Internet Filter Plan Hits Snag 127
Censorware in public institutions? Congress is pushing for it, but the current bill has a surprising opponent: at least one of the censorware makers. A major-brand corporate V.P. is quoted in a
recent AP story
as saying: "Things that mandate specific technologies probably aren't the best solution here. Let the free market decide...." But the interesting technical story here is
yet another statistical analysis
by Peacefire. They looked at five popular packages and showed that for every ten appropriately-blocked domain name, there were anywhere from four to forty domain names just randomly censored. Ouch.
The dark side of the internet... (Score:1)
Are you ready for it?
Ban everything under geocities. Duh. Any stupid troll could have figured that one out.
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net [nerdnetwork.net]
"randomly censored" (Score:2)
Censoring sites randomly would be pretty hard to code given the number of potential URLs. I guess of course you could do it by IP number, but what would be the point.
Re:Peacefire Analysis (Score:5)
Wouldn't it make sense to also consider the percentage of unblocked pornographic sites?
I asked Bennett Haselton (of Peacefire [peacefire.org]) the same question. He replied by mail (8/5/2000):
Bennett Haselton wrote:
The information is not intended to persuade people who support censorship because by that age people generally don't change their mind anyway. The information is to help people such as librarians who are embattled in their local community because they don't censor Internet access on their computers.
If we focus on the fact that blocking software doesn't block enough pornography, then we're betraying our cause because part of the point of what we're doing is that pornography is not harmful. Now, how do you persuade people to believe *that*, if they already have formed the belief that porn is harmful? I don't think you can, which is why we have the censorware-disabling instructions on our site; you can't reason with parents not to use the software, so we can at least give people a means to get around it...
-Bennett
In fact, judges typically decide court cases because of what is wrongfully blocked, rather than because not enough material was censored.
(PS: Sorry for posting private email, but I think that Bennett would approve)
Re:What I'm Afriad Of (Score:1)
Even when they're in the US, you're still going to have to track them down, etc; if their pages are hosted outside the US, tough bikkies.
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Re:Problem is.... (Score:1)
That's why there are software like Internet Junkbuster [junkbuster.com], or Guidescope [guidescope.com].
No matter what the domain name is, it's still blocks ads. (Oh, hello
So, the same thing can be used to block porn sites. (Ok, at least Junkbuster will try to block every domain's ads. Don't know about Guidescope...)
---
Bess blocks slashdot.org and also redhat.com (Score:1)
Peacefire stats (Score:1)
Re:Why filter and not monitor instead? (Score:1)
--
The funny thing about censorship... (Score:4)
Those who fight for censorship ultimately claim that it's for the good of society to prevent certain information from seeing the light of day. The main fallacy behind that line of thinking is the idea that information can harm people, directly or indirectly - when in truth, information is just the composition of ideas and thoughts, while it's MOTIVATION and FEELINGS that actually cause harm and discomfort.
Anyway, you could reason that censorship advocates hold no value for the information that they want to be censored. This means that there IS a set of information that they consider to have value, because they at the very least have to have thoughts and ideas that motivate them to feel that other thoughts and ideas are bad.
One ugly result of this logic is that censorship advocates are motivated to tell you what you can't have available, but are equally motivated to have control over information and communication systems so that what you ONLY see is the information that they consider valuable. Not all censorship advocates directly feel this way, but if they thought this deep about it, they'd come to this conclusion. Luckily, the Internet is under no such threat of control overall...
My main point: With this logic, if non-offensive information is censored unfairly, that's okay. Why? Censorship advocates discriminately consider a certain set of information valuable. By definition, it has to be in the set of information that they know and have learned already. So the set of information that they consider as value-less includes the entire set of information that they are unfamiliar with. Therefore anything they don't know about is worthy of censorship. If a website that they do not know about happens to be censored, there is absolutely no problem in that; strangely, if information that they value happens to be censored, they're enraged when they find out - but until they find out, or if they don't find out, then it's not possible for it to be a problem, because what they don't know has no value to them.
On the other hand, if you don't selectively discriminate among groupings of ideas and thoughts, then all information possibly holds some value - and none of it should be censored. This is what we like to call freedom...
This you should not forget, however: You can't control or affect other people's motivation and feelings without altering their frame of reference - their entire collection of knowledge and information. And you can't control or affect other people's actions without imprisoning them or altering their motivations and feelings. If you do not pay attention to the spread of information, you leave everything to chaos theory. Sanity issues aside, people in general will not infringe on the basic civil rights of others if they are correctly guided through our collection of human knowledge. In the end, we do need to make sure that information is presented properly for all human beings to maintain order on this planet... otherwise you WILL have suicide bombings and 4-year olds getting upset at pictures of naked women. It's just that discriminately preventing information from being presented to certain people is not fair to those people, not the proper way to share information, and certainly not a foolproof way to prevent anyone from having misguided ideas, thoughts, motivations, feelings, and actions. (Columbine HS being the most tragic and convincing argument of this)
Re:WebSense-orship... (Score:1)
Re:The success of sussex (Score:1)
You can't get order out of chaos that way (Score:1)
(a) the 3 filtering packages were all 'nearly correct'.
(b) they had completely independent heuristics.
As an (extreme) example, if 3 filter programs each blocked a ramdom 20% (1/5) of sites (I'm not saying that they do), this approeach would block an effectively random 10% (13/125) of sites.
