Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Gov Agency Blunders With Keyword Blacklist
Anonymous Submitter writes "There's an interesting CNet article which highlights a report released by the OpenNet Initiative. The report examines how "a U.S. government agency charged with fighting Iranian and Chinese Internet censorship is quietly censoring the Web itself". Among some of the sites this U.S. agency accidentally blocks are breastcancer.com, teens.drugabuse.gov, several gay rights websites, and even usembassy.state.gov. Some of the members of the group who prepared this report were responsible for a previous Slashdot discussion entitled "Academics Take On Government Net Censorship". The report raises questions about the potential inaccuracy of proprietary and other secretive filtering mechanisms: who should be responsible for ensuring their accuracy?"
Is this just an excuse to /. the US embassy? Seems like this article is a terrorist plot.
Perhaps the Department of Homeland Accuracy.
Berman said. "Basically, we said, 'Implement a porn filter.' We were looking for serious, hard-core nasty stuff to block...I couldn't come up with a list (of off-limits words) if my life depended on it." ;)
Rrriite...
Because he Never Looks at porn
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"The official naughty-keyword list displays a conservative bias that labels any Web address with "gay" in them as verboten--a decision that affects thousands of Web sites that deal with gay and lesbian issues, as well as DioceseOfGaylord.org, a Roman Catholic site.
...
What? Never heard of
push @naughtywords, $banned =~ m/gay\./
?
um... they blocked the word 'my'.... this tells me the people running this program are stupid... nothing more.. I see no evil plot here
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
wow....Bush and Dick are both on the banned word list...ooops.....
No, no you are missing the point here. An employer has no right to guide the activities of it's employees on company time, nor does an employer have the right to control traffic on it's data networks.
Stop oppressing us!
My blog can kick your blog's ass
Christ, you know the world is doomed when your government deploys Nazi-based information control and can't even do THAT right.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
One the banned list is the word "kitt". pr0n surfers will think this refers to sites like Persian Kitty, but those of us in the know realize that this is all a plot by Knight Industries to prevent the Iranians from stealing plans for the Knight Industries Two Thousand.
John.
Your father had an internet connection and web browser at work in 1992? Wow.
At least poor Mr. Powell will be ok.
Nice to see that the browser screenshots are Mozilla with the Modern theme instead of Internet Explorer.
Yeah, but what about this is scunthorpe?
I recently read an article in the American Journal of Primatology with the following keywords. infant-licking, attractiveness of mothers with newborns, female relationships, and ring-tailed lemurs. The keywords would direct you to the paper; Intra-troop affiliative relationships of females with newborn infants in wild ring-tailed lemurs. Can you imagine the flags this would raise with monitoring software or your success with blocking? Out of context the keywords would paint you as an extreme pedophile or someone with obscure sexual attractions. A question to ask is whether this practice is merely censorship or another way to functionally define what is normal or deviant behavior within society? Homosexuality is taboo, so the word gay is taboo. Our historical relationship with the female body to sin is represented as well as other 'deviant' sexual behavior. On a lighter side, at least microsoft, georgebush, and arnold-schwarzenegger.com were blocked!