Perhaps... then they will just install surveillance devices in your home, office, wherever you usually frequent, and you cannot be sure that what you say is only heard by your laptop.
Yeah, you do all that, I'll just open up Photoshop 7, mspaint, or GIMP;)
The measures are so trivial to avoid, that they are a joke. It's the principle that matters. Software developers are expected to understand logical reasoning. Irrational enforcment mesaures are best left to be argued amongst lawyers.
I do not believe a single counterfeiter will seroiously be stopped by not using the latest version of Photoshop. The only people who are likely to be impacted are people in advertising, etc.
The software links to a site clearly giving the rules for working with images of banknotes. The clear guidelines state that printing images of money is OK, providing modifications are made (overlaying the text SPECIMEN, changing the size or angle, or distorting the colors). What is the point in linking to those guidelines if the software won't let us implement them?
I expect Photoshop CS to be an image editing tool. I expect to be able to import an image into it, and perform modifications. I do not expect a TOOL to start questioning my motives for using it, or analysing what pixels I am looking at or printing, and then telling my I can't do it!
This is a euro note with the vast majority removed. It still triggers the currency detection. The area which isn't masked out contains thin horizontal lines, with a fluctuation of brightness along each line.
Oddly enough, adding any black text in the white area is enough to circumvent the detection. (!)
I did a simple google search, and downloaded the first image of a banknote I could find:
http://aes.iupui.edu/rwise/banknotes/euro/EuroPN ew -100Euro(N)-2002-donatedpw_f.jpg
I get the "this software does not support the unauthorized proccessing of currency" message. And may I ask how it knows its unauthorized?
Can anyone comment on the legality of cracking such a protection? It would seem insane any sane legal system to forbid me to instruct my own CPU to carry our a few NOP's instead of a CJNE, but as the DMCA has proved, many countries do not have sane legal systems.
IM is especially beneficial in dissagreements - people are forced to support their claims with coherent and logical arguments, rather than increasing the volume of their speech.
How on earth can the device detect the start and end of commercials?
My best guess is that it looks for tell-tale signs such fading scenes followed by a still frame. I would imagine if they use this method it will be horribly inacurate and trivial for TV broadcasters to circumvent...
* Put one line in your kernel config file (devce pcm) and you can just plug any supported sound card in. * The same goes with digital cameras: plug it in, and mount_msdosfs/dev/da0s1/mnt/camera and there you go. You mention this as if it demonstrated how easy freebsd was to operate!
Whilst the above steps might seem trivial to the experienced users, you have to admit it's not the kind of intuitive setup proccess you would reccommend to your grandma.
Whilst win32 is a joke to advanced users, you generally plug in supported hardware, and it just works. This is probably the main, and only, reason why windows continues to have it's widespread popularity amongst newcommers.
Such a tax would give me peace of mind, and it's certainly something I would welcome.
There is, however a problem with this approach. People who use media for data storage, and who do not download multimedia may argue (rightfully) that they should not be expected to pay an "assumed guilty" tax, while purchasing media for 'legitimate' activities.
If I went to the local HMV, took a DVD, and took it from the shop without paying, it would be stealing. If I made a copy for myself, without depriving the owner of the original item, it would be copyright infringment.
Surely you can see a difference between the two crimes I described above?
There is no equivelant in my area. I had a look at the site, and it seems to be a good service. If an equivelant service existed in the UK, it would certainly solve most of the problems I have with renting DVDs.
Who mentioned anything about stealing? Or are you one of the uninformed group who still consider copyright infringment to be theft?
In my post I gave *reasons* why people choose to download movies, and constructive critism of what is wrong with the way media is marketed - artificially inflated prices and no means for consumers to actually get what they want.
Of course I could either stop watching movies regularly and as you suggested "get a cheaper hobby", but this wouldn't be beneficial for the movie studios, and it wouldn't be beneficial to myself.
"What, you can't afford a DVD, but you can afford a computer and broadband internet access?"
You are comparing the price of a *single* DVD with the price of a months subscription to a DSL service?
Personally, I like to watch two or so films a week. If I am to rent these DVDs, it would cost me 20/month + inconvenience. If I was to buy them, it would cost me 100+/month. My other alternative is to download them, from a 18/month connection, which I have and need anyway.
So price-wise, downloading movies is cheaper. It may be immoral, illegal, etc, but you can't argue that people who can afford a DSL connection can neccessarily afford to buy all the DVDs they would like to watch.
So how about convenience?
