Yeah, I know it's flamebait, but I've got the karma to burn...
I'm not a developer, but you know who is? Linus Torvalds. And you know what else? I have a sneaking feeling that he's a better developer than you. And you know what he thinks? He thinks BitKeeper is better than CVS. And you know what? All the other kernel developers agree with him. The only thing they can't reach a consensus about is the liscense.
Funny how Linusm who of course is a "better" developer, needs such a "better" revision management system to manage a kernel. The BSD projects use CVS to manage an entire OS. Hmmmmmmm.......
Go ahead mods, do your worst. "News for Linux Users. Everyone else bugger off."
Of course this would cause massive false alarms on dynamic sites, but perhaps there could be introduced a standard for putting tags around the actual article on news sites, so they would know what else to filter out?
<NO-TAMPER-TAG>The</NO-TAMPER-TAG> great thing about having Microsoft buy out Red Hat is that at last Linux users will be able to use Windows Update from Galeon...
Junk mailers tend to do all their own sorting, research the validity of their addresses in the USPS database and print POSTNET barcodes on them so that any USPS sorting equipment just has to scan the barcode.
First class postage went up because your chicken-scratch handwriting is just too damned hard for the OCR equipment to read and you're too damned lazy to go to usps.com to check to see if you have the right ZIP+4 code.
I always print my envelopes, use ZIP+4 and barcodes. Where do I get my rebate for not having to have my chicken scratch handwriting decoded?
I could hold up a book store with a gun and make them give me their books. I've stolen the books and therefore broken copyright.
Um, no, you're commited armed robbery and theft of property. Stealing books doesn't violate any copyright laws. Now if you then go to a Xerox machine and start making unauthorized copies, then you'd be infringing copyright.
Does that mean we should ban guns since they are a possible copyright protection circumvention device?
The only problem with using CF for removable media is the limited number of write cycles, but I suppose the same could be said about floppies. I wish LS-120 has caught on; that was a kick ass drive.
Odds are, you can walk right through our office, into our server farm, take a server, and leave with it with minutes, hours, maybe even days to spare before someone even notices it's gone.
Zep, I'm, running it now and not only are the instructions in German, but it think's that I am using a German kezboard, too!! Argh, z and y kezs are swapped! and all of the shiftßcharacters are changed around.
I managed to get into kde, sort of. it onlz seems to work as root. There's a "user" account too, but kde won't start with it... i can't understand any of the configuration screens so I dont know if that's how it's supposed to work.
Oh, btw, "kbd us" at the text console will change the kezboard map to a US english layout, but I don't remember how to change the keymap in X... oh well, time to reboot
While I understand that Opensource is a driving factor behind this site, the title is still "Slashdot : News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". I move to have this changed to "Slashdot: News for biased Linux nazis, stuff that doesn't matter".
Here's a copy of your copy in case you get slashdotted...
Preliminary Statement
This case challenges an act of Congress that makes the use of filtering software by public libraries a condition of the receipt of federal funding. The Internet, as is well known, is a vast, interactive medium based on a decentralized network of computers around the world. Its most familiar feature is the World Wide Web (the "Web"), a network of computers known as servers that provide content to users. The Internet provides easy access to anyone who wishes to provide or distribute information to a worldwide audience; it is used by more than 143 million Americans. Indeed, much of the world's knowledge accumulated over centuries is available to Internet users almost instantly. Approximately 10% of the Americans who use the Internet access it at public libraries. And approximately 95% of all public libraries in the United States provide public access to the Internet.
While the beneficial effect of the Internet in expanding the amount of information available to its users is self-evident, its low entry barriers have also led to a perverse result - facilitation of the widespread dissemination of hardcore pornography within the easy reach not only of adults who have every right to access it (so long as it is not legally obscene or child pornography), but also of children and adolescents to whom it may be quite harmful. The volume of pornography on the Internet is huge, and the record before us demonstrates that public library patrons of all ages, many from ages 11 to 15, have regularly sought to access it in public library settings. There are more than 100,000 pornographic Web sites that can be accessed for free and without providing any registration information, and tens of thousands of Web sites contain child pornography.
Libraries have reacted to this situation by utilizing a number of means designed to insure that patrons avoid illegal (and unwanted) content while also enabling patrons to find the content they desire. Some libraries have trained patrons in how to use the Internet while avoiding illegal content, or have directed their patrons to "preferred" Web sites that librarians have reviewed. Other libraries have utilized such devices as recessing the computer monitors, installing privacy screens, and monitoring implemented by a "tap on the shoulder" of patrons perceived to be offending library policy. Still others, viewing the foregoing approaches as inadequate or uncomfortable (some librarians do not wish to confront patrons), have purchased commercially available software that blocks certain categories of material deemed by the library board as unsuitable for use in their facilities. Indeed, 7% of American public libraries use blocking software for adults. Although such programs are somewhat effective in blocking large quantities of pornography, they are blunt instruments that not only "underblock," i.e., fail to block access to substantial amounts of content that the library boards wish to exclude, but also, central to this litigation, "overblock," i.e., block access to large quantities of material that library boards do not wish to exclude and that is constitutionally protected.
