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

Let me guess:

[squidinkcalligraphy]

Port number 69?

Re:Let me guess:

[Stephen Williams]

According to the /etc/services file on my box, 69/udp is already taken by tftp, though there's no reason why 69/tcp couldn't be assigned to www-pr0n or whatever.

The same /etc/services file indicates that port 30 is unassigned for both tcp and udp; that'd be my pick, as it's XXX in Roman numerals.

-Stephen

Re:Let me guess:

[squoozer]

Or possibly 88 (two fat ladies) for those who like that sort of thing.

oooh, that was so non-PC on soooo many levels.

Re:Let me guess:

[SatanicPuppy]

The whole thing is stupid on the face of it. I'd love to use BT at work, but I can't because we block every port except 21,22,25,80, and 443. There are a few exceptions, but they're all NAT'ed to specific internal IPs, and there is a mountain of paperwork on top of each one.

I'm sure most business networks are the same. So it comes down to port 80, but there are a million ways to filter port 80. People have been making products to do that for years and years.

So whats the problem?

Re:Let me guess:

[Tobbe Starfield]

Scandinavian random facts: In Swedish, the word for both "six" and "sex" is the same: "sex". In Norwegian and Danish, "six" is "seks" and "sex" is "sex", so the spelling is different but the pronounciation is the same. Needless to say, these circumstances are an endless source of terrible puns in these languages.

Re:Let me guess:

[ZorinLynx]

Hmm, another case of trying to use legislation to solve a social non-problem. Good luck.

-Z

Re:Let me guess:

[jeremymiles]

For German/English speakers, possibly a worse pun:

Q: What comes between fear and sex?
A: Funf

(Vier, is four, funf is five, and sechs is six, in German. It works better if you are English and saying it to a German, because the pronunciation of sechs is more like Zeks. If you're English, it's more likely that you'd say it wrongly, and then the joke works.)

Re:Let me guess:

[Shakrai]

And anyway, since when is sex a bad thing? Did I miss a meeting? "Hey Bill, we had a vote, fucking's out."

Sex isn't a bad thing. But have you looked at some of the crap on the internet lately? Do you really want your teenagers first impression of sex to be some woman with six inch long nails taking it up two orifices while screaming "CUM INSIDE OF ME!!!"? I highly doubt that comes remotely close to an actual representation of sex for 99% of the population.

I'm about as Liberal as they come and I don't want my kids looking at shit like that. The difference between me and this asshole is that I don't think I need the Government to raise my kids for me. Involved parents should be able to know what their kids are doing online -- without the Governments help.

Re:Let me guess:

[FluffyWithTeeth]

Do you really want your teenagers first impression of sex to be some woman with six inch long nails taking it up two orifices while screaming "CUM INSIDE OF ME!!!"?

Lnk plz

Re:Let me guess:

[ak_hepcat]

Well, you could always talk to them about it. Let them know about the standard stuff. Let them know about the fun stuff. Let them know that there are other things that people do, that is particular to a small group of like-minded enthusiasts. "Hey, it might not be your cup of tea, but it's out there. Don't get too upset by it if it doesn't involve you, just quietly walk away from it. Or, heck, give it a try, and if you don't like it, you haven't lost anything, you've gained the knowledge and experience to be able to make an informed decision about _your_ likes and dislikes. Just don't use that to judge other people"

Oh, wait...Is that prosthyletising? I never know...

Re:Let me guess:

[fyngyrz]

Hmm. Limiting insidious influences to specific ports. Not a bad idea. Though I really don't think we want to do it to porn, as this could potentially do damage to a major part of the US's, even the world's, e-commerce base, not to mention ruin many people's lives.

Instead, I have a counter-proposal: let's put all the Internet web traffic from Utah on a specific port, say, port 1827. We can call it MINDER (Mormon Isolation Network Denial Enabling Restriction.)

We can follow up with the nationwide program ITSCRAP (Initiative To Stop Christian Religious Abusive Packets) on port 666.

Then, bring in the UN and implement the worldwide system SOMEQUIET (Shut Off Muslim Entreaties Queering Up Internet, Ethernet, and Telnet) on port 569, along with its sister program JUSTSHUTUP (Jewish Uploads Shunted To Some Handler Using TCP User Protection), using port 1000.

In this way, we can prevent superstition, arguably the most divisive and harmful force in our society and the world today, from causing harm to random readers who might stumble over it by accident. We must think of the children: Truly, is it fair to allow the superstitious to present stories with no evidence to impressionable kids, victims, really, undermining any tendencies towards logical and scientific thinking they might have? Of course not. We must proceed!

With religion throttled, we can turn our attention to the next most insidious problem facing the Internet with the new PINHEAD initiative: (Politician Interdiction Network Handler Ends Appalling Deceptions) on port 1600.

In this way, we can make the Internet safe for science, education, commerce, gaming, and of course, pornography, that most important segment of every young man's consumer role: Tissue purchasing.

I want to restrict things, too.

[Vengeance]

Unfortunately, what I want to restrict, in general, is the power of the people in charge... Political types just aren't very good at running things for anyone but themselves and their buddies. This is not a (particular) jibe at the Bush administration, just a general observation about the worst suck-ups on this planet, the politicians.

Re:I want to restrict things, too.

[squarooticus]

And yet, for some reason, whenever the people speak, they keep electing those who want to take more of our rights away in the name of protecting the children, or protecting the environment, or protecting old people, or protecting stupid people, etc. Will the balance ever shift in the other direction?

Re:I want to restrict things, too.

[jasen666]

Will the balance ever shift in the other direction?
What, you mean protect us from the children? Amen brother, those kids are ruining my porn experience.

Re:I want to restrict things, too.

[rundgren]

I consider myself the "political type," yet I agree that politicians should have as little power as necessary to keep society safe. Especially here in Norway, with it's socialist traditions, most of the politicians should learn to let go of their power and give more power to the individual and the market.

But: unlike most people I don't think politicians are evil assholes, suck-ups or idiots. I think they have mostly good intentions, but often select the wrong solution - not because of evil intentions, but because of short-sightedness, lack of understanding of consequences, wrong priorites, lack of respect for the indidual's right to autonomy and so-on.

Bottom Line: The only way to improve politicians is to become one yourself.

Re:I want to restrict things, too.

[keraneuology]

The real problem is that everybody says that their senator/representative/president/mayor/governor is the single breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant cesspool of politics. Their elected is truly a member of the elect and if only he could call the shots then everything would be straightened out. This is why - despite an overwhelming disapproval of the electees by the electors - the same people get voted back in time and time again.

In another thread somebody was waxing long about how his electee was great and did this good and that good - in the form of sponsoring bills - without acknowledging all of the bad bills this guy had voted for. His initial support of the PATRIOT act (something that only the evil or the stupid would have voted for) was dismissed with "the guy made a mistake and shouldn't lose his job over it". THERE is the problem.

We need more elected like Cincinnatus - and fewer with the raw, naked ambition, powerlust and sense of entitlement as present in the families of Bush and Kennedy and, most recently, Hillary - aspiring to be the first woman to sleep her way into the oval office. (Let's face it... if she didn't put out for Billy all those years she wouldn't be a senator today - everything she is stems from her willingness to share the task of polishing Slick's Willie.)

Democrats seeks to appease the dead weight of the nation - and as such have direct financial and political incentive to make people as dependent on the government as possible. Let's face it: Dems directly and unashamedly benefit from having welfare rolls as large as possible and have zero incentive to shrink their guaranteed constituent base and every reason to make those numbers increase.

Republicans seek to appease those who actually make the economy work - at the expense of everybody else - and are, unfortunately, less interested in allowing everybody a fair chance to reach the top than maintaining the status quo.

As has been said, if you aren't a democrat at 20 you don't have a heart. If you aren't republican at 50 you don't have a brain.

Bottom line: I don't want to become a politician because I don't want to play in the mud with the swine. I don't think anybody can be a successful politician unless they are lying sell-outs willing to conduct interior visual inspections of their own colons on demand by a lobby rat for a special interest group. And I don't think the citizens want it any other way. Our last presidential election was, for all intents and purposes, split 50/50 between a liar and a ... well, between two liars. The only difference is that Kerry wanted to advance himself and King George II wanted to advance his friends. The citizenry bickered (and continues to whine) about how unfair the election was, how poor of a selection there was... but never called for the ouster of the chairs of the GOP/Dems who are responsible for putting these two twits on the ballot.

