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SCO Chair's Anti-Porn Act Advances In Utah

Posted by kdawson on Thu Mar 15, 2007 07:51 AM
from the set-the-evil-bit dept.
iptables -A FORWARD writes "Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. of Utah reportedly plans to sign a resolution urging Congress to enact the Internet Community Ports Act. The ICPA proposes that online content be divided by port, rather like TVs have channels with adult and family content, so that certain internet ports will be 'clean' — so-called Community Ports — and others will be 'dirty.' Thus, they hope to remove objectionable content from port 80 and require that it be moved elsewhere (port 666 was already taken by Doom, sorry), so that people could more easily block objectionable content, or have their ISPs do the blocking for them. This concept is being pushed by the CP80 group, which is chaired by Ralph Yarro, who also chairs the SCO Group. That probably explains why they didn't choose to adopt RFC 3514, instead."
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  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 15 2007, @07:53AM (#18360551)
    .. when I say, You have got to be FREAKING KIDDING ME.
  • Port 69 (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 15 2007, @07:56AM (#18360571)
    666 is Doom, but how about 69?
    • Re:Port 69 (Score:5, Informative)

      by PeterBrett (780946) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:01AM (#18360641)
      (http://peter-b.co.uk/)

      Unfortunately port 69 is already assigned. From my /etc/services:

      tftp 69/tcp
      tftp 69/udp

      In any case, the concept is fundamentally flawed. Ports are designed to discriminate by protocol, not by service content. This is just another flawed implementation of RFC3514 [ietf.org].

      [ Parent ]
      • More information... (Score:5, Informative)

        by PeterBrett (780946) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:21AM (#18360847)
        (http://peter-b.co.uk/)

        More information on this subject, including a detailed discussion of why content segregation is dangerous, can be found in RFC3675 [ietf.org]. It suggests an actual workable solution: PICS tags.

        PICS Labels (Platform for Internet Content Selection) is a generalized system for providing "ratings" for Internet accessible material. The PICS documents [w3.org] should be consulted for details. In general, PICS assumes an arbitrarily large number of rating services and rating systems. Each service and system is identified by a URL.

        It would be quite reasonable to have multiple PICS services that, in the aggregate, provided 300 bits of label information or more. There could be a PICS service for every community of interest. This sort of technology is really the only reasonable way to make categorizations or labelings of material available in a diverse and dynamic world.

        While such PICS label services could be used to distribute government promulgated censorship categories, for example, it is not clear how this is any worse than government censorship via national firewalls.

        A PICS rating system is essentially a definition of one or more dimensions and the numeric range of the values that can be assigned in each dimension to a rated object. A service is a source of labels where a label includes actual ratings. Ratings are either specific or generic. A specific rating applies only to the material at a particular URL [RFC 2396 [ietf.org]] and does not cover anything referenced from it, even included image files. A generic rating applies to the specified URL and to all URLs for which the stated URL is a prefix.

        This seems like very much the "right" way of doing it. It:

        1. Doesn't break any existing systems,
        2. Is plenty flexible enough to be used for flagging pr0n as such, but also could be used by services like del.icio.us to suggest similar content to the current page,
        3. And gracefully degrades to support systems that are unaware of it.

        Also, unlike their proposed port breakage, it can easily be turned off if you don't care about it.

        [ Parent ]
        • Re:More information... by Fastolfe (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @10:03AM
          • Re:More information... by jfengel (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @10:58AM
            • Re:More information... (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Fastolfe (1470) <david@fastolfe.net> on Thursday March 15 2007, @11:12AM (#18363413)
              (http://fastolfe.net/)
              Porn providers don't have to lie. PICS works without their cooperation.

              If you're going to try to set up a "child-safe" browsing experience, you're probably going to check the box that forbids access to unrated sites. Ratings can act as a whitelist just as easily as they can a blacklist.

              Porn sites that explicitly label their sites as non-porn sites are acting with malicious intent, and this is a different problem that has a different solution. (PICS ratings bureaus can also require that the rating be digitally signed, or require that the browser ask the bureau for guidance rather than trusting what the site provided.)
              [ Parent ]
            • Re:More information... by DragonWriter (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @01:04PM
        • Re:More information... by _KiTA_ (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @11:23AM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:More information... by nmos (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @12:12PM
      • But tftp is only implemented on udp by Lanboy (Score:1) Thursday March 15 2007, @09:10AM
      • Re:Port 69 by Creepy (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @09:45AM
      • Re:Port 69 by tfiedler (Score:1) Thursday March 15 2007, @07:07PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Port 69 by Flendon (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @08:01AM
    • Re:Port 69 by Wateshay (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @08:09AM
      • Re:Port 69 (Score:4, Funny)

        by antonyb (913324) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:45AM (#18361073)
        No, no, no. It stands for "Tube For The Porn". Its all about the Tubes, these days.


        While we're at it, TCP stands for "Tube Carrying Porn", and IP is "Internet Porn", which goes to prove that the internet is founded on porn.


        ant.

