Lightning Crashes, An Old Freedom Dies (Updated) 500
I'm not a public speaker, and I hadn't stood before an audience in quite a while. The feedback I'd gotten from my first presentation on SurfWatch was that I talked too fast and too much. At the time, I'd wanted to communicate as much as possible of what the Censorware Project had learned over the last two years, in a half hour. An impossible task, and I shouldn't have tried.
But I felt I could do better, so I wanted to try again. That's the effort that ended up becoming Thursday's presentation.
My main problem is that the subject is complicated. Many computer professionals have this problem when trying to communicate computer-related ideas to nonprofessionals. If these things were simple, we wouldn't need computers. But trying to get across too much information in a half hour didn't work.
The other thing I'd tried that didn't work was borrowing the computers of the Family Research Council. The FRC had two computers set up, one filtered and one not, run by two volunteers. I'd thought it would be a clever coup to use their own computers to show their software failing.
But it wasn't impressive for one reason: when I showed an innocent Web site blocked, all that showed up was the "Blocked by SurfWatch" screen. I was using the FRC's filtered computer and their other one was turned off. Nobody had any idea that valuable information was being blocked, except me.
Kind of the way the censorship works in the library. But not an effective demo.
For my second go at it, I rented a ballroom in downtown Holland, advertised it in the paper, and brought my own computers. I purchased SurfWatch and installed it on one of them. And I spent some time thinking over which issues were important enough to hit and which were just too technical to mention.
Setting up was great fun, if by "fun" I mean wrestling with a network under a deadline. The 10baseT jack didn't seem to be connected, one of the extension cords didn't work, a projector wouldn't turn on, and finally I was faced with Windows' endless dialog boxes of options just to use DHCP. But it all worked out with time to spare.
I began my talk by explaining out why I was there and why blocking software was wrong. Currently, Holland's opposition to the software is being waged largely on political issues: chiefly, the fact that three-fourths of library taxpayers cannot vote on the ballot. To many, what the blocking software actually does is a non-issue.
But these are mere procedural concerns. Every community is going to have to face the core problem squarely, sooner or later; it might as well be now. So I began my talk by laying out, from the beginning, my belief that blocking software inherently violates the First Amendment.
After talking about some of the myths put forth in the community's debate, my next step was to display some pornography on the big screens. The local Family Research Council has been trotting out a presentation that focuses on some of the most graphic stuff available on the web: bestiality, fisting, etc. I'd decided to try not offending my audience quite as much. I chose some milder Web pages, mostly softcore, though several of the sites I chose also contained harder material.
And, of course, unlike the Family Research Council's, my demonstration showed the pornography appearing on both screens: filtered and un-.
I think I'll not reveal here which porn sites I showed. I want to see how long SurfWatch goes without finding them. So far it's been about two weeks, but of course revealing them here would get them blocked immediately for PR purposes.
I will say that I chose six sites that all begin with the letter "A". This was to make the point that there is plenty of unblocked pornography - there being 25 other letters in the alphabet. As if to make my point, a Tennessee paper ran that same day a story about a schoolteacher who was fired for accessing over a hundred porn sites - right through the school's "filter."
After all, if the software fails only a tiny fraction of the time, it still allows through - dozens? hundreds? thousands? - of porn sites. How many porn sites does the average person need? What's the point in blocking 99% of it, if the remaining sites are more than enough to keep anyone busy?
The next step in my talk was the flip side: showing protected Web pages unfairly blocked. Finding a plethora of wrongly-blocked pages was easy. SurfWatch uses URL keyword blocking, so, for example, the complete text of the classic book Of Human Bondage is blocked because of "bondage" in the URL. The hard part was narrowing the list down to 10 to demonstrate.
(If you're interested, here are the ten blocked pages I used: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.)
Next, I pointed out that these sorts of errors were not often corrected. What data there is suggests that most errors go unfixed. In our analysis of Web logs in the State of Utah, we found about 300 wrongly blocked sites, of which only six were overridden. Also, in the Family Research Council's $7,000 canned demo, they tried to show how easy it was to fix errors by unblocking The Onion. Since they couldn't even do their prepared site correctly (they left graphics.theonion.com blocked), how could the staff be expected to do the job on real sites, in a busy library?
I explained that the errors I'd found were intrinsic to blocking software, because of the growth of the Web. In my first talk, I spent 10 minutes talking about exponential growth; this time, I just gave the impressive figure that, during just the course of my talk, a million Web pages were created or changed. Much quicker and I'm sure it made the same point.
There seemed to be concern, in Holland, that pornography just "popsup" at any time, for no reason. I debunked that myth by pointing out that typos almost never lead to offensive Web sites. I read this quote from the Supreme Court's ruling on the Communications Decency Act, where they affirmed a lower court's conclusions:
"Communications over the Internet do not 'invade' an individual's home or appear on one's computer screen unbidden. Users seldom encounter content 'by accident.' ... Almost all sexually explicit images are preceded by warnings as to the content. Even the Government's witness ... testified that the 'odds are slim' that a user would come across a sexually explicit site by accident."
All the incidents of "verified pornography" in the Holland press seem to boil down to the same two cases over and over. In the first, a woman was reading Hotmail and, when she was done, closed the browser window. Behind it was porn that another user had left up as a prank.
There are programs that can be run between users' sessions to shut down Netscape and clear its history - my local library is using one with much success - so blocking software isn't necessary to solve this problem. I've explained this to the woman, but she continues to use her incident as an argument for blocking software.
The second incident involved a teenage girl. It seems she was at the library computer and stumbled across naked women purely by accident while doing an innocent search for chocolate chip cookie recipes. Interestingly, she didn't report this to her mother, apparently out of embarrassment, until weeks later. I'd like to speak with her as well but the local pro-filtering groups refuse to put her in touch with me.
I haven't been able to replicate this event, and neither have other people who have tried. And I know a lot about search engines. Now, I'm not saying it didn't happen. Maybe it was a misunderstanding.
What I did in my speech was hold up a $100 bill and offer it to the first person who could show me how it was done. I'll make the same offer to Slashdot readers. Let's see whether this is an urban legend or not. See the bottom of this story for the rules.
I spoke briefly about the legal issues. The Holland area has been hearing suggestions that it will be legally safer to use blocking software. In fact, though the case law is by no means definitive, the experiences of Livermore and Loudoun point toward the opposite conclusion.
Next was the fun part, where I brought up some quotes from the two organizations pushing filters in Holland to illustrate the folly of relying on unaccountable third parties for censorship. In a 1996 legal brief, the Family Research Council had mentioned Cyber Patrol by name as a product that families and libraries "should make use of." But just two years later, in a bulletin called "Filtering Out Decency," they were warning parents away from using the same software.
Why? Because Cyber Patrol had stuck to its guidelines for what constituted hate speech. They had reviewed the American Family Association, the other organization pushing filters in Holland, and found them to be espousing intolerance of homosexuals. The entire AFA site now found itself censored, by the same type of software it had been pushing. In a bulletin called "Filtering Out Morality," the AFA warned parents to think twice before using any blocking software:
"In a secularist culture, both filtering software and federal regulations may well be used to filter out Christianity along with other undesirable elements.
"Another kind of software simply informs parents what sites their children have visited. Instead of making it impossible for children to see certain sites, this approach puts parental discipline at the center. Children, realizing that their parents are looking over their shoulders, are thus taught to internalize the restraints and to develop a conscience of their own.
"As Christians get involved in these debates - before they get filtered altogether - they should keep in mind the warning of the great Puritan poet John Milton ... 'If it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.'"
Teaching children to develop a moral conscience of their own? There's a radical idea. Why did it take censorship backfiring before anyone thought of that?
I wrapped things up by talking for a bit about the importance of teaching these moral lessons to children. The children of today are growing up in the 21st century. The Internet will be available to them on every street corner and desk, and mostly unfiltered. What they need is not a temporary and leaky set of blinders strapped on. They need to be given an ethical foundation and the self-reliance to make good decisions about their own lives.
Somewhere in there I called up the AFA's Web site and showed that their discussion about pornography was blocked by SurfWatch as if it were pornography. That got a chuckle from the audience and made the point: it isn't just one product that backfires. The very product that has been pushed in their community blocks the very organization that has spent $35,000 pushing it.
As I wrote in an earlier article, I'm not sure any of this will make any difference to most people. For most, the issue is and will always be pornography: to be against pornography is to support filters.
And the opposition to sexually explicit material is, at heart, an emotional one. It's a primal one. Sex and fear are two of the gut instincts that we humans carry with us from our earliest days.
The day after my talk, the Holland Sentinel carried a powerfulinterview with the man who is behind the city's ballot initiative. IrvBos is the head of the Holland Area Family Association, a branch of the American Family Association.
It seems his aversion to pornography began when he was a boy, in a dramatic incident. At the age of 12, he found a book by the side of the road - a book with stories about "pretty graphic things," a book that the young boy secreted away in his parents' barn.
When "lightning struck the barn, burning it to the ground," it must have been a frightening demonstration of God's power to the guilty child, the child who associated that barn with sneaking behind his parents' back to do evil things, to read evil words.
I think I put together a pretty good presentation Thursday night, but it couldn't have compared to a bolt from the sky striking down a house of evil - like "Sodom and Gomorra," according to Mr.Bos's recollections.
That's hard to top. I can talk about the Internet equivalents of electrons and lightning rods all I want. But I don't think anyone can get through to people who believe this battle to be an epic one, a battle of good and evil. There is something primal there.
We'll see Tuesday night how the vote comes out.
Rules for the $100 offer are as follows. Find a search result URL that shows naked people, for a search on "chocolate chip cookies" or "chocolate chip cookie recipes." I'll accept any variant that an inexperienced Web-surfer might search for. Your result must appear on one of the first five pages of results returned (typically the first 50 results). I'll accept any major search engine. Send me the exact query you used; I will only accept queries I can verify to work as claimed. You aren't allowed to put up a cookie page, submit it, then change its content; to prevent this, you have until 11:59PMEST, Wednesday the 23rd. Only the first person gets the money; order is determined by timestamp of Received: headers at my server. I'll mail you a check or donate it to your favorite charity. This offer is made by me personally, not Slashdot, Andover.net, or VALinux. Notify me at jamie@mccarthy.org.
