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CP80's Cheryl Preston Suggests "CyberSecurity" Group At ICANN

Beezlebub33 writes "A new petition has been filed under the GSNO (Generic Names Supporting Organization) of ICANN to create a new constituency the CyberSafety Constituency. Existing constituencies include 'Commercial and Business,' 'gTLD,' 'Registrars,' 'Non-commercial,' etc. The new proposed one on CyberSafety is in the 'interest of balancing free speech and anonymity with the values of protection and safety in developing Internet policy within ICANN.' If that doesn't raise red flags all by itself, consider that the person submitting it is Cheryl B. Preston. She's listed in the petition with the organization Brigham Young University, but she's part of CP80. She's suggested limiting content on port 80 to the 'right' things, and other stuff can go on other ports, so it can be appropriately filtered by the authorities. Guess who gets to decide what goes on which ports?"

14 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Do it like this by tiger32kw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe they should split the ports and create Mormon internet and non-Mormon internet... we call port 80!

  2. I already added my response by rwwyatt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I already added my comments in an email response.

    • It is beyond the scope of ICANN's current mission to address any content
    • It will definitely fail to be all inclusives. Porn Sites do not want to risk selling to minors explicitly.
    • Online Safety is the responsibility of the user. In regards to Children, It is the responsibility of the parent
  3. Censorship. by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Censorship, no matter for what "righteous" purpose you might intend it, always, always, always, leads to tyranny.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    1. Re:Censorship. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Unfortunately, that is often considered to be one of its features, rather than its bugs...

  4. Interesting by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Meanwhile, Internet pornography metastasizes at an ever more alarming rate. Pornographers find ingenious ways to circumvent filters, attract new categories of viewers, and build economic and political support.

    I wonder why she threw that last bit in there.
    It suggests, to me, that her (organization's) larger goal is to neutralize the pornography industry, not just to limit it to adults.

    ... I propose using Internet port designations to separate online content. ... the right of parents to determine the means and materials by which their children are educated.

    The right of parents begins at the computer and ends at the modem.
    Clinton tried separating TV content with the V-Chip and it went absolutely no where.
    The fact that it is inconvienent for ignorant people to regulate their hardware is not a social problem.

    Fucking with the structure of the internet is not the right solution.

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  5. Honestly, I'm not threatened. by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It sounds scary, but I cannot for a moment believe that this could happen. I hate to drag in the old saw, but "the internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it."

    I also can't imagine that the rest of the world would appreciate that sort of thing. There'd be international pressure against it. And as I recall, the .xxx TLD issue was pretty close--ICANN really has no motivation to do anything like this, and it would be a move totally at odds with their history (and the principles of the internet in general).

    So we're giving time to some nutjob who hasn't got a prayer, and providing something for slashdotters to rant about...par for the course I guess.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:Honestly, I'm not threatened. by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So we're giving time to some nutjob who hasn't got a prayer, and providing something for slashdotters to rant about...par for the course I guess.

      If you do not aggressively confront and thwart social conservatives, they will keep beating their drums until a sympathetic ear catches the beat and starts dancing to their tune.

      Remember Janet Jackson and the Super Bowl? It took over 4 years (2/2004-6/2008) for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals to void the FCC's $500,000 fine. But in the meantime, other fines were handed out and networks self-censored. In other words, damage was done.

      Social conservatives keep demanding laws to regulate everyone because their usual tools of ostracism and shame are only effective within their own communities.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
  6. Alternative proposal by jmorris42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about a counter proposal. Leave port 80 just like it is. The people who want a 'cleaned kid friendly Internet' can establish an alternate port where such a thing would be delivered. Do it like this:

    Rule one: all servers running on this new port have to be doing https.

    Rule two: all certs will use an entirely new chain of trust established by the consortium doing this new safe net. They condition the server keys on a site obeying whatever content rules they put out, revoking the keys of sites who go rogue.

    Rule three: A mandatory set of tags describing the content on each page so parents can adjust their browser accordingly to their views. Such a system already exists in IE and could exist in others once someone actually began using the stuff. After all a browser update will probably be required to get the new root certs installed anyway.

    Then it is just a matter of blocking port 80 on kids computers. Best done at the AP/router.

    --
    Democrat delenda est
    1. Re:Alternative proposal by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And that is what the proposal would look like if it weren't actually a bad faith, weasel-worded attempt to control what everybody does on the internet...

    2. Re:Alternative proposal by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...Or how about ICANN and parents growing up and realizing a few things. A) Parents can control what sites their kids visit. B) Information is not "damaging", if a kid want to look up porn and they search for it, they obviously want to look at it and are much less the "innocent kids" then their parents think they are. C) It is not ICANN, the ISPs, or even the government to "patrol" what is online. The internet is honestly one of the few places where true capitalism and freedom is at work (despite efforts to prevent it), and just look at the growth in the last few years, a "closed garden" web like they are suggesting would not have hardly any of the growth the free web is experiencing now.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    3. Re:Alternative proposal by kimvette · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have an alternate idea: How about subscribing to a "child-safe" ISP which sanitizes your content for you? Sure, you will have to pay extra for the service, but it is YOU who want the censorship, not I. I'll take the bad with the good if it means that my liberty to choose to produce crud or good content remains intact.

      --
      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  7. Re:Obviously the pr0n port by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Funny

    should be 7878

    Why not 6969? It's the "KFC++ port" - "More than just finger-licking good!"

  8. Where do they find these people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've just gone through the CP80 explanations of how the internet works and how filtering does not work but should. "The CP80 Internet Channel Initiative is a solution that can effectively solve the Internet pornography problem." That's fantastic. Let's hear more about that. Oh, all content has to be categorized into adult content and "community" content, which can then only be served on port ranges assigned to the types of content. That'll work. And then we block IP ranges of countries which do not require their internet users to categorize content and abide by the port assignment rules. That'll work.

    How afraid can you be of your kids seeing naked people and still leave them unsupervised on the big bad internet, hoping that finally someone has found a working filtering solution when even a totalitarian country like China can't effectively censor the internet? At least the CP80 web site is 100% Flash and skips pages uncontrollably, so the chance of it reaching an audience is slim. Nutjobs.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion