They shouldn't have taken your computer if they had no evidence you were doing anything wrong with it. I would have had those people responsible disciplined. Though I suppose a lot of naive school kids would probably be raised to accept authority and just submit. It's one of the reasons the RIAA wants copyright protection enforcement taught to children in school.
I've read enough articles from reputable news sources about people claiming to be university trained computer experts saying some very ignorant and fallacious things to say that this story is definitely in the realm of probability. There are too many people in positions of authority who haven't a clue what they are either doing or talking about. Ted (the Series of tubes) Stevens rolls off the top of my tongue quite easily (though he never claimed to be a computer expert AFAIK).There are many more examples I would need to Google for.
After confiscating the disks I called a conference with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization.
I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.
I think it's more a mindset. I've experienced the same attitudes in school and by teachers long before Microsoft became a recognized name. It seems that many teachers still think "no pain, no gain" (or like the kid athletes said during one of the Olympics, "No pain, no Spain"). I also remember that we were not allowed inside the school during sub-zero temperatures during recess because recess is about being outside. Yep, I even remember one teacher confiscating a ball from a kid at recess (the kid told his parents who had that teacher suspended)... and not too recently my mom talked to one of the neighbour kids who was suspended from school for being late for class. It's an authoritarian attitude. Things need to be bought; if they aren't bought then it's either stolen or its communism or "socialism".
I also remember when a person from a British government copyright enforcement agency emailed the Firefox foundation to inform then that their software was being distributed and that punishments for those offenders will be forthcoming. That person had a hard time believing that software could be free (I believe this was a Slashdot story many moons ago).
Used car resales are also hurting the Big Three auto manufacturers. I'm waiting for them to lobby government to ban the resale of used cars in order to save the industry.
What I don't get is this hype about it being a Chinese-style "great firewall"
There are similarities.
there's no restriction on political or religious traffic or indeed anything except child porn
Wrong. Read the issues below (and the IWF Website)
Is it legal to possess child porn in the US?
No.
Do the cops not boot the door in, seize the servers and send the perps down for a 30 stretch?
I don't know. Most news stories of such incidents are usually quite vague on details. I can only imagine.
So, what happens in the US when a child pron website is discovered?
Generally (AFAIK), the authorities either shut it down (if it is in their jurisdiction) or inform the authorities if the site is illegal where it is hosted. Individual ISPs may decide to block Web sites that they deem controversial as well.
The issues: 1) They are banning more than child porn (look at their Website for more information) 2) The "child porn" that they do ban has been demonstrated (in this case at least) not to be "child porn" 3) They are censoring things that they arbitrarily decide to me either immoral, illegal, or "potentially illegal" 4) There is no (transparent) method for the general public to police the police, and that is to have any idea what the IWF deems to be censor-worthy 5) They are treating (British) Internet users like they were kindergarten children by making decisions for them on what information they can and cannot have access to 6) The IWF has increased its mandate over the years, and there is no indication that new categories of material will not be blocked in the future 7) This organization sets a dangerous president for Freedom in general
More than likely they had their PR department write up a canned script. If it was anything like the Internet companies that I have worked for in the past, any escalations to "Management" or whatever will likely go into the virtual recycle bin.
Read some rhetoric into my musings (if you haven't already). I was speaking from the perspective (logic) of those types of people who deem themselves worthy enough to make judgments.
FYI, from what I've seen of it anyways, most porn is neither art nor sexually arousing. The music certainly doesn't help, nor the over acting.
Lots of things are tasteless but not illegal, and it should probably remain that way.
I think exceptions can be made for rock-a-billy music. I wouldn't want anybody, much less a child, to be accidentally exposed to it. In fact, I've just put the Wikipedia page about rock-a-billy on the IWF site so that Britain's, at least, can be protected. Since the IWF mandate goes beyond banning merely pictures of children, thank goodness, people can be protected from all sorts of nasty stuff. Activist citizens like me should report other such disreputable Web sites to the IWF so that they can be banished forever. Hopefully rock-a-billy will be a thing of the past; banished from history and memory.
I was anticipating such arguments, but was hoping that I didn't have to take the time to explain the fallacies...
At any rate, I now feel compelled to at least go over a few points: 1) Knowing the list does nothing for "inadvertent" access, etc. People don't need official lists to find what they want and people don't need official lists to not find what they want. If it comes down to inadvertently finding pictures of naked children on album art, etc then people should just get over their fetishes. There is nothing immoral about naked children, no matter what type of pose a person may have a moral hang up over.