Update: 02/22 9:30 PM EST by J : I'm getting a lot of submissions that underscore the importance of properly spelling queries. Since I said I'd allow variants, I'll allow these and pick the most reasonable-sounding to give the $100 to. Some of the better ones so far: "chocchipcooky," "chocolateecipe," and the amusing "chocolatecoochie." If you can't beat those, don't bother emailing me.
But what I'm really looking for is a search engine result that looks innocent - that a 16-year-old girl might click on without suspecting pornography at the other end. See the CNN story:
"She typed in 'Chocolate Chip Cookies,' hit the search button and immediately there appeared before her eyes a picture of a nude woman."
The issue is whether pornography appears unexpectedly, from clicking on an innocent-looking link. If no one finds one of those, the other Slashdot authors and I will just decide on the most reasonable-sounding of the other submissions (first entries win ties).
Local standards are trumps (Score:3)
Obscenity is defined by local community standards. The internet has no local standards. So if libraries want to allow access to the internet, they have to find a way to impose local community standards regarding obscenity.
Filtering is clearly not ideal, and the standards it uses are likely stricter than those of any particular community. But until effective alternative forms of control are available, local communities will be willing to give up on access to some (perhaps a great deal of) useful information, in order to block access to obscene material.
And they're right to do so.
A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:3)
So one person has a bolt of lightning against all the reasoned arguments you can throw at him. You know, the sad thing is, he'll probably win.
I'd like to see even *one* argument about this issue that does not invoke:
These people are BENT on forcing their agenda on others, and they're not going to be happy till we're all good christians being controlled by the big Brother of the fundie thought police.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
ballots? (Score:3)
Glad to hear that your latest attempt at presenting your side of the issue went better than the last one. Did you have the same attendance as the last time? What was the response from the audience?
Much as I disagree with the viewpoint of said library-filterers, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to bring an initiative to the ballot in the same way that you or I can. Make sure you don't appear as closed-minded at the same time you are accusing others of the same thing.
SATIRE:Oh man... (Score:4)
However, I say: is this so bad? I don't like censorship, but if I did, blocking "Babe: Pig in the City" would be a good start. Most kids don't know about porn when they're that young, but we could save them from many other societal ills. If only we had blocked Barney, Pokemon, Nintendo, etc., etc., they would realize that the only purpose for those computers is for their schoolwork. That's it.
And we could have more filters for adults, too, and block their pr0n, their Slashdot, their "Yahoo Pager", and make them work for a living, instead!
Then we could have a constitutional convention, and push for a perfect Communism, and have the government genetically engineer people to only want to do what the government wants them to do, so it wouldn't be so inhumane. And we'd work all day and all night, and we'd collapse occasionally, but we'd be happy and efficient, like ants are...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Excellent story! (Score:3)
The fact that screening software blocked out certain group's anti-homosexual content was illuminating. Censorship is the dog that turns on its master. You cannot use this weapon without turning it on yourself. If we were all more worried about our own development as moral beings and less worried about what others might be doing, we would make greater progress as a moral society.
Re:A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:3)
Emotionalism and conjecture.
Maybe if kids were exposed to healthy sexuality young, they wouldn't feel the need to have these compulsions as adults.
I know of no documented proof for this, in fact, I believe that there is proof to the opposite. Witness Japan.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
I've been wondering . . . (Score:3)
Do any of the filters even bother with blocking the IP numbers?
Has anyone tried spying on the GET's from people pushing for censorship?
How about getting a statement from ICANN or IETF aut al. saying that those attempting to filter public internet access will be denied all routing?
Isn't there anything to enforce good netizenship, perhaps similar to the UDP (Usenet Death Penalty)?
Blocking (Score:2)
Our office is looking into implementing "WebNot", similar to Surf Watch.   What the result of this will be is unknown. Expect this debate to go on ad infinitum.
Monitoring History (Score:3)
My canned response is now something that Jamie mentioned -
"Another kind of software simply informs parents what sites their children have visited. Instead of
making it impossible for children to see certain sites, this approach puts parental discipline at the center. Children, realizing that their parents are looking over their shoulders, are thus taught to internalize the restraints and to develop a conscience of their own."
This
This would have been extremely effective in my childhood as a preventative measure for view "inappropriate" stuff..as it was, my parents new little of my habits, and they weren't
Many of slashdots readerships do have the opportunity to suggest or even promote various things like this as their aunts and uncles or friends' friends' brother asks how to handle this sort of thing. I encourage you all to encourage everyone else to tell them simply to read the history files, or buy software to help you out a bit.
CYA (Score:5)
Re:A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:2)
A lot of college administrators are pandering to the parents who are paying for the education anyway. It's what the parents want...
It all comes down to parental ignorance, or at *least* wool being over their eyes. You just cannot hide a part of life from your kids. They will find out sooner or later. And the worse you make it seem the more they'll revel in it.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
Got your chocolate chip cookie thing (Score:4)
Ballots are for voting. (Score:2)
Whose Rights? (Score:2)
I think blocking is the wrong solution, and I don't agree with what the religious right is trying to do either. However, this statement on the front-page really cracked me up. ...and why nothing anyone does is going to stop fundamentalists from bringing issues like this to America's ballots.
When you barely are able to complete a paragraph about your rights, and then talk about wanting to take away someone elses rights, that's too much. They have just as much a right to think such issues are important, as we think the issues are important in a different way. But that is one of the results of living in a democratic society where everyone has a voice. There's going to be a lot of different voices, and it is wrong to censor them because they are different. It is just as wrong for you to want to block fundamentalists, as it is for fundamentalists to block, say, the Nazi party, or the Socialist Party.
-BrentCNN covers this, too (Score:2)
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responsibility (Score:2)
The fundies will win (for the time being) because (Score:4)
. . . You can always tailor a lie to be exactly what the audience wants to hear. You can't do that with the truth: Lies have the property of still being lies if you change them; the truth isn't like that, and it's very rare that the truth happens by chance to coincide with what people want to believe. As long as human nature doesn't magically change, most people will believe anybody who tells them what they want to hear, and fundies and other professional swine will be able to manipulate people to gain power.
We're stuck with it.
The chocolate chip cookie incident (Score:4)
http://www.loveusea.com/ [loveusa.com]
It seems to me to be a perfectly innocent dating service(???), but perhaps in the mind of the girl who originated the myth the site grew to be a porn site (the reason I'm thinking along these lines is that the girl only told the story weeks after the incident. Research has shown that when children are interviewed as witnesses to a crime or something, usually child-abuse or something cheerful like that, they start to embellish their stories more and more as time and the interviewing go on).
Re:Local standards are trumps (Score:2)
Now, what about all those unjustly censored sites? Because little timmy the pervert *grin* saw some nanny on the pubic library, er public, beg yer pardon, public library computer, it now has to be crippled needlessly for those who have no desire to look for pr0n? (meanwhile, timmy pulls up a new list of sites that arent blocked and laughs at all those fuming christians trying to get to their censorware website which is now blocked off)
Cmon man, that makes no sense. If it does, then your either an avid christian fanatic (hey! your website is blocked!) or clueless. In either case your wrong, so open your eyes and get a clue.
Re:A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:2)
Daniel Linz and Neil Malamuth, 1993, _Pornography_
Apparently when the legal restrictions on the sale of porn were dropped in Denmark, the incidence of sexual crimes did not rise and in fact dropped sharply.
There have been studies that showed that violent porn can cause violence, however since most porn is harmless we can conclude that it is in fact the violence itself that's harmful.
Re:A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:3)
And the way you protect your family from harmful things is by wishing them away, pretending they aren't there?
IF you think pornography is personally harmful, EDUCATE your children to that effect. There is simply never a case when less information is better than more information.
Re:The chocolate chip cookie incident (Score:2)
bar cookies
butter spritz
gingerbread men
girl scout cookies
shortbread
snickerdoodles
turtle brownies
vegan chocolate cookies
springerle cookies
Children don't need to be going to bars, spritzing butter, messing around with "gingerbread men" or girl scouts (commonly called "making brownies"), snickering at shortbread, assaulting turtles, watching Springer, or coating Vegans in chocolate! Oh, the nerve of them!
Some people just don't get it.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Re:please help me, i am geographically impaired. (Score:2)
Ask AskJeeves [askjeeves.com] "What is the population of Holland, Michigan?" and you get this result [askjeeves.com]. Short version: 30,745 in 1990.
(Strangely enough, if you ask them "Where can I find chocolate chip cookie recipes?", you get back a bunch of porno links. What's up with that?! ;-)
Freedom through technology (Score:2)
Do you want to know more [sourceforge.net]?
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What is the big deal about naked people? (Score:2)
I am much more terrified of well-meaning, yet misguided bible-thumpers telling me what I can read, view, hear or think.
Can anyone from other countries provide some insight? Is the US the only country that is this uptight about things of a sexual nature?
A solution that will win me no friends. (Score:2)
I do not think that most libraries should be in the business of providing unrestricted internet access to their patrons. Libraries have never provided unrestricted access to anything - this, to some degree, is what makes them so useful. They select content that they feel is appropriate and useful within their given community, based on community standards, relavance, and the interests of their patrons. There has always been a considerable amount of material that they have chosen not to provide, things for which there is a demand, like Playboy magazine, or which people would give to the library for free, like the publications of some white supremacist groups. I do not mean for this to sound like the library only selects by elimination. Part of the value the library provides is by creating collections of value to the area they serve, like books and records of the history of the community.
I think that libraries should do the same with internet access - that is, select the content that is most useful to their community, and provide it in an organized manner, and to some degree, determine which sources are legitimate, and which are not. There is an enormous wealth of information out there, but it is difficult to find it, and to always determine the legitimiacy of the sources. The details of such a directory of information would have to be worked out, but such a resource would, for most, be a valuable tool.
I do not think this is the answer for every library. Major research libraries, colleges, and universities should provide unrestricted access, although some sort of well done directory in addition to that would be wonderful.
I propose this solution only because it seems to be the best mean between two solutions already suggested. Filtering does not work, plain and simple. It blocks out completely reasonable sites (I recall, in high school, a search for the term "soccer" being blocked), and yet still allows pornography and other objectional material to be accessed.