Most of the libraries that use filtering software seek to block sexually explicit speech. While most libraries include in their physical collection copies of volumes such as The Joy of Sex and The Joy of Gay Sex, which contain quite explicit photographs and descriptions, filtering software blocks large quantities of other, comparable information about health and sexuality that adults and teenagers seek on the Web. One teenager testified that the Internet access in a public library was the only venue in which she could obtain information important to her about her own sexuality. Another library patron witness described using the Internet to research breast cancer and reconstructive surgery for his mother who had breast surgery. Even though some filtering programs contain exceptions for health and education, the exceptions do not solve the problem of overblocking constitutionally protected material. Moreover, as we explain below, the filtering software on which the parties presented evidence in this case overblocks not only information relating to health and sexuality that might be mistaken for pornography or erotica, but also vast numbers of Web pages and sites that could not even arguably be construed as harmful or inappropriate for adults or minors.
The Congress, sharing the concerns of many library boards, enacted the Children's Internet Protection Act ("CIPA"), Pub. L. No. 106-554, which makes the use of filters by a public library a condition of its receipt of two kinds of subsidies that are important (or even critical) to the budgets of many public libraries - grants under the Library Services and Technology Act, 20 U.S.C. 9101 et seq. ("LSTA"), and so-called "E-rate discounts" for Internet access and support under the Telecommunications Act, 47 U.S.C. 254. LSTA grant funds are awarded, inter alia, in order to: (1) assist libraries in accessing information through electronic networks, and (2) provide targeted library and information services to persons having difficulty using a library and to underserved and rural communities, including children from families with incomes below the poverty line. E-rate discounts serve the similar purpose of extending Internet access to schools and libraries in low-income communities. CIPA requires that libraries, in order to receive LSTA funds or E-rate discounts, certify that they are using a "technology protection measure" that prevents patrons from accessing "visual depictions" that are "obscene," "child pornography," or in the case of minors, "harmful to minors." 20 U.S.C. 9134(f)(1)(A) (LSTA); 47 U.S.C. 254(h)(6)(B) and (2) it requires libraries to relinquish their First Amendment rights as a condition on the receipt of federal funds and is therefore impermissible under the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. In arguing that CIPA will induce public libraries to violate the First Amendment, the plaintiffs contend that given the limits of the filtering technology, CIPA's conditions effectively require libraries to impose content-based restrictions on their patrons' access to constitutionally protected speech. According to the plaintiffs, these content-based restrictions are subject to strict scrutiny under public forum doctrine, see Rosenberger v. Rector (2) review and categorize Web pages that they have collected; and (3) engage in regular re-review of Web pages that they have previously reviewed. These failures spring from constraints on the technology of automated classification systems, and the limitations inherent in human review, including error, misjudgment, and scarce resources, which we describe in detail infra at 58-74. One failure of critical importance is that the automated systems that filtering companies use to collect Web pages for classification are able to search only text, not images. This is crippling to filtering companies' ability to collect pages containing "visual depictions" that are obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors, as CIPA requires. As will appear, we find that it is currently impossible, given the Internet's size, rate of growth, rate of change, and architecture, and given the state of the art of automated classification systems, to develop a filter that neither underblocks nor overblocks a substantial amount of speech.
The government, while acknowledging that the filtering software is imperfect, maintains that it is nonetheless quite effective, and that it successfully blocks the vast majority of the Web pages that meet filtering companies' category definitions (e.g., pornography). The government contends that no more is required. In its view, so long as the filtering software selected by the libraries screens out the bulk of the Web pages proscribed by CIPA, the libraries have made a reasonable choice which suffices, under the applicable legal principles, to pass constitutional muster in the context of a facial challenge. Central to the government's position is the analogy it advances between Internet filtering and the initial decision of a library to determine which materials to purchase for its print collection. Public libraries have finite budgets and must make choices as to whether to purchase, for example, books on gardening or books on golf. Such content-based decisions, even the plaintiffs concede, are subject to rational basis review and not a stricter form of First Amendment scrutiny. In the government's view, the fact that the Internet reverses the acquisition process and requires the libraries to, in effect, purchase the entire Internet, some of which (e.g., hardcore pornography) it does not want, should not mean that it is chargeable with censorship when it filters out offending material.
The legal context in which this extensive factual record is set is complex, implicating a number of constitutional doctrines, including the constitutional limitations on Congress's spending clause power, the unconstitutional conditions doctrine, and subsidiary to these issues, the First Amendment doctrines of prior restraint, vagueness, and overbreadth. There are a number of potential entry points into the analysis, but the most logical is the spending clause jurisprudence in which the seminal case is South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987). Dole outlines four categories of constraints on Congress's exercise of its power under the Spending Clause, but the only Dole condition disputed here is the fourth and last, i.e., whether CIPA requires libraries that receive LSTA funds or E-rate discounts to violate the constitutional rights of their patrons. As will appear, the question is not a simple one, and turns on the level of scrutiny applicable to a public library's content-based restrictions on patrons' Internet access. Whether such restrictions are subject to strict scrutiny, as plaintiffs contend, or only rational basis review, as the government contends, depends on public forum doctrine.