        [ Parent ]
    • Port Suggestions (Score:4, Funny)

      by jasenj1 (575309) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:22AM (#18360863)
      How about:

      80085
      (I know it's not valid. It's a joke, son. Laugh.)
      [ Parent ]
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Enforceable? (Score:5, Funny)

    by morgan_greywolf (835522) * on Thursday March 15 2007, @07:56AM (#18360579)
    (http://stylus-toolbox.sf.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday May 15, @11:50AM)
    This is about as enforceable as the .xxx TLD. No matter what you do, you're not going to be able segregate the pr0n from other content. Unless you're SCO, I guess, then maybe you could sue those who don't comply by claiming that your intellectual property is on port 80, therefore you own all of the content on port 80 -- millions of lines of HTML!
  • dotXXX (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Constantine XVI (880691) <trash DOT eighty AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday March 15 2007, @07:58AM (#18360597)
    What makes this approach that much different from using the .XXX top-level? That's just as easily blocked, and easily passable (ssh or proxy)
    • Re:dotXXX by SatanicPuppy (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @08:14AM
      • Re:dotXXX by alcourt (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @08:49AM
        • Re:dotXXX by farnz (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @09:17AM
          • Re:dotXXX by alcourt (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @09:33AM
      • Re:dotXXX by budgenator (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @07:12PM
    • Re:dotXXX (Score:5, Insightful)

      If they must have something (not that I agree), a .kids would make more sense. Then parents can configure their home proxy to only allow traffic to *that* domain. But, based on crap I see like religious shows on tv having a 'G' rating (WHAT? If anything requires parental guidance...), this would not work either. Maybe require a license to have and keep a .kids TLD or something.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:dotXXX by operagost (Score:3) Thursday March 15 2007, @08:29AM
        • Re:dotXXX by tsalaroth (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @10:21AM
      • Re:dotXXX by Sobrique (Score:1) Thursday March 15 2007, @08:30AM
        • Re:dotXXX by alphamugwump (Score:1) Thursday March 15 2007, @09:00AM
          • Re:dotXXX (Score:4, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:33AM (#18361663)
            Wrong.

            I run adult web sites and PPC advertising is almost unheard of in the adult world.

            In fact, while I have dabbled in a couple of PPC programs, I've found that they haven't stacked up nearly as well as affiliate programs. I don't promote one single PPC program at the moment and haven't in years.

            The most common PPC programs are dating services. I know a few people who promote them and I've tried them out but they haven't done well on my sites.

            The most common source of revenue for adult webmasters are affiliate programs.

            Because....

            I can make as much as $0.10 / click with some of my better affiliate programs (with the average being around $0.02 / click) but with PPC they pay like $4.00 / 1000 clicks (or $0.004 / click).

            How is that worth it ? A good affiliate program can pay anywhere from $25 - $40 / sign-up or 50% recurring (you get 50% of what the affiliate program makes off of the sale for the entire lifetime of the subscription). So if your traffic is "good" (ie: your surfers like what's on your site and they come from "fresh" sources like search engines, bookmarks, related sites that have "good" traffic as well) then you'll do exponentially better with affiliate programs over PPC.

            So with that said, I don't have anything to gain by having children hit my sites. They just eat up bandwidth. And adult sites, arguably, burn more bandwidth than any other type of site.
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:dotXXX by samkass (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @12:26PM
              • Re:dotXXX by TheRaven64 (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @02:05PM
      • .kids impossible by Slashdot Parent (Score:1) Thursday March 15 2007, @03:06PM
    • the difference ... by oneiros27 (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @09:08AM
    • Re:dotXXX by SoulRider (Score:1) Thursday March 15 2007, @10:20AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • by TheSpoom (715771) * on Thursday March 15 2007, @07:59AM (#18360603)
    (http://www.uberm00.net/ | Last Journal: Monday January 19 2004, @09:27PM)
    "There is this assumption that you can't control it (the Internet)," Yarro said. "It's a toaster, we made it, we can fix it. ... We can solve the Internet pornography problem tomorrow if we decided to."

    Stupid legislators. It's not a fricking toaster, that's rediculous.

    It's a series of tubes.

    I thought we got that straight a few months ago!
  • The only reaction necessary (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BVis (267028) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:00AM (#18360627)
    I think we can all agree that the only reaction this requires is a hearty "STFU".

    Leaving alone the obvious impracticality of implementation and enforcement (ask Australia about that), this moron thinks that he can legislate morality.

    My morality doesn't agree with his. I resent having moral decisions made for me, and I bet the majority of Americans feel the same way. If I want to look at porn, I should be able to look at porn. If someone else doesn't want to look at porn, they don't have to. What exactly is the problem here that requires legislative intervention?
  • Concepts (Score:1)

    by JackMeyhoff (1070484) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:05AM (#18360677)
    He is thinking that ports are like TV channels but what we do need is an .xxx domain and domains ENFORCED properely which is why the internet is in the mess it is. Domain usage is not used correctly as it was intended.
  • Oh Just great... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by d3ac0n (715594) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:05AM (#18360687)
    So instead of doing something at least partially sensible, like setting up a .xxx TLD for porn sites, We are gonna start breaking web browsing now?

    Come ON people! I'm as much for protecting kids from online boobies as the next parent, but messing with the basic structural foundation of the Web? Give me a break!

    Methinks we have some legislators that need:

    a) A basic IT education (A+ and Net+ would be a good start)
    b) a permanent vacation if they don't stop trying to push nonsense laws.
  • please leave it alone (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BGraves (790688) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:06AM (#18360693)
    To all legislators:
            Please leave the internet alone. It works well. People smarter than you created it. It has revolutionized our world. Parents need to take care of their kids, not you. The more changes you make, the more likely you are to break something. Here's a deal. You don't need to get in the news to get my vote. Stay out of the news for a year, and I'll vote for you.
  • The REAL goal (Score:3)

    by Dunbal (464142) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:07AM (#18360699)
    or have their ISPs do the blocking for them.

          ISP: So, you want to see porn on the internet? You dirty bastard, that's an extra $50 a month and we'll unblock that port for you.

          Of course this would never work since it requires the cooperation of the whole world. As far as I know most online porn sites aren't based in Utah. When will they learn...?
  • Another genius idea from people who know absolutely nothing about how computers or the internet functions. Ports are for protocols, not content. The "content" is just a paticular arrangement of data sent over that protcol.

    What these guys really want is to mandate that all IPv6 packets have a TOTC(Think of the children) bit. Defaulted to 1, for "unsafe content". They then pass legislation banning ISPs from handling anything with a TOTC bit of 1. The only way to get a TOTC bit of zero, without breaking the law, is to apply for an extremely expensive licence and audit, available to only the largest corporations.

    Entirely coincidentally, the Chinese government's UFTP(Unsafe for the People) bit will occupy exactly the same position in their altered version of the IPv6 protocol, ensuring that the new, saer net will be fully interoperable.

    Farfetched? Well, which is more likely? This or competant government that's for the people?
  • ...respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech.

    That's an Amendment to the Constitution, better known as the First Amendment. The Constitution, folks, was written to restrict government's reach -- it was not written to protect our rights or to restict people.

    Our Federal government has absolutely zero power to regulate the Internet. The Interstate Commerce Act has been stretched to give Congress power, but the Act was not intended to actually allow the government to regulate commerce but to prevent the Individual States from perverting commerce between them. Read the Federalist papers to see more on that debate.

    We already have anti-porn powers in place -- it's called the Power of Parenting. No government official can legislate control over how a parent decides to introduce their children to various topics. I fear that heavy-handed moralists may decide that sites with breast-feeding or basic sex information might get censored along with bestiality sites. For me, neither matter since I don't have kids, but should I decide to, I want to regulate what my children can look at. I also want to regulate at what age they are free to start deciding for themselves what they want to look at.

    I grew up in the early BBS days (1983 or so). My parents didn't regulate me at all. My BBS that I ran, starting in my pre-teens, ended up having a small porn download/sharing section. It was probably viewed by some youths, but the vast majority of visitors there were adults (we did telephone authorization to give people access). I don't recall spending more than a few minutes in that section myself, since I preferred the online forums and the chat area (we were multinode early). My parents both visited the BBS on a few occasions, and they never scolded me for any section. They did warn me to be careful not to break any laws, but in our household, their regulations were the only laws that I had to work to obey. I did obey, until I moved out, at which point I realized that a lot of what my friends' parents restricted them from were the very things they clung to when they reached a point of maturity. Forbidden fruits create many jams, I guess.

    Let's keep government out of our households. Let's remember that the Constitution was written to prevent Federal government from going bonkers and destroying our ability to not just choose for ourselves, but also reap what we sow when we make mistakes (and when we work hard). Equalizing everyone's chances is what government tries to do, at the restriction of those outside the box who really can venture forth in success by working hard outside of the box. I don't like the box, and I don't want to be restricted to living there, even if you do.
  • Censorship? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dan East (318230) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:25AM (#18360887)
    (http://dexplor.com/)
    I'd like to know why this is flagged as censorship. Is it considered censorship that adult movies can't be rated G? Is it censorship that pornography is not allowed in the .gov TLD? Just because it has to be segregated does't mean it is censored.

    Regardless of that, I don't see how this can be enforced, since only a fraction of .com domains are owned by entities in the USA.

    Dan East
    • Re:Censorship? (Score:4, Informative)

      by SQL Error (16383) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:54AM (#18361201)

      Is it considered censorship that adult movies can't be rated G?
      If the US government were to do it, then yes, it would be considered censorship, and a breach of the First Amendment.

      Is it censorship that pornography is not allowed in the .gov TLD?
      No. The government is not required to host pornography. They are simply not allowed to prevent private individuals from doing so.

      Just because it has to be segregated does't mean it is censored.
      Any abridgement of the freedom of speech is unconstitutional. That includes legislated categorization, which is why movie ratings are created by the film industry, and not by the government.

      This resolution avoids the problem by not actually trying to do anything, but the legislation it calls for would be clearly unconstitutional.

      Then again, so is McCain-Feingold.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Censorship? by thefirelane (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @09:01AM
      • Re:Censorship? by pomakis (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @09:33AM
        • Re:Censorship? by DavidTC (Score:1) Thursday March 15 2007, @10:35AM
        • Re:Censorship? by thefirelane (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @11:36AM
          • Re:Censorship? by pomakis (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @12:29PM
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Censorship? by Dog-Cow (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @09:28AM
  • by AHuxley (892839) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:26AM (#18360895)
    In Capitalists West Utah notes you upload via dirty port everyday.
    In Soviet Russia KGB dirty port always open for you.
  • I'm sorry, but I've never in all of my years browsing websites and newsgroups simply 'stumbled' across online porn.

    And as far as seeking it out, at least google and such have 'family filters' which actually seem to work pretty well, along with there being personal proxying products that you can use as well. Not that that is a perfect solution, but there *are* already solutions out there for parents/etc who feel the need to block things they don't want their children or themselves to see.
  • by splatter (39844) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:32AM (#18360967)
    This is almost as funny as the joke.

    Life imitates comedy which imitates life or something like that. Where is my evil bit anyway? I know I have it stored around here somewere.

    dp

  • META or whatever - maybe for directories, include some simple unique character prefix (like ac_directoryname), that would make it able to restrict specific sensitive pages/directories instead of whole servers and such.

    It is something that could be implemented readily in content creation, be very open as a standard and filtered with much simpler methods then many of the other ones. I think sometimes we are putting too much though into it, maybe the MPAA with nthier broadcast flag/copy bit has us all messed up.
  • Instead of a black line across the guy's face it should be one of those balls in the mouth with elastic straps around his head...
    • Pfttttt...... by tinkerghost (Score:2) Thursday March 15 2007, @10:19AM
  • .sex considered dangerous (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:49AM (#18361129)
    See:

    http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3675.txt [ietf.org]

    All of the arguements are there already.