I wish the people of this country were smart enough, as a whole, to not go crazy over the possiblity of someone perhaps at some point in time looking at pornography on a computer screen. However, I have seen what has happened to the National Endowment for the Arts in the past ten years. It's budget has been cut in half (actually more than that if you account for inflation) due to a few situations where the money was used for things that some people found objectionable. The total amount of money spent on these things was a couple thousand dollars at the most, a small fraction of a percent of the NEA's budget. I can see the same thing happening to the libraries - libraries unable to get any additional tax money, and probably even getting fewer dollars, because of an incident or two where a child looked at pornography on the internet in the library.
I do not know what the best solution to this problem is. I think that a well made directory is a good one. And I would take it any day over a filtering program.
Re:A solution that will win me no friends. (Score:2)
Ooops.
No, Local standards are not trumps (Score:3)
No, obscenity is defined by statute - state law. Local communities may further define it, but are subject to being overridden by higher courts when reviewed against both statute and the constitution of state and nation.
The internet has no local standards.
(sarcasm)It doesn't? Strange, I could have sworn that there were standards which are local to the internet. I guess anyone can spam without hindrance or counter - and denial of service attacks are acceptable practice as well.(/sarcasm) Seriously, as is being discussed in other articles the internet is (at least) one community, and those communities have standards. It's just that in many cases definition of obscenity isn't an issue - any more than the degradation of the French language simply doesn't matter to most of the world.
Filtering is clearly not ideal, and the standards it uses are likely stricter than those of any particular community. But until effective alternative forms of control are available, local communities will be willing to give up on access to some (perhaps a great deal of) useful information, in order to block access to obscene material.
Sarcasm again to make the point - I know it's not what you mean, but...
The situation is clearly not ideal, and the limits it creates are clearly stricter than those of any particular community. But until effective alternative forms of control are available, local communities will be willing to give up on having some (perhaps none at all) non-white members in their community, in order to block this gang activity.
Ugly, isn't it? See, you're essentially saying, "Some of us are willing to ignore the Constitution of the US to have a limited and possibly false sense of security." And I happen to believe that particular sentiment is wrong.
I'll ask again. Where is the parental responsibility in this? If the parent is concerned about what the child might see, why isn't he or she supervised? You don't let the child wander down the streets freely (I hope). You check to see what they're watching on television (again, I hope). You review what books and magazines the child has checked out from the library. Why is the internet different?
Re:What is the big deal about naked people? (Score:3)
But here in the USA, if a child views pr0n, they become rabid flesh fanatics, fulfilling the plans of Satan as they indulge in evil pleasures and go on to rape and kill.
So, perhaps we just need to import children from other countries?
Re:I've been wondering . . . (Score:2)
Re:just shut up... (Score:3)
Imagine you don't want that to happen, so you go to the library, and do a search on homosexuality, and because of the word 'sex' in your search terms, SurfWatch automatically blocks your Google query.
This example is trite and hackneyed, but it seems that people like you, my AC friend, just don't get it and need to have this same argument drilled into your collective heads.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine [nmsu.edu].
Re:Got your chocolate chip cookie thing (Score:2)
Re:Got your chocolate chip cookie thing (Score:4)
Reason? (Score:2)
FINALLY! (Score:2)
Another kind of software simply informs parents what sites their children have visited. Instead of making it impossible for children to see certain sites, this approach puts parental discipline at the center. Children, realizing that their parents are looking over their shoulders, are thus taught to internalize the restraints and to develop a conscience of their own.
Now this is what the software companies should be going into. Filters are an excuse for lazy parents who simply don't want to do their job. But this is different; it's not ideal by any means, but it kills the "I don't have time" cop-out; now you do have time. Any time you want.
Now, how could this be applied to libraries? How does this sound to you? This "logging software" is installed on each computer. The computers themselves cannot be accessed without logging in (possibly using a system where you swipe your library card to get in? This wouldn't be too expensive to set up). At the end of each month, a letter is mailed to someone (I'd assume the head of a given household), stating the distinct Web pages which were viewed using cards registered to someone in that household, along with the date and time. The records are then destroyed.
Now, my question: is this a privacy violation? I'm not sure. The records are not kept permanently, the system is fully-automated, and you're the only one who ever sees the records; that's a point against it being a privacy violation. Furthermore, this can also be used as a tool to track unauthorized usage of one's own account. Plus it lets you see where you've been, and possibly to go back there if you've lost the URL.
Funny that fundamentalists would be saying this, but at least it's a good point. Personally, I don't see censorware as anything more than a new take on book-burnings. But this is a different idea, and one that I find intriguing. So I leave to to the Slashdotters here: what do you think? Is this proposal a good system, or at least a better one than mandatory filtering?
Can I take a provocative stand? (Score:4)
I have been following these posts about this anti-filter in libraries campaign, and I really have to wonder why this is a big deal.
I would like to ask: what are Libraries doing offering Internet access at all? The Internet is not just a way to access information, it is entertainment, it is commerce, it is discussion, it is communication, and it, too, is pornography.
You probably don't require your library to carry porn in print. Nor do you expect it to carry the latest Sears or Victorias Secret catalog (together with a phone to make those 1-800 calls to order), or a bunch of video games, or to show the latest Arnold movie, or to provide a place for you and your friends to party, or even to send your letters too your grandmother. I cannot understand why it should suddenly be expected to offer all these things on the Internet.
I believe in free speach online, in fact I have been doing my best to make concrete efforts towards guaranteeing it. I think that the AFA and co. are a bunch of idiots, but in this issue you are just as wrong.
I think much of the problem comes from libraries not wanting to bother with the digital future, and hoping they can get away with throwing up a few PCs with Internet access. They shouldn't be doing this at all, instead they should be building their own, seperate, network, LibraryNet. LibraryNet should be to the Internet exactly what libraries are to the rest of the world, and should offer quality, but yes, moderated information. LibraryNet should concentrate on getting rare books online in digital form so that even small Libraries can get them, it should concentrate on mirroring web content selectively the way that libraries offer periodicals today, and should provide contact with information specialists, the way you can get human contact with a librarian today.
Censorship sucks. Telling people what they can and can't see is stupid, but we need to look at what we are attacking. If people want to look at free information on the Internet, they are free to get themselves connected in other ways, this is not the libraries responsibility. Shame on you for smearing our crusade with this ridiculous nihility.
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Hey, wait, I'm a fundamentalist! I object! (Score:2)
Two things here (Score:5)
This could go so far as to automatically generate entire lists of what students have viewed under their login. This of course assumes that accounts are forcibly kept in order and that penalties (IE no access for a (week/month/semester) for passowrd/account trading, sharing, or stealing. While many like my ideas, most seem to look towards what requires less work. Meaning, lets throw in a filtering proxy and be done with it. Any suggestions on furthuring this gaol? Anyone want to write an account system/proxy that monitors and generates reports on induviduals access by login (not IP), that does not cost a screaming fortune, and is easy to implement on a mid-scale basis?
Final accountability should of course rest on the parent. Unfortunately, the parents just want to blame the schools/teachers and take no responsibility. Hence, the schools have to find other places to point fingers: hate internet sites, violent TV ang games, lack of attention form school staff. I just have to know, where the fsck are these parents when their children are snorting coke and making pipe bombs? Where were they when their uncle charlie molested them at age 6? Probably out working to much as some do, or partying to much as others. I will be the first to admit, I run a tight schedule, still go out and have fun occaisionally, but I sitll find time to talk to my kids, play with them, get them on the bus in the morning. It's hard, but it is definately worth it. Not that I want to get on a rant or anything (Dennis Miller Aura).
On to topic too... I can't find any naked chocolate chip cookie women. Unless of course I type and search for either "Chocolate Tit Cookie" or "Chocolate Chip Nookie", but both are unusual typos.
Feel free to flame/freeze/laud/complment/screw/blackmail me anyway you wish.
These views are my own and do not represent my employers brain cell in any way shape or form.
Re:I've been wondering . . . (Score:2)
Where I work we use the Raptor firewall product, which includes censorware software that blocks on IP numbers. This is even worse than blocking on keywords: here's why
Many web sites today are virtual hosted: the same machine hosts several sites, and selects content based on the URL given in the HTTP request. The problem is that the same site (same IP address) might host www.nothingdirtyhere.com and www.chicksandhotdogs.com (I made these up on the spot, they don't exist...) However, to the blocking software, an IP address is as bad as the worst thing on it, so you try to go to www.nothingdirtyhere.com and you get blocked.
Re:Wrong Slick (Score:2)
You're talking about the library as if it were a separate and distinct individual. Wrong Slick. That Library was built only to serve the local community. That Library is the local community and should serve ALL of its members, not just the vocal few. The Library should not be in any position (through software or otherwise) to determine what is available to its customers - the local community. If people can't accept the good with the bad and use their own moral compass to guide them, then the only "real" solution is to close the doors on all the libraries completely.
I'm waiting for AntiSurfWatch (Score:2)
Country NOT founded on religious freedoms (Score:4)
I, a Jew, am often criticized when I laugh at those who insist that the first Amendment means anything other than the right to practice whatever Protestant religion that you choose.
The First Amendment prohibits Congress from establishing a state religion. That was clearly referring to a state religion. Given the mess in England over the centuries as different monarchs had different views, it makes sense that our founders were concerned with a Congress voting a state religion in.
Note: this does NOT in anyway prohibit moral standards based on Christian principles from governing society.
It does, however, prohibit Congress from adopted a Church of America with the President as the head of the Church. While a religious view CAN be used in legislation (notice Blue Laws still in effect, you can't buy liquor in Mass. on Sundays, and most places on Sunday before some time, like 1 PM), you cannot establish a state religion.
What constitutes a state religion?
1. All citizens must be members of and tithe appropriately
2. Fines for failling to attend specific Church services
3. Prohibition of other religious practices
4. Church say in governmental decisions (directly, as in the head of the Church gets a veto over legislation, etc).
There IS a separation of Church and State. It was established by the Supreme Court through Judicial review stemming from the First Amendment. However, the First Amendment does NOT create such a system.
To suggest that America, with the motto "In God We Trust," is founded on religious freedoms is a little silly.
More importantly, I doubt that the founders would support that freedom minority relgions like Catholicism (they despised The Church), Judaism, and Islam. The First Amendment was predominantly to prevent a particular Protestant faith from pushing others out.