My guess is that with this approach (based on what I've heard about the current filters) is you'd hardly get anything blocked except for anti-censorware sites like Peacefire, or where they have common heuristics (like anything with the word 'breast'). Still worse than useless.
great idea (Score:1)
You won't even have to go to a library anymore! You would be able to access ALL the books without paying, from anywhere in the world!! woohoo capitalism! way to go government! talk about some spending cuts!!!
What about this idea... (Score:1)
While I'm not comfortable with the idea of censorship, I wonder if segregating all the porn sites into one Top Level Domain (.sex, .xxx, .eros, whatever) would be enough so that those who want to can "filter" out all sex. domains.
This concept would be the cyberspace equivalent to a red light district in meatspace.
The hard part would be policing the conversion of www.mysexsite.com to www.mysexsite.sex. And who pays for this conversion...
I'm just wondering if there are any effective content filtering solutions out there that would really work at keeping out the porn but allowing "socially approved" versions of sexually related content (e.g. sexual dysfunction support groups, sexual health, etc.)
Re:What about this idea... (Score:1)
There will be a few holdouts, of course, but few enough that doing it by hand will be doable. What's left are the geocities spammers and so forth ... but from my observations, they tend to last about 3 minutes and carry no porn anyway. Also, of course, sites that their owners don't consider to be porn ... if someone wants to make the judgement call that those should be censored as well, then they can invest in a censorware product, but it seems that if it's that questionable, then the sites should be available at the library, etc.
You will have a few left getting through, but the number of wrongfully blocked sites will hopefully be dropped down to nearly nil. It seems to me that this doesn't really offer any drawbacks from the current system, and could be beneficial. So why not try it?
Re:What I'm Afriad Of (Score:1)
Isn't the answer simpler? (Score:1)
Now this doesn't deal with filtering software in schools and libraries. So, why doesn't each institution decide on their own what solution is best for them. Ideally hire someone to monitor the lab. They don't even have to be that attentive. It's gonna take a lot of balls to look up porn when the lab monitor could stroll by to see what youre doing at any minute
I don't blame him (Score:1)
RSAC? (Score:2)
Would that work better than word based filters?
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Re:Did my own check of peacefire's check... (Score:1)
That's odd that you say the above, since when I just checked celebrity.com, there was definitely substantial nudity there, from the first banner ad onwards. If you don't believe me, follow any of the links from this page [celebrity.com] on their site.
Re:The Answer is VERY Simple (Score:1)
Server2: syn ack, Yep.
Server1: ack, Oh good.
Server2: Won't you login?
Server1: Don't mind if I do!
Server2: Got a user name?
Server1: sa
Server2: Password?
Server1: blank
Server2: Okey-dokey
Server1: Your admin is an mcse, isn't he?
Server2: Why yes, how did you guess?
The CIA won't be pissed that you just took down their sql server, will they? After all, it invited you!
Re:Why exactly is library "censorship" a problem? (Score:2)
the library I always went to as a kid used to carry some porn.. a dutch library (ofcourse...
//rdj
Re:Did my own check of peacefire's check... (Score:2)
a-celebrity.com would be blocked under the Lingerie setting, as an earlier poster said. A couple of clicks gave me this: Alyssa-Milano [a-celebrity.com] - certainly a nice piccy, and definitely not pr0n, but it falls inside the list of subjects that were requested to be blocked...
--
Re: Did my own check of peacefire's check... (Score:1)
I'll agree that a-celebrity.com [a-celebrity.com] is in the lingerie category and that this is an error from Peacefire; however, I think sniping on Slashdot after checking one data point just isn't good enough. I won't even talk about the voteups...
Eivind.
Re:Problem is.... (Score:2)
Very true. For example, I can't get to the Peacefire statistical analysis -- it's blocked by our corporate Cyber Patrol filter :-(
The interesting thing is, that after looking at Cyber Patrol's
12 categories [surfcontrol.com]
under which a site may be blocked, I can't see that Peacefire falls into any of them...
Re:Really...? (Score:3)
SurfWatch adds over 400 new sites to the database every day, while also removing sites that no longer exist on the Internet or that have changed content. Our site database is the most accurate and reliable filtering you can find.
Compare this to the tag line above Google [google.com]'s search box:
Search 1,247,340,000 web pages
For argument's sake, let's say that a scant 1% of the internet is home to "objectionable" material worth adding to a filtering database. Though the real figure is undoubtedly higher than this, it'll be a good starting point for the purposes of this excercise.
Now, assuming both groups are telling the truth in the above blurbs, in order for SurfWatch to have 100% of the objectionable web content checked and indexed, it would have taken them 31,183 days, or approximately 85 years, to cover 100% of objectionable web sites at their current rate of roughly 400 new sites per day.
This strikes me as a somewhat problematic figure, as at this early stage in the history of computing (circa 1915,) the Internet was pretty much restricted to an elite group of individuals and organizations who owned or had access to one of the zero computers in existence.
Now, I guess, the only question is whether Google or SurfWatch is lying...
Re:Problem with filters (Score:2)
True, but the problems reported by the Peacefire study are far worse than that. For example: Cyber Patrol was tested using their "Partial Nudity," "Full Nudity," and "Sexual Acts/Text" filters turned on (and no other filters). Among the sites blocked: an attorney's site (http://www.a-attorney-virginia.com) [a-attorney-virginia.com], and a home inspection company (http://www.a-actionhomeinspection.com) [a-actionho...ection.com].