The government argues that, in providing Internet access, public libraries do not create a public forum, since public libraries may reserve the right to exclude certain speakers from availing themselves of the forum. Accordingly, the government contends that public libraries' restrictions on patrons' Internet access are subject only to rational basis review.
Plaintiffs respond that the government's ability to restrict speech on its own property, as in the case of restrictions on Internet access in public libraries, is not unlimited, and that the more widely the state facilitates the dissemination of private speech in a given forum, the more vulnerable the state's decision is to restrict access to speech in that forum. We agree with the plaintiffs that public libraries' content-based restrictions on their patrons' Internet access are subject to strict scrutiny. In providing even filtered Internet access, public libraries create a public forum open to any speaker around the world to communicate with library patrons via the Internet on a virtually unlimited number of topics. Where the state provides access to a "vast democratic forum[]," Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 868 (1997), open to any member of the public to speak on subjects "as diverse as human thought," id. at 870 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), the state's decision selectively to exclude from the forum speech whose content the state disfavors is subject to strict scrutiny, as such exclusions risk distorting the marketplace of ideas that the state has facilitated. Application of strict scrutiny finds further support in the extent to which public libraries' provision of Internet access uniquely promotes First Amendment values in a manner analogous to traditional public fora such as streets, sidewalks, and parks, in which content-based restrictions are always subject to strict scrutiny.
Under strict scrutiny, a public library's use of filtering software is permissible only if it is narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest and no less restrictive alternative would serve that interest. We acknowledge that use of filtering software furthers public libraries' legitimate interests in preventing patrons from accessing visual depictions of obscenity, child pornography, or in the case of minors, material harmful to minors. Moreover, use of filters also helps prevent patrons from being unwillingly exposed to patently offensive, sexually explicit content on the Internet.
We are sympathetic to the position of the government, believing that it would be desirable if there were a means to ensure that public library patrons could share in the informational bonanza of the Internet while being insulated from materials that meet CIPA's definitions, that is, visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or in the case of minors, harmful to minors. Unfortunately this outcome, devoutly to be wished, is not available in this less than best of all possible worlds. No category definition used by the blocking programs is identical to the legal definitions of obscenity, child pornography, or material harmful to minors, and, at all events, filtering programs fail to block access to a substantial amount of content on the Internet that falls into the categories defined by CIPA. As will appear, we credit the testimony of plaintiffs' expert Dr. Geoffrey Nunberg that the blocking software is (at least for the foreseeable future) incapable of effectively blocking the majority of materials in the categories defined by CIPA without overblocking a substantial amount of materials. Nunberg's analysis was supported by extensive record evidence. As noted above, this inability to prevent both substantial amounts of underblocking and overblocking stems from several sources, including limitations on the technology that software filtering companies use to gather and review Web pages, limitations on resources for human review of Web pages, and the necessary error that results from human review processes.
Because the filtering software mandated by CIPA will block access to substantial amounts of constitutionally protected speech whose suppression serves no legitimate government interest, we are persuaded that a public library's use of software filters is not narrowly tailored to further any of these interests. Moreover, less restrictive alternatives exist that further the government's legitimate interest in preventing the dissemination of obscenity, child pornography, and material harmful to minors, and in preventing patrons from being unwillingly exposed to patently offensive, sexually explicit content. To prevent patrons from accessing visual depictions that are obscene and child pornography, public libraries may enforce Internet use policies that make clear to patrons that the library's Internet terminals may not be used to access illegal speech. Libraries may then impose penalties on patrons who violate these policies, ranging from a warning to notification of law enforcement, in the appropriate case. Less restrictive alternatives to filtering that further libraries' interest in preventing minors from exposure to visual depictions that are harmful to minors include requiring parental consent to or presence during unfiltered access, or restricting minors' unfiltered access to terminals within view of library staff. Finally, optional filtering, privacy screens, recessed monitors, and placement of unfiltered Internet terminals outside of sight-lines provide less restrictive alternatives for libraries to prevent patrons from being unwillingly exposed to sexually explicit content on the Internet.
In an effort to avoid the potentially fatal legal implications of the overblocking problem, the government falls back on the ability of the libraries, under CIPA's disabling provisions, see CIPA 1712 (codified at 20 U.S.C. 9134(f)(3)), CIPA 1721(b) (codified at 47 U.S.C. 254(h)(6)(D)), to unblock a site that is patently proper yet improperly blocked. The evidence reflects that libraries can and do unblock the filters when a patron so requests. But it also reflects that requiring library patrons to ask for a Web site to be unblocked will deter many patrons because they are embarrassed, or desire to protect their privacy or remain anonymous. Moreover, the unblocking may take days, and may be unavailable, especially in branch libraries, which are often less well staffed than main libraries. Accordingly, CIPA's disabling provisions do not cure the constitutional deficiencies in public libraries' use of Internet filters.
