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SCO Chair's Anti-Porn Act Advances In Utah
iptables -A FORWARD writes "Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. of Utah reportedly plans to sign a resolution urging Congress to enact the Internet Community Ports Act. The ICPA proposes that online content be divided by port, rather like TVs have channels with adult and family content, so that certain internet ports will be 'clean' — so-called Community Ports — and others will be 'dirty.' Thus, they hope to remove objectionable content from port 80 and require that it be moved elsewhere (port 666 was already taken by Doom, sorry), so that people could more easily block objectionable content, or have their ISPs do the blocking for them. This concept is being pushed by the CP80 group, which is chaired by Ralph Yarro, who also chairs the SCO Group. That probably explains why they didn't choose to adopt RFC 3514, instead."
.. when I say, You have got to be FREAKING KIDDING ME.
What makes this approach that much different from using the .XXX top-level? That's just as easily blocked, and easily passable (ssh or proxy)
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
I think we can all agree that the only reaction this requires is a hearty "STFU".
Leaving alone the obvious impracticality of implementation and enforcement (ask Australia about that), this moron thinks that he can legislate morality.
My morality doesn't agree with his. I resent having moral decisions made for me, and I bet the majority of Americans feel the same way. If I want to look at porn, I should be able to look at porn. If someone else doesn't want to look at porn, they don't have to. What exactly is the problem here that requires legislative intervention?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
And what's to stop porn site from simply relocating to another country and ignoring this law completely?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The big deal is that it will be a government mandate. Toys 'r' Us is a toy store. It's self-governed business knows that porn doesn't belong there so it's not there. I bet you also won't find bongs, industrial chemicals, fresh fruit, bags of concrete, and document safes in there, either.
In you installing a filter on your home network, you're taking some pro-active steps. That's good. Companies that make filters are always improving them so your job becomes less difficult. That's good, too. And neither of those things required laws to be written.
Maybe the real lesson is that people who make content filtering software should lobby the legislature like other companies do.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Sure, you could send your kid into Toys backwards-"R" Us alone without him finding porn (although if your kid is very young you should be going into the damn store with him,) but can you say the same of the Library of Congress? They have naughty books there. The Internet is much more an all-encompassing library than it is a kiddie-friendly toy shop, and it is nobody's responsibility but yours to monitor what your kid does with it.
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This is not a technology problem. It is a problem of figuring out who gets to set the porn bit. Since the internet is international no one jurisdiction can assert authority. For your meatspace analogy, it would be like you lighting up a joint, and then telling the LA police to piss off because it is legal in Amsterdam.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Well, firstly, I would have to say I'm not a parent so I've not yet run into the problems you describe. But from my standpoint, I don't believe this will make filtering access any easier and it puts a significant workload on everyone else.
How do you characterize what is adult material and what isn't? Is that porn or is it art? I personally feel there is a difference - I know porn when I see it and I know art when I see it, but my standards aren't the same as everyone else. Lets assume there aren't going to be the inevitable court battles over "is it or isn't it" and I have complete dictatorial control over "is it or isn't it". Are you as a parent comfortable with me making those decisions for you? I view proposals like this as ways power is being taken out of you (the parents) hands and put in the hands of a less capable bureaucrat.
At the end of the day, it will still have to be up to you to make the decisions on what is or isn't appropriate for your children. And while I do feel that filtering software is a good tool (I use privoxy/squid to filter out malware on my own network), you will still have to sit and teach good browsing habits.
In meatspace, we already have constraints on distribution channels for so-called "adult" material. I can send my kid to Toys R Us and know that he won't find porn. (I think that there are lots of problems with the junk sold there, but porn is not one of them.)
You won't find much porn at www.toysrus.com either. AFAIK they don't sell "adult toys" at all.
Clearly it's not perfect, but if the majority of that content was segregated, then it would make filtering easier.
Making alcohol and cigarettes illegal for minors does not keep all kids from drinking and smoking, but it does keep lots of kids from doing things that can be harmful to them.
Moving most porn content to an easily identifiable place would help simplify filtering for those of us who want to filter. Perfect? No. Better than current state? Yes.
FWIW, my kids have never been to Toys R Us without me, and I do know exactly what they are doing on line. I love them, and it's my job to look out for them.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
1) Pass legislation to block evil pr0n from innocent kiddies by assigning it to a special port
2) Make it acceptable for an ISP to block an entire port,
3) Pass more legislation forcing some services onto certain ports (and allowing ownership of other ports (just like tv))
4) Buy up ports and force ISPs to pay to use those.
5) Both profit AND control of file sharing.
STOP THIS LAW!!!
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
it is very unlikely that any site would adopt such ideas as moving to a specific port or top level domain on a global scale, basically saying "Don't enter here".
Instead, it is more likely that businesses will adopt the reverse: Invent a means for sites to advertise that they are safe. A ".kids" top level domain would be much more effective than ".xxx", toy stores and other businesses targeting children would make sure to get their site up in that domain to reach their audience.
For the same reason, a technical mean for sites to optionally advertise the content rating should be considered. The current http header lets the client specify a string of preferred languages, this lets servers redirect a request to the best matching language, or accepted formats.
Similarly, one could add a header in the request accepted content classes. The response header should contain the actual classification returned. Servers not returning a classification should be treated as not-rated and may default to block or pass.
The neat thing about this is that search engines will also get the classification header and a search query can restrict to matching classification. This way children won't find undesired results. Also, it provides more granularity, individual URL's can be classified differently.
Of course, there are two problems:
- It can be spoofed - but question is if there is a business incentive to do so.
- Standardizing classification is very difficult, but at national level should be possible. The class codes could be prefixed by the national codes.
Many sites might just remain non-classified, but if schools and institutions say that they only allow classified content, organizations will adopt this to reach their audience. If laws are passed to hold organizations liable for spoofed classification (but not lack of classification) then this might actually work: Those who have a business incentive will get reliable classification and the rest will simply remain unclassified. And no one have to move their domain and reestablish their name.
Clearly unenforcable.
... and there's one in every port.
The average Internet surfer is like a dirty sailor, and pr*n is like a prostitute.