I agree with you tottally. However it is a completely differnt issue. I do not believe that that is any sort of reason to regulate the net.
The people who force children into these situations are horrible and deserve to be hunted down. However, prohibiting thier warez does not stop them. They will always be able to profit.
Whenever you prohibit a product, you increase its value, and thus perpetuate its market. It is the dark underbelly of capitalism.
I do not believe that a person who simply views anything should be persecuted. Go after the monstors. Kill the root of the problem, not the symptoms.
> You see no real problem with software piracy? > Excuse me, but as a software developer I would > ensure that anyone who pirates my software is > prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I have > reported employers, companies and sites to the > SPA for software piracy, and shall continue to > do so until there are no more WaReZ vermin > around.
And as a software developer, I do not feel that I have the right to stop anyone from copying or using my programs, No matter what the law says.
No amount of copying or use can ever hurt me in any way shape or form. I have never reported anyone to the SPA, nor will I ever.
All software which I hold copyright for gets released under GPL or other Free Software licence.
Of course...im just plain not a capitalist. I don't care about the money. Sure I could make money by writting software and forcing people under penalty of law to pay for it...but I feel that is immoral, so I don't do it.
> Golly gee, and here I was thinking that telnet > was a client. Guess not.
It is...thats the point...anything that connects to anything is a "client". I was trying to point out how silly the argument was.
>> Find a particular server? How is it any >> differnt from email? Should every ISP just >> automatically allow anyone, free of charge, >> to have an email acount on their server?
> Well, there *is* the fact that the UDP doesn't >exist in the email world..
You avoid the question. Is or should your ISP be required to offer everyone free email acounts?
UDP DOES btw exist in email. Ever heard of a "Realtime Blackhole List"? Feel free to look it up. Its basically the same thing, a VOLUNTARY blocking of email from IP addresses by a wide number of sysadmins.
> Betcha you aren't willing to add > alt.binaries.mp3s or whatever NG carries mp3s on > usenet if you don't have it already.
Noone has requested it. The issue has not come up. Certainly any binaries group needs to be considered a little more heavily than other groups, if for no other reason than the amount of server space needed to physically store its messages.
> Cable modems, IMHO, should be banned by the > gov'mt. Everything oughta use DSL. Cable modems > are such a lousy architecture.
And the government should ban everything that is lousy? I dunno about you but I am already mad about how they force me to pay taxes under threat of force, and then go on to mis-manage my money. In the words of Thoreau, "the best government is that which governs not at all"
> B) Well, then I guess the'll find out it was a > bad idea to run the proxy, because their account > will get canceled. So what?
Noone is saying that the ISP should be canceling acounts. Perhaps temporarily suspending or blocking acounts until they can talk with the user. They are just asking for some sort of action to help stop spam. Educate users. Suspend acounts when needed. Email services do it. Why not for usenet posts?
>Given what you're responding to, I take it that > you're saying "yes, spammers are worse than > demons".
Spammers are not mythalogical creatures. I am absolutely sure of their existance. The only deamons I believe in the existance of have names like "Cron" and "Sendmail".
For the record I am an atheist. So yes, spammers are worst. Now god on the other hand, him I could make a case for being worst than spammers, but only because of the millions his name has been used to justify the slaughter of.
> The mistake that most people are making on this >issue is they see it all as black and white; > religion, speech, and separation of church and > state as separate and distinct issues. > The real truth of it is that there is not just a > little, but definite overlap between all three
There is overlap and that is the problem. My problem is not with banning porn viewing in public per se, but with asking the government to set standards.
There is no arbitrary way of saying "This is porn, this is indecent, this is ok". This is because ALL of these things overlap. As long as they overlap, then we musy let INDIVIDUALS decide for themselves where they draw their lines. Making the government draw the lines invites having the government espouse one view.
Do we just ban sexually explicit material? Are sites that talk about homosexuality ok? What about ones that talk about abortion? Anti-abortion sites? Who gets to draw the line between "Offensive" and "Decent"?
The library is a useful resource. A pool of raw information. That is what it is meant to be. What about a person who wishes to go there to study pornography? Is "David" pornography?
I am sorry, but I do not believe that the government should be making the distinction. If parents want to shelter their children from information, then they should not allow them to go to where that information is...at the library.
It is not the libraries job to stop people from viewing porn, any more than it is there place to enforce the fathers decree to not read the koran or other "Unholy books", if a kid goes to the library, the librarian will happily let himj read it (If I remember there is a librarians oath which even states they will not stop a person from having access to any book, even reghardless of age)
This includes again, in no partiular order: The Bible, The Koran, The Vedas, The Marquis de Sadde, Mein Kampf, The works of Nietcze, and the works of Karl Marx.
Hmmm well I supose your right. However the entire internet is based on client server architectures. As such I assumed the argument was that getting a client is some big deal and some tough step.
> I want them to become happy, well-adjusted > individuals. I don't think that that pictures > which cater to the masturbatory fantasies of > adolescent males will accomplish that.
News flash....a girl in tight jeans walking down the street will cater to adolecent masturbatory fantasy. Ask any psycologist (like Dr Ruth), fantasy is perfectly natural. In fact ALL types of fantasy are natural. It is quite common even for hetrosexual men to have homosexual fantasies at times, ot fantasys abotu pedophilia or bestiality.
All of these fantasys are natural and healthy. Porn just helps the fantasy along, makes it a little easier.
> You don't let a 12-year-old drive a car or use > a loaded gun (although many ignorant families, > and I use the word ignorant unrepentantly in > this case, do irresponsibly allow their kids > both of these freedoms.)
