DoJ Following Porn Blocker Advances?

GreedyCapitalist writes "A new filter called iShield is able to recognize porn images based on the content of the image (other filters look at URLs and text) and according to PC Magazine, it is very effective. The next generation will probably be even better -- which highlights the retarding effect regulation has on technological progress - if we relied solely on government to ban 'inappropriate' content from the web, we'd never know what solutions the market might come up with. Will the DOJ (which argues that porn filters don't work) take note of filtering innovation or continue its quest for censorship?"

Comments

Screaming so loud we can't hear you anymore

[BadAnalogyGuy]

There is no mention of the DOJ anywhere in the articles you posted.

But according to the article, it works well and doesn't filter out health-related websites. It also doesn't work for black and white images, but the majority of online porn isn't b&w. Or so I've heard.

Errors abound

[michaelhood]

FTA: And we found that some oddly innocent images--in particular, "head shots" of pumpkins from last Halloween--were blocked. But overall, of blocking the images you'd want blocked.

This thing won't be deployed en masse with problems like that.. it quickly becomes uneconomical for admins to be whitelisting pictures of pumpkins.

Re:What Is The Story here?

[Spacejock]

I think they're just reasoning that when there's a market, private enterprise will always get in before government. Instead of demanding the government DO something about internet porn, parents can now spend a few bucks and do something themselves.
On a related topic, I'm still amazed that introducing a .xxx domain for porn is considered a violation of free speech/human rights/whatever. Speaking for a local primary school whose web filters I maintain, just get on with it so we can fence of that part of the web. Please. Right now the filters we're using are so restrictive they block a lot of useful sites. Yes, I whitelist them as required, but it's still a PITA.

Re:False Positives

[anthony_dipierro]

This won't go anywhere for a long time, until image recognition technology catches up.

Even then, one person's "porn" is another's "art". Even a human can't correctly distinguish offensive vs. non-offensive content with all that much accuracy. (This is besides the fact that around the same time as image recognition technology catches up computers will have overtaken the world and we'll be following their rules rather than our own.)

Not many of you...

[hdparm]

...know about what happened to Bryce Coad of Zombie Linux, almost 4 years ago. Wheteher his explanation was in fact true, I don't know. But obviously, some people have thought about this long time ago.

Re:What Is The Story here?

[Zenaku]

Every time I read about the possible .xxx domain, it seems like everyone is asking how it would be enforced, and that seems to my like a non-issue. Who says it has to be enforced? Let it be voluntary! The sites that choose to use it get plenty of benfits for doing so -- they are shielded from harrassment and lawsuits about the "obscenity" standards in various locations, they can reach more of their target audience because search engines that target exclusively that domain will likely form to capitalize on it, and so on.

It's not like they would have a lot to gain by remaining in .com (or other TLDs). It's not like they desperately want to reach underage kids at the library, pimply teenage boys searching for the free preview pages -- there's no money in them.

Even if only half of the porn sites on the net opt into the .xxx domain, schools and parents can now filter out half of the stuff flawlessly. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

So, please, enough about "who is going to enforce it?" The only real question is whether xxx should exist as a TLD at all, and I can't think of any good reason why it shouldn't.