2) It's an old argument that has always been used by government to cover up abuse. The ends rarely justify the means. In the case of spying for example, there should be a limit on how long such information can be kept secret.
3) Rape and murder, etc will always be illegal. Nothing will ever change in that regard. I remember one time seeing a full front page colour photograph of an adult sex slave giving a massage to a mass murderer in a very right wing Toronto newspaper. It's ironic the hypocrisy most people have.
I could go on, but you probably get my point(s).
Disclaimer: I am not advocating for censorship and in fact think that IWF should be put out of existence by passing laws that make it illegal to censor internet traffic by ISPs.
I agree. And yes you did bring up some interesting points.
The IWF never admitted to doing anything wrong. They merely realized that the knowledge and publicity of this event harmed their main goal and purpose of censorship, and in fact had the opposite effect of making this image more widely known and seen.
This example is one good reason to (at least) make the blacklist completely public and transparent. When a government (or in this case pseudo-government) and highly public agency want to hide things then corruption will inevitably follow. Transparency will always be better than sneakiness. If a public agency that effects the public does nothing wrong then they should have nothing to hide.
IWF's overriding objective is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect.
This fiasco only shows the true intent of the IWF. They should make the blacklist available so people are aware of what other non-violent, and non-pornographic images, text, etc are being censored.
Thanks for the info. Yes I did know he has a Masters degree. Different strokes for different folks as they say. As I think I recall saying in this thread; I consider formal education more a guide than a method, but that observation comes down to hindsight.
but that's misleading, because right-wing libertarians tend to equal authoritarianism with socialism.
Yes, but that is even more misleading (seeing as how there are so many socialist [more or less] democracies, amongst other arguments).
I don't see what's socialist about supporting the rich. That's exactly the opposite of socialism.
It comes down to colloquialism; or perhaps just a mistake in my thinking. Many right wing libertarians that I have talked to consider bailouts, for example, to be a form of socialism for the corporate elite.
That said, I'm open to changing my thinking (and arguments) about such things.
I know what you mean, and I am aware of the apparent discrepancy in my statement. I view it more as being "Right" on the Authoritarian scale (assuming that an Authoritarian scale would be on a horizontal axis).
Many people who label themselves as "Right" or "Conservative" are in fact very socialist in their policies when it suits their agenda (i.e. Sarah Palin distributes the Alaskan oil wealth to other Alaskans and Bush gives out handouts to billion dollar businesses and tax breaks to the rich; not to mention Pork Belly). So on an Authoritarian level (if they had enough power to implement their desires), I'm sure many "democratic" leaders like bush would be just as Right Wing (on the Authoritarian level) as Kim Jong-il of North Korea (though more on a fascist as opposed to communist bent in their economics).
I don't think it's a far cry to view things this way, and I don't think reality (as opposed to theory) is too different from my interpretation.
I hope I made myself clear, and I hope my logic makes sense.
Any suggestions that also have some kind of chance to succeed
This is personal anecdotal evidence, but using reverse psychology on them at least tempers their propaganda (when they are around me at least). Just be as illogical and nasty in your arguments as your enemies and always demonize your opponents position. Repeat, repeat, repeat until they get tired of listening to you; and if they like to have the last word then just claim it's not worth your while arguing against such fanaticism and leave.
... and a club featuring the rock band Totally Live Sex Show was raided by the Morality Squad... OK I'll stop. I could probably think up too many examples of bizarre political and police behavior in Toronto to let this thread go on almost indefinitely.
Come to think of it, I remember when the mayor of Toronto banned the home-grown rock band Bare Naked Ladies from playing at city hall on New Years Eve because their name was "degrading to woman".
Slashdot Mirror
In my school district, kids are not suppose to bring toys
You should either have the people responsible for this bizarre regulation fired or get your kids into a more sane school district.
They shouldn't have taken your computer if they had no evidence you were doing anything wrong with it. I would have had those people responsible disciplined. Though I suppose a lot of naive school kids would probably be raised to accept authority and just submit. It's one of the reasons the RIAA wants copyright protection enforcement taught to children in school.
I've read enough articles from reputable news sources about people claiming to be university trained computer experts saying some very ignorant and fallacious things to say that this story is definitely in the realm of probability. There are too many people in positions of authority who haven't a clue what they are either doing or talking about. Ted (the Series of tubes) Stevens rolls off the top of my tongue quite easily (though he never claimed to be a computer expert AFAIK).There are many more examples I would need to Google for.