"Seriously, the relatively low price of a DVD, coupled the hassle of finding a quality rip of a movie I want to see and the nuisance of waiting hours (or days) to DL the rip is one of the reasons I continue to prefer buying DVDs and watch movies in theaters."
My experiences differ. Downloading a movie is as easy as typing it's filename into emule, doing a jiggle search to verify it's filename, and adding it to a download queue. I usually watch movies on weekends, and set them to download a few days earlier.
I don't mind waiting 2 days (avg) for a movie. I set it going, and forget about it. There are perhaps 1-2 movies/year which I feel the need to see the very day they are released. In the majority of other cases, I can wait. And the majority of older movies are difficult to find in stores, yet trivial to find on emule/equivelant.
Until recently, movies were often released in US cinemas MONTHS before they appeared in the UK. This meant I could often get a HQ dvd-rip before I had a chance to see it legally. I guess the MPAA has wisened up recently, but there are still exceptions.
At home, I have an LCD projector, and 5.1" sound system. Coupled with good quality telecines or dvd-rips (verifying quality is easy - glance at the filesize, and check oppinions at vcdquality), the video/sound quality I get at home is perfectly adequate. Given the chance, I PREFER to watch movies at home than I do at the cinema. Yes, the cinema has a bigger screen and better sound system - but I also have to contend with 100 other people - some will inevitably be noisy, some phones will go off, people will interrupt me by walking in front of me so they can get to the toilet, etc...
Downloading movies is wrong and illegal - but I still do it. Not because I want to rebel, or because I feel like saving money at the expense of the artists. I do it because I have no legal alternative which would match the *convenience*. If the movie industries were to provide me a means of obtaining movies in the same format *legally*, for a reasonable price, things would be different.
And perhaps another annoyance...
Renting movies costs 2.5. Buying DVDs costs 15. I watch the majority of movies once. Sometimes I will re-watch the better movies after a year or so. Renting would seem the better option. Nethertheless, I like to *collect* movies, so that on occassion I can watch them again, or play a fragment during a conversation about them. Paying 6x the ammount of rental, just for the privellage of being able to watch the movie again sometime in the future seems ridicioulous. Driving to blockbusters and back everytime I get the spur-of-the-moment idea to view a movie again, only to find they aren't renting it anymore, doesn't appeal to me either. A computer-based collection of video files seems perfect. It would be perfect if I could do this legally. Unfortunatly the powers that be prefer to rip off the infrequent movie-goers, rather than produce something remotly affordable for people like myself.
Once connections are fast enough to STREAM movies, and P2P clients have their stabillity/reliablilty issues worked out, downloading movies will be easy enough.
There is no point in downloading a movie in 5 minuites, I'd be just as happy if it would download in 120 mins and allowed streaming.
So they have shut down the SITE used to distribute new k-lite builds. Now if only the authors could find some new way to distribute programs. Prefferably something decentralised and difficult to stop... hmmm... I know, how about the fasttrack network?;)
There is no scientific theory that disproves it, so why not?
What makes you believe that you/we are the most intelligent and important civillisation in the universe? The universe is pretty big, and that's a very arrogant assumption to make.
Heh, I take it you want to volunteer to transcode the vids to MPEG-4 in this case? Or would you rather just flame me annonymously?
Xine plays the WMV files without any issues on my SUSE box, using the codec DLL's freely availible from MS.
And to be honest using WMV as a codec for a *windows* review, with a target audience of Windows users, isn't out-of-place, and certainly wasn't intended as a troll.
Nope. This is slightly different. Many people consciously decide to share their internet connection (I am one of them).
Because of the technology it is often difficult (not to mention inconvenient for both parties) to try and locate the owner of the AP, interrupt them and ask if it is public or not. The 802.11 protocol has an excellent way of solving this. If you want your AP public - turn off encryption, set SSID broadcast to on, and disable MAC filtering. If people make their access point open, it can be interpreted as implicit permission to use that AP. If they are too stupid to tick a checkbox, that should be their responsibility.
Yes. The access point has SSID broadcast turned on, no MAC address filters, and encryption turned off. If someone configures their access point like that, you would assume they are implicitly giving the public permission to use it. It would be different had he circumvented any protections - but AFAIK there were none.
I think with this case, the goverment is attempting to push a hidden agenda. They have the concept of practically untracable internet access, citing terrorism laws (as we all know Osama masterminded his plans over an 802.11b connection to his hi-tech command centre in Afghanistan).
What about LYRICS? No algorithm will be capable of predicting weather people will be deeply affected by meaningful lyrics.
Of course good music is important, but very often what tells appart the good and the bad songs, are the impression made on my by the lyrics. Songs should be ways of expressing peoples feelings and emotions. A catchy melody, or in this case a melody similar to that used in previous songs, just isn't enough.
The law is severly fucked up when it come to technology related crimes. Laws are often written by people who have no clue about the technology they are regualting.
If someone decides to make their access point PUBLIC, then they are giving everyone permission to use it. They configure the SSID, channels, etc, and then they come to the box asking them if they want encryption. If they click "no", their access point will inform everyone in their neighbourhood that it can be used by them.
Access should be regulated via encryption and user accounts - not via the law. Computer hacking is illegal in many countries - and I believe this is wrong. If I can access a high-profile company WLAN from a laptop, while parked on the street, it means the system administrator is incompetent. If they don't want the public having access, they should tick the damn box rather than pursuing everyone with legal action.
When the credit card db gets hacked (and it's happened several times), you just have to cancel it and get issued a new card. When the fingerprint db gets hacked, they can't issue me a new finger.
The entire image of your fingerprint is not stored. What is stored is a numerical hash representing your fingerprint. Reconstructing the original from this is near enough impossible.
It seems that you belive that by stopping your child from seeing profianities in their typed form is protecting them. As if they don't hear worse at school.
And I dissagree with your comments, that children should be taught not to talk to unknown people online. I believe that the ability to converse with people they have never met, and most likely will never meet, is one of the most important things your child can be taught.
Thanks to the Internet, your child can make acquaintances with people from a multitude of countries, beliefs, and religions. They can learn about cultures, differences between societies, and problems or struggles people experience in everyday life. And they can do this safely.
There are still people who would rather deny their child communication with "online strangers" than educate their child about doing so responsibly. There are still parents who know so little about the Internet that they will accept the miconception that all "chat rooms" are undeground grooming places for paedophiles. Five minutes of guidance is enough to make your child understand that joining #12yroldz on AOL and repeatedly asking "wanna cyber?" is a bad idea.
The key is making your child *understand* that people hidden behind a chat room can lie. Simple as that. They need to be taught to keep their online acquaintances seperate from the real world. Make them understand that they WILL meet people who will try to harm them. With a little education, the Internet becomes a "virtual sandbox". Your child will be exposed to people - both good and bad, in a controlled and safe enviroment. There is no better way to teach your child about human nature.
I say this from personal experience. I am presently 18. During my 'childhood' I had always enjoyed the freedom of unrestricted online communication. I belive the results from this are only positive. I have learned so much, from so many...
My lifetime passion has always been programming. While in the 'real world', very few of the people around me shared this interest, online I was able to find a haven. I was able to interact with hundreds of thousands of people who not only shared my interests, but were willing to share their knowledge. I learnt to share my knowlede in return. I could collaborate on projects with people I had never met. It didn't matter that I was 12, noone knew or cared. My age was irrelevant. It was an environment in which skin color, gender, age, and nationallity are all irrelevant. A place where knowledge, contribution, and respect are honoured.
This has changed my approach in the real world. In a society where racism and religious discrimination are commonplace, children learn the negative attitudes from their peers. Having made contacts in practically every country, I didn't give in to the temptation to tag along. I actually knew the societies and people which others would criticise for no other reason than "because they're different".
I don't believe that your child will have their mind warped by pornography or bad language on the internet. If you believe they won't be exposed to these two 'evils' at their schools, you have perhaps lost contact with reality. The difference is that in the online world, attacking people with profanities results in rejection from a community, rather than cheap support from immature peers. The "u wanna fuck?" messages are frowned upon - "I'm sorry, I'd rather not sustain a sexual relationship over a 56k modem link".
I learnt, from first-hand experience, that trust takes years to build, and seconds to break. I learned to respect others, not because it was 'forbidden' to be disrespectful, but because mutual respect is what created the greatest acheivements and communities. I learned how to act when in a position of power, how to diminish rather than fuel dissagreements. Online communities, be they forums, IRC channels, or simply e-mail, have one thing in common; they are environments in which decisions aren't made with fists or knives, but via wit, intellect, and understanding. If children weren't sheided from this "for their own protection", they would grow to become better people.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps... then they will just install surveillance devices in your home, office, wherever you usually frequent, and you cannot be sure that what you say is only heard by your laptop.
Yeah, you do all that, I'll just open up Photoshop 7, mspaint, or GIMP ;)
The measures are so trivial to avoid, that they are a joke. It's the principle that matters. Software developers are expected to understand logical reasoning. Irrational enforcment mesaures are best left to be argued amongst lawyers.
I do not believe a single counterfeiter will seroiously be stopped by not using the latest version of Photoshop. The only people who are likely to be impacted are people in advertising, etc.
The software links to a site clearly giving the rules for working with images of banknotes. The clear guidelines state that printing images of money is OK, providing modifications are made (overlaying the text SPECIMEN, changing the size or angle, or distorting the colors). What is the point in linking to those guidelines if the software won't let us implement them?
I expect Photoshop CS to be an image editing tool. I expect to be able to import an image into it, and perform modifications. I do not expect a TOOL to start questioning my motives for using it, or analysing what pixels I am looking at or printing, and then telling my I can't do it!
http://zone-mr.ath.cx/temp/currencyimport.jpg
This is a euro note with the vast majority removed. It still triggers the currency detection. The area which isn't masked out contains thin horizontal lines, with a fluctuation of brightness along each line.
Oddly enough, adding any black text in the white area is enough to circumvent the detection. (!)
Yep, just confirmed it myself.
N ew -100Euro(N)-2002-donatedpw_f.jpg
I did a simple google search, and downloaded the first image of a banknote I could find:
http://aes.iupui.edu/rwise/banknotes/euro/EuroP
I get the "this software does not support the unauthorized proccessing of currency" message. And may I ask how it knows its unauthorized?
Can anyone comment on the legality of cracking such a protection? It would seem insane any sane legal system to forbid me to instruct my own CPU to carry our a few NOP's instead of a CJNE, but as the DMCA has proved, many countries do not have sane legal systems.
IM is especially beneficial in dissagreements - people are forced to support their claims with coherent and logical arguments, rather than increasing the volume of their speech.
How on earth can the device detect the start and end of commercials?
My best guess is that it looks for tell-tale signs such fading scenes followed by a still frame. I would imagine if they use this method it will be horribly inacurate and trivial for TV broadcasters to circumvent...
* Put one line in your kernel config file (devce pcm) and you can just plug any supported sound card in. /dev/da0s1 /mnt/camera and there you go.
* The same goes with digital cameras: plug it in, and mount_msdosfs
You mention this as if it demonstrated how easy freebsd was to operate!
Whilst the above steps might seem trivial to the experienced users, you have to admit it's not the kind of intuitive setup proccess you would reccommend to your grandma.
Whilst win32 is a joke to advanced users, you generally plug in supported hardware, and it just works. This is probably the main, and only, reason why windows continues to have it's widespread popularity amongst newcommers.
Such a tax would give me peace of mind, and it's certainly something I would welcome.
There is, however a problem with this approach. People who use media for data storage, and who do not download multimedia may argue (rightfully) that they should not be expected to pay an "assumed guilty" tax, while purchasing media for 'legitimate' activities.
I didn't deprive the owner of the item.
If I went to the local HMV, took a DVD, and took it from the shop without paying, it would be stealing. If I made a copy for myself, without depriving the owner of the original item, it would be copyright infringment.
Surely you can see a difference between the two crimes I described above?
Sorry about that. I just glanced at the preview to make sure there were no major formatting issues. I didn't realise slashdot removed the GBP symbol.
There is no equivelant in my area. I had a look at the site, and it seems to be a good service. If an equivelant service existed in the UK, it would certainly solve most of the problems I have with renting DVDs.
Who mentioned anything about stealing? Or are you one of the uninformed group who still consider copyright infringment to be theft?
In my post I gave *reasons* why people choose to download movies, and constructive critism of what is wrong with the way media is marketed - artificially inflated prices and no means for consumers to actually get what they want.
Of course I could either stop watching movies regularly and as you suggested "get a cheaper hobby", but this wouldn't be beneficial for the movie studios, and it wouldn't be beneficial to myself.
"What, you can't afford a DVD, but you can afford a computer and broadband internet access?"
You are comparing the price of a *single* DVD with the price of a months subscription to a DSL service?
Personally, I like to watch two or so films a week. If I am to rent these DVDs, it would cost me 20/month + inconvenience. If I was to buy them, it would cost me 100+/month. My other alternative is to download them, from a 18/month connection, which I have and need anyway.
So price-wise, downloading movies is cheaper. It may be immoral, illegal, etc, but you can't argue that people who can afford a DSL connection can neccessarily afford to buy all the DVDs they would like to watch.
So how about convenience?
"Seriously, the relatively low price of a DVD, coupled the hassle of finding a quality rip of a movie I want to see and the nuisance of waiting hours (or days) to DL the rip is one of the reasons I continue to prefer buying DVDs and watch movies in theaters."
My experiences differ. Downloading a movie is as easy as typing it's filename into emule, doing a jiggle search to verify it's filename, and adding it to a download queue. I usually watch movies on weekends, and set them to download a few days earlier.
I don't mind waiting 2 days (avg) for a movie. I set it going, and forget about it. There are perhaps 1-2 movies/year which I feel the need to see the very day they are released. In the majority of other cases, I can wait. And the majority of older movies are difficult to find in stores, yet trivial to find on emule/equivelant.
Until recently, movies were often released in US cinemas MONTHS before they appeared in the UK. This meant I could often get a HQ dvd-rip before I had a chance to see it legally. I guess the MPAA has wisened up recently, but there are still exceptions.
At home, I have an LCD projector, and 5.1" sound system. Coupled with good quality telecines or dvd-rips (verifying quality is easy - glance at the filesize, and check oppinions at vcdquality), the video/sound quality I get at home is perfectly adequate. Given the chance, I PREFER to watch movies at home than I do at the cinema. Yes, the cinema has a bigger screen and better sound system - but I also have to contend with 100 other people - some will inevitably be noisy, some phones will go off, people will interrupt me by walking in front of me so they can get to the toilet, etc...
Downloading movies is wrong and illegal - but I still do it. Not because I want to rebel, or because I feel like saving money at the expense of the artists. I do it because I have no legal alternative which would match the *convenience*. If the movie industries were to provide me a means of obtaining movies in the same format *legally*, for a reasonable price, things would be different.
And perhaps another annoyance...
Renting movies costs 2.5. Buying DVDs costs 15. I watch the majority of movies once. Sometimes I will re-watch the better movies after a year or so. Renting would seem the better option. Nethertheless, I like to *collect* movies, so that on occassion I can watch them again, or play a fragment during a conversation about them. Paying 6x the ammount of rental, just for the privellage of being able to watch the movie again sometime in the future seems ridicioulous. Driving to blockbusters and back everytime I get the spur-of-the-moment idea to view a movie again, only to find they aren't renting it anymore, doesn't appeal to me either. A computer-based collection of video files seems perfect. It would be perfect if I could do this legally. Unfortunatly the powers that be prefer to rip off the infrequent movie-goers, rather than produce something remotly affordable for people like myself.
Once connections are fast enough to STREAM movies, and P2P clients have their stabillity/reliablilty issues worked out, downloading movies will be easy enough.
There is no point in downloading a movie in 5 minuites, I'd be just as happy if it would download in 120 mins and allowed streaming.
Wasn't DeCSS actually written in Perl?
So they have shut down the SITE used to distribute new k-lite builds. Now if only the authors could find some new way to distribute programs. Prefferably something decentralised and difficult to stop... hmmm... I know, how about the fasttrack network? ;)
There is no scientific theory that disproves it, so why not?
What makes you believe that you/we are the most intelligent and important civillisation in the universe? The universe is pretty big, and that's a very arrogant assumption to make.
Heh, I take it you want to volunteer to transcode the vids to MPEG-4 in this case? Or would you rather just flame me annonymously?
Xine plays the WMV files without any issues on my SUSE box, using the codec DLL's freely availible from MS.
And to be honest using WMV as a codec for a *windows* review, with a target audience of Windows users, isn't out-of-place, and certainly wasn't intended as a troll.
The latest build is 4051 not 4015. It was launched at the PDC two months ago.
Here is a little review I wrote: http://www.betaone.net/index.php?showtopic=29402
Nope. This is slightly different. Many people consciously decide to share their internet connection (I am one of them).
Because of the technology it is often difficult (not to mention inconvenient for both parties) to try and locate the owner of the AP, interrupt them and ask if it is public or not. The 802.11 protocol has an excellent way of solving this. If you want your AP public - turn off encryption, set SSID broadcast to on, and disable MAC filtering. If people make their access point open, it can be interpreted as implicit permission to use that AP. If they are too stupid to tick a checkbox, that should be their responsibility.
Yes. The access point has SSID broadcast turned on, no MAC address filters, and encryption turned off. If someone configures their access point like that, you would assume they are implicitly giving the public permission to use it. It would be different had he circumvented any protections - but AFAIK there were none.