The nation sucks. The people don't want to do anything but whine about it. This is what they want. This is what they demand. This is what they deserve.

The port that will be used...

[quigonn]

The TCP port that will be used for it is obviously 69. Actually, this is a great help, as a simple "tcpdump -w pr0n.log 'port 69'" writes all the porn downloaded by your colleagues to a tcpdump file, from which all the video and image files could be extracted later.

People should learn

[whereizben]

That if your kids are doing it, a.) you might want to try getting more involved with them so they understand why you think porn is "evil" and b.) they may not actually be hurt by it, but who knows. As for the technological aspect, it is ridiculous, but people don't seem to understand these sort of things when they suggest them. Now whoever opposes it, even if on the basis of saying it won't be plausible, they will be "unpatriotic"!

Re:People should learn

[Anonymous Coward]

I was terribly damaged by porn when I was only 3. My father had a huge porn collection which unfortunately fell on top of me.

Re:People should learn

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is an unpopular opinion here, but I have to throw it out there anyhow.

I just got back from fixing parental controls on my Aunt's computer. Her 11 year old son managed to sneak his way past her parental controls and look at some pretty hard core pornography. Her son is a very good kid and raised well, but has the hormones of an 11 year old. He has to use the Internet for school, and also IMs his friends, and she was about 10 ft away in the next room when he was looking at the pictures. Basically, she was involved and he knew why porn was wrong, but no parent can be expected to watch every single click, nor should every parent be expected to be a computer security expert so her child can do school work.

As for b, let's consider the harm of porn to a developing boy. Said boy has unlimited access to pictures of men demeaning women, and learns at age 11 to treat women as sexual objects, there for his gratification. Though he's taught about monogamy being the norm, he frequently sees people engaged in acts that clearly aren't monogamous. Though he's taught that it would be worthwhile to wait for sex, he's inundated with pictures of people who are clearly not married and usually not using protection. On a mind that's in the process of learning right from wrong and the consequences of his actions, this all can make a negative impression.

Re:People should learn

[One Childish N00b]

Said boy has unlimited access to pictures of men demeaning women, and learns at age 11 to treat women as sexual objects, there for his gratification.

Unless this kid has been watching sado-masochist master-slave bondage hardcore, he hasnt seen anyone degraded - how is a woman degraded by having sex? how is the man less degraded than the woman? You're just going back to the rather medieval belief that women lie back and think about knitting and kittens while men ravish them - *women enjoy sex too*, and if getting paid for sex is exploitation, then the men are being just as exploited as the women - there are no passive performers in porn, the women are there by choice as well; If a girl watched porn (and trust me on this, a lot of them do), are they learning to 'treat men as sexual objects, there for their gratification'?

Please don't start on the 'pornography exploits women' bullshit, it's not true, and if you don't believe me, here's a BBC article about a (female) performer who agrees that if anyone's exploited in porn, it's the buyers.

Whatever your opinion on whether porn degrades or not, claiming one sex is more exploited than the other (unless you were talking about the nasty S&M stuff, but then even that has a *huge* niche of women dominating men) is an entirely unfounded suggestion rooted in the belief that women do not have sexuality or sex drive - if women want to get paid to have sex, and are paid handsomely for doing so on camera, precisely where is the exploitation occurring?

/feminist_rant

Re:People should learn

[Shakrai]

Unless this kid has been watching sado-masochist master-slave bondage hardcore, he hasnt seen anyone degraded - how is a woman degraded by having sex?

Do you seriously think that most porn comes even remotely close to a genuine display of loving sex between two consenting adults? Forget the hardcore stuff that no sane person would want their blank slate child seeing. Do you really think that even mainstream porn is an accurate depiction of sex?

I don't see porn as exploitation of the actors. If anything it's exploitation of the idiots who buy it. But that doesn't mean that I think it's good for my 11 year old to see. If he is curious and downloads a few pictures of naked chicks off Usenet then I'm not going to be too worried about it. If I find a DivX movie of some chick having sex with three guys who ejaculate on her face and then shit on her -- well, I'm going to have to have a talk with the boy ;)

Re:People should learn

[fyngyrz]

Do you seriously think that most porn comes even remotely close to a genuine display of loving sex between two consenting adults?