Alex
Amateur Historian
Re:A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:2)
Noone's reliably demonstrated that; in fact the opposite has more hard evidence behind it. But the "child abuse" line is bull anyway; the facts about child abuse caused by stepparents don't seem to make these people scream to have remarriage outlawed.
Try searching for chocolate HIPS and you'll get... (Score:2)
Using MSN, search #40-#50 all lead to various Playboy sites, although none of them seem active. Lycos turned up a truly obscene [pluswoman.com] page, however. (Don't ask me how it found 'chocolate' in there, but I can definitely see the hips.) Webcrawler gave me one [chocolatestudio.com] that was slightly off-color, but no pictures.
What old freedom???? (Score:2)
First, whatever happened to compromise? In most libraries, there's a kid's section and a general section, and even two varieties of library cards. With parental consent, a child can access the general selection. Why not apply the same thing to the computer section?
And if people don't want to accidentally see porn, let them put blocking software on one of the machines. Simple solution.
I may not like the fact that some people want to censor their children's (or their own) intake of information in bizarre ways, but I allow that they have a reasonable right to it, as long as that right doesn't interfere with others.
And if both groups can be accomodated (and I don't see why that's a problem here), then accomodate them.
I may not like the views of the fundamentalist right, but I'm willing to accept that they have a right to them. The real issue is whether their desires for censorship can be reconciled with other's right to access information freely. It's the job of a library to try to accomodate the public. If it's easy to do (as it is here), why not do it?
Demonizing the opposition is a favorite tactic of the fundamentalist right. It's more than a little sad to see supposed free speech advocates playing the same game.
Re:That's Nice But...... (Score:2)
No, it is most certainly NOT the library's perogative to do so. The library is an agency of the government, and as such, is subject not to it's own policies that it deems appropriate, but such ideas as freedom of speech and non-censorship. The idea that an agency of the government can do whatever the hell it wants to is the same sort of naive emotionalism that is governing the policies being pushed in Holland, Michigan. Libraries are NOT corporations. Libraries do NOT have the right to decide what they will and will not provide. That is decided by the government, and in a democratic society, therefore, ultimately by the people.
Re:Wrong Slick (Score:3)
Perhaps it is because of the sexual repression in this country that it is used so prevalently (and obviously effectively) in American media in general and advertising specifically. Deny someone something they need (unless you think sexual desire is an acquired trait) and later you can use it to sell them stuff, or they lose control and become rapists, sluts/whores (like all their favorite screen vixens), stalkers (for their favorite screen vixens), incurably self-conscious, over-stimulated, or some other sexually disfigured (and therefore socially dangerous) being.
Huh, what?
Repression doesn't work. Pressure only builds in active, closed environments. Nobody wants explosions, they hurt.
Moderation in all things, especially sex, and this post, both of which are fun with the right people.
--
Re:The chocolate chip cookie incident (Score:2)
Re:A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:2)
Porn does pop up randomly (Score:2)
Let's see, you want to learn about cookies. These queries bring up porn on the first page of links:
(where's my $100? ^_^ )
I only spent a few minutes thinking about what a child might write, I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to get porn.
Just think of what a kid on the wrestling team would find if he looks for information on his favorite sport! One of my hobbies is judo, which is really a type of wrestling. I like to look into other styles to see if I can adapt their moves, so I have first-hand experience (actually, the situation has greatly improved over the last couple of years, so this example didn't work out as well as I hoped). I had to sift through a lot of deviant gay fantasies before I finally found reviews of "Winning Wrestling Moves" (there aren't any really good web resources, IMHO, but I would probably have never bought this incredible book without the web reviews). I also found the pages of Matt Furey [combatwrestling.com], which opened up a lot of information to me.
Searching simply on "wrestling" gives you a list of totally irrelevant WWF-type pages.
Searching on "amateur wrestling" gets better results.
However, the simple misspelling "amatuer wrestling" brings up porn as the second hit (and the first one doesn't have anything to do with wrestling), with many others to follow.
Don't even get me started on "submission holds"!
(BTW, I used metacrawler in all examples; it used to be the best, though now it pretty much sucks)
Re:Monitoring History (Score:2)
Examples of this include
information on contraceptips
abortion
alternate religions
computer security (anyone doing that -must- be a hacker)
chat rooms (this also brings the issue of whether these will be logged)
social services/parental abuse
this is just an extremly small list of items kids and teens could look up that i believe we would all agree they should have access too, but they might not visit if they knew that their parents would find out.
would you go to a site on parental abuse if your parents could find out you'd been there??
Don't block, educate (Score:2)
Making cigarettes illegal did very little for consumption: there's always a way to get something you want, even though store clerks are supposed to not sell them. Whether or not you think that filters on web access will be good for children (or whoever), you're still just addressing an easy problem while not having much to say about the root problem: let's raise kids who make good decisions, not create a world in which we hope they don't have room to make bad decisions, and somehow call that a victory.
Whatever.
Let's try not to go on a Jihad over this, though. It already suffers from being over-politicized, and that warps people's ability to interact with it. In that case, you end up with winners and losers of a fight and not actually with anyone enlightened as a result.
my answer to Jamie: "Girls cout cookies" (Score:2)
We're not talking about using useful search engines like google [google.com], here. Most search engines will throw all sorts of random results at you regardless of imput.
Re:CYA (only goes so far...) (Score:3)
So, when was the last time you were at a local library?
And honestly, school and libraries do have a responsibility to at least make a half-assed attempt at adhering to local decency standards. That's why you won't find playboy mags at a library.
Most public libraries I've been to have Playboy and Penthouse. Their patrons demand it. Likely you will need to ask at the desk and hand over your library card or some other ID, but they are there. Sure some of the patrons may be offended, but the good librarians know where the majority of the contributions come from.
On to the main point: I have to side with the anti-sensorship advocates, but I can also understand the need to cover one's ass too. I think it's a shame that people try to make other take the blame for the consequences of their inaction. These days many parents don't teach their kids the morals they want them to adhere to. It may be they don't take the time, or they don't know how. Either way the parents are at fault. The morals a child learns are the ones tought to the child. Now if you want a specific set to be tought to your child, why are't you doing it yourself, and doing it early in their life? If you don't teach your child the morals you want your child to learn, don't come crying to me or anybody else when your child shows up with a different set than what you wanted.
As a side note: This is only from personal experience and conjecture and no scientific research of my own. Most of the people I've known that were provided "explanations as to why X is so" by their parents grew up to be quite similar to their parents. Most of those that were tought with "X is so without explanations as to why" ended up rebelling against their parrents. Children need to be tought the why as well as the base fact. This may mean you need to do some research, but in the end it's worth it. Both you and your child will learn from it. Not filling in the explanation just gives the next one to come along the ability to set X to their value. If you give a child a fact but no explanation, the child files it away. Then another person gives the child fact with explanation that contradicts your fact. The child will look at the two facts, weigh the data and likely choose the one with the explanation to settle on. This is because the child has data to support it. It may not be right, the data could be quite faulty, but there is data there to support it. This is rather simplified, but it gets the base point across. If you want a child to belive something, base it in verifyable facts. Do it any other way and you likely will loose. The cards are stacked against you.
Re:ballots? (Score:3)
I have to agree with the respondent above. Someone once told me "Democracy is more dangerous than fire; fire can't vote itself immune to water."
--
"There's a word for people who live close to nature -
Emotion and Fire (Score:2)
But it's an excellent example of the geek mentality at work. We're far too focused on finding a solution and showing it to people because the solution is beautiful to us, it's success and an example of how we've solved the problem.
Unfortunatley, elegance in engineering never impressed a voter. There's got to be an emotional aspect. Somebody mentioned that lies can be twisted and still be a lie, while that's not so for the truth... well, the truth is in the presentation.
Somebody present this stuff with FIRE! This is *great* - the AFA being blocked by their own software and switching software? Somebody needs to take this and shove the AFA's hypocrisy right back in their face! Somebody fight for truth, justice, and the American way! Somebody bring the Founding Fathers into the debate, separation of church and religion! There's very little passion about this movement, IMO, and that's a shame.
Somebody take the moral high ground and raise hell. We need somebody with serious public speaking skills on our side if we want success at the community level.
Re:Two things here (Score:2)
This has the added benefit that it just shows pages, and not sourced HTML, graphics, etc., which makes the list much easier to read. If you wanted to you could have your script call lynx to grab the title of each page.
If it was final, you should have answered... (Score:2)
What happens when someone's list is mailed to someone else's address? (Errors are inevitable.) Who's liable for the invasion of privacy?
That idea's still raw, bake it a little more.
--
"There's a word for people who live close to nature -
Re:Local standards are trumps (Score:2)
The only reliable form of mind control is information control. Control someone's access to information and you control the things they are able to think about.
The single most fundamental freedom that anyone has is the freedom to think for themself. Speech is only as free as the mind behind the words. Censorship is an attack on this freedom. It is an attempt at enslaving the mind of another. I could go on and describe in lurid terms just how evil this practice is, but you get the idea.
Lee
Re:Oh Please (Score:2)
Democracy [dictionary.com]
Republic [dictionary.com]
Just because the US is a republic does not mean its not a democracy. Claiming that the US is not a democracy is simply wrong. Sorry.
Re:Got your chocolate chip cookie thing (Score:2)
Re:Dumb, dumb, dumb (Score:3)
_________________
"Christian" Bashing (Score:2)
Those who claim to be something often aren't:
And i'm beginning to think people who really are Christians don't say so.
But bashing everyone to whom that label could be attached is like bashing...
cheers,
sklein
(For the record, the day my library installs filtering software is the day they loose my services as volunteer technical coordinator.
Standards? which ones? (Score:3)
I really don't care what my "community" thinks of various things because I couldn't give a rat's ass about them anyway. People have built a very nice community online with verious forms of entertainment. Many ideas on even our beloved slashdot I tend to disagree with (namely libertarian states rights/hippie protest type of things) however does that mean I should force any and every post that would say offend my little son Timmy Milktoast from reading? No.
The problems with religion and particularly some of the more intollerant religions are quite severe and dramatic. The early Puritans shall we say slightly miffed a great deal of people. I am getting to a point where if I could get one shred of evidence in a god or in some form of actual scientific evidence I might actually bother. Mostly I would say that churches are nothing more than glorified country clubs where appearance and status are the only indicators of "fitting in".
All of these problems are in fact quite embarassing for humans to have to deal with. I wonder if anyone has created a slasdot cult yet?
