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AOL Censor Tells Most If Not All
An unnamed reader writes: "From the latest Village Voice: 'You've got mail--and moral conundrums! A former AOL "censor" comes clean about the messy ethical dilemmas spawned by anonymity.'" This is one of the ickiest workplace accounts I've read in a while, but parts of it may make you laugh as well. You know that AOL has people watching the online traffic -- well, this proves that the job is not as glamorous and fulfilling as it sounds, but it does have some odd twists. See also this older Salon story for further insight on AOL acceptable use policies.
While censorship is always a difficult issue, I think there is a real place on the Internet for censored access.
I am a parent, with an 8 year old son and a 12 year old daughter. I want them to have access to as many educational opportunities as possible, but I am not always around to supervise them. My general practice has been to turn on censor-ware while I was away, but turn it off if I was available to keep tabs on my children.
While I appreciate the dilemmas that the AOL censor has faced, I feel that they are nonetheless providing a valuable service that is appropriate for many people. While I'm not sure what I think about government sanctioned or required censoring, censored Internet access definitely has a place in my household.
"The night is long that never finds the day." -- William Shakespeare
Diary of an AOL (l)User.
July 18 - I just tried to connect to America Online. I've heard it is the best online service I can get. They even included a free disk! I'd better hold onto it incase they don't ever send me another one! I can't connect. I don't know what is wrong.
July 19 - Some guy at the tech support center says my computer needs a modem. I don't see why. He's just trying to cheat me. How dumb does he think I am?
July 22 - I bought the modem. I couldn't figure out where it goes. It wouldn't fit in the monitor or the printer. I'm confused.
July 23 - I finally got the modem in and hooked up. that nine year old next door did it for me. But it still don't work. I cant get online.
July 25 - That nine year old kid next door hooked me up to America Online for me. He's so smart. I told the kid he was a prodigy. But he says that's just another service. What a modest kid. He's so smart and he does these services for people. Anyway he's smarter then the jerks who sold me the modem. They didn't even tell me about communications software. Bet they didn't know. And why do they put two telephone jack holes in the back of a modem when you only need one? And why do they have one labeled phone when you are not suppose to hook it to the phone jack on the wall? I thought the dial tone sounded funny! Boy, are modem makers dumb! But the kid figured it out by the sound.
July 26 - What's the internet? I thought I was on America Online. Not this internet thing. I'm confused.
July 27 - The nine year old kid next door showed me how to use this America Online stuff. I told him he must be a genius. He says that he is compared to me. Maybe he's not so modest after all.
July 28 - I tried to use chat today. I tried to talk into my computer but nothing happened. maybe I need to buy a microphone.
July 29 - I found this thing called usenet. I got out of it because I'm connected to America Online not usenet.
July 30 - These people in this usenet thing keep using capital letters. How do they do that? I never figured out how to type capital letters. Maybe they have a different type of keyboard.
JULY 31 - I CALLED THE COMPUTER MAKER I BOUGHT IT FROM TO COMPLAIN ABOUT NOT HAVING A CAPITOL LETTER KEY. THE TECH SUPPORT GUY SAID IT WAS THIS CAPS LOCK KEY. WHY DIDN'T THEY SPELL IT OUT? I TOLD HIM I GOT A CHEAP KEYBOARD AND WANTED A BETTER ONE. AND ONE OF MY SHIFT KEYS ISNT THE SAME SIZE AS THE OTHER. HE SAID THATS A STANDARD. I TOLD HIM I DIDN'T WANT A STANDARD KEYBOARD BUT ANOTHER BRAND. I MUST HAVE HAD AN IMPORTANT COMPLAINT BECAUSE I HEARD HIM TELL THE OTHER SUPPORT GUYS TO LISTEN IN ON OUR CONVERSATION.
AUGUST 1 - I FOUND THIS THING CALLED THE USENET ORACLE. IT SAYS THAT IT CAN ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS I ASK IT. I SENT IT 44 SEPARATE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE INTERNET. I HOPE IT RESPONDS SOON.