Hmmm my cousins live in upstate NY. They have all owned guns of thei rown since age 11. They were taught gun safety since even younger.
I have never witnessed, or heard about, any problems with this. They have been many times more careful and in proper action with guns then many people I know who did not grow up with guns.
My cousin Clinton has driven a car since he was 14. He has always been quite good with it.
I agree with the rest of what you had to say however. Most kids I know see porn by the age of 12 from their friends anyway. its never been harmful to anyone I have seen.
> how the bloody hell can you pretend that kiddy > porn, or any pornography at all, isn't bad?
The WORST thing that has EVER happend when an otherwise mentally stable individual has downloaded or otherwise VEIWED ANY sort of pornography, is quite simply that they had to clean up a sticky mess from masturbating.
Downloading, viewing, and exchanging porn is fine in my eyes.
> pornography is a sick capitolist industry > praying on human frailty and weakness. > Porno=materialism, plain and simple. It chains > you to a meaningless material world, much the > same as money etc.
I can certainly sympathise with yout hatred of capitalism. It *IS* one of the most destructive systems I can think of. However, all porn does is give a person visual material with which to fantasise. Fantasy is perfectly natural, and is a healthy part of sexual expression.
> It kills off the intellectual sect of the mind > and prays upon the strictly animalistic side of > it.
Humans ARE animals. I, personally, think that embracing and satifing "animal instincts" is an important part of leading a balanced life. To do any less is to deny our animal nature and in the end to live in a world of self-delusion.
> sn't the spam simply another form of "free > information"?
While free flow of information is fine with me and ism in and of itself, a good thing. It is not an end that justifies all means. Just as sex is a beautiful thing, forcing sex on another person (ie rape) is an ugly thing. Spammers steal network resources to advance their own capitalist interests.
> Honestly, who here hasn't ever accidentally > come across pornography?
Here I agree with you. Yes, the techniques that are used to advertise porn is just as bad as spammers. Their use of incorrect descriptions is distastefull at best.
However, underhanded buisness practices are not pornography. It is their buisness practices that are wrong, not their "wares". I, personally, refuse to do buisness with ANY company, no matter what they are peddling, that engages in these practices.
I think the Web is just elitist in general. Anyone who wants to read pages must obtain a browser. You must have access to the servers. Even then its not 100% likely that you will be able to find a server with the information you want.
Ok...now for the sarcasm-impaired..... Of course you need a "client" what kind of argument is that? You could just telnet to the nntp port and speak nttp by hand, but guess what? that is a pain in the ass.
Find a particular server? How is it any differnt from email? Should every ISP just automatically allow anyone, free of charge, to have an email acount on their server?
The server your ISP has doesn't have all the groups you want? That is your ISP (or whoeevr runs the server) fault. Complain to them. I know that here where I work, we are willing to add any group to our feed that is requested by a user.
> that @home people are operating "open proxies" I > assume that this means that they are allowing > public access from the outside world. Well my > friend what is wrong with that?
Open Proxies are not open usenet servers. An open proxie is a proxie server that ANYONE can connect to. This allows ANYONE on the net to "Hide" their real adress by connecting to the proxie and having the proxie connect for them.
The problem here is that A) 99% of the time this is NOT the intent of the machines owner but a mis-configuration that others are taking advantage of. B) This allows spammers to post spam to email and usenet without ANY audit trail to track them back to their ISP. This means that it APEARS like the person with the relay is sending the spam.
> Is it's presence that bad that it actually > causes people to react like it was a cockroach > or maybe a demon? I
You know...if it was JUST the fact that I get an ocasional email advertisment I wouldn't care. However, spammers are much worst than that. Do you know what a spammer can do to an unsuspecting network? They connect to a mail or usenet server and start BULK sending thousands of messages. Often in mail with BCC so that they send one message and the server expands it and sends thousands.
This can saturate unsupecting networks and bring useful work to a halt. Not to mention disk space. If a spammer sends a 2k message here...to all 10,000 of our users...that means roughly 20 MB of storage space. Maybe thats not terrible, but if several spammers do it every day or two... it adds up FAST.
> I think if the mythical Lucifer were to appear > in front of one of these people they would most > likely get more irritated or enraged at the spam > than their most hated enemy (for Christians).
Love to nitpick... since when do ALL christians believe litterally in a Devil? I know many who don't and would say any references to one are merely symbolic to make a point rather than references to an actual being.
> Lack of authority is Bad. This same anarchistic > quality you praise so much also keeps an ample > supply or w4r3z and kiddie pr0n available to > anyone on the 'net. Is this what you are > supporting.
Some, like myself, would argue that neither of these is imnherently bad. (while I am against forcing children into sexual situations for any reason- especially something as base as capital gain, I see nothing wrong with the act of transmission of pictures themselves)
Noone is being hurt by these simple transmissions of data. Noones rights are being abused. I see no real problem.
Its simply the free exchange of information. Is that what you are against?
> So would the two systems, used in conjunction > with each other, qualify as a social, legal, > technical, or philosophical hack?
There is a huge problem here.
first philosophical:
The library is an agent of the government. I believe strongly that the governments job is to protect individual rights, as such it must NEVER make any stance on "Decency". It is the job of parents, not the government to raise children. Lest we start banning the Bible (afterall, as an atheist, I would consider it a corrupting influence on my children) and a host of other books.
Secondly, it begins a slippery slope. It will quickly become a battle of proxier vs fundie They will fight, new proxies going up and getting blocks. Soon it will be "We need a law to stop thse proxies" afterall, the only reason to setup a proxie is to "Hurt children".