After confiscating the disks I called a conference with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization.
I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.
I think it's more a mindset. I've experienced the same attitudes in school and by teachers long before Microsoft became a recognized name. It seems that many teachers still think "no pain, no gain" (or like the kid athletes said during one of the Olympics, "No pain, no Spain"). I also remember that we were not allowed inside the school during sub-zero temperatures during recess because recess is about being outside. Yep, I even remember one teacher confiscating a ball from a kid at recess (the kid told his parents who had that teacher suspended)... and not too recently my mom talked to one of the neighbour kids who was suspended from school for being late for class. It's an authoritarian attitude. Things need to be bought; if they aren't bought then it's either stolen or its communism or "socialism".
I also remember when a person from a British government copyright enforcement agency emailed the Firefox foundation to inform then that their software was being distributed and that punishments for those offenders will be forthcoming. That person had a hard time believing that software could be free (I believe this was a Slashdot story many moons ago).
Used car resales are also hurting the Big Three auto manufacturers. I'm waiting for them to lobby government to ban the resale of used cars in order to save the industry.
What I don't get is this hype about it being a Chinese-style "great firewall"
There are similarities.
there's no restriction on political or religious traffic or indeed anything except child porn
Wrong. Read the issues below (and the IWF Website)
Is it legal to possess child porn in the US?
No.
Do the cops not boot the door in, seize the servers and send the perps down for a 30 stretch?
I don't know. Most news stories of such incidents are usually quite vague on details. I can only imagine.
So, what happens in the US when a child pron website is discovered?
Generally (AFAIK), the authorities either shut it down (if it is in their jurisdiction) or inform the authorities if the site is illegal where it is hosted. Individual ISPs may decide to block Web sites that they deem controversial as well.
The issues:
1) They are banning more than child porn (look at their Website for more information)
2) The "child porn" that they do ban has been demonstrated (in this case at least) not to be "child porn"
3) They are censoring things that they arbitrarily decide to me either immoral, illegal, or "potentially illegal"
4) There is no (transparent) method for the general public to police the police, and that is to have any idea what the IWF deems to be censor-worthy
5) They are treating (British) Internet users like they were kindergarten children by making decisions for them on what information they can and cannot have access to
6) The IWF has increased its mandate over the years, and there is no indication that new categories of material will not be blocked in the future
7) This organization sets a dangerous president for Freedom in general
They don't need to, they censor sexually provocative pictures. Nude photos are fine.
To the IWF, as has been demonstrated, nude photos are sexually provocative.
It's not at all ridiculous. The issue has nothing to do with the victim.
It's ridiculous because there was no victim. Of course if there was a victim then that victim would obviously be a significant part of the issue.
Crimes are, at their core, offenses against the State, not against individuals.
No. Crimes are against an individual when they are perpetrated against an individual.
More than likely they had their PR department write up a canned script. If it was anything like the Internet companies that I have worked for in the past, any escalations to "Management" or whatever will likely go into the virtual recycle bin.
Read some rhetoric into my musings (if you haven't already). I was speaking from the perspective (logic) of those types of people who deem themselves worthy enough to make judgments.
FYI, from what I've seen of it anyways, most porn is neither art nor sexually arousing. The music certainly doesn't help, nor the over acting.
Best regards,
UTW
Do you have a link to the article where it has that Playboy fact? It sounds like trolling.
Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Ionesco
It took me less than a minute to do a search for that.
Lots of things are tasteless but not illegal, and it should probably remain that way.
I think exceptions can be made for rock-a-billy music. I wouldn't want anybody, much less a child, to be accidentally exposed to it. In fact, I've just put the Wikipedia page about rock-a-billy on the IWF site so that Britain's, at least, can be protected. Since the IWF mandate goes beyond banning merely pictures of children, thank goodness, people can be protected from all sorts of nasty stuff. Activist citizens like me should report other such disreputable Web sites to the IWF so that they can be banished forever. Hopefully rock-a-billy will be a thing of the past; banished from history and memory.
Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that...
I was anticipating such arguments, but was hoping that I didn't have to take the time to explain the fallacies...
At any rate, I now feel compelled to at least go over a few points:
1) Knowing the list does nothing for "inadvertent" access, etc. People don't need official lists to find what they want and people don't need official lists to not find what they want. If it comes down to inadvertently finding pictures of naked children on album art, etc then people should just get over their fetishes. There is nothing immoral about naked children, no matter what type of pose a person may have a moral hang up over.