  • Idiot. (Score:1)

    by kinkos (789876) <kwinter@@@stevens...edu> on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:51AM (#18361155)
    (http://therebelcountry.net/)
    Right, so let's re-code every program ever made that uses sockets to respect the new reserved ports (since 1-1024 are reserved and 1025 and up are dynamically assigned) just so this asshat can sleep well at night.

    I've been saying it for years, technology should be licensed the same as motor vehicles.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • and In Absurdium (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boyfaceddog (788041) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:52AM (#18361169)
    (Last Journal: Friday April 06 2007, @12:32PM)
    1) Pass legislation to block evil pr0n from innocent kiddies by assigning it to a special port
    2) Make it acceptable for an ISP to block an entire port,
    3) Pass more legislation forcing some services onto certain ports (and allowing ownership of other ports (just like tv))
    4) Buy up ports and force ISPs to pay to use those.
    5) Both profit AND control of file sharing.

    STOP THIS LAW!!!
  • I for one (Score:2, Funny)

    by Grashnak (1003791) on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:05AM (#18361297)
    I for one welcome our content categorizing overlords. I look forward to getting a cushy government job in the new Ministry of Internet Content Categorization, where I will be paid big bucks to consider content before it is put online so that I can ensure that it is assigned its appropriate port number. For example, this idea could be assigned to Port 0, Dumbass Suggestions.
  • by LingNoi (1066278) on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:08AM (#18361339)
    .. Not let one state in one country change the how the Internet works for billions of people of hundreds of countries because they're afraid that their kids might see some naked people ..
  • RFC3514 sounds like any windows system (as a potential zombie) should set the "evil bit" by default.

    "Multi-level insecure operating systems may have special levels for
          attack programs; the evil bit MUST be set by default on packets
          emanating from programs running at such levels"
  • There is no "Internet porn problem" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fudgefactor7 (581449) on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:21AM (#18361509)
    (Last Journal: Friday January 26 2007, @02:46PM)
    "There is this assumption that you can't control it (the Internet)," Yarro said. "It's a toaster, we made it, we can fix it. ... We can solve the Internet pornography problem tomorrow if we decided to."

    What Internet Porn problem? [straightdope.com] Nevermind the silly thought of the 'Net being a toaster.
  • by abb3w (696381) on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:22AM (#18361523)
    (Last Journal: Thursday March 15 2007, @12:56PM)

    For every problem there is a solution which is simple, obvious, and wrong."
    — Albert Einstein
    For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
    — H. L. Mencken

  • Someone set us up the pr0n (Score:2, Funny)

    by CoolCph (1076131) on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:23AM (#18361529)
    All your ports are belung to Utah
  • by erik_norgaard (692400) on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:35AM (#18361679)
    (http://www.locolomo.org/)
    it is very unlikely that any site would adopt such ideas as moving to a specific port or top level domain on a global scale, basically saying "Don't enter here".

    Instead, it is more likely that businesses will adopt the reverse: Invent a means for sites to advertise that they are safe. A ".kids" top level domain would be much more effective than ".xxx", toy stores and other businesses targeting children would make sure to get their site up in that domain to reach their audience.

    For the same reason, a technical mean for sites to optionally advertise the content rating should be considered. The current http header lets the client specify a string of preferred languages, this lets servers redirect a request to the best matching language, or accepted formats.

    Similarly, one could add a header in the request accepted content classes. The response header should contain the actual classification returned. Servers not returning a classification should be treated as not-rated and may default to block or pass.

    The neat thing about this is that search engines will also get the classification header and a search query can restrict to matching classification. This way children won't find undesired results. Also, it provides more granularity, individual URL's can be classified differently.

    Of course, there are two problems:

    - It can be spoofed - but question is if there is a business incentive to do so.

    - Standardizing classification is very difficult, but at national level should be possible. The class codes could be prefixed by the national codes.

    Many sites might just remain non-classified, but if schools and institutions say that they only allow classified content, organizations will adopt this to reach their audience. If laws are passed to hold organizations liable for spoofed classification (but not lack of classification) then this might actually work: Those who have a business incentive will get reliable classification and the rest will simply remain unclassified. And no one have to move their domain and reestablish their name.

  • Resolution NOT law (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:35AM (#18361689)
    This is not a law that will be set. It's a resolution for congress to do something. What this means is the governor of Utah will have a "feel good" measure if nothing happens. There are resolutions for things all the time (Idaho had one to make a Napoleon Dynamite day). All it does is make someone feel good. Utah's general legislation ended the 28th of February, there shouldn't be any concern of this becoming a law unless someone in Congress (i.e., Orrin Hatch...) proposes a bill.
  • Utards Do Something!!!!!! (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by daperdan (446613) * on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:40AM (#18361751)
    I recently spent the weekend at a resort in UTAH. I was shocked to find that the local NBC affiliate does not carry Saturday Night Live. You may say to yourself: Self, What does that have to do with that crazy Mormon cult? Well you'll be shocked to find out that the Mormon Church owns Bonneville Communications which owns the NBC affiliate. They find that SNL is too racy for a Utah audience and choose not to air it.

    A little south to BYU and you'll find the Mormon media gestapo at work. Youtube is blocked from the university's firewalls not to mention several other sites.. MTV is banned on and off campus for BYU students. It's like China within our own boarders!

    It appears the majority of Utards don't mind that a cult controls what can be seen or heard in Utah. Stand up and be heard people!
  • Clean Tubes (Score:2)

    by rlp (11898) on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:59AM (#18362013)
    I'm sure Congress will go for this. They'll be a set of clean tubes and other tubes will be dirty. Cause it's not all mixed together like in a truck. /Sarcasm
  • Wow, really?? (Score:1)

    by k1e0x (1040314) on Thursday March 15 2007, @10:04AM (#18362091)
    (http://www.myspace.com/ronpaul2008)
    There is a few things wrong with this technically but actually the legal aspects are even more interesting.