If this is the type of gaffe we can expect for selecting sites which contain nudity or sexual content, what can we expect for other categories which are more nebulous, like "Questionable/Illegal & Gambling?"
By the way: Peacefire does link to Cyber Patrol's category definitions [surfcontrol.com] in their analysis of that product. I picked them because they had a high error rate which was pretty illustrative of the problem, but there were several other products reviewed with similar error rates.
Re: Did my own check of peacefire's check... (Score:1)
Good enough for what?
Good enough to declare the entire thing a sham? no, of course not.
Good enough to be concerned about peacefires actions? When they are calling other people liars and claiming that there were no "borderline" cases in those they declared "falsely blocked", yeah it is.
Good enough to make a comment on /. encouraging a more skeptical view of Peacefires "studies" than had currently been given? You bet your ass.
I made it perfectly clear that I was commenting only on the one page, but that it was the only page I had checked. I also made it clear that I did not have time to sit around cutting and pasting all the sites (why didn't they include links, anyway?) but that I wanted t give a heads up to anyone who wanted to investigate the investigators.
I would note that in many cases, a single example out of many investigated has been enough to discredit any filterware arround here. I find nothing inapropriate about people finding a single example that only seeks to call peacefire into question interesting.
-Kahuna Burger
censored (Score:3)
You are not permitted to access the URL http://www.peacefire.org/error-rates/ due to the policies established by !@#@!#.
The following list defines content that is deemed inappropriate use of !#@##@!;'s internet connection:
Nudity
Gross Depictions
Militant/Extremist
Questionable/Illegal/Gambling
Racism/Ethnic Impropriety
Satanic/Cult
Sexual Acts
Violence/Profanity
If this is an error, and visiting this site is neccessary to perform your job, then you should contact the IT Department Manager.
(And we take back calling you naughty, too.)the ^##$##$ is where i blocked out the company's name. made me bust out laughing at my cube though.
Re:Is this consider one of my online rights? (Score:1)
Re:Really...? (Score:1)
And they should definitely be thinking twice before making claims about personally checking each URL which can easily be demonstrated to be false.
[TMB]
Re:Peacefire Analysis (Score:2)
The review they did is pretty easy. The only had to review the 5-50 sites that were actually blocked.
False negatives obviously occur, because SurfWatch accurately blocked 9 sites while CyberPatrol only accurately blocked 4 sites from the same list.
So yes, statistics can be used to show anything they want, and in this case they wanted to show the number of false positives in 1000 domains, and they did just that.
Re:Peacefire Analysis (Score:2)
They use this statistic because it is the only one which is possible to obtain. To get the number of sites which should be blocked but aren't would require knowing where every single pr0n site on the internet is, which is completely unfeasible.
------------------
A picture is worth 500 DWORDS.
The solution... meta-blocking (Score:2)
Re:Really...? (Score:3)
Many of these companies claim that the blocked sites are individually reviewed by human staff. One of the points of the Peacefire analysis was that these claims are false (and as you imply, they're pretty ludicrous claims to make in the first place).
Re:Peacefire stats (Score:1)
Re:Peacefire stats (Score:2)
The ability, or inability, to resolve this kind of problem is an important distinguishing performance factor for evaluating Web filters, but Peacefire and its cheerleaders seem to prefer glossing over such complications because it makes it easier for them to draw colorful, simplistic, haha-aren't-those-big-bad-censors-stupid conclusions. (Yes, I know, it's not in Peacefire's best interests to be fair about such analyses anyway.)
Ugh, let me answer this troll. You don't need the data to know that the filters are bad. As someone who knows a fair amount about AI (Artificial Intelligence) it's obvious to me that censorware claims promise more than the best AI currently available, but use the stupidest algorithms (keyword match, flesh-tone counting, etc.). The only decent tactic is a human-picked access control list, but a few people simply can't censor the entire net. Even then, human-picked lists have their own problems because they tend to be politically motivated and impractical (which is possible since the blocking strategies are secret).
Therefore, it should be obvious that Peacefire doesn't need to make up any data. They should have an ample supply of true facts to work with. Contrast this to the exhorbitant claims of the censorware vendors (CyberSitter: "Guaranteed to block over 97% of all objectionable content!")
...will work for Chick tracts... (Score:1)
Getting the most out of this story (Score:1)
Re:Peacefire Analysis (Score:1)
Not really. Hmm, yes and no. One of Peacefire's arguments against filters is that it is technologically unfeasible to implement an accurate and effective filter. Given the size of the Internet and the state of AI used to apply filters this is true.
This argument consists of 2 sections:
This little piece of analysis addresses the second point. It's just easier. To prove the first you need to find all the porn sites then see which ones aren't blocked. If dozens of filter companies with millions of dollars of resources can't do it, Peacefire ceratinly can't. And of course you can't estimate the size of porn Internet in relation to the entire Internet (the size of which is more or less known or can be estimated reliably). It's like proving a negative, it has to be exhaustive.
Re:Why this bill will be passed (Score:2)
Politicians have to cater to those people that vote. And since the "moral majority" and the like always turn out in huge numbers to vote, they're important. The less the people that disagree with them vote, the more important they become.
