Vancouver PC Users Society Presentation, 1997
THE VANCOUVER PERSONAL COMPUTER USERS SOCIETY (VIPCUS) Presentation and panel discussion with Bob Turner in 1997.
This event is the text of a real audio broadcast.
Real Audio of this Interview are available at request.
INTRODUCTION: Clinton Husey (moderator)
Good evening and welcome to the first Real-Audio Broadcast of the Vancouver P.C. Users' Society. The topic of discussion tonight will be "The Filtering of Information in our Culture". Our featured specialist on the topic will be Mr. Bob Turner of Turner Investigation, Research and Communications. Turner Investigation, Research and Communications are the developers of the Internet Filter which is a popular piece of software available on the Internet for filtering information on the Internet. Our other panelists for this evening will be Brenda Delaney, who is on the Executive of the Vancouver P.C. Users' Society, and Sue Scott, a member of the V.P.C.U. Society. I'm going to hand over the micro-phone to Mr. Turner now for the beginning of the discussion.
MR. TURNER:
all right, well thanks a lot you guys for having me here with you tonight. The Internet Filter and many other similar products, such as "Net Nanny", "Cybersitter", "Surf Watch", "Private Net".... my goodness, there's a whole bunch of them; there's about eight or nine of them; the rest of them will come to mind. But, what they all have in common is that they've taken it upon themselves to react to a perceived need to filter information in the culture, essentially to protect the vulnerable. The vulnerable are deemed to require protection from, essentially in order of importance, it appears, looking back on it, pornography (the fear is that it will corrupt the young); hatred (the fear is that it will make victims out of vulnerable minorities); and terrorism which basically freaks everybody out.
When we first started getting into this product, we had two minds about it. One - it would be either a good thing to do and we would make some money; or two - it would be an incredible political act, with repercussions we couldn't foresee. And, what we would do would be to record the cultural responses we got and the experiences we had, and the vision then was to make an 8-foot Plexiglas (that sort of new building material you see in modern buildings where there's an image imbedded in glass; you can see right through it but the image is there) and we were going to imbed the documentation that we envisioned we might be getting in glass, and do a gallery installation as art. And we would do whatever seemed logical to do, but as it turns out, it's become a business and we haven't got to the glass installation yet, but perhaps we will.
Subsequent to getting into filtering information-and I suppose what we are essentially going to talk about tonight is the second generation level of this technology, which is expressed by our product and basically ours alone as the other companies haven't got into the second generation yet - our product is called IF RESEARCHER and it is currently being used by a Company in Norway in the way Neilson Ratings are used. You have a control group of 500 people and they have this software in their computer and everything they do on their computer on the Internet is log-recorded and forwarded to a data base, so the research company will then have a daily balance sheet of what everybody in this cross section of Norway has done on the Internet. And then they will be able to do what you do with statistics. They will be able to extrapolate statistically, based on real information untouched by human hand and uncorrupted by error. In the same way that Neilson puts the black box on your television set and you sign a contract to just watch that television set, they can extrapolate what a country is doing with television. This is all very nice. I suppose there are many issues here-what if it is used for other purposes. Well, in fact, it will be used for other purposes, and as a matter of act, we are selling it for other purposes as part of our marketing plan (if it could be said that we have a marketing plan, which actually we don't; we have a distribution plan, and there is a difference). But, if you think about that, then you find that it is alright to be in a control group in Norway willingly participating, but what if you are not part of a control group and what if you are not participating. These are interesting points. I suspect that, I guess that where I have taken this discussion to is to issues of privacy and censorship, so let's have a discussion. Free speech and censorship are what motivated us to start this work. We could just see that the Internet was being set up - basic-ally that's what we thought. It was just being set up. The way I express it is that anything in the American culture you want to discredit, you link to sodomy. I'll repeat that. Anything you want to discredit, you link to sodomy.