    Who is hurt from pornography? Kids? Ya really think so? The only kids that want to see this are the 14, 15, and 16 year olds who jack off to the JC Penny's underwear catalogs. If you deny them from looking at porn.. what exactly are you protecting them from? Besides all of this, it won't work, young kids have been stealing their dads pornos long long before the net was around.

    I don't like laws that try to force morality on people.. even the youngest citizens..

  • by skidoo2 (650483) on Thursday March 15 2007, @10:06AM (#18362127)
    ...Port-a-potty.
  • A bid for church reputation (Score:4, Informative)

    by Excelcia (906188) <kfitzner@excelcia.org> on Thursday March 15 2007, @10:14AM (#18362269)
    (http://excelcia.org/)
    You have to understand, this is not a bid to clean up the internet, this is a bid to clean up Yarro's reputation. Yarro is a mormon, and his reputation in the church has taken a huge beating with his falling out with the Noorda's and the whole SCO debacle. In Utah, members of the church who are businessmen can expect to have other memebers of the church who are businessmen not want to do business with them if they have a tarnished reputation. So... he is engaging in some very high profile activities to try and look as if he is championing moral behavior. He doesn't give a crap whether this actually passes or not, the whole point is just to make noise. In fact, he doesn't even have to have anyone even believe him. Just as long as there is enough "morality" noise that a person who would prospectively do business with him can point to to say "see... I'm not selling out in doing business with him", then he can still access his business network.
  • by Joe U (443617) on Thursday March 15 2007, @10:29AM (#18362551)
    (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday August 20, @10:21AM)
    This is basic stuff, but for some reason people (lawmakers) can't understand it.

    You can't blanket label 'unsafe' content.

    It doesn't work, simply because some of those who produce the 'unsafe' content aren't going to follow the labeling. Whether it is ports, PICS, or even the evil bit. (Apr 1 coming soon)

    You CAN produce a blanket 'safe' content network and deny all other content. '.kids' is a great idea as long as it's set up properly. With strict guidelines and large financial penalties for breaking the rules a .kids TLD combined with PICS tags would work fine.

    This also goes for hosts who have their firewalls set up wrong, DENY ALL, allow some.
  • Wont work (Score:1)

    by Quzak (1047922) on Thursday March 15 2007, @10:31AM (#18362595)
    I think we need to just stick to the RFC that defines ports.
  • What would stop the people that this law seeks to "protect" from using a proxy service on port 80 to access the censored information? As far as I understand proxies (which isn't a lot), nothing. Quite a few of the network applications I have installed have settings to connect to port 80 instead of the default port, if only to avoid corporate firewalls.
  • Which ports? (Score:2)

    by AK Marc (707885) on Thursday March 15 2007, @10:39AM (#18362789)
    I claim port 69.
  • by iPaul (559200) on Thursday March 15 2007, @11:06AM (#18363247)
    (http://ipaul.blogspot.com/)
    Having a .xxx domain was a bad thing. Having to support an additional port for content is better? Let the firewall configuration wars begin!
  • by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Thursday March 15 2007, @11:21AM (#18363581)
    This is really no different than having the .xxx TLD. Not only will it be opposed for the same reasons, but also those not wishing to have their adult content blocked will simply ignore the division and shove their stuff through the "Family Channels". Total waste of time.
  • by Beorytis (1014777) on Thursday March 15 2007, @11:27AM (#18363657)
    CP80 is good enough to list their corporate contribution partners right here: http://cp80.org/content/sponsors-partners/contribu tion-partners [cp80.org]. If you are a customer of any of these, why not write them a letter expressing your displeasure with the flawed implementation of this idea...
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Something like this could kind of work, but wow did they not get it right.

    If they proposed a new alternate HTTP port (SSL mandatory) for content-controlled services, combined with an SSL certificate authority that only handed certs out to validated and approved hosts whose content had been examined, this could almost work. A CRL published by their "clean sites" CA could ensure that sites could be de-validated, causing users to get a warning from their browser when visiting the site or with simple browser configuration to be blocked from access entirely. Minor browser changes would be needed to support a different URL scheme ("boring:// " or whatever) to use the port/cert system - something MS could easily push out in Windows Update since it'd really just be a protocol alias for "https://domain.blah:someport" with a different trusted CA list and mandatory CRL checking. FF and Opera could also easily support it. A little bit of DNS abuse could introduce a convention like "connect to .clean domain sites on port 81 using SSL" as an uglier-but-more-idiot-proof alternative to a different URL schema.

    Of course, instead they proposed to take over an existing service and push anything they don't like to "somewhere else" - without any consideration of how the hell this could ever work. Which, of course, it can't without completely redesigning the Internet ... and even then they'd still need a whitelist or certification based system to control who gets access to their declared "clean" bit. Lets not get started on what's counted as "clean" once the creationists, scientologists, video-game-nazis, the completely humourless, etc get their hands on it. The only permitted content could soon be:

    <html>
    <head><title>Blank</title></head>
    <body>
    </body>
    </html>

    Why don't these twits find someone who understands the network and protocols to help them design something that might kinda half work? Oh, yeah ... because they'd have to DO REAL WORK and SPEND MONEY to maintain a workable system since it'd require ongoing provider certification and content review with a whitelist-like inclusion model.
  • I talked to these guys (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nilbog (732352) on Thursday March 15 2007, @12:49PM (#18365097)
    (http://gthing.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday March 05 2005, @09:50PM)
    I saw these guys last year at a technology expo here in Utah. They had these really cool T-Shirts they were giving out to everyone who signed their petition. The shirts had nothing to do with CP80 or pr0n or anything like that. It had some cool nuclear age artwork from the 50's on it.

