Hmm. 1.6.a.2, in context: Article 6 - Illegal Devices Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law when committed intentionally and without right:
a.the production, sale, procurement for use, import, distribution or otherwise making available of:
2. a computer password, access code, or similar data by which the whole or any part of a computer system is capable of being accessed with intent that it be used for the purpose of committing the offences established in Articles 2 - 5;
I can see where this makes posting the root password to microsoft.com a crime, but don't see how it gives LEAs the right to demand MY passwords... --
I would not use such a system, because there is no security for my valuable work... someone could take my idea, give it a twist, and push it into peer review. I suspect this may depend on the interaction between this system and the classic media - I suspect that the simpliest method (logging who accesses draft papers, with the Peer Reviewers taking a dim view of the sort of Claim Jumping you are proposing) would not work; people would end up asking friends to look up stuff in draft papers just in case something they were already working on was already there, and it compromised their own work by making it seem like a seedy copy. Does anyone else here have any ideas on this? --
This does sound like a good idea but I think the biggest problem here would be setting up a decent readership.
I've been a PhD student now for a few years and I find it difficult to read and critically assess papers submitted to journals and conference proceedings in my field alone. Much of this is chicken - and - egg stuff - without a large, searchable database, the readers won't come, but without readers and submitters, you don't get a base to work from. It may work if the "classical" media allow their data to be imported
Another problem that springs to mind is the current protocol of referencing sources when writing papers of your own. If these prototype papers are freely available people will want to reference them. Given a suitably large database then references could be hyperlinks to the same server - obviously, you would have to stop people using currently Draft-status papers as backreferences, though.
I suspect that the problem is a startup one - given a WEIGHTED average, then a person with a number of accepted papers in the field would have more weight than someone who has none to his account - obviously, *enough* students would outweigh such an authority, but he would have to be pretty wrong for that many people to go against him. The other requirement however would be the balance between the advantages of anonymous posting (with an account - I think such a system would not work with Pure AC's) and people having to put their NAME to a piece they write. But hey, I am just throwing out ideas here, not offering to write the code:+) --
Hmm. I found a fair amount of questionable stuff in there, for instance:
14.2 - Warrants to be extended to computer systems connected to, but not located at the site for which the warrant was issued
15.1 - Authority to order someone in your jurisdiction to provide you with data they have access to - note this doesn't say anything about where the data is....
16.3 - RIP style gagging order to be for the longest period of time allowed by law in that juristiction
Not to mention that warrants or any kind of judicial overview aren't mentioned, just that "legislative and other measures as may be necessary" be taken to ensure that "competent authorities" (also not defined) be able to perform the actions specified in this convention.
However, I can't find the bit about turning over passwords - can someone locate it in the Legalese for me? --
This is the disembodied voice of RMS here. Please try to refrain from using such loaded terms as "piracy" and "theft" in an objective discussion. Theft mainly relates to tangible objects and well, piracy implies that these people are raping, pillaging and dressing like lunatics. I hate to tell you this, but about the ONLY use for the word "piracy" these days is for the unauthorized copying of music or software that you don't have a legal right to so duplicate (fair use and all that). If there are any *real* pirates out there that are offended, I freely apologise to them (and their parrots). Theft is taking something without its owner's consent in a manner considered illegal by the laws of the place you live - The fact you may disagree (and many people do) that some IP rights shouldn't be as restrictive as they are is beside the point. Get a life.... --
To be honest, I can't imagine many of the online providers being too unhappy about their back-archives being available in a distributed format (it would save them the trouble of holding such a database, and I can't imagine that issues more than (say) three months old provide much of a income for them) but formats may be a chore - many will be in pdf or propriatory formats, and the odds of more than one or two being in a common format are low (and the publishers aren't going to foot the cost of conversion).
