Slashdot Mirror
SCO Chairman Fights to Ban Open Wireless Networks
cachedout writes "SCO's Ralph Yarro had the floor yesterday at the Utah Technology Commission meeting in front of Utah lawmakers. Yarro proposed that free wireless sites and subscribers should be held responsible should any porn be delivered to minors because hotspots are apparently where kids go to watch porn all day long. Yarro told lawmakers that open wireless access points should be made a crime because we have an Internet out of control."
Thank you very much. He entered a search term that he couldn't recall Wednesday, although he said it "wasn't a real expressive sexual kind of word." And then, he said, he got caught up in a pornado -- sexually explicit pop-up windows took over his computer.
"I had this instant flash of pornographic trash on my computer that just started popping up," Brown said. "I could not turn it off. As fast as I would turn something off, something would pop on."
He had to turn off his computer to stop it, he said.
It could happen to anyone, said Sen. Scott Jenkins, R-Plain City.
"I've never opened a site in my life, but what pops up is unbelievable," he said. Jesus, install a popup blocker (or FireFox) you luddite bastard.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I don't think so.
Just about everyone here knows how those pop-ups happen. You're either at the site or you've been infected by some crap (most likely from going to one of those sites).
1-900 numbers! We have a telephone system that is out of control! Won't somebody think of the children!
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Are you suggesting that we tie the internet's tubes?
Yea, who the hell looks at porn all day long. If I look for more than about 15 minutes I suddenly lose interest and move on.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Then why click on the link to Nastyladies.com instead of sherwinwilliams.com ? Or perhaps "I Feel Lucky" doesn't mean what he thought it did ;)
;)
:( :)
Now wtf did that have to do with wireless again? or was it about Wii? or was it about cellphones? Bah i lost track
bummer, no mod points today
I suspect i get more than my share by NOT using them all
The net considers censorship as a defect.
The net was designed to route around defects.
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
Banning free access points because of the possibility of children looking at porn... Does this mean he's going to try to get all use of the Internet banned in the US? After all, you can look at porn with most any connection.
Why not just ban children next?
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Just a little FYI, I used to live down in Provo Utah and actually went to church every Sunday with Ralph Yarro. Crazy Mormon jokes aside (Ahhhh it's the suites and ties on bikes coming to convert us!!!!), Yarro lives in a complete dream-world. While I was attending BYU *gag*, his new start-up Think Atomic and the lobby group CP80 would constantly put full 2 page spreads in the student papers, asking students to lobby their congressmen to help stop internet pornography (using the technical solutions from Think Atomic of course). After talking with him at church about it all, I got the notion he's basically trying to create a virtual "xxx" domain type of filtering system (put all the porn in one place and we can then filter out that place if we choose).
Basically it goes something like, someone somewhere decides what sites are and aren't porn. Based on the tags they assign those sites, parents are able to block whatever they choose not to allow their children to view. The thing is, Yarro wants the government (eventually) to mandate that all internet sites use Think Atomic's ratings system and filtering setup.
How you mandate this kind of ratings system beyond U.S. borders is beyond me. I would assume that the majority of porn on the net comes from (or is at least hosted in) countries other than the U.S. (Russian spammers and their bot-nets?). Anyways, like I said Yarro is in a dream-world, SCO is in the death throws (next quarter expect the NASDAQ to de-list them as they've already filed for a reverse split a year or so ago), and Ralphie needs to realize that *PUBLIC* wi-fi spots are the last place teenagers wanna be looking at porn...
lol, if so, bravo. but seriously. So if I have a unsecured wireless access point in my home, and some 16 year old drives by with his little pda and it detects it, he comes back with his laptop and starts using it to look at porn, would I be held liable for that? That is complete crap that I could be held liable for SOMEONE ELSE. I think wireless hotspots should put up disclaimers that "the USER" will be held responsible for anything. Internet is not out of control, in fact, I'd say there is too much legislation on the Internet. More rights less government! lol
Support the source, Open Source! An entire site developed with OSS
> You misspelt "two".
You misspelled "misspelled".
My other car is first.
Utah Mormons form a tight cliche
You got the wording wrong, yet quite right.
Yes, there is a big cliché about Utah Mormons. And it would seem you've fallen into it.
Perhaps you did serve in Salt Lake, and perhaps you met some people that follow that trend. I can't deny it - I've met a few myself. But the willingness with which you blindly lump hundreds of thousands of people into such a small group is shocking to say the least.
I'm from Florida myself. Born and bred a southerner with no family ties to Utah and into a quasi-converted family. The first time I came to Utah was for the Missionary Training Center experience in Provo. I don't think that really counts, though, as once you're in you barely go outside for anything. I came back to Provo to attend BYU after two years slogging through the shanty towns around Buenos Aires, and in my last 4 years here in Utah I've found people of very diverse opinions, backgrounds, and ideas.
Then they would be forced to live with people who do not agree with them, and be able to expand there knowledge of the outside world.
Generally speaking, most times I've heard people say this, what they really mean is "I wish these people would think like I do." Well, I'm sorry you didn't find what you think you would here, but this is not so. It would seem you experienced time as a "minority" yourself, living with people who did not agree with you, and it didn't do you much good.
I'll agree that rural parts of Utah are fairly close minded. Yet as one who grew up in and around small towns in Florida and Alabama, I can honestly say that the people I've dealt with in small town Utah have been much more traveled and cultured. (I can't remember how many people asked me what language they speak in Argentina or, better yet, where in Africa Argentina was before I left from Florida. I've never heard those questions in Utah.) You can go to the middle of nowhere in Utah - Vernal, for example - walk into a ward meeting, and likely find people who have lived in and speak the language of dozens of foreign countries thanks to mission experience and are generally better educated than most rural populations. Not to say Utah is without its rednecks - it has its fair share - but you're painting the population with an awfully broad brush.
Utah has a lot of political problems. A lot of this has to do with the fact that there is little competition in Utah - the Democrats have situated themselves too far to the left to be seriously considered by many Utahns, and the simple fact is that a lot of Republican incumbents in office now needed to be ousted long, long ago. Similar patterns can be seen in other areas with little competition - Ted Stevens of Alaska would be a classic example. In cases like this, where little competition exists, you get bad laws from time to time, and more often than you would see otherwise.
I'd recommend giving Utah another chance. Move to an urban area for a few months and you'll see something different. I'm not going to lie - it's different than the rest of the U.S. But as a southerner, I felt different about the northeast as well during trips there.
Hi,
If I could just have a moment of your time, are you aware of all the dangers faced by children in society these days? Simple things like colds and scrapes and growing pains, to the frightening reality of paedophiles, child molesters, apathetic parents and abandonment, gangs and violent computer games and widespread pornography on the internet. Don't you think something needs to be done about it all?
I'm asking people to sign this petition I have here. I'm looking for signatures to convince the government to do something about all these problems once and for all. The solution is actually surprisingly simple, but our elected officials don't seem to have realised it, yet. All we have to do is ban children.
Yes, ban children. It's guaranteed to work! Wait, don't go! It'll really work! All you have to do is get rid of all these bloody kids and then you won't have to think of the children ever again, because there won't be any more children to think of! Isn't that wonderful?!
Oh shit, she's getting the cops! *runs*