> When many people think about what the United > States was founded on they think about the topic > at hand namely freedom of speech. What most > people here appear to have forgotten is that the > US was founded on the idea of freedom of > religion just as much (if not more) as it was on > the freedom of speech.
I agree tottally. Which is why religious arguments must NEVER be allowed to dictate policy. It is the job of the government as concieved to protect the right to religion. As soon as it beings ENFORCING religious beliefs or allowing the religious beliefs of a group to dictate policy, then the freedom of others religion suffers.
This is exactly why sanctioned prayer is not allowed in public schools. Its not that students are not allowed to pray, its that they should not be forced to be subject to praying by government run institutions.
The Library generally *IS* an agent of the government. As such, a library making the determination of whether something is "Porn" and or harmful to childrens "morals" is equivalent of the government at large doing it.
It is the job of a library to be a respository of information. They hold books for people to read. They ARE huge databases of knowledge. It is *NOT* the job of a library to judge information. It is *NOT* the librarians job to decide who can be allowed to read the Marquis de Sade any more than the bible. They simply hold the information and make it available to all.
You argue that impressionable children should be protected? What if a child of an Islamic fammily decides to read the Bible? What if his parents find that offensive or feel that it might be detrimental to his "moral development"?
The simple fact is that all they are doing is providing access. Letting people who WISH to seek out this information find it. If you don't want your child to get subversive ideas then do not send him to the library. Simple as that. He could just as easily find the Marquis de Sade. Or the works of Marx and Engles, maybe Hitler's Mein Kampf, they are all books that any self respecting library carries. Not to mention the Koran, Torah, Bible, Vedas, and many other books that may be "Subversive" depending on your point of view.
> 1.) The kids would require login/passwords. That > means that little Joey Slashdot would be able to > give young Jerry Falwell, Jr. his password, > allowing Junior access to the sites that daddy > doesn't want him to see.
The library is not "Daddy". If "Daddy" doesn't want Little Jerry to see things he dislikes, he should accompany him to the library.
You seem to be operating on the premise that merely viewing porn is harmful to children. Please PROVE this point and then we can talk about implimenting protection.
Seriously, how many kids by age 12 or so have never seen any porn. I was like 10 when I found my fathers Playboy collection. How is this any "worst"?
> 2.) The minimal blocklist has to be just that: > MINIMAL
Ok..AFTER you have proved that information itself (like porn) can be harmful. I will go for this. There should be a required contract. The company compiling the block list should be liable for any unfairly blocked sites. They should pay a fine opf $1 million per day that a site is unfairly blocked, retroactive from the day it was placed on the list to the day it was removed.
That should "enforce minimalism".
> 3.) This would be pretty tough to implement, > especially if implemented at the proxy level.
Hopefully thats where it will be implimented. I know I will be happy to help write a web based CGI anti-proxy page. (permute all the URLS into arguments for the CGI with an XOR key... blind the URL in both directions..should be easy)
> Anyhow, we were commenting on all the violence > reported on the news, terrorisiom, shootings, > police beatings, etc. Grandma started preaching, > "if we put God back in schools, got rid of this > atheism crap, censored the sex and violence from > the int-r-net, the world would be a peaceful > place." After that, I knew she would be hard to > reach.
Thank you.
I think this is the real problem we are seeing here. People see violence, they see terrorism, they want some answer. They want to know why. Theyjust want a simple answer that they can hold up and say "here is the problem".
They don't care about crowding in inner cities, how would you go about solving that anyway? They don't care about the US supporting Isreal's takeover of Palistinian homlands, not their problem. They want an answer that is simple.
No prayer in school? Thats a simple one huh? if all the kids were required to stand up before class and say a few words that they are told to say about how good god is...that will change everything.
Porn on the internet...well thats obviously the cause of rape and all sorts of bad things. Afterall if children saw porn justthink all the bad things that migh thappen...Ye Gods...they might go home and masturbate!
That depends who you talk to. _I_ think that it does...the popular view on "Free Speech" is more like "You can say anything that doesn't offend anyone"
> However, my rights end where yours begin.
Kind of a bastardization of a metaphor.
> So, I guess censorship is good, when it is > implemented properly
Here I disagree. Censorship litterally means that some party gets to decide "What speech is OK". I personally reject that idea totally. NO person EVER has the right to decide what speech is OK for me to hear (secrets wispered into someones ear being excluded from "Speach" as its a whole nother topic of privacy there)
To make a second point. This issue is based on the idea that "Seeing Sexually Explicit Material is Harmful to children". This statment is taken as fact, when in truth it has NEVER been shown to have any validity whatsoever.
> In other words it works, in theory. But then > again, so does communism (in theory). So there > ya go.
Actually... there are communes still in existance today, even right here in remote areas of the United States. I would say Communism works as much in theory as in Practice (marxism might not...there are a few forms of fake communism that definitly don't...but the USSR was never really communist anyway)
> If what we read on the web is true, and Dr. > Mills does indeed have remarkable materials > available for analysis and his work is > replicable, then critiques of his theory can > prove his theory wrong, but they cannot > make the material disappear.
Well the real test of a theory is if it explains all currently known Data. _IF_ indeed Mills Machine does make more energy than it should, then it apears he has stumbled upon some phenomenon. Since he has no real physics background, we can't expect him to come up with a theory that explains anything more than HIS observations.
In short, I agree with your asessment. He probably has not come up with a viable unified field theory. However...he might have a cool new toy:)
I just have to wonder if his toy itself is a fraud or not.
