's or Lego's and Humor or Some Combination of
I think most people DO think that there's a need for "censorware" in the first place. Or are you advocating the right of the first-grader to find hard-core porn on publicly-funded computers?
The salient point is not that site-blocking software is inherently evil or unconstitutional, it's just that it's ineffective -- and in such a way that it blocks more than it constitutionally should.
I've got three kids, two old enough to use the Web. I want to be sure that they don't see porn when they're browsing. I am also concerned that they are not exposed to rightwing fundamentalist hatemongering crap that would stunt their mental and emotional development as much as porn.
Any parent that wants to keep an eye on what their kids are seeing, whether in the print media, on TV, in games or on the Web, will be involved in their kids' lives and will monitor what they're up to. Rating systems, incompetent bureaucrats or snake-oil-vending censorware companies cannot do that for me. The correct response is to take responsibility for being a parent. Mindless passive measures don't work, they're just a way of giving the illusion of action without actually doing anything. And I'll be the judge of what my kids see, thank you very much. YOUR halfbaked opinions will be given all the attention they deserve (nada), and if you try to impose then on me, expect strong resistance. Censorware is just another excuse for petty interference by those who have too much time on their hands and think that they know better. A healthy society marginalizes such people. Any law that empowers individuals of that sort is a bad law that should be struck down.
Take your moral crusades to Iran or Saudi Arabia. I prefer living in a country where the system protects me from fanatics.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Taxes come from the populace. I am pretty sure that if a national survey could be taken, censorware in public schools and libraries would pass with at least a 60%-70% approval rating. All you need is 60 mintes to show how detrimental pornography is to a child's mental and social development and the entire nation would quickly be drawn up in a moral crusade against pronography. The slashdot folks who liberally and militantly oppose censorware must realize that there is much more at stake than perhaps an adverse effect for researching students. With a simple authorization by a professor or some other administrator, a student could be given full unrestrained access for academic studies. Its not as if censorware would render the internet useless. It would simply be protecting our greatest national resource.
Censoring means that the material that may be considered harmful is removed prior to public disemination. I can censor a TV show by bleeping the words in the audio track before it is broadcast. Censoring is ALWAYS done by the distribution end.
Filtering means that the material that may be considered harmful is removed or altered at the recieving end. I can filter a TV show that is coming down live from the network satelite during that 15 second delay before further sending the signal out along cable lines. Filtering is ALWAYS done by the recieving end.
This bill is NOT about censorware, but filterware.
Now, some might argue that this will effectively censor some sites out there. But this is not correct. Take the physical example of 'banned books' such as To Kill a Mockingbird. Sure, the book may be banned from school and public libraries, but there are other means to get the book: from a store, from a friend, possibly by online text. The book is in no way censored since the material is still readily available in some form. Same with online information, say that Slashdot is blocked by these filters. Certainly there are other was to access it, from private internet connections or net-cafes. No one is denying you any access to that site whatsoever, just that the public institution feels that they need to filter it for the public good.
Thus, this bill does not threaten anyone's 1st amendment rights in any way. You still have your freedom of speech and expression, and you still have ways to hear others if you so choose, just that in public institutions, what *you* may want to hear is not in the best of public interest, and thus needs to be filtered.
Now, mind you, this bill sucks. Yes, it does leave it up to the community to decide what to filter, but it should leave more to the communities than just that. In addition, filtering software is inefficient, and can filter legitamite sites as well as As some other articles on the net state, communities have already passed regulations that they will not implement filters due to any easy way to set a community standard and the lack of good software.
So while I expect the ACLU to challenge it, I'd rather see states challenge it as it violates several distinctions of federal and state powers. I'd also like to see groups like Peacefire tackle the problem and raise the issue that no filtering program is sufficiently good at this point in time to be setting national standards for them. Until such a time where we can dynamically determine if the content on such a page (including images) are not up to the standards of the given community, any national filtering solution will fail (and since I doubt we'll get to such a point in 10 years, this bill is waaaay before it's time).
I'd rather see a better approach in the sence of voluntary ratings for sites, and mandating that public institution must enable such features on a browser to conform with that ratings system. Then make it a civil offense to misrate your site after being notified that the site is improperly rated (or some other such action to avoid the quick-fire lawsuit type persons). Certainly 90% of the sites out there probably won't need to rate themselves, and those that do could be making sure that their site flies under the filtering radar (such as a breast cancer site making sure they indicate that they are a health-related site). Yes, it's not a perfect solution, but it's a better direction than filtering software.