What we could do with is an online _based_ submission and review site for scientific papers; something based on the/. model (with a discussion area for online discussion and analysis of papers, some sort of versioning to allow corrections by the author, and the ability to rate papers on a scale of 1-10). Papers scoring highly (a weighted average of the scores) could then be submitted to a more formal 'classic' peer review, then see real paper (thus allowing Real World income from the process). The distilled papers that emerge from this should be of a higher quality, with the authors of papers that make good points but that have glaring holes given time to repair their mistakes, and in cases where a reader/reviewer is in a similar field and can fill in gaps the author missed, opportunities for both to produce a joint paper that neither could have competently completed alone. --
Napster said that they would block any user pirating MP3s on their system. They just needed a list. So this is what Metallica did. I can't find much to complain about with this one either (and I am usually in the front row with a rock when it comes to stoning the unbeliever) The My-MP3 issue aside, Napster made a credible offer to remove anyone found infringing copyright from it's service; Metallica have taken them up on that, as is their right. If they find themselves blocked from Napster, then they can move on to Gnutella or something newer - I can't see a problem here.
Stealing MP3s is illegal. Get over it. Stealing MUSIC is illegal - MP3 shouldn't be a special case. and yes, you weaken the entire legitimacy of MP3 by using it for piracy, but that is because it isn't as established as CDR and audio tape are.....
If you want to do it fine, but don't whine when you get caught or Napster blocks you. If CDs cost too much, don't buy them. Eventually the market will evolve where they are cheaper. But the bottom line is that it is theft, plain and simple. Argue it any way you want but it is still theft. It's their music to sell as they want for however much they want. That is a free market. If it costs too much buy someone elses music that is cheaper. Indeed - if Metallica went ahead and actually sued the kids doing the passing of these MP3s, then that would be an outrage (no matter how much in the right they were) - but I can't see the difference between this and discovering that a school audio lab was being used for illegal audio tape piracy - and doubt a judge would either. --
Shame on you! you are violating the Offical Rules of PR:
People should not and can not remember what you told them more than three days ago - if they do remember, than someone has reminded them (in breach of your copyright)
If you wanted them to remember, you would remind them yourself in your statement (given that you are charging the offending company by the word, this can only be a good thing)
If you have just gotten the account, and the situation is bad enough that the herd of pee-poll seem to be remembering, blame the previous PR firm for misrepresenting the data
don't paint your client into a corner, or you will BE that previous PR firm. Make sure any admissions you make are weasel-worded so you can respin them later
Hmm. Theoretically, if you broke up the disk array into a spanning archive (as arj will) then it should be semi-trivial to generate a final parity disk.
If you have nfiles each one-floppy big (arj1 to arjn) you can then generate a final parity file by simply xoring all the nfiles together, to give a file equal in size to the largest file that makes it up.
should any single floppy in the set fail, then exactly the same utility will allow you to xor all the remaining files, plus the parity file, and gain back the original (missing) file.
obviously this will only protect you from ONE missing disk however, but it is better than nothing:+)
I imagine you could do the same thing on a disk-image basis, but it would require much more specialized access to the low level floppy calls to get "raw" reads of the disk sectors for the operation, whereas a simple file XOR can be knocked together in MS Quickbasic in five minutes, and as a under-one-k executable in ten:+) - if you don't want the bother of writing one yourself, a simple websearch on One Time Pad implimentations will turn up several dozen - with source..... --
Use libungif: it does not use LZW compression, so there are no patent issues. for that matter, I thought any GIFs produced with a licenced editor were themselves licenced - unless the goalposts were moved again. in any case, here is a good time to push for better PNG support in browsers.... --
Hmm. for a good foundation in Crypto, I would recommend a look at PGP and Scramdisk (not only for the programs but for the information on the sites. In addition, the excellent Applied Cryptography is available online, as is the author's regular crypto newsletter CryptoGram. I don't have much on the USA legal stuff (but that can be found on the above sites) but for the UK, currently fighting against one of the worst "Big Brother" Violation of the right to secrecy in communications bills known in the world, the UKCrypto discussion list archive would be worth a look...
Finally, here are further links to, for example, the crypto law survey which will give you an idea of the legality of Crypto in various countries.