In case you hadn't noticed... slashdot's slogan is not "All Linux All the time". Its "New for Nerds". SPeaking as a nerd myself... guess what... I have political views. I think this is an issue which ties together "The Internet" (which is a thing us nerds like alot) and the political worlds.
If you want a break...feel free to skip over articles you dislike.
> "We need to shield young children from the > trauma of exposure to such things as the naked > female breast. If a young child sees a bare > breast, that child will be scarred for life."
The thing I think is funniest about this... how many kids have NOT seen a breat by their first birthday...
Hell a womans sexual organs is the first thing any little kid ever gets to see (from the inside of course). Then many times spends the next year or so sucking on a breast for food...
but after that first year or two...seeing a breast is suddenly harmfull until they reach 18.
> Well, you see, when you're arguing for doing > away with private property and implement this > great "you can steal from me if I can steal from > the next guy" orgy that doing away with patents > will bring about.... you can't make sense.
...and when you equate "Copying" and "Using" with "Stealing", you don't make much sense.
The necissary aspect of "Stealing" is not that I gain something but that you (the person being the victem) is losing something.
If I watch you build yourself a car, then I go out and I build one exactly like it, then by your argument I have stolen from you. If this argument truely makes sense to you, then I think we are using fundamentaly differnt ideas of what "stealing" is, and perhaps the entire discussion is pointless.
Now as far as doing away with private property... I don't see how that has to do much with stealing either. Some would even argue that holding private property more than what you need to live on is stealing. Personally I would agree with that to some extent, as I am one of the people who advocates abolishing most all private property (obviously SOME is needed so people can have private personal space, beyond that I think means of production and general land should be owned by the people)
> I believe that the RSA team published their > mathematics before they filed for a > patent (perhaps even before they thought of > filing for a patent). [There was a huge furor > when the spooks tried to suppress the RSA > algorithm, but it had already spread too wide > before they woke up to it
This could have been a shrewd move on their part too. AFAIK the NSA has the ability to Mark any patent they wish Classified. This would mean that the patent would be issued, but would be useless to the owners, since it would be classified. No publishing or licencing. Talk about a raw deal.
The NSA, I hear, often does this with encryption technology. Now...look at it this way, you have a full year AFTER publishing to file for a patent. So...if you publish first, then file, the NSA can't very well gain anything by classifing the patent.
Very well played if you ask me.(even if I despise the entire concept of patents and espcially cryptography and other math patents...I still apreciate the manuvering -whether it was intantional or not)
> You might also want to check out some of Bruce > Schneier's work to see if he's patented his > encryption algorithms.
His work is excellent. I am reading Applied Cryptography now...excellent book.
> A quick check of counterpane.com turns up this > page on Blowfish, indicating that it is now part > of OpenBSD
Its an algorythm...it is part of OpenBSD's OpenSSH. It is AFAIK not an integral part of the OS. (unless they have encrypted filesystems)
>(and almost certainly not patented).
AFAIK (according to the book) its is not.
> Even if RSA did patent theirs, it doesn't mean > that they set the standard.
Well as far as public key systems go, they did set the standard. RSA has to be the most widely used Public Key system I can think of.
FWIW, Blowfish is a block cipher not a public key system;)
Tho there are unpatented public key systems... um El Gamel I think???
> I'm not sure about Blowfish and IDEA, but I'm > pretty sure that Diffie-Helman isn't > under a patent because the patent ran out a > couple of years ago.
Just to confirm.
Yes Diffie-Hellman patent just ran out recently.
Blowfish is not patented and is placed "In the public domain" by the author
Idea I believe is patented in some parts of Europe.
and yes...I am in the middle of reading Applied Cryptography:)
> Erhm, damnit. PLEASE let the comment box word > wrap for you.
Being a person who writes code in vi for 4-7 hours a day, and a person who until recently was doing it on a bastardization of an xterm that didn't line wrap properly (not that I like mixing line wrapping and vi), AND using an email reader that does not line wrap, I am in the habbit of hitting enter as my cursor gets to the edge.
Sorry about that. Its just me. I have also seen reference to statments that lines of about 10-15 words per line is easier on the eyes and causes less strain (have you ever noticed most books have fairly narrow pages and not more than 20 or so words to a line? - I find them much easier to read than most text documents on computers)
> I'm not sure what resolution your box is at
at work (wheree I wrote that) 21" monitor at a resolution of 1600x1200
Sorry but it is force of severely ingrained habbit which is positivly fed back into by me finding it to cause less eyestrain.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you tottally. However it is a
completely differnt issue. I do not believe that
that is any sort of reason to regulate the net.
The people who force children into these
situations are horrible and deserve to be
hunted down. However, prohibiting thier warez
does not stop them. They will always be able
to profit.
Whenever you prohibit a product, you increase
its value, and thus perpetuate its market. It
is the dark underbelly of capitalism.
I do not believe that a person who simply views
anything should be persecuted. Go after the
monstors. Kill the root of the problem, not
the symptoms.
> You see no real problem with software piracy?
> Excuse me, but as a software developer I would
> ensure that anyone who pirates my software is
> prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I have
> reported employers, companies and sites to the
> SPA for software piracy, and shall continue to
> do so until there are no more WaReZ vermin
> around.
And as a software developer, I do not feel that
I have the right to stop anyone from copying
or using my programs, No matter what the law says.
No amount of copying or use can ever hurt me in
any way shape or form. I have never reported
anyone to the SPA, nor will I ever.
All software which I hold copyright for gets
released under GPL or other Free Software
licence.
Of course...im just plain not a capitalist.
