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Censorware Not Good, Just Better Than COPA
The thrust of the judge's findings about blocking software was that it blocks a high proportion of pornography, blocks a low proportion of non-pornographic Web sites, and that it is difficult for most kids get around. I think that these conclusions are correct for the purpose of the decision he was making -- in other words, blocking software blocks a high proportion of pornography compared to the law in question, and is difficult to get around compared to the law in question. But let's not get carried away -- blocking software is not that accurate, and not that hard to defeat.
Consider first the accuracy rates cited by the judge. Citing expert witness reports, he wrote, "I find that filters generally block about 95% of sexually explicit material", and then quoted several different rates for overblocking provided by expert witness reports, ranging from about 4% to 11%. I wrote earlier about the different ways to interpret overblocking error rates -- the gist was that if you care about the constitutional issues with filter use, then you look at the percentage of blocked sites that are non-pornographic (i.e. for every porn site that gets blocked, how many research sites get canned along with it), and that number tends to be high. On the other hand, if you simply care about the effectiveness of blocking software in a home setting where there is no constitutional issue raised, then you look at the percentage of non-pornographic sites that are blocked, and that number tends to be low.
For example, suppose for the sake of argument that 1% of Web sites in a given sample are sexually explicit, or 100 Web sites out of 10,000. To use Judge Reed's numbers, suppose that 95% of those porn sites, or exactly 95 in this sample, are blocked, whereas of the other 9,900 sites, 5%, or exactly 495 of them, are not blocked. Then the percentage of non-porn sites that are blocked is only 5%, but the percentage of blocked sites that are non-porn is actually 83% (495 blocked non-porn sites, out of a total of 495+95=590 blocked sites). One of our past studies of blocking software did indeed sometimes find error rates of about 80%, due to errors caused by IP address blocking and filters being tripped up by keywords (even when "keyword blocking" features were supposedly turned off -- because in that case the program still blocked sites on its master blacklist, and those blacklists are frequently built by scanning the Web for keywords).
Another portion of the judge's ruling dealt with the difficulty of getting around blocking software:
Filtering companies actively take steps to make sure that children are not able to come up with ways to circumvent their filters. Filtering companies monitor the Web to identify any methods for circumventing filters, and when such methods are found, the filtering companies respond by putting in extra protections in an attempt to make sure that those methods do not succeed with their products... It is difficult for children to circumvent filters because of the technical ability and expertise necessary to do so by disabling the product on the actual computer or by accessing the Web through a proxy or intermediary computer and successfully avoiding a filter on the minor's computer... Accessing the Web through a proxy or intermediary computer will not enable a minor to avoid a filtering product that analyzes the content of the Web page requested, in addition to where the page is coming from. Any product that contains a real-time, dynamic filtering component cannot be avoided by use of a proxy, whether the filter is located on the network or on the user's computer.After the ruling came out, I tried some of the best-known blocking software programs to see how easily they could be defeated: Net Nanny, SurfControl, CyberSitter, and AOL Parental Controls. Net Nanny and SurfControl apparently could not block https:// sites at all, so I was able to get to https://www.StupidCensorship.com/ and access anything I wanted from there, despite the fact that that site had been public for over a year. Apparently I do have the "technical ability and expertise necessary" to "access the Web through a proxy", but then again I'm not a minor, so, kids, don't hurt yourself trying that.
CyberSitter did intercept the https:// request so it did block StupidCensorship.com, but it didn't know about some of the other proxy sites that we had mailed out to our users recently. One of those did however get blocked because the word "hacking" appeared on the page -- as in,
This site is a tool for circumventing Internet censorship to promote free speech. It does not enable any hacking, cracking or any illegal activities (since it doesn't let you to access any sites that you couldn't access from home anyway).so it's probably safe to say that if the CyberSitter filter is that paranoid, it would result in a good deal of overblocking as well. AOL Parental Controls also did not block the latest proxies, although it wouldn't let me load sites like Playboy through the proxy, presumably because it recognized the contents of the page and blocked it (so on that point, Judge Reed was right).
But none of the products could stop the doomsday weapon, which is to burn an Ubuntu Linux CD and boot from that, bypassing any security software installed under Windows. I can see your eyes glazing over at the thought of kids attempting to do that, but it's merely an unfamiliar process to most people, not actually difficult. (I've been saying for years, that with the greater difficulty of using Linux over Windows, there's nothing cool or clever about running it just for its own sake so you can feel badass, and the only time you need it is if you want to do something that only Linux lets you do. Well, here's something!)
But in spite of everything, I think the judge's conclusions about blocking software were still broadly correct, because he was comparing the merits of blocking software against the merits of a law that would have prohibited commercial pornography from being published on the Web in the United States. In talking about the "effectiveness" of such a law, the judge and lawyers cited the fact that as many as 75% of adult sites were hosted overseas anyway. But even that high number understates the situation, because hypothetically if all the porn on the Web in the U.S. did get outlawed, it would be easy for anyone to spend all their time looking at porn from outside the country. When you're talking about a supply of content that is so large that nobody could finish looking at it all if they spent the rest of their life trying, it doesn't really matter if 25% or 50% or 75% is located within your legal jurisdiction. I never stop hoping that a judge will say, "Look, pictures of naked people don't hurt anyone, no, not even people under 18. Shoot, when I was 13 and president of Future Lawyers of America, my friend gave me a copy of Playboy as a down payment for my unsuccessful attempts to defend him on curfew-breaking charges in Foot v. Ass, and look how I turned out." But even a judge who firmly believed that people under 18 were harmed by pornographic images, would have found little reason to uphold this law.