If young people voted in higher numbers than old conservative types, young people would be more likely to be catered to.
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Re:The success of sussex (Score:1)
Uhm, no, the quote was supposed to show that even great men like Mohammed are humble. It reads 'if the mountain does not come to mohammed, then mohammed will come to the mountain'.
As to how this is supposed to be the internet is totally beyond me...
Re:Really...? (Score:1)
Re:The solution... meta-blocking (Score:1)
Two (or 3 or 4) broken software packages put together don't make one good one.
Re:Is this consider one of my online rights? (Score:1)
Proxy (Score:2)
http://a1.g.akamaitech.net/6/6/6/6/www.peacefire.o rg/ [akamaitech.net]c efire.org/ [akamaitech.net]
http://a123.g.akamaitech.net/7/123/21/000/www.pea
Why exactly is library "censorship" a problem? (Score:1)
Every time a librarian chooses to purchase or not purchase a book, they're engaging in "censorship". How many libraries ever carried issues of Hustler in their magazine rack anyway?
What is the matter with this proposal: Blocking software is installed in a library, perhaps even one with a high degree of false positives. If a site happens to be blocked, a patron would come up to the librarian and request that the site be enabled. The librarian would check the site from their desk workstation, and if it was deemed appropriate, the block would be lifted. This is essentially the role librarians have always had: organizers & diseminators of information.
The only condition would be that blocking software operates by allowing selective enabling rules to override the built-in rules. I assume most have this feature; not being a user of the software I don't know the details.
Re:Problem with filters (Score:2)
I think this is a lousy idea. What if the person is looking for information on HIV, human sexuality, non-Christian religions or something else that might subject them to public ridicule or ostracism?
Why not just publish a monthly list of all books checked out from the public library, including the identity of the borrowers.
Re:The success of sussex (Score:2)
The Old Mentality and the Sea (Score:3)
[...], filtering based on domain names is incredibly simple to bypass. [...] Just open up a dos box, ping the host, and it will give you the IP address. Put the IP address in the address bar in your browser, and you're there.
Look for censorware to block these IP addresses as well, as soon as someone at one of these censorware companies walks into a wall hard enough that he accidentally and temporarily has some sense knocked into him.
Before anyone starts frantically grabbing his pornography onto floppy at the local public library before even this loophole is closed, consider that even this slightly clueful measure is easily enough defeated by the use by site operators, of dynamic IP addresses connected with domain names via CNAME DNS records (in this context, aliases to such temporary subdomain names as are available at DHS [dhs.org]). The practice therefore by censorware of blocking whole IP address ranges will accelerate the use of massive, dynamically switched IP address range pools (by overseas operators, probably), so that ultimately even IP addresses or ranges of IP addresses are no longer of much use as a guide to exactly from where data is arriving.
A world-wide information infrastructure based largely on immaterial information itself has by its very nature an almost infinite capacity for sneaky, slippery deception that makes a total mockery of any attempt to clamp down on it. One can easily envision for instance, an explosion of anonymous resurfers [anonymizer.com] which themselves as needed use the techniques mentioned above.
The more the censorware tries to block off the sea, the more the sea will leak around every barrier placed in its path. In the end, as always, the sea will win.
Re:The funny thing about censorship... (Score:2)
Now if everyone well remembers, the event happened when a harsh campaign for gun controls, "family values", children censorware and some other things was going full steam. Couldn't this be one of the MAIN reasons for what happened? Dissident children, haunted by "new values, new morale", poisoned by the santity of politicians and the damnation of the showbizz? What will happen to a child that sees Rambos, Commandos, X-Files, Dooms, Quakes, Hot Pussies and, suddenly, people mark him as a degenerate because his family does not carry "the values", a delinquent because he passes his time seeing "what children shouldn't see", a criminal because he can shoot? What this child, who listed the Mein Kampf and tell him he is an uncurable outsider will decide? What ideas/dreams/fantasies will roam in his head while he sees the "right" children, those that still eat Chuppa-Chupps, M&Ms, those who never carried a gun but consider that they are more "right" than him? What he is thinking about those that read comics and schoolbooks, he who have eaten the forbidden fruit, who have read the secret scrolls from Hell. He the warrior, the mage, the exorcist in the shadows... What happens if parents/teachers try to _force_ such child to become "exemplar", cut him access to computer, books, try to adapt him to these abstract family values so to become a "normal" member of the society? A society that he already despises and incriminates?
Frankly what censorship will help to do with such child if he have already seen the whole trashcan?
Re:The success of sussex (Score:2)
The enforcing of ethics or any form of moral concepts is a blow against Democracy as they violate the principles of free thought and expression. Besides they are expensive. There should be organisms to control this enforcing. In Internet this means more people, more hardware, more programs. Now you know that all this costs money and also that Internet grows exponentially on most fields. To keep such filters working, to hold up the growing amount of information you need more money, more hardware, more programs. And it is impossible today to achieve this. Or you blow up your connection or you are forced to admit that Democracy is not only a better value but also more feasable in terms of economy of resources. Sincerly I believe that Democracy wins in this world, mostly because it costs less to hold it up...