I don't care about the money. Sure I could make
money by writting software and forcing people
under penalty of law to pay for it...but I feel
that is immoral, so I don't do it.
> Golly gee, and here I was thinking that telnet
> was a client. Guess not.
It is...thats the point...anything that connects
to anything is a "client". I was trying to point
out how silly the argument was.
>> Find a particular server? How is it any
>> differnt from email? Should every ISP just
>> automatically allow anyone, free of charge,
>> to have an email acount on their server?
> Well, there *is* the fact that the UDP doesn't >exist in the email world..
You avoid the question. Is or should your ISP be
required to offer everyone free email acounts?
UDP DOES btw exist in email. Ever heard of a
"Realtime Blackhole List"? Feel free to look
it up. Its basically the same thing, a
VOLUNTARY blocking of email from IP addresses
by a wide number of sysadmins.
> Betcha you aren't willing to add
> alt.binaries.mp3s or whatever NG carries mp3s on
> usenet if you don't have it already.
Noone has requested it. The issue has not come
up. Certainly any binaries group needs to be
considered a little more heavily than other
groups, if for no other reason than the amount of
server space needed to physically store its
messages.
> Cable modems, IMHO, should be banned by the
> gov'mt. Everything oughta use DSL. Cable modems
> are such a lousy architecture.
And the government should ban everything that is
lousy? I dunno about you but I am already mad
about how they force me to pay taxes under threat
of force, and then go on to mis-manage my money.
In the words of Thoreau, "the best government is
that which governs not at all"
> B) Well, then I guess the'll find out it was a
> bad idea to run the proxy, because their account
> will get canceled. So what?
Noone is saying that the ISP should be canceling
acounts. Perhaps temporarily suspending or
blocking acounts until they can talk with the
user. They are just asking for some sort of
action to help stop spam. Educate users. Suspend
acounts when needed. Email services do it. Why not
for usenet posts?
>Given what you're responding to, I take it that
> you're saying "yes, spammers are worse than
> demons".
Spammers are not mythalogical creatures. I am
absolutely sure of their existance. The only
deamons I believe in the existance of have names
like "Cron" and "Sendmail".
For the record I am an atheist. So yes, spammers
are worst. Now god on the other hand, him I could
make a case for being worst than spammers, but
only because of the millions his name has been
used to justify the slaughter of.
> The mistake that most people are making on this
>issue is they see it all as black and white;
> religion, speech, and separation of church and
> state as separate and distinct issues.
> The real truth of it is that there is not just a
> little, but definite overlap between all three
There is overlap and that is the problem. My
problem is not with banning porn viewing in
public per se, but with asking the government
to set standards.
There is no arbitrary way of saying "This is porn,
this is indecent, this is ok". This is because
ALL of these things overlap. As long as they
overlap, then we musy let INDIVIDUALS decide for
themselves where they draw their lines. Making the
government draw the lines invites having the
government espouse one view.
Do we just ban sexually explicit material? Are
sites that talk about homosexuality ok? What about
ones that talk about abortion? Anti-abortion
sites? Who gets to draw the line between
"Offensive" and "Decent"?
The library is a useful resource. A pool of raw
information. That is what it is meant to be.
What about a person who wishes to go there to
study pornography? Is "David" pornography?
I am sorry, but I do not believe that the
government should be making the distinction. If
parents want to shelter their children from
information, then they should not allow them to
go to where that information is...at the library.
It is not the libraries job to stop people from
viewing porn, any more than it is there place
to enforce the fathers decree to not read the
koran or other "Unholy books", if a kid goes
to the library, the librarian will happily let
himj read it
(If I remember there is a librarians oath which
even states they will not stop a person from
having access to any book, even reghardless of
age)
This includes again, in no partiular order:
The Bible, The Koran, The Vedas, The Marquis de
Sadde, Mein Kampf, The works of Nietcze, and
the works of Karl Marx.
-Steve
Hmmm well I supose your right. However the entire
internet is based on client server architectures.
As such I assumed the argument was that getting
a client is some big deal and some tough step.
In truth its as easy as telnet.
> I want them to become happy, well-adjusted
> individuals. I don't think that that pictures
> which cater to the masturbatory fantasies of
> adolescent males will accomplish that.
News flash....a girl in tight jeans walking down
the street will cater to adolecent masturbatory
fantasy. Ask any psycologist (like Dr Ruth),
fantasy is perfectly natural. In fact ALL types
of fantasy are natural. It is quite common even
for hetrosexual men to have homosexual fantasies
at times, ot fantasys abotu pedophilia or bestiality.
All of these fantasys are natural and healthy.
Porn just helps the fantasy along, makes it a
little easier.
> You don't let a 12-year-old drive a car or use
> a loaded gun (although many ignorant families,
> and I use the word ignorant unrepentantly in
> this case, do irresponsibly allow their kids
> both of these freedoms.)
Hmmm my cousins live in upstate NY. They have all
owned guns of thei rown since age 11. They were
taught gun safety since even younger.
I have never witnessed, or heard about, any
problems with this. They have been many times
more careful and in proper action with guns then
many people I know who did not grow up with guns.
My cousin Clinton has driven a car since he was
14. He has always been quite good with it.
I agree with the rest of what you had to say
however. Most kids I know see porn by the age
of 12 from their friends anyway. its never been
harmful to anyone I have seen.
> how the bloody hell can you pretend that kiddy
> porn, or any pornography at all, isn't bad?
The WORST thing that has EVER happend when an otherwise mentally stable individual has downloaded or otherwise VEIWED ANY sort of
pornography, is quite simply that they had to
clean up a sticky mess from masturbating.