Re:A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:2)
If they really want to protect their families then they should be paying attention to what they are doing NOT trying to foist off some software solution that doesn't even work. If they worry about their children accessing porn at the library then they shouldn't leave their children there by themselves. If they worry about it at home then they can shell out the money and install the software on their own machine. Even, God forbid, you discuss the matter with your children and tell them about it instead of treating them like mushrooms (keep them in the dark and feed them shit).
The argument about protecting children is old and overused. Protect YOUR child and leave your damn nose out of my parenting. I don't want you foisting your ideas of what my child should see and hear onto me. Do I believe that porn should be shown to minors? No. Do I believe that the minors will see it if they really want to? Yes. How many of you had a copy of Playboy/Penthouse/Hustler when you weren't old enough to own one? oh and didn't have your house burned to the ground by lighting?
These people are simply trying to further a agenda. And when the Holland Library is hauled into court for violations of the First Amendment will these people foot the legal bill. No. They'll be in another town screaming "SAVE THE CHILDREN!" and trying to get people to believe in their snake oil solution.
That should do it for now. Any other complaining I need to do I'll save for later.
situations where this is bad (Score:3)
Or, a kid is gay but does not tell his parents because they wouldn't understand. But he visits a web forum or something and then the parents get emailed all of his postings.
Granted, these are exceptions to the rule, but they are not insignificant. Privacy is important to kids. I remember way back when I was a kid (whoo, we're going way back to 1996 here...) there were millions of things I never told my parents just because I didn't feel comfortable telling them. I don't think they would have been mad or anything, I just didn't want them to know. Then again, the library is funded by tax dollars and so their parents are really funding the internet connection, and as long as the kids KNOW their parents will see all the sites they visit then it should be okay. If the kids are really adamant about their privacy they can pay for their own ISP account.
Another option may be to simply put the computers in the middle of the library so that everybody can see them. I personally would never look at porn if anybody could see what I was doing, so maybe that would be motivation enough to stop them from looking at anything they "shouldn't" see. Though this may backfire if the porn viewer is brazen and doesn't care what others think about him -- the other people in the library may get offended, which would be very bad.
But all in all, I think emailing a log of urls to the parents would be a good idea. And if the censorware crowd says "but what if the parents don't read the email and check those sites?" we can counter with "Be responsible for your own fucking kids, idiot!" Granted, this solution is not perfect (if the parent does not have an internet/email account, what is he/she supposed to do?), but it is by far the best one I have heard so far.
Then again, the problem itself is rather ridiculous.
_________________
An ACTUAL porn hit on AltaVista (Score:3)
Altavista.com, Advanced search, "chocolate chip cookie" (with quotes) in the Boolean Query field, page 2 [altavista.com], hit #20 yields soft porn (www.pinupmall.com/Julie.Html [pinupmall.com]) as of Monday 7pm PST. For the record, I am still wholly supportive of the free speech cause; the above is solely an interesting experiment.
A Michigander's Plea (Score:2)
As a fellow Michigan resident, I sympathize with what is happening in Holland, which seems to be one of the most hardcore (forgive the wordplay) conservative towns in this mostly Republican state. I am a liberal socialist myself, and I am very disturbed by what is happening in many Michigan public institutions.
My school district, the Saginaw Public Schools, uses a Bess blocking server (you can find Bess' numerous failings catalouged at Censorware [censorware.org]). Not only does the NT-based server have about 20% downtime, it also severely slows our shared T1 down. Ordinary web browsing is often barely usable due to overblocking (I wonder what's obscene about kernel.org [kernel.org]?), and a quick look at IE3's history (yes, you read that right, the district doesn't allow "unauthorized" software installations) shows that several URLs including XXX are being frequently accessed by some students. Despite numerous complaints on behalf of staff and students, the service still blocks many educational resources. I, for example, can't use babelfish [altavista.com] on my Spanish homework (OK, so I workaround that by going to altavista.co.uk [altavista.co.uk], but that's not exactly something students district-wide have thought of.
Worse yet, my local library, where my mother is employed, is considering installing blocking software. As an unpaid computer maintenance volunteer, I have some say on the machines. I've got Netscape on them, but the network is still 100% NT4-based (I hate buearacracy). Does it matter that erotica and graphic violence are included in the pages of the books prominently displayed on the "New Books" shelf? Apparantly not, as there are rumors of state legislation promoting the use of blocking software in Libraries and Schools pending.
I call on other Michiganders out there (particularly those of you who are of voting age ;)) to write your representatives in Lansing and encourage them to do just the opposite: Ban censorship in public libraries and schools! Viva libertad!
Re:Right but still Wrong (Score:2)
How is that?
Noone is taking porn sites off the net. Noone is preventing you from accessing pron sites on your own computer.
Preventing free access to information amounts to the same thing as destroying it. In other words, book-burning. I might also add that while you have a point that "no one is preventing you from accessing porn sites on your own computer" it's an irrelevant one. A library is supposed to be a house of knowledge, a storehouse of information. All information (or at least all which can possibly be obtained by a given library; certainly the entire Internet is well within any library's grasp, given the equipment needed to access it). Even if some people don't like that information, for whatever reason, no one has any right to say that it must be removed from that place.
Now, as for why I made the fundamentalism comment. Two responses:
One, you've taken it all out of context. I said the quote was from a fundamentalist, and that I never expected to hear a fundamentalist saying that sort of thing. Then I compared censorship to book-burning. I did not link fundamentalists to book-burnings, even though they have been responsible for many of them in the past.
Second, there seem to be two kinds of people who are in favor of mandatory censorware. These would be the extreme right (comprised mainly, though not completely, of overzealous fundamentalists, particularly in the US) and the extreme left (again, comprised mainly though not completely of a certain group, though in the left's case it is those who would abandon personal responsibility).
Now, judging from what I've been reading about this particular case, it seems as though the extreme left is not involved in this one to any significant degree. And as for the extreme right, I have yet to see a comment made by the pro-censorware groups involved in this that didn't have some sort of fundamentalist echo. Therefore, I stated my comment in such a way as to mirror the matter at hand. Nothing more than that.
But honestly, I'm surprised that the comparisons to book-burning aren't more common. That's all censorship is, when you get down to it. And censorware does it on a scale not seen in the West since the times of Hitler and Stalin. If you prevent access to information you are destroying it. You can confuse people by saying it's still "there," but the fact is you've destroyed it all the same.
You don't like porn? Neither do I; just do what I do and avoid porn sites. It isn't difficult at all. Don't want your kids seeing it? Fine with me; spend the time with your kids and teach them why they shouldn't be seeing those sites. They will listen, if you make an honest effort. It's your job to do it, not some program's, so why shirk from that responsibility?
You want to know the truth? My beliefs aren't that different from yours. I, too, wouldn't mind one bit if all the porn sites on the Net were to suddenly disappear in one big system crash. Frankly, I think the Net would be a better place for losing all the porn out there. But I don't have the right to force porn off the Net. Nor do you. Nor does anyone but the owners of those sites. No one else has the right, just as no one has the right to make you, or me, shut up about this. If you'd like to discuss the matter with me further, I ask that we do so over e-mail (remove the Monty Python reference from the address you see above).
Zero Censorship, Just badly names 'censorware'.
We call it "censorware" here because of how it is used, not because of its original intent. There's a difference between censorship and self-restraint, you see. If the Holland library decided on its own to put filters on its own sites, and its users agreed, that would be one thing. But the library doesn't want to do it. These people seek to force the library to block access to information. That is where filters become censorware; they are being abused as a tool of censorship.
Re:Hmm.Perhaps You are Wrong (Score:2)
Doug
Re:utopianism? (Score:2)
Maybe I used the wrong words. I meant the people who were like "well, when I was a boy, there wasn't this much smut and we need to stop it and censor it all so we can go back to the utopia I remember"...
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
Must be Google (Score:2)
2. Google is a little broken in that a search for "More Evil than the devil himself" [google.com] brings up Welcome to Microsoft's Homepage [microsoft.com]
Until recently google was in BETA and as such could have had significant bugs. Maybe one of those bugs did that ?
Re:What old freedom???? (Score:2)
I agree with you, but the resolution facing Holland and other towns is the mandatory installation of blocking software on all Internet-connected computers in the library.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Re:Filtering search engines (Re:The chocolate chip (Score:2)
Doug
Well if slashdot has taught me something... (Score:2)
Ok I have done my fair share and do the pron thing. Question is does looking at porn actually cause harm to said person? Sexual immagery is not the absolute worst thing that I could possibly acces. Think of it this way. What is worse some guy/girl/animal showing their assets off for all to see or perhaps accurate and lurid descriptions of the rape and torture of others? What if I were to tell you that I can desiminate much, much harmful material thought other channels and under very unassuming means? Still ready to take porn down? I have read material in
An addictive person has an addictive personality. There are some people who get addicted to drugs from just one use. You have others who are not affected. Based on this kind of disparity from supposedly "addictive" things I say that labelling porn as addictive it a rather harsh thing.
Re:That's Nice But...... (Score:2)
What color is the sky on your planet?
Go to your local city library (not a college/university library, a municipal one) and ask them where they keep the pornography. Look for "hustler" in the periodicals section. See if they have any pornos in on the free films shelf. I bet they don't. The closest to things paper pornography you'll find in most public libraries are romance novels.
Just because the first amendment says the government can't restrict freedom of speech doesn't mean it has to spend tax dollars to buy porn for the library. Most libraries are pressed for cash as it is, without having to maintain porn collections in the name of free speech.
slightly more on topic: Just as the government has no business spending my taxes on purient magazines, it also has no right to spend it on blocking software. The blockers are technically dificult to maintain (see the bit about trying to unblock "the onion") they cost money, and they restrict legitimate research.
totally off-topic What the
Re:A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:5)
Warning: If you are of anything even remotely resembling a "fundamentalist" mindset, you will probably find this post flame-ish at best. You will probably also want to scroll down, because there is probably very little I could do to show you just HOW you are being led about (even to the point of showing you examples of how your own leaders have outright lied to you). I can only say, in this case, that I feel very sorry for you and that I hope that whatever god or gods may exist may take pity on you--especially since the actions of those who lead you are probably against everything the founders of your religions stood for.