2) It's an old argument that has always been used by government to cover up abuse. The ends rarely justify the means. In the case of spying for example, there should be a limit on how long such information can be kept secret.
3) Rape and murder, etc will always be illegal. Nothing will ever change in that regard. I remember one time seeing a full front page colour photograph of an adult sex slave giving a massage to a mass murderer in a very right wing Toronto newspaper. It's ironic the hypocrisy most people have.
I could go on, but you probably get my point(s).
Disclaimer: I am not advocating for censorship and in fact think that IWF should be put out of existence by passing laws that make it illegal to censor internet traffic by ISPs.
I agree. And yes you did bring up some interesting points.
Best regards,
UTW
but the reality is that IWF only wanted to protect children from the horrors of having to listen to anything released by the Scorpions.
So now they're going to start having automatic pre-set filters on radio stations for when any activist decides he doesn't like a particular song?
Like I said I'm not an embryologist -:)
Although I do remember reading/hearing that idea/phenomena in my above statement more than once.
Best regards,
UTW
An embryo is female unless or until it develops into a male. Just a bit of extra hormone development determines the difference.
Disclaimer: I am NOT an embryologist.
try to google 'streisand'. weird, i get "Streisand effect" as the 3rd hit. hi, barbara.
Her "effect" is obviously more notable than her career. Don't blame Google for that.
The IWF never admitted to doing anything wrong. They merely realized that the knowledge and publicity of this event harmed their main goal and purpose of censorship, and in fact had the opposite effect of making this image more widely known and seen.
This example is one good reason to (at least) make the blacklist completely public and transparent. When a government (or in this case pseudo-government) and highly public agency want to hide things then corruption will inevitably follow. Transparency will always be better than sneakiness. If a public agency that effects the public does nothing wrong then they should have nothing to hide.
IWF's overriding objective is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect.
This fiasco only shows the true intent of the IWF. They should make the blacklist available so people are aware of what other non-violent, and non-pornographic images, text, etc are being censored.
Thanks for the info. Yes I did know he has a Masters degree. Different strokes for different folks as they say. As I think I recall saying in this thread; I consider formal education more a guide than a method, but that observation comes down to hindsight.
Best regards,
UTW
but that's misleading, because right-wing libertarians tend to equal authoritarianism with socialism.
Yes, but that is even more misleading (seeing as how there are so many socialist [more or less] democracies, amongst other arguments).
I don't see what's socialist about supporting the rich. That's exactly the opposite of socialism.
It comes down to colloquialism; or perhaps just a mistake in my thinking. Many right wing libertarians that I have talked to consider bailouts, for example, to be a form of socialism for the corporate elite.
That said, I'm open to changing my thinking (and arguments) about such things.
I know what you mean, and I am aware of the apparent discrepancy in my statement. I view it more as being "Right" on the Authoritarian scale (assuming that an Authoritarian scale would be on a horizontal axis).
Many people who label themselves as "Right" or "Conservative" are in fact very socialist in their policies when it suits their agenda (i.e. Sarah Palin distributes the Alaskan oil wealth to other Alaskans and Bush gives out handouts to billion dollar businesses and tax breaks to the rich; not to mention Pork Belly). So on an Authoritarian level (if they had enough power to implement their desires), I'm sure many "democratic" leaders like bush would be just as Right Wing (on the Authoritarian level) as Kim Jong-il of North Korea (though more on a fascist as opposed to communist bent in their economics).
I don't think it's a far cry to view things this way, and I don't think reality (as opposed to theory) is too different from my interpretation.
I hope I made myself clear, and I hope my logic makes sense.
Best regards,
UTW
Any suggestions that also have some kind of chance to succeed
This is personal anecdotal evidence, but using reverse psychology on them at least tempers their propaganda (when they are around me at least). Just be as illogical and nasty in your arguments as your enemies and always demonize your opponents position. Repeat, repeat, repeat until they get tired of listening to you; and if they like to have the last word then just claim it's not worth your while arguing against such fanaticism and leave.
Best regards,
UTW
... and a club featuring the rock band Totally Live Sex Show was raided by the Morality Squad...
OK I'll stop. I could probably think up too many examples of bizarre political and police behavior in Toronto to let this thread go on almost indefinitely.
Come to think of it, I remember when the mayor of Toronto banned the home-grown rock band Bare Naked Ladies from playing at city hall on New Years Eve because their name was "degrading to woman".