Librarians != Parents (Score:1)
Re:Did my own check of peacefire's check... (Score:1)
The site you refer to has those glamor shots as you say, but only if you go several pages deep into the site. Therefore, the main page should not be blocked. Additionally, if you check out any of the other sites that were wrongfully blocked, they're even more obvious mistakes. Most of them are just 'under construction' pages.
Re:The Answer is VERY Simple (Score:1)
server1: SMTP server ready.
server1:-bugs/gripes to postmaster@...
server1:-unsolicited commerical e-mail is NOT authorized to access this service
server2: hey, want some spam?
server1: you're in MAPS, your access is illegal, go fuck yourself
Remember that most anti-hacking laws are stated in terms of "unauthorized access to a computer". That *should* include connecting to the SMTP port to send spam, when it is explicitly stated that such usage is unauthorized.
What is considered a public institution? (Score:1)
Re:Peacefire Analysis (Score:1)
Also, I recall that the most complete search engine has only cataloged about 10-15% of the internet. I think its safe to say that the censorware companies haven't even come close to searching this much of the net, and therefore the vast majority of porn is NOT going to be blocked.
using Censorware is like wrapping saran wrap around your monitor to protect your kids. It just doesn't work, and more importantly it CAN'T work from a technical point of view.
donkeyhumper.com (Score:3)
go figure
Re:RSAC? (Score:2)
Movie and tv rating systems, however ubiquitous, are at least technically voluntary. Voluntary web rating works well at the far ends of the spectrum (kids content & p0rn sites that don't want kiddie traffic), but less well in the middle. (And of course, not at all on usenet....)
For example, what should /. rate itself? Or a news site with personal ads? News sites and large complex sites with user-generated content are the toughest cases, and yet a browser-filter that uses self-rating isn't going to *do* anything at this point if it doesn't filter out unrated sites. Maybe there will be a mass industry movement to voluntarily rate and label....
Second, just FYI, RSAC is ICRA [icra.org] now. They wanted to develop a more international content labeling & rating scheme, which should be launching soon.
Liza
Re:Is this consider one of my online rights? (Score:2)
Guide for Schools & Libraries If This Law Passes (Score:1)
http://www.ala.org/washoff/fltrguide.htm l [ala.org]
The most amazing aspect of this proposal, among many, is the fact that if your computer or Internet access is paid for by e-rate subsidies, the definition of a minor is under 17 but if the computer in the same school or library is paid for by either Title III or LSTA, the definition of a minor is under 18. So schools and libraries would have to apply different rules to 17 year olds, depending on what computer they were using!.
I also love the fact that in an era of increased demand for privacy protection, particularly for children [kidsprivacy.org], this law would also require schools to monitor everything kids do using school Internet access. Sounds common sense, but what if the school allows dial-up access from home? Then the only way to comply is to install monitoring software. Who gets access to those records? How long are they kept? Do you really want to create a complete record of every site a kid has looked at K-12?
Liza
Hmmm, what's that story submission form say? (Score:2)
--
Damn, tripped up by a quick editor (Score:2)
--
Re:Why exactly is library "censorship" a problem? (Score:1)
Re:Isn't the answer simpler? (Score:1)
Did my own check of peacefire's check... (Score:4)
We tested a Bess proxy server with the following categories enabled: "Adults Only", "Hate/Discrimination", "Illegal", "Porn Site", "Sex", "Violence", "Alcohol", "Chat", "Drugs", "Free Pages", "Gambling", "Tasteless / Gross", "Profanity", "Lingerie", "Nudity", "Personal Information", "School Cheating Info", "Suicide / Murder", "Tobacco", "Weapons", and "Personals".
So I loaded in the first "falsly blocked" site on their list (celebrity.com) and checked it out. It has a bunch of pictures of different celebrities, in a somewhat porn-site like format, but no actual nudity. Then I went back and really looked at the list of what they had enabled. "Lingerie". In other words, they had choosen a setting to test it on that pretty much says "This blocks that hide-the-nipples, victoria's secret type supersoft porn, not just nudity." And many of the pictures on this website fell exactly into that catagory - cameron diaz's upper toso wearing nothing but her hands holding her breasts, the same with a "fan dance" fan over the relevant areas, another celebrities wearing tiny black bras and panties, or panies and an open shirt just barely covering the nipples....
Now this is just one site from one of their tests, but then its the only one I checked, and they are lying about it not fitting one of the catagories they chose to block for their test. Is it still blocked if they tested the filter for porn only? I don't know. But that (very) little investigation gives me some serious doubts about the honesty and objectivity with which these "tests" of filterware are being conducted.
If I had time this afternoon I'll check a larger sample of their results, but I shouldn't even be making this post, so don't wait up. Anyone else who wants to do skeptical spot checks on them (read the "checked" items carefully) please follow up.
-Kahuna Burger
What I'm Afriad Of (Score:4)
Why this bill will be passed (Score:2)
The real moral question is not whether you want your horny teenager looking at porn in a public library, but what happens to the people who need legitimate information but are denied.
-Antipop
Re:Problem with filters (Score:3)
It Would Still Be Bad If People Did The Censoring (Score:2)
If the Government contracts to someone to do their Censorship for them, it's often much, much worse: the company can be much more secretive about what they censor ("Trade Secrets! Trade Secrets!"), and we can't hold them to the same strict first ammendment standards that the courts hold the government to.
-Dan Milstein
Re:The Answer is VERY Simple (Score:2)
Server 1: Hi, you awake?