I will also forewarn that I am in a generally pissy mood to begin with tonight, and many of my statements may come out more harshly than I meant them to. My apologies. I've had a bad day, and a bad temper to go along with it (I had to deal with Hellsouth about a problem which has been going on for well-nigh over three years). If things sting too bad, I suggest you take heed of Yshua's example and turn the other cheek and forgive me my tresspasses.
Now that THAT disclaimer has been taken care of...
Some anonymous coward dun said:
Assuming that you aren't an outright shill that is astroturfing Slashdot in support of fundy viewpoints--something which I cannot discount, unfortunately, because it is a fairly well-known tactic that is used by Religious Right groups on occasion--allow me to correct some misguidings and rip a few new holes in your argument.
First off:
Well, for starters, I hate to tell you, but the major pusher of censorware in the debates nationally are not "concerned families" but rather multi-million-dollar funded PACs and pressure groups that have as an explicit goal the establishment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the United States.
Let me repeat that for you: The vast majority of groups that are pushing censorware in libraries and whatnot are multi-million-dollar PACs and pressure groups that have, as an explicit goal, the establishment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the United States .
Yes, you heard that right. They want to set up a fundamentalist Christian version of Taliban Afghanistan, up to and including bringing back Old Testament punishments for such things as homosexuality, sex outside of church-sanctioned marriages, and even "being fresh" to one's parents.
If you want to learn for yourself just how well funded these groups are and just how MANY of them are interlinked, go here [ifas.org] and read up all about the Coalition for National Policy (basically the "think-tank" of the Religious Right in the United States; it is invitation-only, and contains many "fortune 500" individuals and state and national legislators). Then go here for some hard info on many of the Religious Right groups and their real agenda...or [infinet.com]here [pfaw.org] or here [ifas.org] (or here [ifas.org] for a special page for those who've seen how destructive and utterly un-Christian the Religious Right is--I'll get to that in a sec).
For your info, by the way, the major folks pushing it in Holland are a little group called the Family Research Council. They were set up specifically as the "lobbying" wing of a group called Focus on the Family after the IRS threatened to yank FoF's tax-exempt status (it was set up under the same exemption as a church, and thus they aren't supposed to be doing political lobbying). One of the names you might recognise from them is Gary Bauer, their head; he recently did a failed run for the presidency. One of their favourite tactics, by the way, is stuff with stealth candidates who don't reveal links to the Religious Right till they're elected; they are also far, far from being merely a "concerned parent's group" (they are extremely homophobic, push very, very heavily for the entire Religious Right agenda, and incidentially the head of FoF is a "Christian reconstructionist" who thinks the US should be a theocracy complete with religious tests for government office). You can find out more info here [pfaw.org] or find a big ol' archive of their writing to their membership here [pfaw.org].
If you want to know more about the Religious Right's agenda in general, I've put a much longer post here [slashdot.org] that even goes on about some groups that folks don't traditionally associate with the Religious Right (like, oh, Home Shopping Network's links with the Religious Right, or NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon's links, or the many links the PMRC has with the Religious Right).
Oh, and while we're on the subject of "protecting their families from harmful things"...you'd think if they were really interested in that, they'd be pushing for the Convention on the Rights of the Child to be ratified...but no...they're one of many fundy groups across the US that have lobbied specifically to KEEP it from being ratified, because they think it'll take away their right to force their ways on their kids, forcibly "exorcise" their kids, beat them, etc. (By the way, the US is one of two nations that still hasn't ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The other nation, Somalia, has a reasonable excuse for not ratifying it as it has no working government right now.)
For THAT matter, you'd think they'd work extra hard to protect their families from such destructive things as Bible-based cults (which do everything to isolate their members from birth, use outright deception to recruit members and keep them, and which are every bit as destructive as Scientology is--I've actually put up a post here [slashdot.org] comparing practices between the two if you odn't believe me, so you can look at the hard evidence for yourself). But no, they don't do that--they actively promote many of the Bible-based cults, because half the Religious Right groups could well be considered coercive in and of themselves and most of their hard-core membership is gotten from people in Bible-based cults (often people who have been members for generations and literally isolated and indoctrinated since birth--there's a college that has been set up for "Christian" homeschooled youths to train them to be politicians for the Religious Right), and their entire mindset shows just HOW cultic the whole mess is.
And before you tell me I don't know what the hell I'm talking about...I do. All too well. I just happen to be a walkaway from a Bible-based cult my family has been involved in for several generations; I was raised up into the whole spiel, and found out quite accidentially at age 12 that I had pretty much been fed lies...I found out later (partly from info regarding Scientology that included "is your group coercive?" checklists) that the group I was formerly involved in WOULD count as a Bible-based cult. The group I walked away from also happens to be one of the largest fundamentalist churches in Kentucky, and is the de facto center of the Religious Right in that state...trust me when I know all too well what I'm talking about here, and I still suffer after-effects from it. I would move heaven and earth if it meant some kid didn't have to go through the absolute hell I went through as a kid, being abused in the name of God. I'd love them not to wince whenever discussions of Christianity were brought up because it makes you flashback to just how fragging twisted some of the things that were done to you were. I'd love for them not to be scared shitless that the very groups you walked away from were working hard to put the entire nation under the same hell you walked away from--complete with force of arms, if they were to get power.
And yes, I can say that as a direct result of that I've been hurt by the Religious Right and it's just a wee bit personal to me. Then again, I think any kid who's been abused by another has the right to be pissed, and more to the point, to work to make sure that abuser can't ever hurt another kid ever again.
There has been only two studies that have ever shown a negative effect regarding pornography in general--the Meese report, which Edwin Meese III literally bullied through and had to have rewritten after the scientists he hired reached exactly the opposite conclusion, and the Surgeon-General's report on pornography in 1987 (by Dr. C.E. Koop--a Surgeon-General who was also appointed by Reagan, who pandered to the Religious Right on many issues). (As a minor aside--Edwin Meese III is a raving fundy, and is heavily involved with the Religious Right [see here [pfaw.org] for more info]. In fact, he's SO much in with the Religious Right that he's a member of the very secretive Coalition for National Policy [here's his info from the membership list here [ifas.org]], and is involved in a Religious Right group known as the Heritage Foundation [more info on the Heritage Foundation here [aclu.org] and here [apc.org] [the last article also contains info on another Religious Right group Meese is involved in]; as a minor aside, "Heritage" is a very common "code word" for fundamentalist/Religious Right interests, along with "family" and "Christian Life Center"]. In fact, he was put in specifically by Ronald Reagan, who was largely elected due to the Religious Right and who started the not-so-great Republican tradition of pandering to the Religious Right...needless to say, Edwin Meese isn't impartial, wasn't impartial, and was looking specifically for evidence he wanted to have "scientific proof" for a very specific agenda of the Religious Right in the US. Even worse, there is a fair amount of evidence from his own public speeches to indicate Edwin Meese may be a "Christian Reconstructionist" [Christian Reconstructionism is the canard that the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a fundamentalist Christian theocracy and that it is the duty of Reconstructionists to "re-establish" this theocracy]; info here [infidels.org]. In other words, he flatly had an agenda and bent the evidence towards it.)
Most scientists who have studied human sexuality, and specifically stuff relating to porn and to sex crimes, see so many holes in the Meese Report that it's not funny. There are no less than five studies which indicate that pornography isn't harmful (at least to normal people); more to the point, many of the statistics which have been argued to show that porn is harmful could also be argued to indicate that people into certain categories of porn are likely to be pathological in and of themselves.
A rather informal example is with the Japanese, and in particular, hentai comics (which feature sex and adult situations). Hentai is pretty popular and readily available in Japan, even to under-18's; some of it goes farther than most US porn does (Playboy just shows naked women, for example). The Japanese percentage of sex crimes is actually somewhat below that of the US, even considering that the Japanese are generally a somewhat more repressed society than the US is.
As a minor aside--rape and child abuse (except for very, very exceptional circumstances in the latter, and even often there) aren't so much crimes of sex as of power--in other words, the main component of these crimes and the motivation for them isn't so much sex as, well, power and domination over another by degrading them in the lowest way possible. Rapists are often found to be hostile against women period, and so rape them as a dominance thing; same thing with the vast majority of child abuse (the major exception may be child abuse in which there has been found actual pedophilia--a sexual paraphilia in which the person is actually sexually attracted to children--but even then, there is a definite dominance streak to this). Also, it's been found that treatments to try to stop rapists and child-molesters from having sex by attempting to curb the sex-drive don't work very well (again, the major exception to this is child molestation in which it's been found actual pedophilia exists)--they simply will rape their victims with objects or will find other ways to "get it up". This is because they're using their gonads as weapons--it's like trying to castrate someone to cure them of beating hell out of someone else.
There is a known correlation between rape (and to an extent, child molestation as well--most notably incest) and other violent behaviours--such as torture of animals when young, assault, etc. Most of these folks seek out violent porn and violent entertainment in general because they're generally prone to violence to begin with; there is some evidence that in extreme cases there may be an actual defect in brain chemistry to account for this. Needless to say, castrating a rapist or child molester isn't going to fix them, and neither is depriving them of pornography.
Another interesting statistic--there are some reports to suggest that there is actually a higher rate of child abuse (including incest) in households in which most of the family are members of coercive groups such as Bible-based cults or Scientology. This, again, probably has a lot to do with the whole dominance thing; coercive groups, which rely VERY much on a "master/servant" relationship to begin with, can't help things much. (In Bible-based cults especially, the whole "spare the rod and spoil the child" bit can't help either.) Based on my own experience (which fortunately did not include sexual abuse, but did include physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse) I'm inclined to agree with this, if only because of all the other kinds of abuse which are the norm in such families.
First, a primer about "addiction". Addiction, in the purest sense (and the medical sense) of the word, is where the body chemistry changes to require the use of a drug to maintain normal body function; this tends to occur with narcotics, cocaine, nicotine, most of your "downer" drugs (including alcohol, benzodiazepines [Valium, etc.] and phenobarbital and friends), amphetamines, and (to a lesser degree) caffeine. (The "nicotine cravings" you get if you don't get your smoke, or the "coffee migraines" longtime coffee drinkers get if they don't get their caffeine, are actually withdrawal symptoms resulting from the fact your body has become dependent on that substance to maintain normal function.)