Good luck, and we will look forward to seeing your report if you choose to post it to the web. --
Hmm. I can't get to the website (too many/.ters I suspect:+) but I can't see how throwing a little money into this sort of thing can be bad. Assuming that there IS a particle or wave that transmits gravity, then it is possible there is a way to focus or deflect those particles/waves that costs less than the cost of opposing them. Given this is a possibility (even a remote one) than an industry focussed massively on opposing gravity (as airplanes do, I would say) would be better off throwing away a little research money than risking being on the outside if it *is* discovered, and undercut by competitors that made the gamble. If the research proves that antigravity isn't possible with the technology of today (or that it costs more than just letting it take effect and opposing it with a motor) then that too is valuable data - that there won't pop up "antigrav airways" able to work out of a car lot and undercut your fares to the point you would be making a loss....... --
Hmm. It's fairly obvious where the interests of the Patent Lawyers lie here - in more, longer and wider patents that cover stuff the Patent office isn't capable of scanning for prior art. However, do we need to get their approval? If some of the bigger players (Amazon for instance) agreed to place any or all software / business method patents into a common pool three years after they are granted, with free licencing for anyone willing to make the same commitment for THEIR patents, I can't see how the Patent office can fail to accept it as a de-facto standard - particularly if their own supporters start to suffer from being excluded from (and sued by) members of the common pool.... --
Novell guy doing demo here last week had a double-thick PCMCIA card that had four RJ45 jacks, and was a 5-port hub. I have emailled him for product details (as I would like one too:+) --
I have contacted the two whose companies are named (interestingly enough, one doesn't actually work for the company given, but the journalist thought it would sound "better" to name the larger company, and not the subcontractor) and both say they were taken massively out of context; Both seem to believe that the more recent server platforms (NT and Linux in particular) are not yet mature enough for a "secure" environment,,and that the open/disclosed source nature of some unix-alikes make vunerability finding easier and faster than they would be if they were closed source (which of course is true). Given that BOTH stressed in their replies that they had been discussing only the needs of secure services (for example, banking servers) the exercise of a certain caution (for example, recommending SeOS as a secure operating system, which it practically defines) is understandable. Both also expressed their disappointment at the hate-mail they had received from members of this forum over this - which is predictable, I suppose, but as is usually the case, uncalled-for. --
Great analogy Dave. I would probably then write a second code down "h3110 w0rld" in order to demonstrate that with a little work, a couple of intelligent programmers could crack the code really easily. Nah - if I did that, I would get arrested as I am obviously that "c00l Hax0r" that defaced all those websites:+) --
You don't need any export license because all the players are made in Japan. true - but the MPAA aren't - and exporting source code and/or compiled programs was just as illegal as hardware. --
The movie vendors have explicitly licensed the DVD players, or rather the player manufacturers Translation: been paid by / got their slice of the action from
which is why the players are legal. DeCSS was not licensed. Translation: they aren't getting paid by them, so get mad --
You're right, of course... but why the heck is this fact going completely unrecognized by both the media and the court? I realize I'm a geek, but the idea that you can't protect against somebody copying a disc bit-by-bit doesn't seem that complex to me. So far, it appears to be because the lawyers have tried to fight it on free-speech grounds, where it is a thorny and borderline problem. even the densest judge would start to get a glimmer of sense if you presented him with the following:
show him piece of paper with the letters "y3oo9 294oe" on it
tell him it is a message in code - that without the secret key, you can't decode it
get a second blank sheet, and write on it "y3oo9 294oe"
show him that, without understanding the code, you have successfully copied it to a blank sheet - so that the copy can be used to decode the message as well as the original could
Mind you, judges can be pretty stubborn if they want to be:+) --
The article contains a common error - 'a computer program which removes DVD copy-protection'. As I understand it, DeCSS has nothing to do with copying. It removes the playback 'protection'. True, but they are not doing too badly for a law- rather than techie-orientated piece. More importantly, the MPAA are *not* claiming copy protection, but that they are circumventing ACCESS CONTROLS which is of course what it does. If this is a reasonable restriction is debatable, of course. The exact paragraph is:
In its Hartford complaint, the movie industry invoked a section of the copyright law that provides that no person shall offer "any technology, product, service, device, component or part thereof [that is] produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to" a copyrighted work.
SPVC336.EXE 3169558 09-28-97 Sportster Voice 33.6 Modem manual | (Self-extracting archive/MS Word format) Well, to be fair to them
There IS a PDF version on the line below (spvc336.pdf),
It is a copy of the original manual (that came in the box) - a 3mb download isn't too unreasonable if you had a copy and then lost it and
it is so large because it is in Word 6 format - so can be read for "free" on a Win9x box - you don't need to buy MS Office97
Many manufacturers (my current employer too, I am sad to say) either don't supply replacement manuals, or charge for them.
however, from the other point of view -
a 3mb download seems a lot over a 33.6 modem (and if you don't have a 33.6 modem, why do you need a manual for it?)