But again, filtering != censoring, but a few slipperly slope arguments get you there. "Well, if X is blocked at public schools, why shouldn't it be blocked from the web overall?" doesn't follow logic, but a sympathic judge might eat it up. Any filtering law must state that it's for the purpose of maintaining community standards in public places and does not attempt to interfere with free speech rights granted in private places of home or business.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Then quite frankly, you really should not be sending your children to an institution where the government acts in loco parentis.
In other words, if you don't want the government dictating the way your kids are raised, don't let the government raise your kids.
DNA just wants to be free...
that's the major problem, though. censorware _never_ _EVER_ works like it's supposed to. We've all seen the graphically stupid, albeit funny, stories about censorware blocking sites that have no business whatsoever being blocked. Beyond the galling thought that we're entrusting decisions on how to educate the youth of this country to a piece of sofware, what makes it even worse is that we're entrusting decisions on how to educate the youth of this country to a horribly broken
-dk
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
It occurred to me that perhaps the purpose of having blocking software in schools really isn't to block objectional material per se, but to serve as a more subtle method of indoctrinating our children to get accustomed to, and accept the concept of being told what they can and cannot see. For this purpose the actual effectiveness of the software isn't terribly important, what matters is that children get used to asking permission to view certain material, and accepting that there are some things they really shouldn't see.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
... a court is also likely to look to related, non-Internet situations that have arisen in the past. These precedents include decisions regarding the selection or removal of books in schools or libraries, and the selection of content for publication in school-sponsored student newspapers. The Supreme Court has ruled that schools are non-public forums that are outside the general marketplace of expression. Accordingly, school boards have significant discretion to restrict content and expression within that environment. Under this doctrine, school officials only violate the First Amendment when they limit access to materials "for the purpose of restricting access to the political ideas or social perspectives discussed in them, when that action is motivated simply by the official's disapproval of the ideas involved."
In situations where a school has restricted access to certain material, courts tend to consider whether the school's decision bore a reasonable relationship to a legitimate pedagogical concern. For example, a school district's decision that students exposed to violence, nudity, or "hard" language is a view-point neutral "legitimate pedagogical concern."
--
- It's not actually an official law until President Clinton signs it.
- The very same day that the president signed COPA into law, the ACLU filed a suit
against it (and they've been winning so far).
- CIPA is different from COPA and CDA though, in many ways. One of the main differences is that COPA and CDA were criminal statutes, bound by stricter
due-process considerations. CIPA is just an incentive-based "suggestion", similar to the 55mph thing, and so it's not bound by constitutional
considerations as much.
- This law has been introduced 9 times over the past two years, all by Republicans.
- The American Library Association strongly opposes such a law.
Also, one of the peices of evidence that the proponents put forth was a statement by the CEO of Net Nanny Software (yeah, he'll be objective):- A general perception exists that Internet filtering is seriously flawed and in many situations unusable. It is also perceived that schools and
libraries don't want filtering. These notions are naive and based largely on problems associated with earlier versions of client-based software that are
admittedly crude and ineffective. Though some poor filtering products still exist, filtering has gone through an extensive evolution and is not only good
at protecting children but also well-received and in high demand.
This is obvious political FUD, and very dangerous IMHO because it goes along with the innovation-meme and it gives critics a way to immediately brush off any counter-evidence. But the opponents of porn filtering DO use outdated evidence often, and it's something they should be careful of. Because there are a lot of current studies that show that filters still suck badly.--
So why would porn webmasters want to get around filters to give kids access? They all want your credit card anyway, and kids don't have credit cards.
On the flip side, the kid(s) could just get their parents credit card out.
Also, since when is "harmful to minors" unprotected speech? I know obscenity and child-pornography have high-profile supreme court decisions supporting their lack of free-speech protection. but "harmful to minors?" What the fuck is that? Does that relate dto the "7 words you can't say on TV" thing? (Which by the way, you now apparently can say on TV...maybe).
You know... I never thought of it from that angle.
... by clicking and holding in the right places at the right times, one could keep elevated priviliges to make modifications to restricted files)
:).
I mean, certainly - I hate censorware. I think the very idea of even TRYING to stop a person from accessing information that is available to the world is wrong.
However, this could be quite interesting. Thinking back, yea - kids raised around such things always find out how to get around them. Subverting authority, in even the most slight and novel way is definitly a kids major past time.
Kind of reminds me of when I found out how to subvert foolproof on the Macs at school (easy -
I used to use it to change all of the icon colors (with labels)... just for shits and giggles. Then there was that one time that I littered the box with porn in mischievous ways (last day of class for us seniors).