"Psychic addiction" as commonly described (where no actual physical addiction occurs) is a misnomer, and denotes a state where people feel they "need" something to "function". There is no real biological need for it, merely a "craving"; hence the proper term is "psychic dependence" since the effect is more of a "crutch".
Now, in some cases, this does occur; however, "addiction" has been used to describe "psychic dependence" for so many things (from overeating to sex to the Internet) that it's patently ridiculous. Better to say "obsession" because this is closer to what is happening.
I'm certain there have been a few cases where someone has become obsessed with porn to the exclusion of family. This has also happened, by the way, with TV...with the Internet...with religion (no, I'm not making this up--people in coercive religious groups WILL participate to the exclusion of all else including their family)...with food...with jogging...with dieting...and with literally anything else that makes humans "feel good". Does this mean we ban everything that humans find pleasurable? No.
As a minor aside--there is some evidence that people who do develop "obsessions" like this do have a genetic tendency to do so; it's basically a minor brain-chemical defect, much like a milder version of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Turns out that in a lot of cases, they can be treated with the same drugs used for OCD too (this has been especially useful in overeaters and in folks with anorexia and bulimia). It also turns out that most folks who do develop "obsessions" that could be termed "psychic dependence" can, again, develop "psychic dependence" on literally anything that makes them feel good (to an extent, this is why people tend to gain weight when quitting cigarettes; there is a measure of psychic dependence in cigarette smoking (along with the physical dependence), largely related to the rituals of lighting up, etc. when smoking, and many people tend to overeat to compensate with "crutches")...this is related to very, very primal instincts and emotional triggers in humans relating to comfort. One could literally say that small kids can develop psychic dependence on their "woobies" or other comfort-toys ;)
Well, people don't need the Internet or Slashdot, either, and obsessive use of the Internet can certainly be non-healthful and harmful (ask any student who has ever flunked out of a semester in college because of excessive IRCing/MUDding/Everquest/MP3-scarfing/etc.). Doesn't mean we need to ban Slashdot or the Internet, though.
In fact, sometimes porn can actually be helpful to a relationship--such as when a couple gets ideas from a bit of pornography to try in their own bedrooms. Such things have actually saved marriages in past, and an increasing number of marriage counselors will actually suggest to couples who have lost lustre in their love-lives to *gasp!* rent porn movies or read articles in Penthouse (or alt.sex.*) to get ideas.
No, we aren't suggesting Junior be made to watch porn. For starters, he's probably not going to be terribly interested and will go "ooh, ickie"--exactly the same way even most adults will go "ooh, ickie" when they see porn that doesn't match their own particular sexual preference (most straight girls gross out at lesbian porn; same with guys and man-on-man pics; I think most of us not into boinking goats go "ooh, ickie" at http://www.goatse.cx, or those of us not into fisting go "ooh, ickie" at sites featuring fisting...I could go on). It doesn't scar us for life--neither kids nor adults.
I honestly expect most kids who even accidentially hit a porn site (which is unlikely if Mommy or Daddy is actually bothering to parent the little monster instead of using the Internet as an electronic babysitter the same way they used tapes of Barney the Insipid Purple Demon From Hell when the little monster was a tyke of 3 or the same way they use Teletubbies tapes with his sister of 2...and even more unlikely unless the little monster is precocious enough to be searching out warez or cracks, in which case you've got a wee bit more to worry about than little Junior maybe being exposed to nekkid women ;) are going to either be grossed out or very, very confused...in which case (assuming Mommy and Daddy are doing their job, and not using the Internet as an electronic babysitter the same way they use Barney tapes and Teletubbies and the entire collected works of Disney [both pre-Eisner and in the Dark Ages]) Mommy and Daddy explain that this is something not meant for Junior to see, and they distract him and steer him to something a bit more appropriate like YaHooligans or the like.
Just like what Mommy and Daddy do (if they're being good parents) if Junior accidentially picks up Madonna's "Sex" in the library. Or if Junior is riding in the car with Mommy in downtown and passes the Show-world Dance Emporium which features "Topless And Bottomless Men And Women". Or if Junior (Cthulhu forbid) sees two doggies Doing The Nasty in front of Goddess and everyone.
If you're doing your job as a parent, it's not going to permanently warp Junior's mind. If he grows up at age 16 and starts raping cattle despite your best job, you can safely assume he was probably bent to begin with (and if you do your job as a parent and actually parent the kids instead of using electronic babysitters or keeping your face buried in stuff while the kids are being babysat by the entire cast of Donkey Kong and each and every one of the characters in each and every game Squaresoft has ever released, you will probably notice the initial signs that the child is Seriously Bent and you will hopefully get help for that kid before he hurts someone).
Unfortunately, a lot of people are too bloody lazy to parent their kids, and are all too content to let folks with horrible, destructive agendas (like the FRC) parent their kids because they get fed the line "It's for the good of the children" (and these people are too busy with the grownup equivalent of electronic babysitters they don't even bother to research that these people are very, very, very good at lying or covering up their bad parts when they have to). No offense, but those kids would honestly be better off being raised by wolves IMNSHO--at least the kids would learn how to get along in a structured society, and have loving parents that gave a damn for them. (Yeah, they'd have a hell of a time getting along if/when they returned to human society...but half the kids now have a hell of a time, period.) And don't even get me started on those parents who look at their kids not so much as humans but as pawns or tools or (worse yet) all-so-much-more cannon-fodder for the Army of Gawd...if anything, those are as bad if not worse than those who just use TV and the net as a babysitter, because those kids get warped into more Borg just like their folks if they aren't lucky enough to have just enough of a factor that leads them to walk away from it all...
Re:You Are Brainwashed (Score:2)
Laughs hysterically.
No, they're not 'fundies'. They're politicians.I do not know if you have checked, but politicians are professional liars. Their beliefs change twice daily with the arrival of the latest opinion polls. I'm guessing Billy Boy and algore were at an 'American Christian Family Association' fundraiser that day.
more worried about goverment imposing [on] their right to do things like pray in public
Perhaps I'm out of the loop on this one, but when has this been challenged recently? I cannot recall reading/hearing/seing anything of the sort. Got some more information?
Re:there are several hollands, actually (Score:2)
Holland, IA
Holland, IN
Holland, KY
Holland, MA
Holland, MI
Holland, MN
Holland, MO
Holland, NY
Holland, OH
Holland, TX
New Holland, IL
New Holland, OH
New Holland, PA
New Holland, SD
Re:If it was final, you should have answered... (Score:2)
First, perhaps offer the mailing portion as a service, rather than making it automatic. This will cut down the number of mailings which need to be done (not everyone will want to use the logging). That, in turn, reduces the costs of postage, paper, printing, and staff.
How to pay for it? It wouldn't be a tough question, except that we are, after all, talking to a nation which has its priorities so screwed up that the question automatically becomes tough. Probably not one that can't be answered until we get a batch of people in office who actually have their heads on straight (which will probably never happen, sad to say).
Then, of course, you have to factor in which sorts of libraries you're talking about. A school library, for instance, could handle this with no trouble at all. They already make many mailings to parents, so they already have the equipment and staff for a job like this. Combine the report with any other sort of mailing, and the postage overhead is drastically reduced if not completely eliminated. There's still the cost of paper, but stop and consider that. I can get 500 sheets of paper for five bucks, and that's at hideously-overinflated, campus-bookstore prices. Schools buy paper in bulk, and get it much more cheaply. So the cost of paper is not a significant problem.
Municipal libraries pose a bigger problem. Unlike schools, they don't tend to make large mailings to their clientele; if they did then it would be no trouble for them. But let's take a look at this. At current prices, five bucks is enough to pay for twelve mailings (postage, paper, printing, and the like), assuming you don't go completely wacko and use 50 pages worth of Net access at the library. There are somewhere around 60 million households in the US. Certainly not all of them are going to want this. Let's say that half of them do (in reality it wouldn't be anywhere near that many, but let's go with worst-case scenatios here). So that's 30 million households total. That comes to a grand total of $150,000,000. Seems like a lot, I know; for one person it is, but think on a national scale here. There are military aircraft that cost more than this for one unit. Business mergers worth more than this are relatively commonplace. Buy one less plane, one less, and it's paid in full. Or if you don't want to cut one plane out of the defense budget, spread it around more. Every government budget has a margin of error in its financial records, and you'd be surprised how high these margins can get (for some of the larger departments it numbers in the millions of dollars). Spread the loss around enough, and it gets to the point where the loss to each budget isn't even as big as that margin; in effect, the books don't even notice the loss.
Now, the mailing errors are a potential problem. And as you've said, errors are inevitable. Of course, it's also a federal crime to open someone else's mail. Mistakes will be made, and that's unfortunate. That's also another reason to perhaps offer this as a service, rather than an automatic thing; a smaller mailing list means less chance for error.
Either way, you're right; the idea does need to be refined. This was just a sort of initial stab at a compromise. But I'm glad to see that someone else here's taking a good, serious look at the idea.
Re:FINALLY! (Score:2)
I don't. But the way things are going, it's going to happen, so even as I fight the whole idea of such software I'm looking for ways to effect a compromise which will at least stop the censorship. It's hardly an ideal solution, but if you don't prepare for the worst you're going to get burned.
you KNOW if someone (sayyyy like the FBI or your opponent in the next campaign for public office who needs dirt on you real bad) wanted your URL history for the past month, it wouldnt be destroyed. it would be sent to them for a handsome price.
the point is who knows where information like that collected on you will end up!?
This, my friend, is precisely what Open-Source is for. Anyone can inspect the system whenever they want (one couldn't see the contents of the records, of course, but one could certainly verify that they're being printed only one time, sent to the proper address, and then destroyed).
i honestly cannot see what the big deal is here. teach your kid right from wrong and dont rely on the 'oh wont somebody think of the children!' quick fix.
Agreed. Perfectly. I would much rather people did that. The crap about "oh won't somebody think of the children!" is just that: crap (albeit very difficult crap to argue against without coming out looking like a total scumbag).
However, let me ask you this. Let's say that you had a card which you could use to purchase goods from nearly any story. These transactions were tracked carefully, and at the end of every month you were sent a bill which also enumerated all of the purchases made during that time period. Sound familiar? It should; credit cards work that way. I don't see people considering that to be a provacy violation. Far from it; most people use these as a tool to make sure the cards aren't being used improperly. Furthermore, credit card records aren't even destroyed monthly (remember, I'm proposing that library access records be destroyed at the end of each month).