So, hence, it was no surprise that as a matter of fact the very week we came out with our product, it was the week Time Magazine came out with the famous pornography issue and that's a perfect example of the Internet being discredited. In our view (me, and my partner Jeff Koftinoff of J.D.Koftinoff Software, who programmed this thing and all subsequent variations that are occurring) it was a set up, which is why we linked it equally to art and to money, because it was just a set up. You want to terrify a population - you want to give them fear of danger - you link it to sodomy. So what do you have? You have pedophiles coming across; you have newspaper articles; you have Time Magazine; you have all these people raising all this hell about what will happen to my kids and our world and our life, and the Internet is bad and evil and really ought to be controlled. Do you remember the Rodney King thing in L.A.? Well, there was this great fiasco where the blacks were killing and burning out the Koreans in the Asian community - so this is all going down and this is all very upsetting to a lot of people. But you can predict what will happen, and it's really bizarre. The most exploitive people in the culture are requesting the National Guard to remain in their neighborhood. They are requesting it in the same sense there is a request to control the Internet. Why? (Answer) Sodomites.
Ms Delaney
Actually, I think the problem is the media. The media will always try and grab what interests people. That's the other filtering that's going on and that's the real problem. Most people watch Oprah Winfrey and those controversial issues people watch; people want to listen to. I've overheard some interviews on CBC radio about the Internet and the same thing has grabbed me. I know because I've been using the Internet for a long time, that probably only 1% of the material on the Internet would be objectionable to anyone. but, that's what sells so that's what the media covers.
MR. TURNER:
Right, and you've got to go after that 1% - it's not going to come to you. I can't argue with what you are saying, but however, at the same time, and this is what makes the difference, there was some extreme legislation being proposed, so it wasn't in this case, just the media. If the legislation wasn't sitting there, then 'yes', it's a good story; it's a good tale. But, with the legislation rolling to action, there's more to it than just the media.
Ms.Delaney:
The problem is, how are they going to legislate it. The Internet is cross-border. The people who do the legislation don't understand the technology; they don't understand it's something you can't control. If you want to go out and find out, say, the ruling on the Karla Homolka trial, which is a perfect example of what was going on a couple of years ago, we were being told that we couldn't look at the stuff in the U.S. press. It was pretty easy to get it on the Internet and it's impossible to control millions of people going across the border like that. So my questions is, what point is there in legislating any of it.
MR. TURNER:
Well, yes, indeed that is at this moment true. 'Why' is perhaps something that we might look at before we think about 'how'. Because if we look at 'why' they are going to legislate against the Internet, then we can deal with 'how', and 'how' they can't. But, the reason why is simple. If you think about Al Gore's Information Highway, and the whole concept of the Information Highway which is a huge sewer-pipeline which like all big pipelines, if you are in that pipeline, you can be controlled. You can be taxed; you can be charged for entertainment value; it's business as usual. For example, I really don't know who the players are, but there are some things you could expect just by thinking about it. You can expect to see the major credit card companies who've a vested interest in purchasing and selling on the Internet, and it's all funded by companies like Visa, etc. (you know the rest of them). These people have a huge interest in it and similarly notice that one of the other horrors of the Internet and another fear-mongering on the Internet, is what will happen if you put your credit card in that soup. They want your credit card in that soup. And, the sewer pipeline will allow the credit companies to have it, so there is a big interest group there. The other big interest group in government and taxes. If people are free-wheeling software and value added stuff and publishing - the whole communications industry is running like the wild, wild west, which is sort of what it is right now. It's pretty easy to reason out that certainly there are interests whose goal would be to end that. Taxation would be reason enough. Entertainment. Big companies like Sony, Disney World (I am not specifically naming these companies because I don't know who the players are-it's just reasonable to think that the big ones have the biggest vested interest) would love to send you the movie of the week, the hit of the month, all the goodies which can be delivered digitally on a big baud width. And, they want to charge you for it on your credit card and they will pay the taxes. so, you get a situation like broadcasting; basically that's 'why'. Now when you look at 'why', then it does suggest 'how'. In the same way it's done in broadcasting where only licence holders would have the right to put out. You can produce anything for television, anything at all. You, Brenda, can produce anything. But, can you get somebody to carry it?
Ms. Delaney:
The problem is the Internet is not a broadcast medium. This is something they don't understand; that it's 2-way. They may try to control it, but I think there's an existing culture on the Internet that's going to fight it to the bitter end, number one. The other thing that you commented on is about the credit card companies wanting to gather information. We are looking at a trend right now where consumers are actually helping subsidize the marketing. The same thing happens at the Safeway check-out counter; if you've got an Air Miles card, they are already keeping track of your purchases.