I think with this case, the goverment is attempting to push a hidden agenda. They have the concept of practically untracable internet access, citing terrorism laws (as we all know Osama masterminded his plans over an 802.11b connection to his hi-tech command centre in Afghanistan).
What about LYRICS? No algorithm will be capable of predicting weather people will be deeply affected by meaningful lyrics.
Of course good music is important, but very often what tells appart the good and the bad songs, are the impression made on my by the lyrics. Songs should be ways of expressing peoples feelings and emotions. A catchy melody, or in this case a melody similar to that used in previous songs, just isn't enough.
The law is severly fucked up when it come to technology related crimes. Laws are often written by people who have no clue about the technology they are regualting.
If someone decides to make their access point PUBLIC, then they are giving everyone permission to use it. They configure the SSID, channels, etc, and then they come to the box asking them if they want encryption. If they click "no", their access point will inform everyone in their neighbourhood that it can be used by them.
Access should be regulated via encryption and user accounts - not via the law. Computer hacking is illegal in many countries - and I believe this is wrong. If I can access a high-profile company WLAN from a laptop, while parked on the street, it means the system administrator is incompetent. If they don't want the public having access, they should tick the damn box rather than pursuing everyone with legal action.
When the credit card db gets hacked (and it's happened several times), you just have to cancel it and get issued a new card.
When the fingerprint db gets hacked, they can't issue me a new finger.
The entire image of your fingerprint is not stored. What is stored is a numerical hash representing your fingerprint. Reconstructing the original from this is near enough impossible.
It seems that you belive that by stopping your child from seeing profianities in their typed form is protecting them. As if they don't hear worse at school.
And I dissagree with your comments, that children should be taught not to talk to unknown people online. I believe that the ability to converse with people they have never met, and most likely will never meet, is one of the most important things your child can be taught.
Thanks to the Internet, your child can make acquaintances with people from a multitude of countries, beliefs, and religions. They can learn about cultures, differences between societies, and problems or struggles people experience in everyday life. And they can do this safely.
There are still people who would rather deny their child communication with "online strangers" than educate their child about doing so responsibly. There are still parents who know so little about the Internet that they will accept the miconception that all "chat rooms" are undeground grooming places for paedophiles. Five minutes of guidance is enough to make your child understand that joining #12yroldz on AOL and repeatedly asking "wanna cyber?" is a bad idea.
The key is making your child *understand* that people hidden behind a chat room can lie. Simple as that. They need to be taught to keep their online acquaintances seperate from the real world. Make them understand that they WILL meet people who will try to harm them. With a little education, the Internet becomes a "virtual sandbox". Your child will be exposed to people - both good and bad, in a controlled and safe enviroment. There is no better way to teach your child about human nature.
I say this from personal experience. I am presently 18. During my 'childhood' I had always enjoyed the freedom of unrestricted online communication. I belive the results from this are only positive. I have learned so much, from so many...
My lifetime passion has always been programming. While in the 'real world', very few of the people around me shared this interest, online I was able to find a haven. I was able to interact with hundreds of thousands of people who not only shared my interests, but were willing to share their knowledge. I learnt to share my knowlede in return. I could collaborate on projects with people I had never met. It didn't matter that I was 12, noone knew or cared. My age was irrelevant. It was an environment in which skin color, gender, age, and nationallity are all irrelevant. A place where knowledge, contribution, and respect are honoured.
This has changed my approach in the real world. In a society where racism and religious discrimination are commonplace, children learn the negative attitudes from their peers. Having made contacts in practically every country, I didn't give in to the temptation to tag along. I actually knew the societies and people which others would criticise for no other reason than "because they're different".
I don't believe that your child will have their mind warped by pornography or bad language on the internet. If you believe they won't be exposed to these two 'evils' at their schools, you have perhaps lost contact with reality. The difference is that in the online world, attacking people with profanities results in rejection from a community, rather than cheap support from immature peers. The "u wanna fuck?" messages are frowned upon - "I'm sorry, I'd rather not sustain a sexual relationship over a 56k modem link".
I learnt, from first-hand experience, that trust takes years to build, and seconds to break. I learned to respect others, not because it was 'forbidden' to be disrespectful, but because mutual respect is what created the greatest acheivements and communities. I learned how to act when in a position of power, how to diminish rather than fuel dissagreements. Online communities, be they forums, IRC channels, or simply e-mail, have one thing in common; they are environments in which decisions aren't made with fists or knives, but via wit, intellect, and understanding. If children weren't sheided from this "for their own protection", they would grow to become better people.