AUGUST 2 - I FOUND A GROUP CALLED REC.HUMOR. I DECIDED TO POST THIS JOKE ABOUT THE CHICKEN THAT CROSSED THE ROAD. TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE! HA! HA! I WASNT SURE I POSTED IT RIGHT SO I POSTED IT 56 MORE TIMES.
AUGUST 3 - I KEEP HEARING ABOUT THE WORLD WIDE WEB. I DON'T NOW SPIDERS GREW THAT LARGE.
AUGUST 4 - THE ORACLE RESPONDED TO MY QUESTIONS TODAY. GEEZ IT WAS RUDE. I WAS SO ANGRY THAT I POSTED AN ANGRY MESSAGE ABOUT IT TO REC.HUMOR.ORACLE. I WASNT SURE IF I POSTED RIGHT SO I POSTED IT 22 MORE TIMES.
AUGUST 5 - SOMEONE TOLD ME TO READ THE FAQ. GEEZ THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO USE PROFANITY.
AUGUST 6 - SOMEONE ELSE TOLD ME TO STOP SHOUTING IN ALL MY MESSAGES. WHAT A STUPID JERK. IM NOT SHOUTING! IM NOT EVEN TALKING! JUST TYPING! HOW CAN THEY LET THESE RUDE JERKS GO ON THE INTERNET?
August 7 - Why have a Caps Lock key if you're not suppose to use it? Its probably an extra feature that costs more money.
August 8 - I just read this post called make money fast. I'm so exited. I'm going to make lots of money. I followed his instructions and posted it to every newsgroup I could find.
August 9 - I just made my signature file. Its only 6 pages long. I will have to work on it some more.
August 10 - I just looked at a group called alt.aol.sucks. I read a few posts and I really believe that aol should be wiped off the face of the earth. I wonder what an aol is.
August 11 - I was asking where to find some information about something. Some guy told me to check out ftp.netcom.com. I've looked and looked but I can't find that group.
August 12 - I sent a post to every usenet group on the Internet asking where the ftp.netcom.com is. hopefully someone will help. I cant ask the kid next door. His parents said that when he comes back from my house he's laughing so hard he can't eat or sleep or do his homework. So they wont let him come over anymore. I do have a great sense of humor. I don't know why the rec.humor group didn't like my chicken joke. Maybe they only like dirty stuff. Some people sent me posts about my 56 posts of the joke and they used bad words.
August 13 - I sent another post to every usenet group on the Internet asking where the ftp.netcom.com is. I had forgot yesterday to include my new signature file which is only 8 pages long. I know everyone will want to read my favorite poem so I included it. I'm also going to add that short story I like.
August 14 - Some guy suspended my account because of what I was doing. I told him I don't have an account at his bank. He's so dumb.
More AOL humor
360 degrees of Karma
If parents allowed their children into the adult parts of town, we'd call them irresponsible. Yet when it comes to the Internet, apparently they can ignore their responsibilities as parents and pass the blame on to others instead.
The Internet isn't a protected playground and it can never become one without becoming utterly emasculated. It is a faithful cross-section of all of humanity, without artificial barriers, and that is what makes it the largest and most valuable resource on the planet. The Internet may be in fashion with youngsters wanting to be adults, but if you're a parent it's NOT the place to let your youngsters roam freely before they are old enough to make their own decisions.
In its danger lies its strength.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
At the time, I was just a wee lad, and really didn't know much better. I got involved with quite a few groups, and became 'friends' with a lot of people. Of course, you could lie a lot about a lot of things, but jeez, I was only 13 when I started, so I didn't know *too* much to lie about. At any rate, after being on a lot of the local boards, one guy invited me to do work at a shop he owned doing electronic stuff. I worked there for perhaps four months on the weekends before on day he drugged me and molested me (I'm a male BTW).
But do I blame the BBS for that? Do I blame technology for that? Obviously not as I am still heavily involved in the field of technology, nor do I go out torturing llamas and the such because of it. It was a bad experience, and one that I hope no one has to go through, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons from it.