Mr. TURNER:
I actually didn't mention anything about them keeping track of you. What I did say, is that they have a vested interest in financing you. They have a vested interest. If you want to get the movie of the week, they want to enable you to get the movie of the week and put it on your credit card on which they will get their interest. There is another issue about information gathering, and I think we will get to that. But, that's not what I am saying. I am not saying that they are spying on you; what I am saying is they want you to go through a sewerpipe; they want you to go through a big information highway. They don't want you going through this crisscross network. That's the motivation. Now what you are saying is right. Now, how can they do this, you know, it's out of control, but will it be out of control? This is what the legislation is there to shape up and this is what takes me back to my first point. You have to discredit the Internet. There will be more stories about sodomists, pornographers, stalkers, bombers - unsafe for your children, your women...they'll get the population screaming to have the National Guard in their backyard and that's 'how' they will do it.
Ms. Delaney:
Are you saying that because they don't know any other way to shut it down, that the way they'll do it, is through public pressure?
Mr Turner:
Yes, that's the way they'll do it.
Ms. Delaney:
Okay, I think you've got a good point there because the nature of I.P. suggests there's no way they can shut it down unless they legislate it.
Mr. TURNER:
Trying to shut it down is the subject; they haven't shut it down and I don't know... I don't know...who knows? The ball is in the air. I speculate that they could succeed in shutting it down in the way it is now, by legislating against it and working the population into a frenzy of fear and loathing. So, that's why we did the Internet Filter, as we thought that, well, we didn't believe that that was a problem-that pornography was the problem; we never believed that, and we still don't believe that. As soon as we put up a website, we said 'we don't believe this'. We gave away our first version, Version 0, which is the equivalent of a popular program that's selling for $79.95, and we continue to give it away free for two reasons. One-in the tract we are on now, well, if seeing all this stuff is going to freak-out your kids and ruin your family life and destroy your world, then put this filter in your computer and you won't see it anymore. So, let everybody else do what they want. You are safe. The extended version we sold, because we wanted to make some money. And, it is still good. You can put it into your computer and your children will be safe, and your school will be safe, and you can put the Internet Filter in, or you can put Net Nanny in, or you can put Surf Watch in, or Cyber Sitter in, or Cyber Patrol in, or any one of these things. But, that doesn't end the problem you see, because that is not the problem.
Ms Scott:
Yes, but you can put the filter in; people who put the filter in, for example, for their children, are people who care about their children and what they are watching all the time. There are a lot of people out there who really don't understand what is going on and they just think, 'Oh great, this is getting them onto the Internet', and let them go for it. Is there some kind of way that you can get those people to understand the situation so that more people will put the filter on. You know, people whose kids are just sort of in their room for hours and hours doing they know not what.
Mr. TURNER:
Sue, I understand exactly what you are saying, and I don't have an Internet Filter on my computer and my children surf the Net with my computer. And, the only solution is to bring your kids up decently so they become decent human beings and know the difference between what is right and wrong, and what is good for you, and what is good for themselves, and not require it. But until that is taken, and until our culture goes, in a sense, to where parents are committed to take that responsibility to their children, we have Internet Filters.
Ms Scott:
Well, you may not have the filter on for your children, but I assume that you have already brought them up in a caring kind of environment, and I think all parents who sort of fit into that category will be the ones who get the filter right away, but people who, and there are people out there who aren't following their children quite so closely, and I can't see that they will use the filter anyway, so I don't see how the filter will work for them. I think legislation would be a better way to go.
Mr. TURNER:
Well, I totally, totally disagree with that. I think we have a tool here for those who need it. We are talking 'institutions' here Sue, is what we are doing here, and we are talking about the 'institution' of family and I may have been privileged, lucky, or blessed, I don't know what, but I don't feel that my children require a filter. So that's individual to me, but there's an obvious need in the community for other people. But, let's go one institution up in the child-care-vulnerable-game, and let's go to schools. Schools have a unique problem in the sense that they are legally and physically liable for a community of people which is statistically a bell-curve. So you are going to have some really terrific kids, and you are going to have some real snots in the extreme ends of the bell-curve, and it grays in the middle by statistical definition. So, what does the school do? It wants to put the Internet into it's culture; it wants to use the Internet for education; it wants to use the Internet for resource. It cannot afford to trust the body of children because it is a legal institution with a legal position. It can't let those who will run amok, run amok. It cannot do that. I really don't know what they are going to do. They are flirting with filtering systems and I have been in contact with other companies (we are doing about the same as they are) and one of the things they can do is strike a committee-that's good for six months-then they can strike another committee. So, we don't know which way they are going to move.