    I talked with the guy for a bit and found out what they were trying to do. I told him it was a dumb idea and it would never work and it's not enforceable. He didn't have any great answers - just kept saying "we'll make them move to another port" emphasizing "make."

    Figuring that it could never work, I signed their petition in the name of getting a free T-shirt. Looking back, it was a mistake, because apparently this thing is going somewhere despite its complete lack of reason. I sold my soul and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.

    I haven't ever worn the T-shirt.
  • by bratwiz (635601) on Thursday March 15 2007, @01:28PM (#18365605)
    Obviously the correct port number for porn is....

    Port 6969
  • by WorseThanNormal (1033014) on Thursday March 15 2007, @01:53PM (#18365865)
    Finally, someone is taking me seriously and tyring to add the layer the IOS model has been missing for years. The new ISO Model Layer 1 - Physical Layer 2 - Data Link Layer 3 - Network Layer 4 - Transport Layer 5 - Session Layer 6 - Presentation Layer 7 - Application Layer 8 - Politics
  • by RexRhino (769423) on Thursday March 15 2007, @03:36PM (#18367405)
    The people who create these schemes to regulate the internet are the same people who create the schemes that regulate health care, the enviornment, education, buisness, safety, etc.

    Most of the regulations that govern every aspect of our lives nowadays are just as crude and misguided as attempts to regulate the internet. The only different is people on Slashdot have the expertise in internet technology to understand how stupid the laws governing the internet are - where as they don't have the expertise in other fields to understand the flaws in those kinds of laws.

    For the average voter, the majority of whom don't understand how the technology works, these laws seem totally reasonable. These laws seem as reasonable to them as some law governing education sounds to you.

    You need to understand that the law is a pretty slow and crude tool, and there is no way a lawmaker can be an expert in every subject they are supposed to regulate (let alone your average voter who selects the lawmaker). If you are the type that thinks society needs significant regulation, then the internet being regulated in this way is the price you pay for a regulated society. You accept these kinds of restrictions being put on you in the same way you are willing to place greater restrictions on doctors, or teachers, or whoever, despite their expertise. Every field of human endeavor has to deal with some pretty stupid laws once in a while, why do you imagine your thing is immune. Either become an Anarchist or Libertarian, or suck it up and charge it to the game.
  • Will not work.... (Score:2)

    by gweihir (88907) on Thursday March 15 2007, @04:58PM (#18368467)
    Why is ist allways the incompetents that try to do this? This approach has zero chance of working. All it takes is for the server admins to add the second port to their config. At least Apache does not care at all on how many ports it is serving its contents. Then there will be the proxies, translating from one port to another.

    Somehow these people seem to think, that they can create two separate worlds. Complete BS from both a technical point of view and from how the ''objectionable'' content gets into the web. Incompetents....
  • New protocol (Score:2)

    by noz (253073) on Friday March 16 2007, @02:16AM (#18372117)
    Just duplicate HTTP to httporn://whatever.com with a different porn-I-mean-port.
  • by maurert (515791) on Friday March 16 2007, @08:30AM (#18373943)
    It makes more sense to me to declare some none default port as the "clean" port. Then have a cerification process for anyone who wants to use that port. Net Nanny type software and even FireFox and IE could be made aware port "G" (whatever number) is the G rated port. Countries and jurisdictions worldwide could adopt policies and law for people who post non "G" rated material to the "G" port. Countries and juristictions could out right filter out other juristictions that allow non "clean" material to the "G" port.

    Meanwhile port 80 continues unincumbered. No "freedom of speach" issues to derail the plan.

    NOTE: The "G" rated is probably a trademark of the MPA so some other similar rating scheme would be needed.
  • Re:Sounds like a good idea to me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fabs64 (657132) <imfabsNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:08AM (#18360701)
    Mostly because, as a parent or not, you don't understand how the internet works.
    As MANY have pointed out, this gives no more protection than the .xxx domain name, and is only about a billion times harder to implement.
    [ Parent ]
  • No, it's both. They want porn to have it's own port, so they can block porn's port. Doesn't matter, because hackers will achieve extreme penetration of the porn port, blocked or not.

    It's stupid, and it shows a huge lack of understanding about what ports are for, and how content is directed to specific ports, and it depends wholly on the ability to separate content by its content, which is extraordinarily difficult to do with image/video data. Might as well just block port 80.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Sounds like a good idea to me (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Applekid (993327) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:13AM (#18360757)
    The big deal is that it will be a government mandate. Toys 'r' Us is a toy store. It's self-governed business knows that porn doesn't belong there so it's not there. I bet you also won't find bongs, industrial chemicals, fresh fruit, bags of concrete, and document safes in there, either.

    In you installing a filter on your home network, you're taking some pro-active steps. That's good. Companies that make filters are always improving them so your job becomes less difficult. That's good, too. And neither of those things required laws to be written.

    Maybe the real lesson is that people who make content filtering software should lobby the legislature like other companies do.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Sounds like a good idea to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rob T Firefly (844560) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:13AM (#18360759)
    (http://robvincent.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 09, @01:55PM)

    As a parent, I like the idea that I could install a port blocker at home and block the majority of porn content.
    Sure, it's a nice idea to think about, but it's also completely and totally impossible to implement or enforce. Suggesting we put all the adult content on this big unregulated international mishmash of an Internet on a specific port is pretty much like saying "we could stop all hunger in the world just by not letting anyone run out of food anymore, and we could stop all war by making sure nobody has a gun who is a war person." It just doesn't work that way.