Downloading, viewing, and exchanging porn is
fine in my eyes.
> pornography is a sick capitolist industry
> praying on human frailty and weakness.
> Porno=materialism, plain and simple. It chains
> you to a meaningless material world, much the
> same as money etc.
I can certainly sympathise with yout hatred of
capitalism. It *IS* one of the most destructive
systems I can think of. However, all porn does
is give a person visual material with which to
fantasise. Fantasy is perfectly natural, and is
a healthy part of sexual expression.
> It kills off the intellectual sect of the mind
> and prays upon the strictly animalistic side of
> it.
Humans ARE animals. I, personally, think that
embracing and satifing "animal instincts" is
an important part of leading a balanced life.
To do any less is to deny our animal nature and
in the end to live in a world of self-delusion.
> sn't the spam simply another form of "free
> information"?
While free flow of information is fine with me
and ism in and of itself, a good thing. It is
not an end that justifies all means. Just as sex
is a beautiful thing, forcing sex on another
person (ie rape) is an ugly thing. Spammers
steal network resources to advance their own
capitalist interests.
> Honestly, who here hasn't ever accidentally
> come across pornography?
Here I agree with you. Yes, the techniques that
are used to advertise porn is just as bad as
spammers. Their use of incorrect descriptions is
distastefull at best.
However, underhanded buisness practices are not
pornography. It is their buisness practices that
are wrong, not their "wares". I, personally,
refuse to do buisness with ANY company, no matter
what they are peddling, that engages in these
practices.
I think the Web is just elitist in general. Anyone
who wants to read pages must obtain a browser. You
must have access to the servers. Even then its not
100% likely that you will be able to find a server
with the information you want.
Ok...now for the sarcasm-impaired.....
Of course you need a "client" what kind of
argument is that? You could just telnet to the
nntp port and speak nttp by hand, but guess what?
that is a pain in the ass.
Find a particular server? How is it any differnt
from email? Should every ISP just automatically
allow anyone, free of charge, to have an email
acount on their server?
The server your ISP has doesn't have all the
groups you want? That is your ISP (or whoeevr
runs the server) fault. Complain to them. I know
that here where I work, we are willing to add
any group to our feed that is requested by a user.
> that @home people are operating "open proxies" I
> assume that this means that they are allowing
> public access from the outside world. Well my
> friend what is wrong with that?
Open Proxies are not open usenet servers. An
open proxie is a proxie server that ANYONE can
connect to. This allows ANYONE on the net to
"Hide" their real adress by connecting to the
proxie and having the proxie connect for them.
The problem here is that A) 99% of the time this
is NOT the intent of the machines owner but a
mis-configuration that others are taking
advantage of. B) This allows spammers to post
spam to email and usenet without ANY audit
trail to track them back to their ISP. This
means that it APEARS like the person with the
relay is sending the spam.
> Is it's presence that bad that it actually
> causes people to react like it was a cockroach
> or maybe a demon? I
You know...if it was JUST the fact that I get an
ocasional email advertisment I wouldn't care.
However, spammers are much worst than that.
Do you know what a spammer can do to an
unsuspecting network? They connect to a mail or
usenet server and start BULK sending thousands of messages. Often in mail with BCC so that they send
one message and the server expands it and sends
thousands.
This can saturate unsupecting networks and bring
useful work to a halt. Not to mention disk
space. If a spammer sends a 2k message here...to
all 10,000 of our users...that means roughly
20 MB of storage space. Maybe thats not terrible,
but if several spammers do it every day or two...
it adds up FAST.
> I think if the mythical Lucifer were to appear > in front of one of these people they would most
> likely get more irritated or enraged at the spam
> than their most hated enemy (for Christians).
Love to nitpick...
since when do ALL christians believe litterally
in a Devil? I know many who don't and would say
any references to one are merely symbolic to
make a point rather than references to an actual
being.
> The reasoning seems to be that open relays
> aren't a bandwidth muncher, but a web site that
> gets twelve hits a month is.
Web sites are also easier to find.
Any moron can write a script that looks around
for web servers. You actually have to know what
a relay is before you can scan for open ones.
Probably just clueless admins.
USENET being the operative word. Noone
can be blamed for your inability to connect to
the mail server other than the network admins.
Usenet has nothing to do with email.
> So basicly people are getting a bug up thier a**
> that a minority of @home users are spammers.
No...they have a bug up their ass that a minority
of @HOME users are spammers AND @HOME
is not doing anything about it.
UDP is invoked AFTER usenet admins have alerted
and really tried to get an ISPs attention and
feel that their complaints have "Fallen on Deaf
Ears".
> Lack of authority is Bad. This same anarchistic
> quality you praise so much also keeps an ample
> supply or w4r3z and kiddie pr0n available to
> anyone on the 'net. Is this what you are
> supporting.
Some, like myself, would argue that neither of
these is imnherently bad. (while I am against
forcing children into sexual situations for
any reason- especially something as base as
capital gain, I see nothing wrong with the
act of transmission of pictures themselves)
Noone is being hurt by these simple transmissions
of data. Noones rights are being abused. I see
no real problem.
Its simply the free exchange of information. Is
that what you are against?
> So would the two systems, used in conjunction
> with each other, qualify as a social, legal,
> technical, or philosophical hack?
There is a huge problem here.
first philosophical:
The library is an agent of the government. I
believe strongly that the governments job is to
protect individual rights, as such it must NEVER
make any stance on "Decency". It is the job
of parents, not the government to raise children.