I should also point that most libraries now have a system which can track which books are checked out. It would be pretty easy to modify these systems to keep a checkout history for each person (some already do). Is this a privacy violation?
Just some food for thought...
Re:Whose Rights? (Score:2)
-r
Re:Not Really (Score:2)
Fundamentalism (Score:2)
Are you aware of what fundamentalism is? It was defined in a series of books published around the turn of the century. The books were published by a Texas millionaire who got religion. Their most distinctive feature is that they set forth a very specific doctrine of Biblical authority. They then interpret this in ways that tend (In my opinion) to stray towards legalism. (Legalism being defined as the state wherein laws are obeyed for the sake of laws, and that regards our salvation as coming from obedience to those laws rather than through the sovereign power of God.) Notice I say stray toward, not that all fundamentalists are legalists -- for the record.
I will bet you just about anything that most of the people you refer to are not fundamentalists. Probably not even close. Instead, they are concerned citizens who have legitimate concerns about the kind of material they are paying tax dollars to pull into the library. While most of them are probably conservative Christians, I stronly doubt most of them are fundamentalists. And, for what it's worth, they probably can't define fundamentalism either.
By labeling them "fundamentalists", you engage in the worst kind ad hominem argument, playing on the prejudices of your audience against "fundies" (even though few can define it any more than you can.)
Consider all the whining you hear around here when some poor innocent mistakenly calls a "cracker" a "hacker". You engage in just as bad when you label all conservative Christians as fundamentalists. Worse, your attempt to imply that anyone who evinces a conventional moral code is a "fundamentalist" right-wing conservative "political Christian" (i.e. member of the religious right) is at least as pernicious as the "if he knows too much about computers, watch him, he'll probably hack your computers" that I ran into in college.
*sigh* I will tell you right now that, if you rely on the evening news for your understanding of theology, you will no more understand it that the average CNN viewer understands computer security. Like computers, the issues are complex (maybe more complex). If you will not study, then don't comment.
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Re:Don't Confuse the real Issue (Score:2)
Re:Not Really (Score:2)
Great work Jamie, grassroots activism is important (Score:2)
- The Boston Lunatic
Re:Got your chocolate chip cookie thing (Score:3)
As the ranking techniques of the engines gets better, especially with the referential analysis of google (how many sites talking about chocolate cookies do you see pointing to the porn sites), then the background noise of porn sites with hook pages containing copies of entire dictionaries will be pushed much further down the list, but it will still be there.
I believe the only way of really stopping people looking at pornographic material is to either make the search engines themselves so paranoid that they become inneficient for all but the most obvious searches or to make the filtering so intense that you lose a large amount of the valid web at the same time.
You also run the risk of creating a virus/anti-virus situation where everytime the filter gets made stronger, the sites are changed to circumnavigate the filters which is again a no-win solution and just leads to more and more inhibative filters.
Ultimately, there can only be one logical conclusion (other than banning internet from public places) which is that people have to educate their kids about how to deal with unpleasent images and concepts and take responsibility for their childrens upbringing rather than expecting some robot sentry guard to do it for them.
Putting the offensive things behind brown paper doesn't make them go away and anybody who believes that is a bit deluded IMHO
Unfiltered computers cause Rape in MI? (Score:2)
Damn them for not filtering their computers. It obviously caused the rape. My heart goes out to that little girl, but excuse me... what does her tragedy have to do with internet censorware?
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Re:Local standards are trumps (Score:3)
Bullshit, obscenity is defined by parents who may or may not stick to community standard, but community standards are what would sell filtering software, so I will assume that community standards are desirable for the remainder of this post.
Filtering is clearly not ideal, and the standards it uses are likely stricter than those of any particular community. But until effective alternative forms of control are available
There is a very effective alternative, share the cache directories of the computers and set up a slide show presentation on a computer (facing a chair where a librarian sits a lot) to run through the image caches of the web browsers. Community standards enforced, no false blocking, no unblocked porn.. bingo perfect solution created with a spare computer, and a perl script.
Do you know why the AFA is not recomending this solution? The answer is they don't want to just block porn, they want to block gay rights, women's rights, etc. This is not about porn to the higher up in the AFA.. it is about the culture war.. and they do not really want to see an effective porn blocking solution like I propose.. they want parents to not trust the internet. Remember, the research suggests that 1 out of 20 blocks is a bad block (of constitutionally protected speach, i.e. not porn).
We are having a discussion of a Technological solution [kuro5hin.org] to this problem at kuro5hin.org.
Use Squid (Score:2)
Re:That's Nice But...... (Score:2)
I've already done that. My municiple library has pornographic periodicles including Playboy and Penthouse. They don't seem to subscribe to Hustler.
Just because the first amendment says the government can't restrict freedom of speech doesn't mean it has to spend tax dollars to buy porn for the library. Most libraries are pressed for cash as it is, without having to maintain porn collections in the name of free speech.
You're right - the government is not required to spend tax dollars to buy pornography to put in the libraries. This is the same type of argument being used in Holland, Mich. The point you fail to realize is that it does not cost the taxpayers money to provide unfiltered access to the Internet when they're already providing filtered access. Indeed, it costs them less, because they need not subscribe to filtering services or buy software licenses. Further, it has been proven time and time again, by the Censorware Project and others, that filtering software is inneffective, blobking harmless sites and allowing unknown pornographic sites to get through. IMHO, there is no harm in pornography if children are educated about sex in a mature, candid manner. I was, and I look at pornography, and I haven't gone postal or raped anybody yet. The Christian fundies who support this type of censorship have been too repressed by their 'faith' to approach the problem this way, however, so they resort to any means ncessary to pollute the democratic process with their warped sense of 'ethics' and ignorant emotionalism.
Just as the government has no business spending my taxes on purient magazines, it also has no right to spend it on blocking software. The blockers are technically dificult to maintain (see the bit about trying to unblock "the onion") they cost money, and they restrict legitimate research.
Exactly my point. See above. This issue is not about pornography, as the fundies in Michigan would have you believe, it's about government sponsored censorship.
Regarding the Update - Impossible! I say. (Score:3)
I tried it. I even tried 'Choclate Chip Coonies', given the proximity of 'k' and 'n' on a qwerty. Nada, zilch, zip, nothing.
There is one possibility that comes to mind: the girl was already looking at a porn site and she has a choclate chip cookie fetish.
However, my best guess is that the girl is simply lying. perhaps someone should take the 'moral high ground' and accuse her of it. I can see it now:
The girl is a liar! All little girls that lie are witches! BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!
There's nothing like a good old fashioned witch hunt to get the mob on your side. When you find her, I suggest putting a long prosthetic nose on her. Have someone bring a broom and run out from behind her house saying that it's her witch's broom. Find somebody who can do some stage magic and, in a cloud of smoke, replace the girl with an actor costumed as a witch. Be sure to pull the actor out before the actual burning. If anyone suggests a dowsing test, then you can try replacing the girl underwater. Don't let anyone claim that the girl turned him into a newt, somebody might catch on; pick some other animal, like an Africanized honeybee or a spotted owl.
And remember . . . witch burnings can be fun . . . and profitable! Sell some t-shirts or barbeque. Try to lay claim the parent's property, for exorcism or something. Don't forget that anyone who objects is probably also a witch and you should treat all witches alike.
Re:A bolt of lightning against reason... (Score:2)
No, actually I meant that Japan is a good example of a society that is a lot more liberal about sexuality.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
Re:Wrong Slick (Score:2)
Orwell was a devout socialist throughout his life but broke with the orthodox left following his experiences in Spain during the civil war.
To argue that Big Brother is a poor example of brotherhood is arguing the obvious. Big Brother is obviously the ultimate patriarch. He is nothing like a brother. Anyone who asserts otherwise should start by reading the book (somewhat like the first rule of art criticism: be sure to see the art before writing the review).
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Re:lets censor it out real fast and real simple (Score:2)
Re:Can I take a provocative stand? (Score:2)
The point is not to worry about whether kids see porn or not (I watched plenty of porn as a kid, I'm none the worse for it), but whether the community or school should be paying for it.
No one is trying to control the information that kids have access to, they can walk into a CyberCafe down the street from the library and surf whatever the fuck they want, or go home and connect from where they can commit their dirty deeds in privacy. Try to enact this sort of thing into LAW, and I'll be against it to the last, but libraries have no obligation to provide access to all information.
You people are just as manic as the other side for gods sake. Stop for one second and consider WHY a library is supposed to provide a public wank booth...
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Religious Right? That doesn't sound good? (Score:2)
Where I used to find my porn (Score:2)
The first porn magazines I ever saw, I found them in the garbage dump. I was throwing stuff away, and found a pile of old Playboy magazines. Shared that with my friends.
Then Canal Plus, a subscription TV network, has been airing hard core porn once a month since its creation, in 1984 (I was 11 at that time). Either a rich kid taped it when the parents were not looking, or stole the cassette from his father (eh, eh). And all the hacker kids had built their own descrambling device.
Then you could buy them at the store anyway. I would'nt do it because I was too shy, but nobody would have said anything anyway.
That's France, though. Not many people give much of a fuck about nudity, except a few nazis and fundys, and some feminists. Never heard of any filtering software debate around here. There's just that big 'pedophilia on the net' meme. That's about it.
When the religious fundys start that kind of ramblings, they get quickly whacked by the "laic" majority, which ranges from the left to a fair part of the right wing. There is a strong antireligious underground in the political scene here. In particular, the Free Masons, to which belong a large number of politicians, are mostly agnostics, unlike any other such groups in the world.
The problem here, in theory, and according to my limited knowledge of constitutional law, is that there isn't much in the constitution preventing a law infriging on freedom of speech to be passed. In practice, though, it's unlikely to happen (I can think of exceptions which beyond the scope of this post and of the topic at hand).
Re:Oh, please, spare me the Factless Idiocy (Score:2)
You are the paranoid one sir, Afraid of the Fundies asking for a historical document like the Ten Commandments which promote basic rules for civilized behavior to NOT BE BANNED from school walls.
Thou shalt not kill.
BTW, who are the strongest supporters of the death penalty, which has been abandoned by ALL western "christian" nations BUT the USA, if not the fundies?
And then ... I'm polyamorous. What do the 10 commandment have to say on that?