What does "love" have to do with it? Are you suggesting that all sexual behavior should involve love? I mean, if that's how you want to behave, why then I think that's how you should behave, but where do you get the idea that your prerequisite of love is something that should be enforced on the rest of humanity? Who died and left you arbiter of sexual correctness? The fact is, plenty of sexual behavior, mutually consenting, goes on that is just for the fun of it, and this has always been the case. If you want to teach your kid that "love" is required (thereby biasing him in such a way that he's going to have a heck of a lot less fun than my kids, for instance) that's certainly your right as a parent. Because you're the parent. Stop assuming you know what's best for other people's kids. You don't. Aside from that, you're not the parent of other people's kids. It is doubtful you know what is best for your own — you just have the power and authority to impose your will on them, that's all. You may be correct. But you may not. You do what you think is best; that's your right, mostly.

Do you really think that even mainstream porn is an accurate depiction of sex?

Some is, some isn't, but the key thing that kills your idea is that it varies by viewer, not by production. Personally, I make it a point to try lots of things I see in porn. My sweetheart encourages this behavior, it has benefited her in the obvious manner many times. We own plenty of toys, films, and in fact, we run a pretty cool online store that in its own humble way, encourages people to enjoy themselves.

If I find a DivX movie of some chick having sex with three guys who ejaculate on her face and then shit on her -- well, I'm going to have to have a talk with the boy ;)

So... you went from "Forget the hardcore stuff" to "shit on her"... apparently, you've got a little problem separating the idea of sexuality from that of dangerous behaviors. There's a reason we bury, flush and otherwise dispose of our solid waste products; They are uniformly dangerous. Urine, in a healthy person, is pretty sterile. Fecal matter is not. So what you're talking about here is general education, not unlike condom education, where certain behaviors carry risks. As a parent, it seems to me that your duty is to educate the kid(s) about what the risks are, what the preventative actions for those risks are, and they'll be able to draw decent conclusions from that information.

Aside from that, just as Hunt for Red October and Murder at 1600 were fantasies, so are all other movies with fictional plot lines. Unprotected sex in a movie is, you might want to point out, acting of an unprotected sex scene between individuals who are tested (weekly, I think, but at least monthly) for STDs, and you should probably be able to point out that the adult film community has an excellent record of avoiding STDs because of this testing and certification. The general public does not, and that is the difference between on screen unprotected sex and the same by the general public. Unprotected sex between two committed, tested, monogamous people is just fine by all rational metrics; prevention of unwanted children can be done (and should be done) by means other than condoms; condoms have a pretty poor record of preventing pregnancy. On the other hand, some condoms can be fun, now and then, if you know what you're doing. Just don't count on them to "protect" anyone. They slip off, they tear, they overflow, and they suffer damage when stored improperly (such as in a wallet, where many men often keep them.)

Qualifications

[NormalVisual]

Hmm - this wingnut used to be the CEO for The Canopy Group and is a major SCO stockholder? Yeah, he'll be the first guy I run to for tech advice....

Re:Qualifications

[bloodredsun]

Not just a major stockholder but Chairman of SCO. So he's the man that said "I agree we should sue...EVERYBODY!"

time and time again

[Loconut1389]

Time and time again we see that the courts and politics in general are just flat out not equipped to handle technical issues- then throw in people who don't know much about technology to begin with and you really have a problem.

I don't know if there is a solution but to wait long enough to get a techy judge in the supreme court (and lower courts hopefully), get techy guys in congress, etc.. Some how I don't think we'll live long enough.

One port to rule them all

[interiot]

It really is obvious, but one of the reasons this wouldn't work is that it would force all porn transports (HTTP, Usenet, FTP, Bittorrent, ...) to listen on the same port number. Yeah, it could probably be done if there's a truly dire need to do so (eg. on corporate firewalls, everything proxies over :80 these days), but it's almost certainly always a bad idea to do.

This is a non-starter.

[TripMaster Monkey]

This idea is doomed for the same reason that the .xxx top-level domain was...namely, because setting aside a resource for pr0n is tantamount to condoning it on some level, and if Bush and his cronies want to continue to enjoy the backing of the fundies, they can't be percieved as giving adult content on the internet any legitimacy at all.

Re:this port

[vidnet]

6660 is unassigned but in a range commonly used for IRC.

Porn in other words.