Lest we start banning the Bible (afterall, as an
atheist, I would consider it a corrupting
influence on my children) and a host of other
books.
Secondly, it begins a slippery slope. It will
quickly become a battle of proxier vs fundie
They will fight, new proxies going up and getting
blocks. Soon it will be "We need a law to stop
thse proxies" afterall, the only reason to setup
a proxie is to "Hurt children".
Sorry...it just wont work.
> When many people think about what the United
> States was founded on they think about the topic
> at hand namely freedom of speech. What most
> people here appear to have forgotten is that the
> US was founded on the idea of freedom of
> religion just as much (if not more) as it was on
> the freedom of speech.
I agree tottally. Which is why religious arguments
must NEVER be allowed to dictate policy. It is
the job of the government as concieved to protect
the right to religion. As soon as it beings
ENFORCING religious beliefs or allowing
the religious beliefs of a group to dictate
policy, then the freedom of others religion
suffers.
This is exactly why sanctioned prayer is not
allowed in public schools. Its not that students
are not allowed to pray, its that they should not
be forced to be subject to praying by government
run institutions.
The Library generally *IS* an agent of the
government. As such, a library making the
determination of whether something is "Porn"
and or harmful to childrens "morals" is
equivalent of the government at large doing it.
It is the job of a library to be a respository
of information. They hold books for people to
read. They ARE huge databases of knowledge. It is
*NOT* the job of a library to judge information.
It is *NOT* the librarians job to decide who
can be allowed to read the Marquis de Sade any
more than the bible. They simply hold the
information and make it available to all.
You argue that impressionable children should be
protected? What if a child of an Islamic fammily
decides to read the Bible? What if his parents
find that offensive or feel that it might
be detrimental to his "moral development"?
The simple fact is that all they are doing is
providing access. Letting people who WISH to
seek out this information find it. If you don't
want your child to get subversive ideas then do
not send him to the library. Simple as that.
He could just as easily find the Marquis de Sade.
Or the works of Marx and Engles, maybe Hitler's
Mein Kampf, they are all books that any self
respecting library carries. Not to mention the
Koran, Torah, Bible, Vedas, and many other books
that may be "Subversive" depending on your point
of view.
> 1.) The kids would require login/passwords. That
..AFTER you have proved that information
> means that little Joey Slashdot would be able to
> give young Jerry Falwell, Jr. his password,
> allowing Junior access to the sites that daddy
> doesn't want him to see.
The library is not "Daddy". If "Daddy" doesn't
want Little Jerry to see things he dislikes, he
should accompany him to the library.
You seem to be operating on the premise that
merely viewing porn is harmful to children. Please
PROVE this point and then we can talk about
implimenting protection.
Seriously, how many kids by age 12 or so have
never seen any porn. I was like 10 when I found
my fathers Playboy collection. How is this any
"worst"?
> 2.) The minimal blocklist has to be just that:
> MINIMAL
Ok
itself (like porn) can be harmful. I will go for
this. There should be a required contract. The
company compiling the block list should be
liable for any unfairly blocked sites. They
should pay a fine opf $1 million per day that
a site is unfairly blocked, retroactive from the
day it was placed on the list to the day it was
removed.
That should "enforce minimalism".
> 3.) This would be pretty tough to implement,
> especially if implemented at the proxy level.
Hopefully thats where it will be implimented.
I know I will be happy to help write a web
based CGI anti-proxy page. (permute all the URLS
into arguments for the CGI with an XOR key...
blind the URL in both directions..should be easy)
-Steve
> Anyhow, we were commenting on all the violence
> reported on the news, terrorisiom, shootings,
> police beatings, etc. Grandma started preaching,
> "if we put God back in schools, got rid of this
> atheism crap, censored the sex and violence from
> the int-r-net, the world would be a peaceful
> place." After that, I knew she would be hard to
> reach.
Thank you.
I think this is the real problem we are seeing
here. People see violence, they see terrorism,
they want some answer. They want to know why.
Theyjust want a simple answer that they can
hold up and say "here is the problem".
They don't care about crowding in inner cities,
how would you go about solving that anyway?
They don't care about the US supporting Isreal's
takeover of Palistinian homlands, not their
problem. They want an answer that is simple.
No prayer in school? Thats a simple one huh?
if all the kids were required to stand up before
class and say a few words that they are told to
say about how good god is...that will change
everything.
Porn on the internet...well thats obviously the
cause of rape and all sorts of bad things.
Afterall if children saw porn justthink all the
bad things that migh thappen...Ye Gods...they
might go home and masturbate!
> Free speech means ABSOLUTE free speech.
That depends who you talk to. _I_ think that
it does...the popular view on "Free Speech"
is more like "You can say anything that doesn't
offend anyone"
> However, my rights end where yours begin.
Kind of a bastardization of a metaphor.
> So, I guess censorship is good, when it is
> implemented properly
Here I disagree. Censorship litterally means
that some party gets to decide "What speech is
OK". I personally reject that idea totally.
NO person EVER has the right to decide what
speech is OK for me to hear (secrets wispered
into someones ear being excluded from "Speach"
as its a whole nother topic of privacy there)
To make a second point. This issue is based on
the idea that "Seeing Sexually Explicit Material
is Harmful to children". This statment is taken
as fact, when in truth it has NEVER been shown
to have any validity whatsoever.
> In other words it works, in theory. But then
> again, so does communism (in theory). So there
> ya go.
Actually... there are communes still in existance
today, even right here in remote areas of the
United States. I would say Communism works as
much in theory as in Practice (marxism might
not...there are a few forms of fake communism
that definitly don't...but the USSR was never
really communist anyway)
> If what we read on the web is true, and Dr.