My feeling is they will filter and the filter I have proposed is a second generation product of ours called, IF ONLY. The plan is to collect good sites only; to collect a world database free to the world, of good sites and to enlist the aid of the schools internationally to create such a database. This would have the following function. It would enable the schools to use the Internet to teach how to use digital communications while in an absolute fail-safe way, minimize their risk. The kids take those skills; they go home to that other institution, the institution of the family, and the family takes care of that. The family has the power to say, 'my kid will run amok; or my kid will not run amok'; it is the parents' responsibility. I think this is doable; I think this is good. It will take a lot of good will of a lot of good people. There is one thing I have learned about the Internet - there are a lot of good people out there. I will tell you, and I may be off track here, but this is a really interesting piece of information. In dealing with eighteen months now on the Net selling this stuff, and giving this stuff away, not one person has bounced a cheque; not one person has failed to follow through with what they are doing and what they said they would do. If I owned a store-front, there's no way that would happen. I have a couple of friends who own store-fronts, and through shoplifting, they are being robbed blind. That's where we are now. Not one deal has gone sour. It's just been fine with an incredible group of people out there.
Ms Delaney:
I just wanted to say that that is the pre-existing Internet culture that I was talking about. It is this ethics of sharing and being able to help other people for no benefit to yourself other than to just share information. For people who have been on the Internet a long time, they will understand. There are a lot of people who might not understand why the schools want to get the children on the Internet, and the only analogy I can think of is, it is like not being able to use the library. If you can't use the Internet, it's like not being able to use the library ten to fifteen years ago. There is so much information out there; there's also a very good culture out there.
Clinton Hussey:
This is your moderator, Clinton Hussey, speaking. Bob, I find it very interesting that your company and your partner, Jeff Koftinoff, have taken it upon yourselves to be very open and sharing with competitors in your business, including links to their sites off your web site, and exposing the broad spectrum of players in the filtering business. You make mention of second generation software and the second generation of filtering, and there seems to be some dark implications, even to the sound of 'second generation' filtering. Do you think you can tell us a bit more about it?
Mr. TURNER:
Sure Clint. It is actually semi-easy to be generous to the competitors for a couple of reasons. One is that it is a big ol' world out there, and in actual fact, we don't even have marketing - we've got distribution to some extent - but we are playing a difference game. The second generation is actually the game we are playing and we could hyper-link to everybody in that one easily because there isn't anybody else there. The second generation is expressed in the product I mentioned before called IF RESEARCHER, which means - if your boss buys this and puts it in the computer, then everything you do goes into the database and you may or may not know it is there. So there are issues connected to this one. I think you can plainly see that. I would furthermore speculate that there will be other companies doing these kinds of products, and the pack will form around this, and they will be very popular. It is a colour of the world that we are going to go into with this technology.
Ms. Delaney:
I think there are two sides to this story. One one hand, putting into the same category as, you know, testing employees for drug usage and things like that, there is a certain limitation on the employee's freedom. But, I have noticed like sometimes I've been on the chat channels at two in the morning and there have been people in Switzerland who've had to sign off because the boss is coming. So, it is a question of who owns the employee's time.
Mr. TURNER:
Well, yes. You know, I don't even have an opinion about that. I am just going to weiner-out here. What I can say is that I really don't know, nor have I actually given that my brain space. Where I have put my brain space, is that I accept it as a fact that developing this is a worthwhile endeavour, and I believe in strategic interactions in the sense that if you all know that everything is being uploaded, if we all know our phones are being tapped, (and this is the level of it), if we all know our phones are being tapped, then we behave very differently on those telephones. That's a more comfortable image isn't it? Forget about the computer and let's use the phone as a metaphor. Now, historically speaking 'authority' (wherever there's legitimate authority) and your question, and why I begged it, is that you are questioning whether the boss has legitimate authority, and I don't know whether he does or not, and what boss, and who. If your boss was J.Edgar Hoover, he probably would have legitimate authority in the sense that it is legal; in the sense that he feels he does. So, I don't know who your boss is, or whether or not he has legitimate authority, but where authority has power, they have always tapped the telephone if they wanted to.