Under these circumstances we are constrained to conclude that the library plaintiffs must prevail in their contention that CIPA requires them to violate the First Amendment rights of their patrons, and accordingly is facially invalid, even under the standard urged on us by the government, which would permit us to facially invalidate CIPA only if it is impossible for a single public library to comply with CIPA's conditions without violating the First Amendment. In view of the limitations inherent in the filtering technology mandated by CIPA, any public library that adheres to CIPA's conditions will necessarily restrict patrons' access to a substantial amount of protected speech, in violation of the First Amendment. Given this conclusion, we need not reach plaintiffs' arguments that CIPA effects a prior restraint on speech and is unconstitutionally vague. Nor do we decide their cognate unconstitutional conditions theory, though for reasons explained infra at note 36, we discuss the issues raised by that claim at some length.
For these reasons, we will enter an Order declaring Sections 1712(a)(2) and 1721(b) of the Children's Internet Protection Act, codified at 20 U.S.C. 9134(f) and 47 U.S.C. 254(h)(6), respectively, to be facially invalid under the First Amendment and permanently enjoining the defendants from enforcing those provisions.
For goodness sake, what problem do translucent windows solve? The need to see what's behind your xterm while simultaneously rendering it unreadable?
Can't argue with that. I like plain light-grey-on-black xterms. Easy to read.
I'm sorry, but it's true. I don't care if you can make windows "roll up" into the title bar and you think it looks cool - what problem does that solve that wouldn't be handled better by minimising the window and showing it in the taskbar? Really, I'd be interested if someone could tell me the advantage.
Ummm, ok. Not everybody likes the whole "taskbar" idea. When I'm on a Windows box, I frequently have so many windows open that the taskbar is utterly unusable (takes me 30 seconds just to hover over icons and find which one I'm after). On my X desktop, I have no taskbar or anything like it -- I use sawfish with no desktop envorinment. Just gkrellm in the corner of my left-hand monitor, a tiny pager in the bottom left (4 virtual desktops X 3 monitors == lots of room:), and the windows themselves. If I have too much open and the windows are overlapping, just click on the desktop and I get a nice, easy to read menu with everything grouped by application or class. It really saves me a lot of time. Right-click gives me a list of commonly used programs to start. To answer your question, when I'm not using a window and want to get it out of the way, I shade it. It's a lot easier to find it again since it hasn't changed position.
Trust me, after getting used to that, it's a pain to work in Windows because it just takes so long to get anything done.
One feature I absolutely love about sawfish that Windows doesn't have anything close to is the customizible bindings to do almost anything you want. On an MS box, if the title bar of a window is obscured, there is no way to move it without either moving something else first, or using the task bar to raise the window (disrupting your Z order). In sawfish, I just hold down the windows key, grab the window anywhere, and drag it where I want it (without changing the Z order). Incredibly convenient. And Windows+X for an xterm?;)
And don't even get me started on focus-follows-mouse. Just imagine having a bunch terminals or whatever, simply pointing at the corner of xmms with the mouse, pressing 'B' for next track, then going back to what you were doing. Windows has a hack with tweak UI that tries to do this, but some apps (*ahem*, MS OFFICE *ahem*) insist on raising themselves to the top whenever they get focus, which is incredibly annoying...
Personally, I'd think that something like 30+Ghz line-of-signt microwave would work for connecting cities, but I doubt there would be enough people with the required knowledge to set that up in every city.
Hey, given the population of the average city, statistically speaking, it's pretty likely that each one will have at least one person capable of providing this type of infrastructure.
I just set up a similar system at work; I'd be happy to stick a tower up on the roof and pimp out some bandwidth:)
Maybe we should think about using that new ultra-wide band radio that covers the entire spectrum at low power levels and is pretty much undetectable by the FCC and media corps.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I know it's flamebait, but I've got the karma to burn...
I'm not a developer, but you know who is? Linus Torvalds. And you know what else? I have a sneaking feeling that he's a better developer than you. And you know what he thinks? He thinks BitKeeper is better than CVS. And you know what? All the other kernel developers agree with him. The only thing they can't reach a consensus about is the liscense.
Funny how Linusm who of course is a "better" developer, needs such a "better" revision management system to manage a kernel. The BSD projects use CVS to manage an entire OS. Hmmmmmmm.......
Go ahead mods, do your worst. "News for Linux Users. Everyone else bugger off."
function history(){
history();
}
Oh, no! History is headed toward a stack overflow!
Of course this would cause massive false alarms on dynamic sites, but perhaps there could be introduced a standard for putting tags around the actual article on news sites, so they would know what else to filter out?