Ahh.... school was fun. Maybe its good that the kids are getting a new toy to play with. It truely does facilitate learning... learning how to get around restrictions, and make the best of a bad situation
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Just because there is censorware doesnt mean it has to work. My school has had websense installed for 2 years now, and i have more backdoors through it than i can count. I still find it funny that the biology website used by half the sophomore class was blocked because it had "learning games" in the meta tags. Even funnier that websenses own website was blocked under "Tastless".
I am !amused.
It seems to me that the federal government could easily make the argument that censorware is the least restrictive means for stopping students (who are minors) from viewing indecent speech; since the goal they outlined was preserving the rights of adults, the students are probably out of luck. Plus, since schools have special powers over students, there's generally little protection for those who would want to look at various banned materials through school computers.
Libraries, on the other hand, serve a general public (i.e., people over 18) and would probably be subject to a much greater degree of scrutiny. There, any filtering would impinge on adult speech (although it's possible that they would turn it off for 18-and-over). One court has already found that libraries can't use filterware to stop adults from viewing legal material, and it based its decision in part on that clause from the CDA opinion.
The upshot of this is that, unless the courts decide to change their minds, students will just have to use the public libraries more often...
(I wonder, though, whether it might be possible to challenge individual software programs one-by-one rather than go after the law on its face -- after all, it shouldn't be too hard to show that each one blocks perfectly legitimate sites and thus impermissibly restricts speech...)
http://freshmeat.net/projects/charities.cron/
If you remember this internet, please help join the fight by switching to lynx, links, or telnet nameofsite 80 right now!
I've seen far too many parents think of school as a form of daycare for their kids. That is pathetic - school is to learn, and learning means making mistakes. Do I mean that all kids should make the mistake of viewing porn at the age of 7? No, certaintly not - nor do I think that a child should be able to paruse the internet unsupervised. If people have a problem with this, then they really need to re-think their priorites. Perhaps they should get out from behind their crapmed desks and volunteer some time at their childrens' schools. Then they can re-assume part of the responsibility without censorware.
Sure, that's all nice and idealistic, but that's also part of why it has become so sad.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
At least as far as the funding is concerned, it's constitutional. The Federal government might not have any constitutional basis for telling local governments and states what to do, but it does have plenary power to raise whatever funding it wants and spend it generally.
Just look at highway funding: under 23 U.S.C. 158, a state which fails to comply and raise its minimum drinking age to twenty-one has 5% of its federal highway funds withheld during the first year of non-compliance and 10% of such funds withheld in each succeeding year. This is entirely constitutional, because the state always reserves the option of not caring and not receiving the funds it wouldn't have raised anyway.
The first-amendment issues are important and interesting. But unfortunately, they're the only constitutional issues relevant here.
Read the rest of this comment...
Football is indisputeably harmful to minors.
Football causes many, many injuries to minors who participate in it every year. Sometimes, these injuries are permanently crippling.
Football related crime is quite common as well. Team jackets are used as gang colors. Innocent children have been murdered as a result.
Furthermore, professional football players are the worst hedonists on the planet. They do drugs, they rape women, and they are loose with money! How on earth could we let these people be role models for our children?
So by all means, any library or school that is using my tax dollars should ban American football because it is "harmful to children."
[/sarcasm]
The fundamental problem here is first defining "porn" (or other objectionable material) in such a way that it will never exclude material that citizens are indeed allowed to access, and second dealing with the reality that the definition of objectionable varies dramatically from place to place on a Net that is worldwide. Justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court once claimed that he can't define pornography, but that "I know it when I see it". Unfortunately, that doesn't exactly provide for a clear delineation between something that would be allowed in .com versus .xxx, even disregarding the global implications of a scheme like this.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Hopefully, after enough kids can't research their projects/reports because they've been blocked from non-offending sites, something will finally be done for real and/or censorware will go away... I'm getting tired of the government just putting on cheap band-aids, handed out by congress.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
Some (though hardly all) feminists have muddied the water by suggesting that pornography denigrates women. There is much truth to this argument, but they are incorrect in their estimate of the underlying cause. Pornography denigrates women not because it treats women as objects -- though obviously it does -- but because the pseudo-religious opposition to pornography treats women as toxins from which society must be protected. To a lesser degree than in Islamic society, but for much the same reasons, the more stringent standards for female body coverings rest on the premise that women are a corrupting influence on men, and that they cannot be trusted to control their instinctual imperatives, and at the same time insisting that they must yield to the instinctual imperatives of dominant males.