Ms. Delaney:
They don't even have to tap the telephone. I am just thinking of the theory of the penopticon that is the origin of the watchtower in penal institutions where they discovered that if people thought they were being watched, they would behave themselves regardless of whether they were watched or not. So, one the problems with the Internet is the fact you can't keep track of the sixty million people and what they are doing - it is really hard to do even if you have got the information on a database. But, if they think surveillance is being done, they will behave themselves.
Mr. TURNER:
Well, IF RESEARCHER, doesn't do surveillance on the Internet. IF RESEARCHER surveys up to five hundred computers in the Internet, or in a system. It is not the Internet in general; it just does not do that. What it does, is that if you've got a large company with one, two, three hundred work terminals, it will survey those work terminals. It will, in effect, tap those up-to-five-hundred computers. Whether your boss has the authority or not, I will give a web site where he can get this software.
Ms Delaney:
Yes, but extrapulate back for a moment; back to our original discussion about the media and the control that they can have over the masses. If people thought they were being watched, their behaviour would change you know, this is one possibility I am extrapulating from your software.
Mr. TURNER:
I think that is my point.
Ms Delaney:
So, I suppose the ethical question with IF RESEARCHER, if you are selling it to companies, is if they will load this on and let it be known throughout the company that this is what has happened, rather than secretly load it on to, in essence, spy on their employees.
Mr. TURNER:
That would be the ethical question, yes. I have no control over that, nor do I want to have any. My ethical position is somewhat self-serving, albeit it's like,- we make hammers and if you want to buy a hammer, here's a hammer. So you can build a house with that hammer, or bash your spouse's brains in with the hammer. It is not really something I consider when I am making a hammer.
Clinton Hussey:
All of this makes me think of George Orwell's ominous novel "1984" and the Big Brother being constantly in everybody's life, and nobody having any moments of privacy. I'm just wondering if any of you other panel members, Bob, Brenda, and Sue, have any thoughts on where you think this is going and what our world is going to be like twenty-four months from now.
Mr. TURNER:
It is interesting that you mention that. Big Brother is not watching us; we are watching Big Brother, and we are watching him on T.V., and we are watching him on the Internet. As the house of cards builds, as the direction of the Internet moves, as we surf, we go to the bigger, bigger, bigger sites. They are Big Brother. We are watching Big Brother. It's a boom culture, boom, boom, boom - just like that car that pulls up beside you on the road. It's Reboks, it's the right car; it's the hat and the outfit worn backwards; it's the boom culture. How do you get to be part of that culture? You watch. You, we, watch Big Brother.
Clinton Hussey:
That's today, Bob, but twenty-four months from now, with the implications of monitoring software, invasive monitoring of software, what do you think our world would be like. And, I would like to hear a comment from yourself, and from Brenda, and from Sue.
Mr. TURNER:
The Information Highway will be the surveillance.
Ms Delaney I still think that decentralization is an important aspect of what's happening, and I think there's going to be a way around it, one way or another. Legislation is probably going to happen, but what we have to do is educate the legislators.
Mr. TURNER:
Well, Brenda, there's an interesting thing which I have as a self-evident truth, and I can even cite my experiences with this security software as part of it. The people that know; the people who are privy to the truth about something, cannot speak about it. I've spoken openly since I got into this thing and as I am signing deals, there is less and less I can say. If I become successful in a large way, I won't be able to say anything. I will give you an example. I was listening to talk-radio and there was a P.R. guy on for the police force doing P.R. stuff for the police. It was really, really wimpy, and I thought, well, this is interesting because here's a guy who knows what's going on; here's a guy who knows what the crime rate is like; here's a guy who knows how many police are corrupt; here's a guy who knows what's going on. And absolutely, absolutely for sure, one hundred per cent, you can say that he can't say a word about it. Why? Because he knows about it. What's the price of his knowledge? He can't talk about it. If he was to blurt out what's going on, the end of him. The price of knowing is you can't speak.
MODERATOR:
Well, it's been a very interesting discussion, and on behalf of the Vancouver P.C. Users' Society, I'd like to thank you, you panel members, and thank you, Bob, for your time and your insight.