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...

Here's an even better suggestion:

[Ihlosi]

Just block every port that could possibly be suspected to be used to transfer p0rn, i.e. 0-65535. You know, just like with terrorists ? Just being a suspect is proof enough.

Then your computer and kids will be safe from p0rn from the Internet

utah and the internet

[romit_icarus]

Utah Woman Deletes the Internet! By Tom 7 (Dissociated Press) REDMOND: Millions of frustrated calls rushed into internet service providers this past thursday as "The Information Superhighway" was reported Missing In Action for several days. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) traced the problem to a home in Utah where Doris Packuko resides. She was allegedly found "hysterical and crying", police say. "That much information flowing through the phone lines all at once generates a lot of heat," Doug Wernicke of the IETF told us, "We just followed the smell of burning fiber optics." "Apparently, she just deleted The Internet right off her desktop. Even after being warned, 'are you sure you want to delete The Internet?', she persisted." Experts claim that this is a major problem with The Information Superhighway, perhaps even worse than animal pornography. "The Internet is a great cooperative work, built by millions of people. It is so unfortunate that it can be ruined by just one person. Thank God we were able to save it," commented Packuko's neighbor. The IETF was able to recover most of The Internet by opening up Packuko's Recycle Bin and dragging The Internet back onto the desktop. The rest was restored from the master backup copy kept on Zip Disk in the pentagon. Puckuko claims ignorance was the cause of her act. "I just didn't know. I was trying to clean up my desktop and I deleted it. I ... I just didn't realize." Microsoft Corporation reports that they are currently working on a bug fix.

Re:utah and the internet

[S714726]

It's always wonderful when someone rips a web page in its entirety without citing any source. The first result from a Google search for the quote can be found here; this page credits a no-longer-existent page.

The better answer...

[jonwil]

Is to implement a special top-level-domain for porn, something like the .xxx domain that was proposed (and rejected IIRC).

That would have almost no technical issues and be just as easy to block as this braindead proposal.

Might I suggest port 80/http?

[MadFarmAnimalz]

Everyone okay with that?

Wow!

[kamapuaa]

So to sum it up: A Utah businessman nobody cares about plans on asking politicians to implement an unworkable idea. This wouldn't make page 9 of a high-school newspaper, what's it doing on Slashdot?

Why it wouldn't work

[Anita Coney]

The first problem: What's porn? The second problem: Who decides what's porn? The third problem: Who enforces it?

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.

What about other content?

[Rob Kaper]

There are only 61538 ports. That's barely enough to categorise my personal fetishes, let alone everyone else's. Where on earth are we going to leave all the other content?

Gives whole new meanings to the phrases...

[ettlz]

.."port knocking" and "port sniffing".

Re:Gives whole new meanings to the phrases...

[ettlz]

ooooooooh! I just pinged myself!

Try finger instead.

Great US exports

[melonman]

International adult sites not subject to US laws

True, but just getting US-generated and US-hosted porn under control, as well as porn passing through US-owned ISPs, would account for quite a lot of sites, and an awful lot of the sites that tend to pop up in Google. America is regularly cited as one of the obstacles to dealing with Internet porn - if it took any steps, however technically incompetent, to address the issue, it would make an enormous difference.

I realise that restricting access to porn may not be a subject dear to the heart of all /.ers, but I have the impression that most of the rest of this thread is going to boil down to "no-one can do a thing about porn, la la la la I can't hear you", when the reality is that a lot of people around the world would like to see the present situation changed, and, one way or another, sooner or later, that will result in legislation. And if a solution is finally imposed, it may well turn out to be as draconian as the French government's anti-nazi legislation, which has been successfully imposed on Yahoo.

Logic?

[Shoten]

I particularly love the notion that they have that, by sequestering porn off to its own ports, they'll manage to avoid the risk of infringement of First Amendment rights that has come with things like the CDA. But I guess they really aren't thinking about WHO will decide what is and isn't porn, are they? :)

Re:Front-page worthy?

[confusion here]

At least it's not a dupe... yet.

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:I would actually prefer a solution like this

[TheRaven64]

But who decides what is pornography? Is a site about breast cancer? What about a movie web site for an 18 rated film? How about an anti-abortion site? How about some of the latest RIAA-sponsored acts who seem to sell more on sex appeal than musical talent? How about any picture of a woman exposing any skin at all, and not wearing traditional muslim dress?