Our society is choked with people who -- and I don't care what pious excuses are offered for this -- are deeply afraid of sexuality, and more often than not full of fear and loathing for female sexuality. (Before anyone flames, please don't think that I'm arguing that male-oriented porn is either a realistic or healthy representation of female sexuality. But it wouldn't matter if it were.)
The contest between censorship and anti-censorship in America has got squat to do with civil liberties. It is a battle against an entrenched, institutionalized form of mental illness, a phobia of sexuality that manifests itself in the form of political oppression on the grand scale and domestic terror on the personal scale. Those who oppose censorship can shout all day long about free speech and they will utterly fail of effect because they are not addressing the real hidden agenda. We must take a stand in favor of sex and sexuality as a healthy, normal, and necessary part of human existence and refuse to knuckle under to this morbid anti-sex psychopathology no matter what political or religious mask it uses to hide its shame.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
So Congress has just allocated a ton of money so that the teachers who can't get the VCR to stop blinking 12:00 can use software to control the students who help them program the VCR for class movies.
Oh, you bet.
If I were in high school right now I'd have the octal version of goatse.cx memorized.
Suckers.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
I believe, given what Michael Sims (yes, that Michael Sims, Slashdot/YRO editor) did against Censorware Project, this information is important to this discussion. And I'll take any karma hit for it.
The http://censorware.org site has been taken down since the following was posted, more than a month now.
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 16:49:46 EST
To: CYBERIA-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
From: Jonathan Wallace <jw@BWAY.NET>
Subject: The Censorware Project
I've been trying hard to avoid washing dirty laundry in public, but a couple of recent posts have raised the issue and I'd like to give an account of what happened to the Censorware Project (the site at http://censorware.org is now offline). What we have here is the spectacle of a group member who volunteered to act as webmaster effectively closing a group which wants to continue, because the domain happened to be registered in his name.
The Censorware Project was originally an informal collective of six people who collaborated online to fight censorware: Seth Finkelstein, Bennett Haselton, Jamie McCarthy, Mike Sims, Jim Tyre and myself. After Seth left the group, the remaining five continued. Several of us had never met or even spoken on the phone, yet for some time--around two years as I recall--we had a remarkably easy collaboration. There was no funding, no hierarchy, no titles, not even project managers. Someone would suggest a project and take the responsibility for a part of it, others would sign up for other elements, and proceeding this way we got a remarkable amount of work done, including reports on X-Stop, Cyberpatrol, Bess and other products.
Even though two of us were attorneys--Jim and myself--we never incorporated the group or wrote a charter or any contracts among ourselves. Mike Sims was obliging enough to register the domain, just as other members paid for press releases and the other incidental expenses which came along.
Robert Frost said that "nothing gold can stay," and the Censorware Project was no exception. Over the summer, Mike Sims' reaction to a perceived slight was to take the site down for a week, exactly as Seth says in his mail. He sent us mail at the time saying something like "The Censorware Project is over." I replied to him that, given that the group was a collective and we all had an interest in its work product, the domain, and the goodwill it had achieved, the decision was not his to make. Sims did not reply.
Mike put the site back up a week later without explaining, let alone apologizing for, his actions. Given his continuing failure to answer any email from me (and I think from others) and the overall signs that Sims thought the group was exclusively his, I wrote him several emails requesting that he turn the domain over to Jamie or Bennett, as I felt we could no longer trust him to administer it. We also found out during that time that important email from people trying to contact us, including members of the press, was not being answered by Sims, nor being forwarded to other members.
I ultimately became exasperated that my name was listed as a principal on what had now become a "rogue" site I had no control over. Over about a five week period, I wrote Sims several more emails asking him to delete my name from the site if he wasn't going to transfer the domain. Again, I received no reply.
Today, Sims took the Censorware Project site offline again, with a message which says "Due to demands from some of the people who contributed, in however minor a fashion, to this site, it has been taken down." Judging from some email I received from him today, this means me.
Its a sad thing, both because we got some good work done and because some of the other members of the group were eager to continue and in fact have continued working, while deprived of the Censorware Project site, name, email aliases and public recognition. These further efforts are appearing on Bennett Haselton's Peacefire site, www.peacefire.org. (I applaud the work but take no credit as I have not been involved in some time.)
On the page currently at www.censorware.org Sims makes the following request: "If you are interested in volunteering to fight censorware, please contact me." One of the reasons I made this post was so that anyone considering working with Mike can make an informed decision.
Now, if I recall correctly, there was a Supreme Court ruling that indicated that content-based censorship was unconstitutional. The argument was that "you can't go through books and mark out or cut out the offensive passages."