It doesn't NEED all the pretty pictures it has - Word 6 was notoriously bad at storing images, so why force it to?
The same pictures, stored externally as gifs and linked to as a set of.htm files, zip down to less than 2mb,and I suspect would do much better if the images that are re-used time and time again in the file were a single item in the zipfile.
Maybe now they will have a website that is worth a crap. USR 56k modems are so popular, but trying to d/l a bios flash from the website is an exercise in futility. The tech manual for those modems is a 3 Mb compressed file which decompresses to a 60 Mb Word file! There is no option to search downloads - search only returns tech docs. You can usually get much better results if you go directly to the FTP site - try the following:
In each case there is a file "index" that lists the contents of the directory in ascii. 3Com have actually made a decent effort here to support those that don't need the handholding of a pretty Shockwave website........ --
I'm not sure that 'editorial control' applies in this case. To be honest, neither do I - but I was able to convince the legal bod that the risk of it was about equal to that of not filtering, and much cheaper. They ended up with a "porn on pcs is a sacking offence, you must be able to justify all web use and we WILL be logging what servers you visit" policy, and AFAIK are still fine. --
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure about the credit thing, but our CCard provider (www.datacash.com)provide Perl modules for the online-ordering interface stuff.
--
Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law when committed intentionally and without right: I can see where this makes posting the root password to microsoft.com a crime, but don't see how it gives LEAs the right to demand MY passwords...
--
I would not use such a system, because there is no security for my valuable work... someone could take my idea, give it a twist, and push it into peer review.
I suspect this may depend on the interaction between this system and the classic media - I suspect that the simpliest method (logging who accesses draft papers, with the Peer Reviewers taking a dim view of the sort of Claim Jumping you are proposing) would not work; people would end up asking friends to look up stuff in draft papers just in case something they were already working on was already there, and it compromised their own work by making it seem like a seedy copy. Does anyone else here have any ideas on this?
--
I've been a PhD student now for a few years and I find it difficult to read and critically assess papers submitted to journals and conference proceedings in my field alone.
Much of this is chicken - and - egg stuff - without a large, searchable database, the readers won't come, but without readers and submitters, you don't get a base to work from. It may work if the "classical" media allow their data to be imported
Another problem that springs to mind is the current protocol of referencing sources when writing papers of your own. If these prototype papers are freely available people will want to reference them.
Given a suitably large database then references could be hyperlinks to the same server - obviously, you would have to stop people using currently Draft-status papers as backreferences, though.
I suspect that the problem is a startup one - given a WEIGHTED average, then a person with a number of accepted papers in the field would have more weight than someone who has none to his account - obviously, *enough* students would outweigh such an authority, but he would have to be pretty wrong for that many people to go against him. The other requirement however would be the balance between the advantages of anonymous posting (with an account - I think such a system would not work with Pure AC's) and people having to put their NAME to a piece they write. :+)
But hey, I am just throwing out ideas here, not offering to write the code
--
- 14.2 - Warrants to be extended to computer systems connected to, but not located at the site for which the warrant was issued
- 15.1 - Authority to order someone in your jurisdiction to provide you with data they have access to - note this doesn't say anything about where the data is....
- 16.3 - RIP style gagging order to be for the longest period of time allowed by law in that juristiction
Not to mention that warrants or any kind of judicial overview aren't mentioned, just that "legislative and other measures as may be necessary" be taken to ensure that "competent authorities" (also not defined) be able to perform the actions specified in this convention.However, I can't find the bit about turning over passwords - can someone locate it in the Legalese for me?
--
This is the disembodied voice of RMS here. Please try to refrain from using such loaded terms as "piracy" and "theft" in an objective discussion. Theft mainly relates to tangible objects and well, piracy implies that these people are raping, pillaging and dressing like lunatics.
I hate to tell you this, but about the ONLY use for the word "piracy" these days is for the unauthorized copying of music or software that you don't have a legal right to so duplicate (fair use and all that). If there are any *real* pirates out there that are offended, I freely apologise to them (and their parrots).
Theft is taking something without its owner's consent in a manner considered illegal by the laws of the place you live - The fact you may disagree (and many people do) that some IP rights shouldn't be as restrictive as they are is beside the point. Get a life....