<NO-TAMPER-TAG>The</NO-TAMPER-TAG> great thing about having Microsoft buy out Red Hat is that at last Linux users will be able to use Windows Update from Galeon...
ROFL -- wish I had mod points, that cracked me up
If I were AT&T I'd just add blackhole routes for the websites of all the RIAA members.
...not gecko!
Junk mailers tend to do all their own sorting, research the validity of their addresses in the USPS database and print POSTNET barcodes on them so that any USPS sorting equipment just has to scan the barcode.
First class postage went up because your chicken-scratch handwriting is just too damned hard for the OCR equipment to read and you're too damned lazy to go to usps.com to check to see if you have the right ZIP+4 code.
I always print my envelopes, use ZIP+4 and barcodes. Where do I get my rebate for not having to have my chicken scratch handwriting decoded?
How many people can honestly say their lives are better because they've never heard 'fuck' on TV?
Many people who watched the live coverage of 9/11 heard 'fuck' on TV several times...
I could hold up a book store with a gun and make them give me their books. I've stolen the books and therefore broken copyright.
Um, no, you're commited armed robbery and theft of property. Stealing books doesn't violate any copyright laws. Now if you then go to a Xerox machine and start making unauthorized copies, then you'd be infringing copyright.
Does that mean we should ban guns since they are a possible copyright protection circumvention device?
No, but apparently we should ban Xerox machines.
256M CF cards aren't as cheap, but you can fit a pretty decent OS on one, or most of a compressed boot partition.
A decent OS will fit on far less.
My router/firewall/NAT box/IPSEC VPN/DNS server boots FreeBSD off a 64MB card on an IDE converter. Boots really fast now ;)
And doesn't LRP fit on a floppy?
The only problem with using CF for removable media is the limited number of write cycles, but I suppose the same could be said about floppies. I wish LS-120 has caught on; that was a kick ass drive.
If I had mod points today you'd get one just for the Wargames reference.
None of the FreeBSD releases, or the -STABLE branch were vulnerable to the openssh bug.
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/advisories/ FreeBSD-SA-02:31.openssh.asc
Note the absence of any released version of FreeBSD.
You obviously haven't been to Crowley. I think the number of cows alone qualifies as "wild".
openBackdoor() calls
atexit(closeBackdoor);
so the backdoor stays open as long as the program is running.
Odds are, you can walk right through our office, into our server farm, take a server, and leave with it with minutes, hours, maybe even days to spare before someone even notices it's gone.
Where was this again...?
I could use a new server
Is triggerIRSAudit available as a Perl module?
It has features that I want - faster boot times (useful on the laptop), user switching and remote desktop built in.
IIRC, the desktop switching feature (pretty much the only reason I'd even consider using XP), doesn't work if the computer is joined to a domain...
Easy. Uninstall flash. Avoid websites that require it (most of them are crap anyway).
Zep, I'm, running it now and not only are the instructions in German, but it think's that I am using a German kezboard, too!! Argh, z and y kezs are swapped! and all of the shiftßcharacters are changed around.
I managed to get into kde, sort of. it onlz seems to work as root. There's a "user" account too, but kde won't start with it... i can't understand any of the configuration screens so I dont know if that's how it's supposed to work.
Oh, btw, "kbd us" at the text console will change the kezboard map to a US english layout, but I don't remember how to change the keymap in X... oh well, time to reboot
(and I'm still running Netscape 1.0N)
And it hasn't crashed yet...?
While I understand that Opensource is a driving factor behind this site, the title is still "Slashdot : News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". I move to have this changed to "Slashdot: News for biased Linux nazis, stuff that doesn't matter".
I think you want Apostrophecolon
Here's a copy of your copy in case you get slashdotted...
Preliminary Statement
This case challenges an act of Congress that makes the use of filtering software by public libraries a condition of the receipt of federal funding. The Internet, as is well known, is a vast, interactive medium based on a decentralized network of computers around the world. Its most familiar feature is the World Wide Web (the "Web"), a network of computers known as servers that provide content to users. The Internet provides easy access to anyone who wishes to provide or distribute information to a worldwide audience; it is used by more than 143 million Americans. Indeed, much of the world's knowledge accumulated over centuries is available to Internet users almost instantly. Approximately 10% of the Americans who use the Internet access it at public libraries. And approximately 95% of all public libraries in the United States provide public access to the Internet.
While the beneficial effect of the Internet in expanding the amount of information available to its users is self-evident, its low entry barriers have also led to a perverse result - facilitation of the widespread dissemination of hardcore pornography within the easy reach not only of adults who have every right to access it (so long as it is not legally obscene or child pornography), but also of children and adolescents to whom it may be quite harmful. The volume of pornography on the Internet is huge, and the record before us demonstrates that public library patrons of all ages, many from ages 11 to 15, have regularly sought to access it in public library settings. There are more than 100,000 pornographic Web sites that can be accessed for free and without providing any registration information, and tens of thousands of Web sites contain child pornography.