It was accepted that libraries could choose not to carry particular books based on the concept of limited resources - "We can't afford to subscribe to every single magazine or buy every book on the market, so we have to make decisions based on that." However, once the library holdings were acquired, the library staff could not go through and start marking out the "naughty bits."
Well, guess what - the Internet is a magazine. The library pays regularly for access, and receives the information from the providers through its network link, rather than throught the U.S. Mail. That is the simplest way to look at Internet access at the library, and if we do that, then it's plain that Internet filtering would come under the heading of content-based censorship.
Now, how much public money will get spent defending this viewpoint is anyone's guess, but nobody said that democracy was cheap.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
I can't help feel that what the this will really do is ensure that we have another generation of hackers and crackers. Think about it, now every American schoolkid will join forces to ensure that every piece of censorware has a nice big hole in it that everyone knows about, maybe if the censorware companies are good enough we may even see some work to match the demos scene of the 80s (the best programming ever IMHO). Who do you think is more intelligent, the firms writing the software or the kids......I know where my money goes
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
My children and Grandchildren won't understand filters, because I sure as hell won't filter their home access.
And I'll go through the process of having their sites signed off at libraries and schools. Most schools provide a "authorization" policy if the child requests a questionable policy.
I'll make it as difficult as possible for the schools and the libraries.
I encourage others to do the same. The first amandment guarantees this.
fslg503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8
as i recall, there used to be a number of problems.
kids can't get info on (potentially lifesaving) condoms or sexual behavior;
women can't look for info on brest cancer;
problems finding chicken recipes (the alarm in the library goes off cuz you typed "chicken breast" into a search field);
Historical issues (searching for info on "the gay nineties", "Cock and Bull", "pussywillows", "The Owl and the Pussycat", "Wild Ass Images")
It's rather fascinating to watch our government doing so much to validate the all the concerns voiced in books like 1984. Things they said "would never happen here".
Technology Shift A) results in less employees needed. Employees are then terminated, since "America is not a social experiment".
Technology Shift B) results in the obsolescence of CD and DVD technology, and record/video companies are against the wall. Solution : pass protectionist legislation and villify the technology, because "The business of America is Business"
This reminds me of that old SNL skit where the moralists are removing the breasts/penises from marble and brass statues.
What a horribly sick society. Body parts are not bad, the horrid myths handed down through generations have made them bad.
Once again, America's Government is failing to think/consider its behavior. The larger issues will have negative ramifications for decades to come.
Unbeleivable that we have at least four more years of increasingly stupid legislation coming up as the right wingers crank up their religious propaganga/profit machines.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
The federal government has a number of restrictions placed on its power. Certain powers (or domains of regulation) are reserved for the states.
The federal government is bypassing those restrictions.
They aren't even hiding it. The two "main" presidential candidates debated over how, exactly, each of them will bypass the restrictions. They have such wonderful plans based on skirting around the Constitution. And, I must admit, that some good has been accomplished by federal meddling in state business. However, I see a shift in power and in form of government that I want to call people's attention to. Personally, I usually feel that federal government is too powerful, but it is better that you disagree with me fully informed than agree with me blindly.
The federal government taxes states' citizens, then threatens to withold funding for "state run" programs from state which do not pass certain laws or meet certain requirements. They do this, in part, in order to bypass those restrictions on their authority.
Recently, president Clinton signed a law stating that any state which did not set a 0.08 blood alchohol level standard for DUI would lose (some) federal funding for highways. The DUI laws (and standards) are entirely in the states' authority, not the federal. In effect, the federal government has usurped a power reserved for the states.
"Usurped" may be too strong a word; each state can, after all, simply decline to meet that standard. They will lose federal funding, but they can simply fund the roads themselves.
Federal funding my ass. The fed will tax the citizens of the states who choose not to comply, then send that money out of that state and into another. They state cannot "make up for" the lost revenue; they can, at best, tax the citizens even more to fund the highway projects. But they still pay, either way.
The federal government is, in effect, saying "We want to have something happen, but we don't have the authority to pass a law to make it happen. So we are going to tax you to fund programs that you like, then later threaten to withold your own money from you unless you do what we want to you. Yeah, we know we're aren't supposed to be involved in this sort of thing, but the program is 'state run' and simply 'federally funded'."
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Schools have always been about indoctrination. They teach useful skills, but they are also about instilling the values of the nation that they are in. If you cannot control the content of what is taught to some extent, they do not work as well as they should.
As in, "we're perfectly willing to obey the law, and just as soon as suitable software is released, we'll get right onto installing it."