:)
> Mills does indeed have remarkable materials
> available for analysis and his work is
> replicable, then critiques of his theory can
> prove his theory wrong, but they cannot
> make the material disappear.
Well the real test of a theory is if it explains
all currently known Data. _IF_ indeed Mills
Machine does make more energy than it should,
then it apears he has stumbled upon some
phenomenon. Since he has no real physics
background, we can't expect him to come up with
a theory that explains anything more than HIS
observations.
In short, I agree with your asessment. He probably
has not come up with a viable unified field
theory. However...he might have a cool new toy
I just have to wonder if his toy itself is a
fraud or not.
Oh shit a political statment.
In case you hadn't noticed... slashdot's
slogan is not "All Linux All the time".
Its "New for Nerds". SPeaking as a nerd myself...
guess what...
I have political views. I think this is an issue
which ties together "The Internet" (which is a
thing us nerds like alot) and the political
worlds.
If you want a break...feel free to skip over
articles you dislike.
> "We need to shield young children from the
> trauma of exposure to such things as the naked
> female breast. If a young child sees a bare
> breast, that child will be scarred for life."
The thing I think is funniest about this...
how many kids have NOT seen a breat by their
first birthday...
Hell a womans sexual organs is the first thing
any little kid ever gets to see (from the inside
of course). Then many times spends the next year
or so sucking on a breast for food...
but after that first year or two...seeing a
breast is suddenly harmfull until they
reach 18.
bizzare...
> Well, you see, when you're arguing for doing
:)
> away with private property and implement this
> great "you can steal from me if I can steal from
> the next guy" orgy that doing away with patents
> will bring about.... you can't make sense.
...and when you equate "Copying" and "Using" with
"Stealing", you don't make much sense.
The necissary aspect of "Stealing" is not that I
gain something but that you (the person being
the victem) is losing something.
If I watch you build yourself a car, then I go
out and I build one exactly like it, then by
your argument I have stolen from you. If this
argument truely makes sense to you, then I think
we are using fundamentaly differnt ideas of what
"stealing" is, and perhaps the entire discussion
is pointless.
Now as far as doing away with private property...
I don't see how that has to do much with stealing
either. Some would even argue that holding
private property more than what you need to live
on is stealing. Personally I would agree with
that to some extent, as I am one of the people
who advocates abolishing most all private property
(obviously SOME is needed so people can have
private personal space, beyond that I think means
of production and general land should be owned by
the people)
However thats a whole nother topic.
> I believe that the RSA team published their
;)
> mathematics before they filed for a
> patent (perhaps even before they thought of
> filing for a patent). [There was a huge furor
> when the spooks tried to suppress the RSA
> algorithm, but it had already spread too wide
> before they woke up to it
This could have been a shrewd move on their part
too. AFAIK the NSA has the ability to Mark any
patent they wish Classified. This would mean that
the patent would be issued, but would be useless
to the owners, since it would be classified. No
publishing or licencing. Talk about a raw deal.
The NSA, I hear, often does this with encryption
technology. Now...look at it this way, you have a
full year AFTER publishing to file for a patent.
So...if you publish first, then file, the NSA
can't very well gain anything by classifing the
patent.
Very well played if you ask me.(even if I despise
the entire concept of patents and espcially
cryptography and other math patents...I still
apreciate the manuvering -whether it was
intantional or not)
> You might also want to check out some of Bruce
> Schneier's work to see if he's patented his
> encryption algorithms.
His work is excellent. I am reading Applied
Cryptography now...excellent book.
> A quick check of counterpane.com turns up this
> page on Blowfish, indicating that it is now part
> of OpenBSD
Its an algorythm...it is part of OpenBSD's
OpenSSH. It is AFAIK not an integral part of the
OS. (unless they have encrypted filesystems)
>(and almost certainly not patented).
AFAIK (according to the book) its is not.
> Even if RSA did patent theirs, it doesn't mean
> that they set the standard.
Well as far as public key systems go, they did
set the standard. RSA has to be the most widely
used Public Key system I can think of.
FWIW, Blowfish is a block cipher not a public
key system
Tho there are unpatented public key systems...
um El Gamel I think???
-Steve
> I'm not sure about Blowfish and IDEA, but I'm
:)
> pretty sure that Diffie-Helman isn't
> under a patent because the patent ran out a
> couple of years ago.
Just to confirm.
Yes Diffie-Hellman patent just ran out recently.
Blowfish is not patented and is placed "In the
public domain" by the author
Idea I believe is patented in some parts of
Europe.
and yes...I am in the middle of reading Applied
Cryptography
-Steve
> Erhm, damnit. PLEASE let the comment box word
> wrap for you.
Being a person who writes code in vi for 4-7 hours
a day, and a person who until recently was doing
it on a bastardization of an xterm that didn't
line wrap properly (not that I like mixing line
wrapping and vi), AND using an email reader that
does not line wrap, I am in the habbit of hitting
enter as my cursor gets to the edge.
Sorry about that. Its just me. I have also seen
reference to statments that lines of about 10-15
words per line is easier on the eyes and causes
less strain (have you ever noticed most books have
fairly narrow pages and not more than 20 or so
words to a line? - I find them much easier to
read than most text documents on computers)
> I'm not sure what resolution your box is at
at work (wheree I wrote that) 21" monitor at a
resolution of 1600x1200
Sorry but it is force of severely ingrained habbit
which is positivly fed back into by me finding it
to cause less eyestrain.
-Steve