Server 2: Yep, whaddya want?
Server 1: I have some mail for User1, will you accept it?
Server 2: Sure, I'll accept mail for User1. Send it over.
Server 1: Ok, Here it is.
Server 2: Ok, got it. Need anything else?
Server 1: Nope.
Server 2: Ok, see ya.
The recieving server always makes the decision to accept the gift of the email, or not too. Nothing is being dumped on the recieving machine without permission. As soon as it is accepted, it's the property of the second server, so it's not true that the property of someone else is on your system.
Censorship (Score:3)
The packages in question do not block "appropriate" (what's that?) sites, while censoring random ones.
The packages block both types of sites. The action of preventing a URL or whatnot from being seen is "blocking", "stopping", etc. (If you want to claim that "censor" just means "block", then you should have said that the software "censors" both types of sites, good and bad alike.)
I get really fed up sometimes with people to whom "censor" apparently means, "block information I think is OK".
Censorship is about power, about using repression to prevent people other than oneself (or one's wards), from contacting texts. If I choose not to look at, or spend money on, the New York Times, I am not censoring it. Only if I prevent someone else from doing so, am I. Censorship has nothing to do with the information content of what is blocked; it is just as much censorship for the State to forbid the reading of Playboy as the New York Times.
Note, though, that the courts have supported such censorship in many areas of First Amendment jurisprudence, usually in order to prevent children from accessing information. The questions do not revolve around "censorship", then, but "compelling interests" and "least intrusive means", etc.
Blocking software installed on public computers is censorship. But it is the power relationship of the State to the individual that determines that, not the blocking per se. And furthermore, whether or not such software will be emplaced has nothing to do with whether it is "censorship". It has to do with the "compellingness" of the need for it, and what alternatives there are, and how the Supreme Court feels the day it comes before them.
Re:Really...? (Score:2)
Especially if they try to claim that they do have a staff member verify all blocked pages, as is mentioned in the linked story.
I wouldn't try to start a perpetual motion engine manufacturing corporation unless I was a master scam artist.
___
working URL (Score:3)
Re:The solution... meta-blocking (Score:2)
There are two problems with this approach. One is that different packages may very well have similar heuristics for determining what to block. Sites that mention, say, breast cancer are still likely to be blocked. This can be quite serious. I'm a scientist, and my workplace uses a filter program. One of the sites that it blocked was a site that had time sensitive information about submitting grants for breast cancer research. The people who needed that information needed it right away, and it was extremely obnoxious to be forced to demand that it be put on the non-blocked list. The big lesson from this is that it only takes one incorrectly blocked site to ruin your whole day.
The flip side is that not quite all blocks are done by heuristics. Some sites are deliberately blocked for commercial or political reasons- the Peacefire site itself is possibly the best example. This is another case in which the different blocking companies are likely to agree, so again you have falsely blocked sites. The difference is that in this case they're blocked because filtering companies in general don't want you to see them.
Re:What about this idea... (Score:2)
The other danger is that labels can lead to censorship. There are many theaters that are unable to show a NC-17 movie, regardless of social or artistic value, due to lease restrictions.
Re:What about this idea... (Score:2)
Here's the stock one-size-fits-all answer.
How do you enforce that all "pornographic" content goes into
Re:What is considered a public institution? (Score:2)
While the laws still exist, they have been *totally* ignored - the one exception being porn sites are no longer hosted in Australia. The regulatory body responsible, and the government itself, have absolutely no interest in the matter.
This probably has to do with the fact that the vote of the bible-bashing independent senator the government was chasing at the time is no longer crucial.
Re:Moderators - the above is a bald-faced lie... (Score:2)
While I do not have the software that blocks banner ads automatically, I do the functional equivelent with my good old fashion brain. I did not look at the banner ads, but at the content of the page.
And what you are saying is that peacefire are the baldfaced liars, not me. They claimed that the site had been falsely listed as a pornography site. My point was that it did fit the non-porn filters that they had enabled, by the page content that I witnessed. You stating that there were also pornographic links is not an argument against me, it is a support of my conclusion that peacefire is cooking the books.
-Kahuna Burger
Why target the Internet? (Score:2)
Especially in a library, of all places?
There's plenty of objectionable content among the books. And it's much harder to filter books than it is to filter net-sites.
OTOH, maybe the censorware is a good thing... make the kids look for their porn and bomb-making materials the old-fashioned way.
[Note to the sarcasm-impaired: the preceding paragraph was not meant to be taken seriously!]
Re:Did my own check of peacefire's check... (Score:2)
Well, since there is no product that self describes as "censorware", there is nothing that "censorware claims to do". And your idea that filterware companies should, could or claim to block only individual pages sounds pretty silly. I mean, seriously, you actually expect them to block every single page within any given porn site individually, and just keep checking back and entering each day's new pages after a careful examination of each page? I would LOVE to see anywhere is their self description that actually warrents that.
Now they may well be obligated/want to avoid blocking entire domains that are non-centralized. An individual college student putting blockable material on his university page need not lead to the blocking of the entire university site. But a page such as a.celebrity.com that is clearly a centralized site can certainly be blocked entirely if a large number of pages contain blockable material and the intent of the rest of the site is to promote that blockable material.