--
What we could do with is an online _based_ submission and review site for scientific papers; something based on the /. model (with a discussion area for online discussion and analysis of papers, some sort of versioning to allow corrections by the author, and the ability to rate papers on a scale of 1-10). Papers scoring highly (a weighted average of the scores) could then be submitted to a more formal 'classic' peer review, then see real paper (thus allowing Real World income from the process). The distilled papers that emerge from this should be of a higher quality, with the authors of papers that make good points but that have glaring holes given time to repair their mistakes, and in cases where a reader/reviewer is in a similar field and can fill in gaps the author missed, opportunities for both to produce a joint paper that neither could have competently completed alone.
--
I can't find much to complain about with this one either (and I am usually in the front row with a rock when it comes to stoning the unbeliever)
The My-MP3 issue aside, Napster made a credible offer to remove anyone found infringing copyright from it's service; Metallica have taken them up on that, as is their right. If they find themselves blocked from Napster, then they can move on to Gnutella or something newer - I can't see a problem here.
Stealing MP3s is illegal. Get over it.
Stealing MUSIC is illegal - MP3 shouldn't be a special case. and yes, you weaken the entire legitimacy of MP3 by using it for piracy, but that is because it isn't as established as CDR and audio tape are.....
If you want to do it fine, but don't whine when you get caught or Napster blocks you. If CDs cost too much, don't buy them. Eventually the market will evolve where they are cheaper. But the bottom line is that it is theft, plain and simple. Argue it any way you want but it is still theft. It's their music to sell as they want for however much they want. That is a free market. If it costs too much buy someone elses music that is cheaper.
Indeed - if Metallica went ahead and actually sued the kids doing the passing of these MP3s, then that would be an outrage (no matter how much in the right they were) - but I can't see the difference between this and discovering that a school audio lab was being used for illegal audio tape piracy - and doubt a judge would either.
--
--
If you have nfiles each one-floppy big (arj1 to arjn) you can then generate a final parity file by simply xoring all the nfiles together, to give a file equal in size to the largest file that makes it up. should any single floppy in the set fail, then exactly the same utility will allow you to xor all the remaining files, plus the parity file, and gain back the original (missing) file.
obviously this will only protect you from ONE missing disk however, but it is better than nothing
I imagine you could do the same thing on a disk-image basis, but it would require much more specialized access to the low level floppy calls to get "raw" reads of the disk sectors for the operation, whereas a simple file XOR can be knocked together in MS Quickbasic in five minutes, and as a under-one-k executable in ten :+) - if you don't want the bother of writing one yourself, a simple websearch on One Time Pad implimentations will turn up several dozen - with source.....
--
Use libungif: it does not use LZW compression, so there are no patent issues.
for that matter, I thought any GIFs produced with a licenced editor were themselves licenced - unless the goalposts were moved again. in any case, here is a good time to push for better PNG support in browsers....
--
I don't have much on the USA legal stuff (but that can be found on the above sites) but for the UK, currently fighting against one of the worst "Big Brother" Violation of the right to secrecy in communications bills known in the world, the UKCrypto discussion list archive would be worth a look...
Finally, here are further links to, for example, the crypto law survey which will give you an idea of the legality of Crypto in various countries.
Good luck, and we will look forward to seeing your report if you choose to post it to the web.
--
Hmm. I can't get to the website (too many /.ters I suspect :+) but I can't see how throwing a little money into this sort of thing can be bad.
Assuming that there IS a particle or wave that transmits gravity, then it is possible there is a way to focus or deflect those particles/waves that costs less than the cost of opposing them. Given this is a possibility (even a remote one) than an industry focussed massively on opposing gravity (as airplanes do, I would say) would be better off throwing away a little research money than risking being on the outside if it *is* discovered, and undercut by competitors that made the gamble. If the research proves that antigravity isn't possible with the technology of today (or that it costs more than just letting it take effect and opposing it with a motor) then that too is valuable data - that there won't pop up "antigrav airways" able to work out of a car lot and undercut your fares to the point you would be making a loss.......
--
Hmm. It's fairly obvious where the interests of the Patent Lawyers lie here - in more, longer and wider patents that cover stuff the Patent office isn't capable of scanning for prior art.
