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Library Censorware Blocks Own Site

Posted by timothy on from the poignant-and-fleshy dept.

squiggleslash writes "The Daily Dayton News reports that a demonstration of a new website for a library in Piqua, Ohio, went horribly wrong when the site was blocked by the library's own censorware. Why? Because the library, founded by and named after businessman Leo Flesh 70 years earlier, had the domain name www.fleshpublic.lib.oh.us. And that key word, 'Flesh,' was a no-no as far as Flesh Public Library's copy of Net Nanny was concerned." And for an extra dose of tragicomic priority reversal, the library actually decided to change its domain name rather than have Net Nanny fix the erroneous blocking. I hope no one at the library wants to read about the fleshpots of Egypt.

8 of 386 comments (clear)

  1. Our library was worse by Bobulusman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was in middle school, I didn't have the 'net at home, so I had to use the library's. You would not believe the trouble I had looking up the Trojan War. (Really.)

    --
    Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
  2. Re:Ummm.... by dogbertsd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because the U.S. Congress decided that libraries have to implement software like Net Nanny or else lose federal funding.

    The American Library Associate is fighting the law in the U.S. Supreme Court:

    http://www.ala.org/cipa/

  3. Re:I hope the also don't care about..... by Photon+Ghoul · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You would think so, but the particular thing that Net Nanny picked up on was actually "flesh" paired with "public". As stated in the article.

    Still, gotta love that quote "we banned ourselves." Too bad no lesson was learned.

  4. Websense by Rosonowski · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think websense is the worst of all, considering some of the categories it puts things into.

    Archive.org is a "proxy avoidance system"

    everything2.com is "Tasteless"

    Among other categories: Non-Traditional Religion, Drugs, Alternative Journals, Political Groups, Financial Services, and Activist Groups.

    Makes doing research on anything hell.

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    01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
  5. It's not a terrible thing... by Snoochie+Bootchie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The implementation is awful, but the intent is acceptable. Why can't you go to a library and checkout/read Penthouse? Because Penthouse does not fit in with the mission of a library. The protecting our kids thing is great politics, but little more. I don't buy it and I don't like having others tell me what I should think is something my kids shouldn't see. However, I don't have a problem with a library using some form of control to block access to sites that lie outside of the mission of a public library.

  6. Cencorship is wrong by vga_init · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Net Nanny might be good software for uptight parents, but I don't see why a libarary has to use censorship. As the demonstration proves, most cencorship efforts end up going horribly wrong, usually censoring things you don't want cencored and then not cencoring things you do.

    If I were running a library (which I'm not), of course I wouldn't cencor the internet...I would let the people look at whatever they wanted. I would moniter their activities preiodically, and if I suspected the resources were being abused, I would simply stop the service for that individual.

    Anyway you look at it, cencorship is a crackpot solution to problems that should be dealt with using more care than people are willing to put forth.

    1. Re:Cencorship is wrong by PatientZero · · Score: 5, Interesting
      That's not censoring; it's refusing service. If the library computers are set up in such a way that everyone can see what everyone is surfing, then it isn't appropriate for people to be surfing pr0n, based on our cultural standards of not allowing minors access to it. Therefore, if you want to use the public computing resources, you must adhere to the public rules and standards. That's called living in society.

      Similarly, while I believe various soft drugs should be decriminalized, I also feel that it would be inappropriate to use them in certain instances. I wouldn't want to see people snorting lines of coke at the library, for example. That's called being personally responsible, and as long as we make the State responsible for enforcing good behavior, we will never learn to be responsible ourselves.

      Freedom includes the right to learn to be personally responsible, often by making mistakes.

      --
      Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
      I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
  7. Why not an opensource solution? by fname · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Color me idealistic, ignorant, misguided or deluded; but why not create an open-source filter for libraries to use? This would solve a lot of problems.

    1) The list of blocked sites and algorithms is available.

    2) The community would probably make available separate levels of filtering. Like, maybe a whitelist appropriate for little kids, something else for schools and a narrow list for purposes like libraries.

    3) It would be freely available, so politically motivated censorware like NetNanny would see its market eliminated.

    Yes, I know this proposal is evil, because it is caving into a bad law. But guess what, the law ins't that unreasonable, it's just that the implementations are downright awful. Most libraries would probably choose to have a modest filter (known porn sites for the most art, maybe all-numeric IPs) than nothing.

    Many parents would like to have moderate filtering to kill things like obscene links hidden in slashdot discussions. I mean, even if you're surfing the net w/ your kids, how does it help with stuff like that?

    This NetNanny keyword based, politally motivated filtering is A Bad Thing. And a law requiring libraries to install filtering software is A Bad Thing. But, a good, user controlled, community built filtering software is absolutely, positively, a good thing.