Come on, do you think that a filterware list should make sure not to block the big black page on a porn site that says nothing but "you must be 18 or older"? I suspect that either you are the one who doesn't understand filterware, or that you are just playing the "strawman hypocrisy game".
-Kahuna Burger
Problem with kids downloading porn in libraries (Score:2)
It's ILLEGAL. We can argue till the cows come home about whether it should be, but if kids are breaking the law in plain view on (and with!)library property, the library staff can get in trouble for contributing to delinquency.
There will doubtless be an outcry at that point for censorware, if not for outright removal of internet access from libraries, once the situation is made public. And that screws everyone.
Sort of like how, even if you think drugs should be legalized, standing outside the library where the legal smokers go, smoking a joint, is probably not the wisest move...
Problem is.... (Score:3)
Domain names are basically really, really cheap and people can move from domain to domain with no real problem.
Kind of like whack-a-mole.
People who want porn will get porn. News letters will (spam for the rest of us) supply the latest domain name.
Censorware only really works on static sites, like political ones.... Free speech ones...
Re:What is considered a public institution? (Score:2)
Did you know what the English Church/Government tried to shutdown Shakespear in his day? It's no different today. Books like The Red Badge of Courage and This Side of Paradise were called "violent" and "pornographic" in their day. Reading both of those greatly benefitted me as a child, and probably millions of others too.
We need to end censorship, for children and adults. Having access to reality doesn't hurt children. I'd rather have a child learn about the anatomy of the opposite gender than grow up in a world that condemns realism.
Problem with filters (Score:4)
For this to work in a way that does not filter out "non-offensive" sites, it would require HUMAN BEINGS to actually logon and check each site themselves to see what kind of content is on that site.
Another problem is that the institutions doing the filtering could very well find themselves liable for EVERTHING that DOES NOT GET FILTERED. This would be bad.
A few years ago I was in a public library and there were a couple of youths (under 15) downloading pornography to floppy disks. The library in question could have easily filtered this out -- by NOT FACING THE COMPUTERS TOWARD A WALL to allow the 'net users as much privacy as they had. (Of course, they could have popped over to the photographic arts section and found a book that was probably just as thrilling.)
I think the best bet for schools and libraries is to avoid filtering and simply SUPERVISE the children. A little shoulder surfing never killed anyone. And if you are in a public place using a public access terminal, you really have no reasonable right to assume that the teacher or librarian would not do so.
I guess the lesson here is: get your pr0n from home. Dad's bookmarks will probably have all the best sites listed already anyhow.
The Answer is VERY Simple (Score:2)
If Joe Spammer wants to store his wares on my property, then a monthly fee is due. It's that simple.
I don't think that the same deal with telemarketers apply here. A telemarketer has to be told not to call after one time. However, he's not really storing anything on your property, just wasting some of your time. There are so many spammers out there (and the ability to forge so readily), that it'd be impossible to enforce the same kind of idea. Even if they were to implement something like this, the idea of tracking the forgers (which is what most people would start doing), would be a logistical nightmare.
Re:Is this consider one of my online rights? (Score:2)
WebSense-orship... (Score:3)
WEBSENSE
Access to the desired Web page is restricted at this time.
Reason: The Websense category "Hacking" is restricted.
You requested: http://www.peacefire.org/error-rates/
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Vote Inanimate Carbon Rod in 2000
How accurate are Peacefire's stats, anyway? (Score:2)
The success of sussex (Score:3)
1: Some may know this phrase: "If Mohamed doesn't get to the mountain then the mountain comes to Mohamed." That is the first historical record of the existence of the Internet...
2: What is porno for you, for him/her? What is erotics? What is medicine? Besides how easy is to filter jpgs or gifs?
3: You first shut porno, then erotics, then the picture of every woman, then the word "woman", then the word "man", then every word, then the Internet...
4: This was the Soviet Union some years ago. So if you say censorship, people ask: censorship? Censorship? CENSORSHIP? @%@*%$* C-E-N-S-O-R-S-H-I-P????????!!!! Hold the doors! The crowd is coming to take the Lubianka!!!!
5: Ethics and moral are good. If you have enough money to technically afford them. Lots of them... Democracy is much more economical.
However the end of this was really simple and stupid. One very BIG GUY needed some information about the University of Sussex. Naturally the system didn't allow him to get into this little town. But the guy needed BADLY this small town. When he got the news why he couldn't reach it when he needed so BADLY, he made a BIG NOISE and THREATENED to send the whole University to court. It ocurred that, juridically, such filters are equivalent to "surveillance measures". If you don't have a badge and you don't carry a court order, you don't have the right to use them. The system was promptly removed. It was the first and last censorware experiment here. Right now, if a channel is stuffed with pictures of hot chilly chicks we don't have the right even to sniff it...
[stock rant] (Score:3)
[stock rant on the subject]
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of s***ch, or the right of the people peaceably to ***emble, and to pe***ion the government for a redress of grievances.
[end of stock rant on the subject]
Re:How accurate are Peacefire's stats, anyway? (Score:2)
--
My Nazi-Esque school (Score:2)
I think schools, libraries and the like are seeing the internet as a giant smut pool. The Internet has become synonymous with porn. It's sad because there are actually TONS of useful resources on the internet. Luckly some of my more open minded teachers let us use the internet on a daily basis. I have yet to hear of one single student going to an inapropriate site.