    Sure, you could send your kid into Toys backwards-"R" Us alone without him finding porn (although if your kid is very young you should be going into the damn store with him,) but can you say the same of the Library of Congress? They have naughty books there. The Internet is much more an all-encompassing library than it is a kiddie-friendly toy shop, and it is nobody's responsibility but yours to monitor what your kid does with it.
    [ Parent ]
  • by barik (160226) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:15AM (#18360781)
    (http://www.barik.net/)
    The problem is that something like "Toys R' Us" is localized. You can establish decency laws for that county, district, or state. But how do you enforce decency laws in an environment that is heterogenous (ie: global). The same standards for "adult" content in India are not the same as the "adult" content standards in the US.
    [ Parent ]
  • by NayDizz (821461) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:15AM (#18360785)
    The issue, however, is the potential for abuse. My immediate reaction was also that this could be an awfully efficient way to filter content, but it reeks too much like the first step to being able to ban porn in geographic locations (being based in Utah), or the "morally superior" ISP's could use this to prevent access to their entire subscriber base.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Sounds like a good idea to me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by saider (177166) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:15AM (#18360795)
    This is not a technology problem. It is a problem of figuring out who gets to set the porn bit. Since the internet is international no one jurisdiction can assert authority. For your meatspace analogy, it would be like you lighting up a joint, and then telling the LA police to piss off because it is legal in Amsterdam.
    [ Parent ]
  • by Hao Wu (652581) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:22AM (#18360857)
    (http://www.slashdot.org/)
    What is "porn" to you and to government is actually poetry to other people. Including many parents.


    You have no right to force my content or product into some seedy store, anymore than I can demand my smut be sold at Toys R Us.

    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Sounds like a good idea to me (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:25AM (#18360891)
    Your analogy is broken.

    This is equivalent to declaring that trucks carrying porn cannot drive on certain roads. It's an attack on infrastructure to solve a political problem.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Sounds like a good idea to me (Score:2, Insightful)

    by petabyte (238821) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:29AM (#18360931)
    Well, firstly, I would have to say I'm not a parent so I've not yet run into the problems you describe. But from my standpoint, I don't believe this will make filtering access any easier and it puts a significant workload on everyone else.

    How do you characterize what is adult material and what isn't? Is that porn or is it art? I personally feel there is a difference - I know porn when I see it and I know art when I see it, but my standards aren't the same as everyone else. Lets assume there aren't going to be the inevitable court battles over "is it or isn't it" and I have complete dictatorial control over "is it or isn't it". Are you as a parent comfortable with me making those decisions for you? I view proposals like this as ways power is being taken out of you (the parents) hands and put in the hands of a less capable bureaucrat.

    At the end of the day, it will still have to be up to you to make the decisions on what is or isn't appropriate for your children. And while I do feel that filtering software is a good tool (I use privoxy/squid to filter out malware on my own network), you will still have to sit and teach good browsing habits.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Sounds like a good idea to me (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mpe (36238) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:34AM (#18360983)
    In meatspace, we already have constraints on distribution channels for so-called "adult" material. I can send my kid to Toys R Us and know that he won't find porn. (I think that there are lots of problems with the junk sold there, but porn is not one of them.)

    You won't find much porn at www.toysrus.com either. AFAIK they don't sell "adult toys" at all.
    [ Parent ]
  • by lupis42 (1048492) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:35AM (#18360993)
    Well, there is the obvious problem of what constitutes 'adult' material. I wouldn't be nearly as concerned about porn as I would about graphic violence, advertising, and religious zealotry. That moves the majority of the internet into the adult section, and when you allow a few other people to name what they think of as offensive, the whole thing just gets moved, and it isn't a fix at all. Let's say we split it up more, with a whole range of ports, one for sexually explicit, one for graphically violent, one for politically contentions, one for religious proseletyzing, etc. Now where does the heartfelt story of a how a a young girl was beaten by her adoptive parents, raped by a group of thugs, then taken in by the church fall? What about a sexual reply to an otherwise clean blog? Who decides? How do they enforce it, and how much time is spent just pigeonholing internet content for easy filtration? I know, we can use automated software, and filter automatically. The offensive words and images will arrive in separate packets, on separate ports, from the rest of the content. That should be easy and simple to implement.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:hmm (Score:2)

    by PeterBrett (780946) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:37AM (#18361009)
    (http://peter-b.co.uk/)

    Wait a minute... supposing we leave 22 for non-porn ssh, 25 for non-porn smtp, and 80 for non-porn http.... that only leaves 65533 ports for porn. Is that enough? I don't think it's enough.

    But wait! What other protocols have you forgotten about which you use on a daily basis?

    • DNS
    • NTP
    • HTTPS
    • IMAP
    • FTP
    • Telnet
    • Kerberos
    • POP
    • SFTP
    • IRC
    • VNC
    • LDAP
    • RTSP
    • Rsync

    The list goes on and on. In fact, my /etc/services contains 4596 ports registered for TCP protocols.

    Clearly the legislation should be amended to declare the MSB of the port number to be the "evil bit" similar to that specified in RFC3514 [ietf.org].

    Better, they could use a less broken solution such as a URL tagging system like PICS.