Libraries have reacted to this situation by utilizing a number of means designed to insure that patrons avoid illegal (and unwanted) content while also enabling patrons to find the content they desire. Some libraries have trained patrons in how to use the Internet while avoiding illegal content, or have directed their patrons to "preferred" Web sites that librarians have reviewed. Other libraries have utilized such devices as recessing the computer monitors, installing privacy screens, and monitoring implemented by a "tap on the shoulder" of patrons perceived to be offending library policy. Still others, viewing the foregoing approaches as inadequate or uncomfortable (some librarians do not wish to confront patrons), have purchased commercially available software that blocks certain categories of material deemed by the library board as unsuitable for use in their facilities. Indeed, 7% of American public libraries use blocking software for adults. Although such programs are somewhat effective in blocking large quantities of pornography, they are blunt instruments that not only "underblock," i.e., fail to block access to substantial amounts of content that the library boards wish to exclude, but also, central to this litigation, "overblock," i.e., block access to large quantities of material that library boards do not wish to exclude and that is constitutionally protected.
Most of the libraries that use filtering software seek to block sexually explicit speech. While most libraries include in their physical collection copies of volumes such as The Joy of Sex and The Joy of Gay Sex, which contain quite explicit photographs and descriptions, filtering software blocks large quantities of other, comparable information about health and sexuality that adults and teenagers seek on the Web. One teenager testified that the Internet access in a public library was the only venue in which she could obtain information important to her about her own sexuality. Another library patron witness described using the Internet to research breast cancer and reconstructive surgery for his mother who had breast surgery. Even though some filtering programs contain exceptions for health and education, the exceptions do not solve the problem of overblocking constitutionally protected material. Moreover, as we explain below, the filtering software on which the parties presented evidence in this case overblocks not only information relating to health and sexuality that might be mistaken for pornography or erotica, but also vast numbers of Web pages and sites that could not even arguably be construed as harmful or inappropriate for adults or minors.
The Congress, sharing the concerns of many library boards, enacted the Children's Internet Protection Act ("CIPA"), Pub. L. No. 106-554, which makes the use of filters by a public library a condition of its receipt of two kinds of subsidies that are important (or even critical) to the budgets of many public libraries - grants under the Library Services and Technology Act, 20 U.S.C. 9101 et seq. ("LSTA"), and so-called "E-rate discounts" for Internet access and support under the Telecommunications Act, 47 U.S.C. 254. LSTA grant funds are awarded, inter alia, in order to: (1) assist libraries in accessing information through electronic networks, and (2) provide targeted library and information services to persons having difficulty using a library and to underserved and rural communities, including children from families with incomes below the poverty line. E-rate discounts serve the similar purpose of extending Internet access to schools and libraries in low-income communities. CIPA requires that libraries, in order to receive LSTA funds or E-rate discounts, certify that they are using a "technology protection measure" that prevents patrons from accessing "visual depictions" that are "obscene," "child pornography," or in the case of minors, "harmful to minors." 20 U.S.C. 9134(f)(1)(A) (LSTA); 47 U.S.C. 254(h)(6)(B) and (2) it requires libraries to relinquish their First Amendment rights as a condition on the receipt of federal funds and is therefore impermissible under the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. In arguing that CIPA will induce public libraries to violate the First Amendment, the plaintiffs contend that given the limits of the filtering technology, CIPA's conditions effectively require libraries to impose content-based restrictions on their patrons' access to constitutionally protected speech. According to the plaintiffs, these content-based restrictions are subject to strict scrutiny under public forum doctrine, see Rosenberger v. Rector (2) review and categorize Web pages that they have collected; and (3) engage in regular re-review of Web pages that they have previously reviewed. These failures spring from constraints on the technology of automated classification systems, and the limitations inherent in human review, including error, misjudgment, and scarce resources, which we describe in detail infra at 58-74. One failure of critical importance is that the automated systems that filtering companies use to collect Web pages for classification are able to search only text, not images. This is crippling to filtering companies' ability to collect pages containing "visual depictions" that are obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors, as CIPA requires. As will appear, we find that it is currently impossible, given the Internet's size, rate of growth, rate of change, and architecture, and given the state of the art of automated classification systems, to develop a filter that neither underblocks nor overblocks a substantial amount of speech.
The government, while acknowledging that the filtering software is imperfect, maintains that it is nonetheless quite effective, and that it successfully blocks the vast majority of the Web pages that meet filtering companies' category definitions (e.g., pornography). The government contends that no more is required. In its view, so long as the filtering software selected by the libraries screens out the bulk of the Web pages proscribed by CIPA, the libraries have made a reasonable choice which suffices, under the applicable legal principles, to pass constitutional muster in the context of a facial challenge. Central to the government's position is the analogy it advances between Internet filtering and the initial decision of a library to determine which materials to purchase for its print collection. Public libraries have finite budgets and must make choices as to whether to purchase, for example, books on gardening or books on golf. Such content-based decisions, even the plaintiffs concede, are subject to rational basis review and not a stricter form of First Amendment scrutiny. In the government's view, the fact that the Internet reverses the acquisition process and requires the libraries to, in effect, purchase the entire Internet, some of which (e.g., hardcore pornography) it does not want, should not mean that it is chargeable with censorship when it filters out offending material.