If you want to make the web safe for impressionable people, then create a .kids domain that is heavily censored (expensive to register a subdomain, money goes to policing it) and only allow children who are likely to be traumatised by seeing sex / violence / social commentary / intelligent conversation / whatever to browse that, at their parents discression.

Feel free to moderate this redundant, since exactly the same point was raised in all of the articles about the .xxx domain.

The xxx tld

[MobyDisk]

The xxx tld was a better idea. Is the urban legend that it was struck down by the US conservative Christian right correct, or Slashdot propoganda? Even if this were possible, it would probably don the same fate.

Re:The xxx tld

[Snowhare]

Not an urban legend: Concerned Women for America - Tell Department of Commerce to Nix .XXX Domain. It's the old "You can't give it legal recognition because that would imply approval of it." You see the same behavior from the Christian Right regarding condom distribution, sex education, needle exchange programs, anti-homophobia campaigns and any other thing they view as 'enabling sin'.

Change is in the wind

[selil]

What a boon if done. Think about it! Law enforcement would only have to monitor one port for specific traffic. If you were caught off port then you are already breaking the laws. Not only would companies be able to filter, but ISP's would be able to charge extra for Porn Ports. YOu want this access to this content and wham! it's an extra $19.95. Don't believe it? What about comcastic locking down port 25? NNTP dying on the vine just add Porn Ports? Are we going to need specific Porn Browsers? AOL will be able to charge extra for adult access. This has all the novelty of another idealogues attempt to protect the wayward from themselves.

Tell me again why the US should run the net?

[Snowhare]

Something about other governments wanting to impose censorship on the net?

Oh, you meant evil censorship of things the US government approves of rather than good censorship of things it disapproves of....

Hard Core

[daveewart]

From TFA: "we are all hard-core technology businessmen".

How appropriate.

It seems to me that ...

[hummassa]

you even did not see the dept. this article comes from ("the i-can't-define-pr0n-but-i-know-it-when-i-see-it dept.") There IS NO Porn. A breast cancer site shows women (some of them beautiful) touching and massaging their own boobs. Is a Victoria's Secret catalog porn? To prohibit something, you should be able to define it first.
One absurd example: my son, one year and a half ago (he was four) took all his clothes by the pool; my wife snapped a picture of him as he had done so. Some jurisdictions consider possessing a picture of a nude 4yo as child porn, with some stiff criminal penalties. Does this seem reasonable to you?

Utah and Internet filtering

[hotspotbloc]

Years ago I worked for the State group that provided Internet service and support to Utah's k-12 schools. Each district controlled what was filtered and we reviewed/added/deleted any requests. While most requests were to block real porn sites other requests for blocking included sites including and like: now.org, mtv.com and the SI swimsuit issue.

The controlling interest in Utah will not be happy and will not stop until the State is blocked off with something like the Great Firewall of China. Look at who owns the newspaper in question. The Internet and it's ability to encourage people to be challenged by new ideas is not compatible with their interests. While the call is to stop "porn" now, we all know it's the first step down a slippery path.

Personally I think Zappa gives the best advice here:

From "The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing":

Those Jesus Freaks
Well, they're friendly but
The shit they believe
Has got their minds all shut
An' they don't even care
When the church takes a cut
Ain't it bleak when you got so much nothin'

[...]

Do what you wanna
Do what you will
Just don't mess up
Your neighbor's thrill
'N when you pay the bill
Kindly leave a little tip
And help the next poor sucker
On his one way trip. . .
SOME TAKE THE BIBLE. . .
(Aw gimme a half a dozen for the hotel room!)

Metatags

[jbeaupre]

It's not just porn that needs filtering. Ever do research on Google and have to wade through tons of irrelelivant hits? I honestly think Google could improve searching and help people self select content in one stroke. A quick metatag, or equivalent, that encodes subject type and maturity level would be happily picked up by web designers ... if it helps drive traffic. And it could. If Google had an option that let you say "I want to limit to X" then those people who are promoting "X" will be highly motivated to include that tag on their page. The tag couldn't be used for multiple subjects, or it would act as a key word search again. But if I could say "I'm looking for an ACADEMIC ABSTRACT" then I won't find porn, commerical sites, or little Susy's musings. I'll find abstracts. On the flip side, a browser filter that people can self select to avoid certain types of content based on the tags isn't censorship. It's personal choice.