    [ Parent ]
  • by clark0r (925569) on Thursday March 15 2007, @08:38AM (#18361017)
    (http://www.clarkee.co.uk/)
    because in real life, you avoid porn by NOT looking for it.

    on the internet, and lets be honest here, you don't find a lot of porn by accident.

    if your child is visiting the kind of sites that links to porn, or has porn banners, you are a BAD FUCKING PARENT for not bringing your kids up right, or not monitoring your kids properly. it's always the same argument, parents are responsible for their kids, not the fucking government/isp/god etc.
    [ Parent ]
  • Don't bring Vi into this. We all know that (insert favorite arch-editor here) is the true mark of the beast!
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Sounds like a good idea to me (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mr_mischief (456295) on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:00AM (#18361251)
    (Last Journal: Thursday April 19 2007, @10:15PM)
    Okay, so HTTP porn on port 40001. Now, FTP porn on 40002? Gopher for porn on 40003? NNTP for porn on 40004? SMTP porn on 40005? SSL HTTP porn on 40006? 8-bit telnet with zmodem porn on 40007?

    See the problem? Ports are for services. Porn is not a service, it's content of a service.

    Maybe we should set hijack the Content-disposition header and set it to "Content-disposition: nasty". Sure, it'll break attachments, at least as far as there's overlap between attachments and porn, but who cares? Your children are safe from your lack of supervision while the rest of us work around your concerns.

    When I was a child, I was told what to do and what not to do. If my parents weren't in the room with me the entire time, they checked in on me often enough that they'd catch me doing things I wasn't supposed to do, or at least make me reasonably afraid they would. When I got caught, I lost access to things like computers. When I was in real trouble, I got the belt.

    Maybe that's what the Internet needs -- it needs parents who discipline their children for doing things children shouldn't do.

    Come on everybody, we've got to stop the proliferation of unsupervised, spoiled, undisciplined children! Think of the Internet!
    [ Parent ]
  • You can't take anyone seriously (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:18AM (#18361457)
    Anyone who uses the "meatspace" unless they're talking about a butcher shop cannot be taken seriously.

    Your difficulty is that you try to equate real life with the internet and they're not the same thing. There's no "main street", there's no "back alley". It's a flat set of addresses that you can go to for pictures, text, and media. Oh, and to "blog" [snicker]. There's nothing magical about it.

    People want to equate the two because they think it's some sort of Gibsonian jump to some future world, and the truth is that while the Internet is important, it's not an evolution for human beings.

    All that said, your concern is misplaced. You can do the children a lot more good by making sure we have better standards for child seats. Make sure kids have the right vaccinations. Make sure we spend more time with them. Instead, we think the Internet is the big problem. It's not. This attack on the Internet porn is only because it scares backwards parents because it represents a loss of control. I get that. But in general, if you don't like something, you stop doing it.

    I personally find skateboarding dangerous, so my reaction to it is to not do it and not buy a board for my kids. Some people's reaction is to try to ban skateboarding.

    [ Parent ]
  • by fuzznutz (789413) on Thursday March 15 2007, @09:47AM (#18361845)

    In meatspace, we already have constraints on distribution channels for so-called "adult" material. I can send my kid to Toys R Us and know that he won't find porn.

    How about you do what I do? I actually monitor what my kids surf. I monitor proxy logs and history files. I watch over their shoulders. They never know when dad is silently connected with VNC watching their every move. I also have the machine password protected (which changes regularly). The have to ask permission to surf the net and have me log them in. It has worked out remarkably well. They get their school assignements done and still get to surf recreationally. They have been honest and never lost computer privileges.

    It sounds to me that you want somebody else to do your job raising your kids for you. You expect your "content blocker" to do the work and when it invariably fails, everybody else can "segregate" the content for you so you don't have to actually monitor your kids yourself. You wouldn't (I hope) drop your kids off alone in front of a porn shop and expect others to keep them out of trouble, "meatspace constraints" notwithstanding.

    A misguided bill like this might (if it actually passed Constitutional muster) make it more difficult to find porn, like your content filter, but a curious and resourceful child will find it anyway. Besides, Utah will never be able to force their plan on the rest of the world and the Internet is a world media. If you want a foolproof method to protect your child from the wicked Internet, sell your computer and unsubscribe from your ISP.
    [ Parent ]
  • by computational super (740265) on Thursday March 15 2007, @10:05AM (#18362115)

    Well, if we're going to be blocking harmful content that may damage my kids minds beyond all hope of future repair, can we set aside a third port for anything related to the Mormon church?

    [ Parent ]
  • The thing is, there is already segregation on the Internet. It's what domain names do: they segregate. You can send your kid to a website that caters to children, and be reasonably assured that he won't find porn there. But letting your kid roam the whole internet is like letting him wander around the city.

    As another example, consider a bookstore. Many bookstores (most, I'd say) cater to adults as well as children. There are many books sold in normal bookstores that contain "adult" material that would be arguably just as harmful as porn. Heck, many bookstores have a whole section of books on sex and sexuality, etc. These books often contain photographs as well as explicit text. Shocking! But to enter these bookstores you don't need to show ID proving your age, and I wouldn't be surprised if a clerk sold a child pretty much any book found in the store.

    The internet is a huge place. It can't be controlled (fully) because every country has different laws and what qualifies as "porn" in one locale may not in another. In the UK some daily newspapers feature a page 3 photo of a topless woman. In Canada the equivalent newspapers would never show exposed breasts. Is this newspaper "porn"? What about the website for this newspaper? It depends on the society. Can the US make a law that says that this newspaper must host its website on a different port? I doubt this law would be effective, considering that the site in question is hosted in the UK.

    Just as you wouldn't let your child wander around town, or walk into just any store, you should be wary of your child randomly surfing the internet, and visiting just any site. If you're worried, maybe what you need is a whitelist of domains. If your child needs that level of supervision, it's your responsibility to enforce it. We already have "channels" on the internet: these are website addresses. Just like your TV can be configured to block certain channels, so too can your computer be configured to block certain websites. And if the list of sites to block is too large, maybe you should consider blocking all sites, except whitelisted sites, when you're not available to personally supervise.
    [ Parent ]
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