The legal context in which this extensive factual record is set is complex, implicating a number of constitutional doctrines, including the constitutional limitations on Congress's spending clause power, the unconstitutional conditions doctrine, and subsidiary to these issues, the First Amendment doctrines of prior restraint, vagueness, and overbreadth. There are a number of potential entry points into the analysis, but the most logical is the spending clause jurisprudence in which the seminal case is South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987). Dole outlines four categories of constraints on Congress's exercise of its power under the Spending Clause, but the only Dole condition disputed here is the fourth and last, i.e., whether CIPA requires libraries that receive LSTA funds or E-rate discounts to violate the constitutional rights of their patrons. As will appear, the question is not a simple one, and turns on the level of scrutiny applicable to a public library's content-based restrictions on patrons' Internet access. Whether such restrictions are subject to strict scrutiny, as plaintiffs contend, or only rational basis review, as the government contends, depends on public forum doctrine.
The government argues that, in providing Internet access, public libraries do not create a public forum, since public libraries may reserve the right to exclude certain speakers from availing themselves of the forum. Accordingly, the government contends that public libraries' restrictions on patrons' Internet access are subject only to rational basis review.
Plaintiffs respond that the government's ability to restrict speech on its own property, as in the case of restrictions on Internet access in public libraries, is not unlimited, and that the more widely the state facilitates the dissemination of private speech in a given forum, the more vulnerable the state's decision is to restrict access to speech in that forum. We agree with the plaintiffs that public libraries' content-based restrictions on their patrons' Internet access are subject to strict scrutiny. In providing even filtered Internet access, public libraries create a public forum open to any speaker around the world to communicate with library patrons via the Internet on a virtually unlimited number of topics. Where the state provides access to a "vast democratic forum[]," Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 868 (1997), open to any member of the public to speak on subjects "as diverse as human thought," id. at 870 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), the state's decision selectively to exclude from the forum speech whose content the state disfavors is subject to strict scrutiny, as such exclusions risk distorting the marketplace of ideas that the state has facilitated. Application of strict scrutiny finds further support in the extent to which public libraries' provision of Internet access uniquely promotes First Amendment values in a manner analogous to traditional public fora such as streets, sidewalks, and parks, in which content-based restrictions are always subject to strict scrutiny.
Under strict scrutiny, a public library's use of filtering software is permissible only if it is narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest and no less restrictive alternative would serve that interest. We acknowledge that use of filtering software furthers public libraries' legitimate interests in preventing patrons from accessing visual depictions of obscenity, child pornography, or in the case of minors, material harmful to minors. Moreover, use of filters also helps prevent patrons from being unwillingly exposed to patently offensive, sexually explicit content on the Internet.
We are sympathetic to the position of the government, believing that it would be desirable if there were a means to ensure that public library patrons could share in the informational bonanza of the Internet while being insulated from materials that meet CIPA's definitions, that is, visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or in the case of minors, harmful to minors. Unfortunately this outcome, devoutly to be wished, is not available in this less than best of all possible worlds. No category definition used by the blocking programs is identical to the legal definitions of obscenity, child pornography, or material harmful to minors, and, at all events, filtering programs fail to block access to a substantial amount of content on the Internet that falls into the categories defined by CIPA. As will appear, we credit the testimony of plaintiffs' expert Dr. Geoffrey Nunberg that the blocking software is (at least for the foreseeable future) incapable of effectively blocking the majority of materials in the categories defined by CIPA without overblocking a substantial amount of materials. Nunberg's analysis was supported by extensive record evidence. As noted above, this inability to prevent both substantial amounts of underblocking and overblocking stems from several sources, including limitations on the technology that software filtering companies use to gather and review Web pages, limitations on resources for human review of Web pages, and the necessary error that results from human review processes.
Because the filtering software mandated by CIPA will block access to substantial amounts of constitutionally protected speech whose suppression serves no legitimate government interest, we are persuaded that a public library's use of software filters is not narrowly tailored to further any of these interests. Moreover, less restrictive alternatives exist that further the government's legitimate interest in preventing the dissemination of obscenity, child pornography, and material harmful to minors, and in preventing patrons from being unwillingly exposed to patently offensive, sexually explicit content. To prevent patrons from accessing visual depictions that are obscene and child pornography, public libraries may enforce Internet use policies that make clear to patrons that the library's Internet terminals may not be used to access illegal speech. Libraries may then impose penalties on patrons who violate these policies, ranging from a warning to notification of law enforcement, in the appropriate case. Less restrictive alternatives to filtering that further libraries' interest in preventing minors from exposure to visual depictions that are harmful to minors include requiring parental consent to or presence during unfiltered access, or restricting minors' unfiltered access to terminals within view of library staff. Finally, optional filtering, privacy screens, recessed monitors, and placement of unfiltered Internet terminals outside of sight-lines provide less restrictive alternatives for libraries to prevent patrons from being unwillingly exposed to sexually explicit content on the Internet.