But none of the products could stop the doomsday weapon, which is to burn an Ubuntu Linux CD and boot from that, bypassing any security software installed under Windows.
But if you're really that afraid of your kids, you can stop that for free, right? Just password your BIOS setup at boot and disable boot from cd/disk. Then, later, if you need to boot from CD/disk for some reason, you have the password to re-enable it.
Wouldn't that fix the issue?
Citing expert witness reports, he wrote, "I find that filters generally block about 95% of sexually explicit material"
He doesn't get the driving force behind the people who want these sort of laws. They don't want to reduce the SEM their children see, they want to eliminate it completely and will never be happy otherwise. Which shows just how far out there they really are. You can't uninvent things.
If I (or parents of kids, respectively) get to decide what I (or said kids) get to see, it's a good thing.
If the state dictates what you may see and what you may not, it's not.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
None of this will even come close to keeping children from looking at porn. How many of us here had never seen pictures of naked people before we got on the web? It's ridiculous farce to act as if blocking pornographic images on computers will have any real effect on the access to porn that children have. It won't even stop them from seeing porn from the internet, as long as they know someone who will download it for them for a dollar.
Yes, I thought the two judgements that day dovetailed nicely.
The basic point is (to steal someone else's example): a parent should no more feel it is right to let their child roam unsupervised on the Net then let them roam unsupervised in any major city in the world. It is up to the PARENT and not the INFRASTRUCTURE to ensure their own child's safety, regardless of anyone's view of the morals/ethics/etc of porn and other 'unwanted' content.
The Net was never devised to be an extension of child-safe Disneyland and should not be subverted to be one. Why should I be blocked from reading papers on X-Ray Crystalography because of some hamfisted filtering built deep into a Tier-1's manditory COPA mechanism? Especially if neither I nor the benign site in question are in the US.
Please note, US lawmakers, that quite a lot of the world and the Net *is* outside the US, BTW.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
- As you point out the figures are 'finger in the air' stuff
- How do you define pornography. Like art, I cannot, but I know it when I see it.
But I think the judges point is still valid. Parent installed filters do a better job than the alternatives and avoid constitutional free speach issues - well, maybe I'd better discuss that last point with my teenage son!init 11 - for when you need that edge.
I don't understand why people act like censorware's mere existence is a bad thing. It is a good way for people to police themselves, which is how most enforcement of morality should be. When I have kids, I plan to use it. I also plan to teach them, especially my sons, about the dangers that come with it so that they know that it's worse than they suspect. To be honest, as a Christian, I'd far rather walk in on my kids getting wasted or stoned, and I say that as someone who comes from a line of alcoholics.
What is needed is a comprehensive, open source filtering system that requires you to contribute without any anonymity. Imagine something like the Wikipedia for filtering, but you have to mail a copy of your identifying information, and contribute under your real name to control trolling. That, and a multi-tiered categorization scheme to capture such nuance as "bland, risque, sexy, NSFW--ever!! and Possibly Illegal porn." Oversimplification perhaps, but just a thought. I think a great filtering system could be built if it were done in public, with transparency and room for people to configure it to their moral views.
Indeed I can. He'd go "eewwwkkk! yuck! See how big that one is? And with a donkey? Awsome!
I hate to tell you this, but that won't be the first porn that 8-year old have seen. And anyway, there is little evidence that porn is really more damaging for kids than e.g. the Bratz dolls. (Forgive me if that fad has already passed away, feel free to replace with the new equivalent :) )
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Youth are not animals. You aren't some naive infant from 0-17 and then magically become a mature capable adult on your 18th birthday. Here in the state of IL, the age of consent is 17. So when you're 17, you can have sex with any 17 year old (and I believe 16 year olds too), as well as any adult. Since Laurence v. Texas, you can have any sort of consensual sex you want: orgies, anal/oral/vaginal, S&M, gay/straight/bi, roleplaying, and whatever else your perverted mind can dream up. A 17 year old could fuck your mom or grandma (if she's into it). A 17 year old can drive a car. A 17 year old can work full time. A 17 year old can buy a house, computer, and Internet connection (if he/she can somehow manage to get that kind of cash). Yet we need the state to make sure we use censorware to keep us from viewing breasts? Younger teenagers may have less legal rights than those who are nearly legal adults, but why should anyone be denied their free speech rights? Why should those who are sexually mature (and probably having sex), be denied the right to see representations of sexual activity.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
trying to regulate morality. We know that .xxx won't work and kids being resourceful will find a way to get around most blocking software. Its time for parents to be responsible for their children, for them to teach children that they are responsible for their own actions, that society has a set of morals that, for sometimes mind-boggling reasons, we abide by at least in public.
The porn industry is willing to let you block their sites via a tag or two. Blocking software will protect small children when you turn your back to clean the kitchen. Blocking systems would have protected the teacher.
There are many ways to attack this problem, none of them are a silver bullet. The one thing that cannot and should not be regulated is the parents responsibility to protect their own children. It's a big wide nasty world out there. Children will find out about it sooner or later, they can't be protected from it forever.
There is needs for solutions that protect public library systems, solutions that protect work systems, solutions that protect home systems. Even if all these are 100% effective little johnny might still get porn over at his friend's house. Nothing is foolproof and we should not be trying to legislate something to be foolproof or to assign blame when it isn't.
PARENTS need to be paranoid, not just blocking software packages. They should use all that they deem necessary to protect their kids, not what the court deems necessary. The best way to protect them from porn is to educate them, use blocking software, talk to them, use filters, educate them, and did I mention that parents need to talk to and educate their own children rather than rely on t he court to do it for them?
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