Technically bad.

[eyeball]

That's such a terrible implementation. It should be incorporated into the OSI model:

• 8 - Application
  
• 7 - Presentation
  
• 6 - Moral Control Protocol
  
• 5 - Session
  
• 4 - Transport
  
• 3 - Network
  
• 2 - Data Link
  
• 1 - Physical

(BTW, I'm joking)

Cleanliness starts at home, Mr. Manning

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

No matter what Web site children are visiting, Internet pornography is just one click away, Manning said.

Perhaps Mr. Manning should start by cleaning up his collection of bookmarks.

Because except for them, I can't really see how you can get from anywhere on disney.com to a porn site in a single click.

More perspective

[scoove]

I just read through CP80's "technical briefing" which I'd strongly recommend /. readers review (it's located at: http://www.cp80.org/solutions/ ). Treating the matter seriously (which isn't easy), there are a few observations:

Viability: CP80 isn't. When you misunderstand the very basics of the subject material from the start (such as this nonsense: "Ports & Protocols = Internet Channels")a few minutes with RFC 1700 would be a good start for CP80's technical advisors, if they have any). Consider the following CP80 quote:

There are over 65,000 Internet channels available on the Internet today. These channels are already used to categorize content and services.

No they're not. They're used to correspond to applications that operate at a known port. This is much lower in the OSI model, where content filtering typically requires application awareness (OSI layer 7).

ISP Administration: CP80 wants ISPs to offer you channels (as if the believe ISPs create the content, which you'd have to do in order to control the content at the appropriate layers), presumably 80 & 443 for "clean content", perhaps 81/444 for rated PG (sorry hosts2 nameserver and snpp), 82/446 for R and 83/447 for X (working around microsoft-ds at 445 for the moment). Should we go down this path, this probably will be the necessary incentive for providers to move residential broadband completely to an opt-in protocol/port model and quit blocking ports. We'll just enable the few basics - your "web channels" (ugh), a mail channel that only goes to us and perhaps a couple of others necessary for audio/video streaming and such. We'll push all through proxies to make sure you're not tunneling something other than the desired protocol (and still, there will be ways around this). It's a radical departure at significant expense and unfortunately doesn't quite work (as most things that ignore Internet architecture do). Coordination between all ISPs, NSPs, OS and software vendors, standards bodies and content providers would be rather necessary and mandatory.

There /is/ a potential solution that addresses the unlikely mandatory compliance aspect and approaches the content filtering on an optional basis (usable for those that wish to integrate it) and I'll post and draft it out this morning so there's evidence of prior art (we know how the SCOG folks have a difficult time understanding how intellectual property works). I'd be willing to push it further into a public commons patent application e.g. under ODSL's patent commons (just so CP80 doesn't make the same mistake SCOG did by thinking they owned other people's IP and get congressional support behind misappropriated property).

An effective approach is to use a shim protocol, similar to how MPLS is implemented (and wedged), that would insert a content header immediately ahead of the IP datagram. The datagram would specify content settings and either be processed by equipment (CPE, firewalls, routers, PCs, etc.) that are Content-Shim aware or ignored by those that aren't. Service providers could implement it and push administration of the filtering to the end-user (though this assumes content providers are using the shim protocol as well as they push out traffic). Done at this level, it is independent of port management issues and other unworkable nonsense.

Contact me if you'd like to work on a content shim on sourceforge with the prototype code under GPL and intellectual property donated to ODSL patent commons.

*scoove*
(scoove-at-yahoo.com)

Why not offer free blacklists?

[flashingcurser]

I'm currently getting ready to set up a squid proxy/content filter for a local boys and girls club. The lab has 30-40 kids ranging from 6-10 years old with only one instructer... huge liability. The thing that strikes me as wierd is that the internet is full of FREE porn, but good porn blacklists cost big bucks (well for a small town boys&girls club anyway). Most offer "grey lists" and age appropriate lists. If these politicians really want to help they would hire a good blacklisting company to provide these lists for free. Then there would be no major change in the internet and people who need to do some filtering (like childrens charities) could choose to use the filtering. dan