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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?"
Given that the mood in Washington is fairly anti-gay rights, what makes you think that one was 'accidental'
</tinfoil hat mode>
Just try to team up with a reasonable company like Secure Computing and use their Smartfilter list to block URLs. Keywords will aways produce tons of false-positives. We have to deal with this everyday and no matter what you hippies want to believe, you DON'T have a right to browse pornography on work computers. Go jerk off at home.
And I dount they have much choice. Government agencies often have this stuff mandated on them to "protect" the workspace, avoid having citizens groups screaming about government employees surfing porn on the job, hostile workplace regulation, etc.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
I've never seen the attraction of leaving a country in control of a total idiot. Hmm. So you can guess what my opinion of the current president is...
Why do people think it's GOOD to be stupid??
Any content-based restriction on what sites people can visit is improper. Not only does the government have no business playing censor, but it sends the wrong message to people elsewhere, namely that censorship is okay, as long as it is the right kind.
If they really didn't want to waste resources on anything other than pro-democracy web sites, they could provide access just to specific sites, or they could provide open access but limit bandwidth. The images from porn sites will generally use much more bandwidth than the text of a political discussion. As it stands, the keyword list the contractor used is really hopeless. It just goes to show that there aren't very many words that are likely only to be associated with porn cites. I bet that any number of Catholic sites, for example, are blocked by the "virgin" keyword. In any case, where foreign countries are concerned, keyword blocking should be easy to get around. Instead of putting the sexual terms in your domain name, you put them in meta tags and site text, and you put them there in Chinese and Persian and so forth. How halfway intelligent people with the serious mission of spreading freedom and democracy can waste their time on such a thing is beyond me.
To get this sort of lashup requires the unique combination of prudery, stupidity, and incompetence that you only get at the Federal level.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
The IBB has justified a filtered Internet connection by arguing that it's inappropriate for U.S. funds to help residents of China and Iran--both of which receive dismal ratings from human rights group Freedom House--view pornography.
In the abstract, the argument is a reasonable one. If the IBB's service had blocked only hard-core pornographic Web sites, few people would object.
In other words, censorship is a perfectly acceptable thing to do when the majority doesn't complain about it? What kind of fucked up, idiotic logic is that?
Whether the majority cares or not is irrelevant, it's not a reasonable argument because censorship is censorship. I'm sure someone will try to spin it that "oh, well, it's the government censoring ANOTHER country", but that's just bullshit too. If you can't extend the beliefs of this country to non-citizens, there's no particularly compelling reason to believe they should apply to us, either.
Why is it that every time I turn around these days, some sort of idiotic bullshit like this is coming out of the government? Who the fuck let them off their leash anyway?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
"Why do people think it's GOOD to be stupid??"
Not that I endorse ignorance, but those stupid people sure are happy. They just do what everyone else does and life is gravy. If you're stupid, you've got lots of company (since there's alot of dumbasses), so it's quite pleasant to drink budweiser, watch WWE, complain about commies and sand niggers, and make fun of smart people with all of your stupid friends. Ignorance TRULY is bliss.
YEEEHHAAAA - Cletus, did you see the size of that chicken?
ymmv
Until filters can understand context, keyword filters will always be stupid. Ass.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Among some of the sites this U.S. agency accidentally blocks ... several gay rights websites.
The submitter obviously is not familiar with the Bush Administration's stance towards anyone who is not hetereosexual. Anything that happens towards us these days that is negative, do not believe for a moment it was just an "accident".
If you're not convinced, check out The Human Rights Campaign website.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Instead of spending time helping others route around censorship, the U.S. government hires people to censor the web. These people then accidentally censor U.S. government sites.
At this point, the intelligent response would be to say, "Oh, we forgot that idiotic ideas tend to attract idiots. Our bad. We're going to go back to sowing free thought around the world now."
However, the government response will be, "We'll just hire some more people for even more money to implement a better filter. In fact, we've already outsourced a lot of the development work to the same companies that set up China's filter. They've got lots of experience."
Porn, apparently, is a greater threat to the U.S. than a nuclear-armed ex-Communist dictatorship. Sounds like one of John Ashcroft's buddies. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go put the burqa back on Blind Justice. We tried to stone her to death, but they kept bouncing off and our arms got tired.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
Does the US government also attempt to help circumvent other countries' internet censorship laws, such as, say, those of certain Western European countries? Or is it just the countries we're not quite married to (yet)?
The article links to the word list.
Blocking sites with "asian" in it must really help out those poor Chinese..
Errr... actually, that's really interesting... I had a chinese girlfriend recently, heh, and the interesting thing is that, while it's not talked about and theres the whole "it'll bring shame on the family if anyone knew" thing... it still happens. The culture is very averse to talking about sex, but whatever happens behind closed doors... You are right, though, it's not *quite* as rosy as I first stated.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Yes, but my personal observation is that, unlike in the movies, when stupid people try to do evil they cause even more trouble for us than they'd actually intended, without even getting what they want, rendering the whole exercise pointless for everybody.
Which is what makes it stupid.
KFG
Really, who cares what a person's sexual orientation is.
I'm in my forties and it dawned on me a long time ago that gay people aren't fundamentally different than straight people. Its your uncomfortableness with the situation that's the problem, not the sexual orientation of who you're dealing with.
I've heard all the nonsense about how gays destroy the "esprit de corp". What utter utter crap.
Live and let live. And if the guy next to you is attracted to guys, what do you care?
There's a simple solution for people who sue because they did something a toddler should be expected to be smart enough not to do and it bit them:
They have admitted in open court that they are unable to take care of themselves or handle adult responsibilities. Therefore, they should be put in a home, and any money they collected from that lawsuit should be turned over to the home to pay for their lifetime care.
This would not only solve the problem of frivolous lawsuits and the quest for deep pockets, but it would also help the employment situation by removing these people from the job market and creating jobs for people to take care of them. After all, someone who doesn't know that coffee is hot can't even be trusted to feed themself, or to eat anything that they might choke on, so there will be a need for caretakers to feed them their pureed food blend, help them go potty, and tend to them at all times.
If they want to block porn and save bandwidth, all they need do is not serve images.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The failure here was not in neglecting to install a monitoring/blocking system, but to take proper action upon notification.
Read: her supervisor who refused to ask the employees to remove the pictures
Employees were posting pictures, and the employer didn't make them stop nor offer disciplinary measures. I wouldn't expect to get away with pr0n at work, and I'd definately expect to be disciplined (perhaps fired) if I tried to. It appears that both the other employees and the employer were definately at fault - but not for lack of filtering.