So why people all of a sudden act like AOL is such a bad thing, I don't understand. In my opinion AOL is to BBS's what Napster was to MP3's - It opened up a world that previously was only available to those who knew what they were doing. It mainstreamed chat and email, and allowed users to connect to this 'internet thing' (even if they do think AOL == Internet) and enter a world never before open to them.
But as those of us who have operated or participated on BBS's or ICQ or anything else of that nature know, the price that opening a service such as that brings is exactly what we see. People are not what they seem, very sadistic and strange people dive right in, and a general melee seems to run rampant. By exposing your personal information to a stranger, you can get in a lot of trouble. Why does this surprise people?
I despise AOL. Not because of what they have accomplished, but in their methodologies. Researching them, I see what they are trying to do, and the 'features' that they add to their software. Imagine a service like AOL that, instead of trying to protect themselves, served to help people step into the next level of computing. Imagine something similar for the world of Linux (very theoretically of course) where users would get a simple installation disk to start that was all GUI, and 24-hour support, but slowly were weened off to strictly command-line interfaces and hash-bang scripts.
Or maybe not.
But let's not let the people who have no clue set the boundries to which we are 'allowed' to use the internet. The internet world has always been and will always have people who aren't what they seem, whose ultimate motives are to pillage, rape, kill, etc. No longer are they forced to hide in their little worlds. Anytime you have the ability to hide your identity, some people will use that to a different advantage, for a different purpose than just expressing ideas.
I feel we basically have a few options of where to go from here.
- Reveal the identity of all users. Have some giant world-governing organization ensure that everyone is who they say they are, say by implanting a chip in everyone that automatically signs them into the computer.
- Continue with things being the way they are and watch as the world we are used to gets bashed and limited to the point where you would be lucky if you could find Powerpuff girls sites because they are too violent.
- Educate the public, and our lawmakers, and support ways to protect users without taking away the things that we hold dear. But realize at the same time that by not regulating everything, some people may slip through the cracks and you may have to actually be careful online.
If your kid has a computer in his/her bedroom, and you don't talk to them about the things they may see, or don't keep up with them on a regular basis, don't be surprised to come in one day to get them for dinner and find them gone. But even if you do all of that, you still may find them gone. Sometimes there is nothing you can do.So don't let the public take away something that has been around for years and years just because it doesn't fit into their personal schedules. Yes, the internet is a dangerous place sometimes, but that doesn't mean that we should close shop just to appease the customers who don't like it.
Random Musings
The story of the kid and the screen identity is kind of heart-wrenching...at least how its told.
The "mother" was bull-shitting the AOL rep. Scamming, lying, social-engineering. Mark my words -- you'd have heard about the AOL-stalking child-abducter otherwise. The caller was almost certainly not actually a mother, and was just trying to extract someone else's identity from a trusting AOL staffer. It burns me to see people who ought to be tech-savvy still perpetuating the myth that the Internet is overrun with pedophiles and child abusers, when the reality is that it's overrun by petty, vindictive, malicious, lying adults.
I am now happily using roadrunner for cable-modem access instead of the crappy AOL, upon recommendation from one of my patients.
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"I give sadistic enemas to men, women, and children."
As someone who used to work for AOL ('til the TW merger finalized, at least) here's the scoop.
No... AOL doesn't scan or log IM content either on the service or via AIM or ICQ. There's just too many of them to even consider doing it. The last number I heard about volume was upwards of 750 million IM's a day, and that was at least a year ago.
The IM's that they're talking about in the article are ones reported to the CAT teams via what used to be the TOSIM screenname/notify AOL tools. Those were notoriously easy to try and fake by posting in whatever you wanted. They changed it to use only the 'Notify AOL' button in AOL 5.0 and later as the only acceptable way of reporting. The button adds a verifiable token value to a hidden field in the report to ensure that it's not faked content.
scott
i can think of two cases of that kind of social engineering succeeding against aol just of the top of my head:
in both of those cases, aol specifically stated that the operators violated aol policy. and who knows how many cases of that i don't know about...
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