But, reguardless, my school would support this bill in a HEART BEAT. I believe many schools are like mine. If they could they would have a person watching over the shoulder of every student at any time.
Let kids know that this is not the place for inapropriate material and let them know the consiquences, but filtering software required on all computers is a bit hasty. The kids using these computers won't go to these sites at school, especially if they know the sites are being logged.
In conclusion, I feel that filters are freedom hindering devices that don't even work because they can't bloock every site and they block some that are genuinely good. Let the people police themselves.
Re:Why exactly is library "censorship" a problem? (Score:3)
Big difference, when acting as disseminators of information. NO library in existence currently could possibly hold every last bit of information out there. Some libraries specialize in certain sorts of collections, and many libraries spend a considerable amount of resources referring patrons to places that have what they don't.
Installing blocking software would be more like throwing out books that someone donated.
IMHO at least.
Error in the method. (Score:2)
I work for one of the largest hosting house for adult content and we block pings at the routers to help protect aganst DoS, etc.
They should actualy check for a valid response from port 80 if they are checking port 80 content filters. Otherwise, they're testing a ping filter.
Re:Really...? (Score:2)
It also is pretty hopeless to make a decent translation program. I view things like babblefish and the like as being pretty crude, but they are free, and if it doesn't know for sure what something is, it leaves it. I think it might be a good idea if the censorware programmers took the same approach. It might be a good idea to leave in words like "breast" and "Dick" since they can be talking about anatomy class, or someone's name. However, I can't think of a non-vulgar or non-pornographic instance of "cum guzzler" or "suck my dick" which would be fine to block in my opinion.
The real fallacy here is not how unreliable censorware is, but of the expectations these ignorant politicians, christian groups, family groups, etc. are about the usefulness of the software. There is no substitute for parental guidance. We should have learned that from the generations that have grown up watching TV already. If these people really cared about what was good for the children, they would take care of them properly and not try to rely on broken software to do their jobs for them. If people can't take the responsibility to raise their children, they shouldn't be having them in the first place.
Re:Really...? (Score:2)
> "breast" and "Dick" since they can be talking
> about anatomy class, or someone's name.
> However, I can't think of a non-vulgar or
> non-pornographic instance of "cum guzzler" or
> "suck my dick" which would be fine to block in
> my opinion.
I can.
"I can't think of a non-pornographic instance of 'cum guzzler' or 'suck my dick'"
Well isn't that a non-pornographic instance RIGHT THERE!?! (Well, it certainly didn't give ME wood to read it...maybe it did for someone else?)
> The real fallacy here is not how unreliable
> censorware is
No the real fallacy is that FUD is the major driving force behind policy. There is NO evidence whatsoever that this is harmfull to children.
I dunno about YOU, but as a child I was exposed to porn. Completely by accident I was getting into things that "I shouldn't have" and I saw porn. The same has happened to about every other person I know. Either they found some of their parents stash (my friend's fiance was telling me about the time her 5 year old came into the room exclaiming "hey mommy you have to see this" only to find he found oneof her porno tapes) - or their friends find it and expose them.
Everyone that I know, who was exposed to porn, grew up perfectly normal. Why? because it *IS* a normal occurance.
The simple fact is this...parents want to protect children. They fear every possible thing that could happen. They are paranoid. Companies that make censorware - and people in congress making laws - are nothing more than preditors. They fan the flames and scare parents. They prey on that fear and use it to make a buck.
-Steve
Re:Problem with filters (Score:3)
> more then their share of playboy's and
> penthouses growing up
I may not be a father (really - there are enough people in the world. I am seriously considering just getting that tube tied off - and I encourage all men to do the same - not one child - zero!) but I know I saw my fair share of bare skin when I was a kid.
FOund my fathers playboys at age 7. Didn't get into them until I was 12 though. At around that age I was jerking off every day after school - ocasionally twice a day. Noone told me about it - or showed me how...hand just naturally found gland and magic happened.
Thats the way it is with most people. Thats the way it has happened since around the time that thumbs became popular. (possibly longer but - they do make it so much easier).
> What worries me are some of these pervs out
> stalking kids in AOL chat rooms
Why? there are many more of them that arn't online.
> ured two 14-year-old girls over
Oh come now....14 - they got hair down there. They know whats going on. WHo wouldn't want to fuck teenagers? As one comic said "thats why there are laws against it. Our forefathers were out there going to congress 'hey they are fucking our daughters!'" well ok 14 is a bit young. Certainly, legality aside, 16 or so should be fair game. As long as you can stand listening to N Sync and the backdoor boys that is.
Course as my friends fiance points out - 2 girls is wated on most men anyway - we don't know what to do with just one of them.
Besides - as far as I can tell girls are much more honrey than guys anyway - they just hide it better and are a bit more discriminating.
-Steve
Peacefire Analysis (Score:4)
I notice that in the Peacefire comparison, the only number they consider is (# of non-pornographic sites blocked)/(total # of sites blocked), i.e. the number of false positives. Wouldn't it make sense to also consider the percentage of unblocked pornographic sites?
I guess this is just another example of using statistics to prove whatever you want. I'm opposed to filtering as much as Peacefire (well, maybe not quite that much), but they should still try to give unbiased facts.
-Chris
bad on so many levels (Score:3)
It took me a while to come around on this issue, but until and unless the technology improves dramatically, filtering is a very bad idea.