However, do we need to get their approval? If some of the bigger players (Amazon for instance) agreed to place any or all software / business method patents into a common pool three years after they are granted, with free licencing for anyone willing to make the same commitment for THEIR patents, I can't see how the Patent office can fail to accept it as a de-facto standard - particularly if their own supporters start to suffer from being excluded from (and sued by) members of the common pool....
--
Novell guy doing demo here last week had a double-thick PCMCIA card that had four RJ45 jacks, and was a 5-port hub. I have emailled him for product details (as I would like one too :+)
--
I have contacted the two whose companies are named (interestingly enough, one doesn't actually work for the company given, but the journalist thought it would sound "better" to name the larger company, and not the subcontractor) and both say they were taken massively out of context; ,and that the open/disclosed source nature of some unix-alikes make vunerability finding easier and faster than they would be if they were closed source (which of course is true). Given that BOTH stressed in their replies that they had been discussing only the needs of secure services (for example, banking servers) the exercise of a certain caution (for example, recommending SeOS as a secure operating system, which it practically defines) is understandable.
Both seem to believe that the more recent server platforms (NT and Linux in particular) are not yet mature enough for a "secure" environment,
Both also expressed their disappointment at the hate-mail they had received from members of this forum over this - which is predictable, I suppose, but as is usually the case, uncalled-for.
--
Great analogy Dave. I would probably then write a second code down "h3110 w0rld" in order to demonstrate that with a little work, a couple of intelligent programmers could crack the code really easily. :+)
Nah - if I did that, I would get arrested as I am obviously that "c00l Hax0r" that defaced all those websites
--
You don't need any export license because all the players are made in Japan.
true - but the MPAA aren't - and exporting source code and/or compiled programs was just as illegal as hardware.
--
Translation: been paid by / got their slice of the action from
which is why the players are legal. DeCSS was not licensed.
Translation: they aren't getting paid by them, so get mad
--
oh - in case anyone is wondering, it says "hello world" :+)
--
So far, it appears to be because the lawyers have tried to fight it on free-speech grounds, where it is a thorny and borderline problem. even the densest judge would start to get a glimmer of sense if you presented him with the following:
- show him piece of paper with the letters "y3oo9 294oe" on it
- tell him it is a message in code - that without the secret key, you can't decode it
- get a second blank sheet, and write on it "y3oo9 294oe"
- show him that, without understanding the code, you have successfully copied it to a blank sheet - so that the copy can be used to decode the message as well as the original could
Mind you, judges can be pretty stubborn if they want to be--
True, but they are not doing too badly for a law- rather than techie-orientated piece. More importantly, the MPAA are *not* claiming copy protection, but that they are circumventing ACCESS CONTROLS which is of course what it does. If this is a reasonable restriction is debatable, of course. The exact paragraph is:
--
Well, to be fair to them
- There IS a PDF version on the line below (spvc336.pdf),
- It is a copy of the original manual (that came in the box) - a 3mb download isn't too unreasonable if you had a copy and then lost it and
- it is so large because it is in Word 6 format - so can be read for "free" on a Win9x box - you don't need to buy MS Office97
Many manufacturers (my current employer too, I am sad to say) either don't supply replacement manuals, or charge for them.however, from the other point of view -
--
You can usually get much better results if you go directly to the FTP site - try the following:
- Here for 3Com Cable Modem Files
- Here for 3Com Courier ISDN Files
- Here for 3Com Courier Modems
- Here for 3Com OfficeConnect 56K Business Modem
- Here for 3Com Sportster ISDN Files
- Here for 3Com U. S. Robotics ISDN TA
- Here for 3Com US Robotics Modem (Sportster
- Here for 3Com USB Network Interface
- Here for 3Com Voice Modem Support Files
- Here for 3Com WinModem Support Files
- Here for Big Picture Video Support Files
- Here for FAQs and Software Setup Docs
- Here for Macintosh Communications
- Here for US Robotics Worldport Modems
In each case there is a file "index" that lists the contents of the directory in ascii. 3Com have actually made a decent effort here to support those that don't need the handholding of a pretty Shockwave website........--
I'm not sure that 'editorial control' applies in this case.
To be honest, neither do I - but I was able to convince the legal bod that the risk of it was about equal to that of not filtering, and much cheaper. They ended up with a "porn on pcs is a sacking offence, you must be able to justify all web use and we WILL be logging what servers you visit" policy, and AFAIK are still fine.
--