In an effort to avoid the potentially fatal legal implications of the overblocking problem, the government falls back on the ability of the libraries, under CIPA's disabling provisions, see CIPA 1712 (codified at 20 U.S.C. 9134(f)(3)), CIPA 1721(b) (codified at 47 U.S.C. 254(h)(6)(D)), to unblock a site that is patently proper yet improperly blocked. The evidence reflects that libraries can and do unblock the filters when a patron so requests. But it also reflects that requiring library patrons to ask for a Web site to be unblocked will deter many patrons because they are embarrassed, or desire to protect their privacy or remain anonymous. Moreover, the unblocking may take days, and may be unavailable, especially in branch libraries, which are often less well staffed than main libraries. Accordingly, CIPA's disabling provisions do not cure the constitutional deficiencies in public libraries' use of Internet filters.
Under these circumstances we are constrained to conclude that the library plaintiffs must prevail in their contention that CIPA requires them to violate the First Amendment rights of their patrons, and accordingly is facially invalid, even under the standard urged on us by the government, which would permit us to facially invalidate CIPA only if it is impossible for a single public library to comply with CIPA's conditions without violating the First Amendment. In view of the limitations inherent in the filtering technology mandated by CIPA, any public library that adheres to CIPA's conditions will necessarily restrict patrons' access to a substantial amount of protected speech, in violation of the First Amendment. Given this conclusion, we need not reach plaintiffs' arguments that CIPA effects a prior restraint on speech and is unconstitutionally vague. Nor do we decide their cognate unconstitutional conditions theory, though for reasons explained infra at note 36, we discuss the issues raised by that claim at some length.
For these reasons, we will enter an Order declaring Sections 1712(a)(2) and 1721(b) of the Children's Internet Protection Act, codified at 20 U.S.C. 9134(f) and 47 U.S.C. 254(h)(6), respectively, to be facially invalid under the First Amendment and permanently enjoining the defendants from enforcing those provisions.
For goodness sake, what problem do translucent windows solve? The need to see what's behind your xterm while simultaneously rendering it unreadable?
Can't argue with that. I like plain light-grey-on-black xterms. Easy to read.
I'm sorry, but it's true. I don't care if you can make windows "roll up" into the title bar and you think it looks cool - what problem does that solve that wouldn't be handled better by minimising the window and showing it in the taskbar? Really, I'd be interested if someone could tell me the advantage.
Ummm, ok. Not everybody likes the whole "taskbar" idea. When I'm on a Windows box, I frequently have so many windows open that the taskbar is utterly unusable (takes me 30 seconds just to hover over icons and find which one I'm after). On my X desktop, I have no taskbar or anything like it -- I use sawfish with no desktop envorinment. Just gkrellm in the corner of my left-hand monitor, a tiny pager in the bottom left (4 virtual desktops X 3 monitors == lots of room :), and the windows themselves. If I have too much open and the windows are overlapping, just click on the desktop and I get a nice, easy to read menu with everything grouped by application or class. It really saves me a lot of time. Right-click gives me a list of commonly used programs to start. To answer your question, when I'm not using a window and want to get it out of the way, I shade it. It's a lot easier to find it again since it hasn't changed position.
Trust me, after getting used to that, it's a pain to work in Windows because it just takes so long to get anything done.
One feature I absolutely love about sawfish that Windows doesn't have anything close to is the customizible bindings to do almost anything you want. On an MS box, if the title bar of a window is obscured, there is no way to move it without either moving something else first, or using the task bar to raise the window (disrupting your Z order). In sawfish, I just hold down the windows key, grab the window anywhere, and drag it where I want it (without changing the Z order). Incredibly convenient. And Windows+X for an xterm? ;)
And don't even get me started on focus-follows-mouse. Just imagine having a bunch terminals or whatever, simply pointing at the corner of xmms with the mouse, pressing 'B' for next track, then going back to what you were doing. Windows has a hack with tweak UI that tries to do this, but some apps (*ahem*, MS OFFICE *ahem*) insist on raising themselves to the top whenever they get focus, which is incredibly annoying...
I use SQL-Ledger :)
Personally, I'd think that something like 30+Ghz line-of-signt microwave would work for connecting cities, but I doubt there would be enough people with the required knowledge to set that up in every city.
Hey, given the population of the average city, statistically speaking, it's pretty likely that each one will have at least one person capable of providing this type of infrastructure.
I just set up a similar system at work; I'd be happy to stick a tower up on the roof and pimp out some bandwidth :)
Maybe we should think about using that new ultra-wide band radio that covers the entire spectrum at low power levels and is pretty much undetectable by the FCC and media corps.