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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?"
Since it is so good identifing pr0n I can't wait to get my first pornbot with that function to find me some more.
I see nothing in this article that the DOJ is about to do anything. This is just a review of a a product that can block some images that would be useful for some families.
I don't understand why this summary has to bring the government into this or speculate that they might do something. There's no evidence of impending censorship, no political issues at work here. It's just a review of a product. Why does Zonk continually try to troll politics on slashdot? He's turning into worse than Michael ever did.
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.
So does it filter out Rubens
Would Michelangelo's David be filtered out
How about anatomy/autopsy pictures ?
I would RTFA but it is 404, perhaps my ISP filters out stories about filtering.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
which highlights the retarding effect regulation has on technological progress
In other news, today I successfully opened a can of Diet Coke -- which highlights the retarding effect regulation has on quenching thirst. Man, if I'd waited for the government to open that can for me, I'd still be thirsty now!
If only there were a more effective way to highlight the retarding effect that obsessing over the complete works of Ayn Rand has on independant thought...
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Can I run it backwards and filter out everything that isn't porn? I'd find that more .. useful.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
This thing will be ruined with false positives. Swimsuit photos, maybe pictures of animals (similar color tones), etc.
This won't go anywhere for a long time, until image recognition technology catches up.
I wonder how many hours the poor programers worked in order to test this thing :)
Looking for porn that the filter cant handle...
What those meetings must have looked like.
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.
$ ishield hello.jpg
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Nobody seems to be caring bout the 10^5 monkeys that check every image thus making the filter work... Poor perverted animals...
My 0.02 cents
I simply don't get it.
... and you fell for it.
First we shout the Govt. to get Off our backs on this issue, and when they actually fail to come up with any solutions (because we told them NOT to), we wham them for not guiding us/providing us with any solution.
You are failing to realize that the same person is not talking in both cases. Also, while Slashdot as a whole leans to the left, the same issue can have articles written by, and about people on, both sides. The only thing that is happening here is that someone thought a discussion about a software for image identification and its future impact on us would be a good thread, and here we are.
You tie both my hands behind my back, then you blame me for not shooting at the thief!
The fallacy lies in missing that the ties hands speaker is not the same speaker as the one doing the blaming.
Make more sense now?
~Rebecca
Is this cameltoe porn or is it only porn if you get exited watching it?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Manager: "All right team, looks like Joe has finally come up with a fast and fairly accurate algorithim to spot those dirty old pornographic images. We will need to test it a bit first, to see what the signal to noise ratio is. We will need some test groups, though."
"Yeah, sure bob, you can run the 'barely legal college girls' tests. Janet and Simone, you check the 'hot lesbian' batches. What? Sure Ramone, you can check the 'young gay studs' test. Now, who is going to run the 'goatse.cx' tests?"
"Guys....? Anyone?"
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Does it work on everyone's favorite image, hello.jpg?
A goatse reference that is helpful and useful? Inconceivable!
I would buy this software if it could filter me from seeing that ever again.(I jest, but only slightly)
~Rebecca
I've developed a simple algorithm for checking web pages for pornographic content. It is roughly 98% accurate when fed a random page from the 'net. Here's the code so far:
bool check_porn_content(const char *url)
{
(void)url;
return true;
}
Any suggestions for further development, or licensing queries, please let me know.
...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.
Your 6-year-old may mistype his favorite cartoon's URL and wind up at a porn site; a 16-year-old may reach the same site deliberately
Why should the sixteen year old be stopped from looking at porn? He's over the age of consent, what's wrong with letting him look at some naked women? He's probably thinking about sex all the time anyway, that's just what teenagers do.
Funny how they make very effective filters for pr0n, but violence is AOK.
You can bomb, shoot, maim every night on the nightly news, but God forbid you show a naked breast...people might be harmed!
There are hypocritical cultural 'norms' in the USA.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
There are two seperate and distinct "solutions" for people who have issues with porn. The first "solution" is government censorship of the inernet. The second "solution" involves local filtering installed by the computer owner, and there are at least two flavors of this "solution". There are bastard situations where various non-federal governments (including libraries) own the computer or the network which get REAL complicated. There are also situations where ISPs and networks censor access.
Government Censorship: There are wing nuts who want the US government to censor the internet, usually with cries of "think of the children" or "help fight terrorism". People who know how the internet works generally realize that this is a stupid "solution".
Local Filtering: There are several different way that this can be done and all of the currently available local filtering "solutions" have problems. TFA was about a new local filtering scheme, which COULD be better than the existing methods.
Local filtering vs. government censorship is, I think, where you see the contradiction. It really isn't a contradiction for people to say NO to government censorship (including local filtering in public libraries) and to also have some of the same people wanting the government to get involved in improving local filtering technologies.
If it wasn't for porn on the internet, war, gay marriage, and abortion; you couldn't get anybody to go to the polls.