The Internet Filter

Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes in with with an essay that starts “On March 22nd, District Court Judge Lowell Reed ruled that the Child Online Protection Act was unconstitutional, partly because the judge called it “vague and overbroad”, and partly because less restrictive means existed, such as Internet blocking software. I’ll leave others to comment on the legal issues, but blocking software is something that I’ve studied, and it’s important to make sure this decision is not seen as some kind of vindication for the “censorware” industry.” Tap that link below to read the rest of his story.

check out former porn actress who is now a christian campaigning against porn: http://www.myspace.com/shelleylubben

Dirty Little Secret - Men aren’t the only ones lured by Internet porn. A revealing look at the shameful addictions of a rising number of Christian women. by Ramona Richards

34 %. That’s how many readers of Today’s Christian Woman’s online newsletter admitted to intentionally accessing Internet porn in a recent poll. While many women wrote in to explain they’d accessed these sites to better understand what was luring their husbands time and again, it was the other e-mails—from Christian women who shared about their own Internet porn addiction—that caught our attention. Apparently online sex addiction isn’t just a male problem anymore. Read on for startling statistics about this new phenomenon, personal insights from those who are hooked, information about pioneering ministries reaching out to these addicts, and hope that exists in the face of this disturbing trend.

Read Jeff Koftinoffs, author of one of the first internet filters comment http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/22/1424223

Begopa sends in word that a federal judge has struck down the Child Online Protection Act. The judge said that parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit others’ rights to free speech. This was the case for which the US Department of Justice subpoenaed several search companies for search records; only Google fought the order. The case has already been to the Supreme Court. Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. wrote in his decision: “Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection.”

As predicted here…no surprise.

MONTREAL – Live video software provider 2Much.net expressed “dismay and disappointment” at the decision by Canadian cellular provider Telus to drop adult content.

Telus would have been the first North American mobile service to offer adult content in the form of images and short video clips.

http://xbiz.com/pressrelease_piece.php?id=19783

Bennet sends out this story pasted below in increments below about a school board not allowing Al Gores “An Inconvenient Truth” to be shown because of a single complaint from the Creationist thrust. This has made me think of the twelve years I have known Bennet, not personally but through intermittent correspondence and a limited exchange. Bennet probably doesn’t know how much he has contributed to our project so I am writing this to tell him now.

Bennet is a founder of Peacefire an early investigative and advocative force describing the nature of the “evils ” of Internet

Hard to see how this is going to be a big success.

Only in Canada ?

“Telus, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications carrier has started selling pornography to its cellular subscribers. The service allows subscribers with mobile browsers to purchase both photographic and video adult-oriented content from Telus, at an average of CD$4 per download. Telus decided to introduce the service after noticing that there existed a certain ‘segment of the population that is interested in that content’ from review of the mobile Web browsing habits of their subscribers ‘on an aggregate level.’ They are the first telecommunications company in Canada to offer such content. A Telus spokesman said: ‘We’re fairly certain that if our competitors in Canada haven’t launched it, they will soon. Same in the US.’”

It strikes me that these two stories are going to relate.

How will parental Monitering and Blasphemy inter relate ?

How will the teenagers who will be the next generation going to “play this”?

“Following continuing pressure from politicians (and parts of the media), MySpace is planning to offer parents the chance to download software which will monitor aspects of their children’s activities on the social networking site.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Parents who install the monitoring software on their home computers would be able to find out what name, age and location their children are using to represent themselves on MySpace. The software doesn’t enable parents to read their child’s e-mail or see the child’s profile page and children would be alerted that their information was being shared. The program would continue to send updates about changes in the child’s name, age and location, even when the child logs on from other computers.

 It is getting Draconian out there folks...

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/13/0753209

"Norwich, Conn seventh grade teacher, Julie Amero has been convicted of four counts of risk of injury to a minor after her classroom PC displayed pornographic pop-ups in class. While an expert for the defendant said he had discovered spyware on her PC that had been downloaded from a hairstyling site, the local police investigator claimed that the spyware had been downloaded from actively visiting porn sites. Amero testified that she had told four other teachers and the assistant principal about the popups, but received no assistance. The school's internet filtration software was not working because it's license had expired. Amero faces up to forty years in prison."

Wired Magazine does an article about Vista. here is the relevant part about Internet Filtering.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/reviews/0,72295-1.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1

Parental Controls I turned on Vista's parental controls and selected them for my daughter's account. Access to certain websites -- as well as games with a mature rating -- could be blocked. When I tested this feature using my daughter's account, I found that English-language porn sites could not be accessed.

One flaw I found is that the website-blocking feature is not worth much in a multilingual home or office setting. Good ol' American porn sites were blocked, but I had carte blanche access to the raunchiest of raunchy French and Spanish sites. I was also able to use Google to search for vulgarities in those languages.