Ports for Porn - Using Firewalls to Block Porn

vicpylon writes "A Utah businessman and his non-profit organization wants to limit pornography to certain ports in the TCP/IP protocol. He is literally suggesting legislatively restricting porn sites to certain ports, so that the "offensive" content is easier to block. This is not workable on so many levels that it is laughable. International adult sites not subject to US laws, proxy servers, enforcement issues all leap to my tired mind as major flaws in his plan. He is lobbying congress, so do not be surprised to see this discussed by some headline grabbing politico. "

Comments

I guess working with SCO caused his brain to rot

[vidarh]

The "business man" in question, Ralph Yarro, is the guy that used to run Canopy group (SCO's largest shareholder) until he was ousted after a battle with the Noorda family over control. Hardly the kind of guy you'd want involved in anything requiring a sliver of ethics...

UK Woman is trying to 'block' violent Porn sites

[joely]

There is currently a petition being driven by my local MP to try and ban 'violent pornographic websites' see BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4460828.stm[BBC News]. Whilst not directly related to this article it is an example of the general public thinking that something can actually be done about these things!

Whilst I have a lot of sympathy for Liz Longhurst who has lost her daughter I do wish that my MP and other MPs would spend 30mins talking to some IT guys to discover that this is an impossible task. Currently they must be wasting lots of time at the taxpayer's expense.

If anyone else in the UK feels the same as me then please use the http://www.writetothem.com/ Write-to-them website to get a message to your MP!

Re:Why it wouldn't work

[hey!]

Broadly, this is John Milton's argument against censorship in his famous essay Areopagitica.

It cannot be denied but that he who is made judge to sit upon the birth or death of books, whether they may be wafted into this world or not, had need to be a man above the common measure, both studious, learned, and judicious;
[...]
  If he be of such worth as behooves him, there cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing journey-work, a greater loss of time levied upon his head, than to be made the perpetual reader of unchosen books and pamphlets, ofttimes huge volumes.
[...]
  no man of worth, none that is not a plain unthrift of his own hours, is ever likely to succeed them, except he mean to put himself to the salary of a press corrector; we may easily foresee what kind of licensers we are to expect hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and remiss, or basely pecuniary.

In short:

1. Men worthy of the post of censor must be of uncommon virtue and character.
   
2. Such men will necessarily find wading through vulgar materials distasteful and will seek to vacate the post.
   
3. Therefore, ultimately the system must eventually employ the unvirtuous.
   

Milton was talking about theological writings here, but in this case the point is that the job of censor is a natural magnet for perverts. To this he adds a psychological argument about the way people use information:

To the pure, all things are pure; not only meats and drinks, but all kind of knowledge whether of good or evil; the knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and conscience be not defiled.

[..]
... best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to occasions of evil. Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate.

It may be that people have a set-point for titillation, the way some people think we have a set point for fat metabolism. To the Victorians, the sight of an ankle, or a woman in the very modest underclothese of the time, were no doubt as arousing as hard core porn is to modern Internet users. It may not be coincidental that prostitution was practiced on a scale never seen since.

Finally Milton makes another telling point about the legislation of morality:

If every action, which is good or evil in man at ripe years, were to be under pittance and prescription and compulsion, what were virtue but a name, what praise could be then due to well-doing, what gramercy to be sober, just, or continent? Many there be that complain of divine Providence for suffering Adam to transgress; foolish tongues! When God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force: God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes; herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue?

Enshrining values in law only makes them superfluous.