From: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 14:51:40 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: V-chip?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960124174011.17116A-100000@echo.sound.net>
Message-ID: <199601250433.UAA12187@netcom19.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


oO F145C0 Oo <fiasco@echo.sound.net> writes:

 > Apparently the US government is planning on starting up its
 > V-chip program again, which will allow public/cable TV to be
 > censored at will. What does everyone thing about this ploy?

 > And whats next? Chips in my radio, to prevent music, or a
 > chip in my phone to make sure i dont call anyone bad? The
 > V-chip is just as much a privacy/1st amendment violation as
 > the clipper chip is/was. I believe the worst part of the
 > V-chip plan, is to force all new TV's manufactured or
 > imported to the US, to have this new chip. Could this chip
 > even be part of a Chinese lottery?

As I understand it, the basic concept behind the V-Chip is to
allow selective blocking of material a particular viewer might
find offensive based on content information transmitted along
with the program.  As long as the program material itself is
transmitted unaltered, and there are multiple non-governmental
providers of content descriptions catering to the spectrum of
human likes and dislikes, this sounds like ideal Cypherpunk
technology.

Concerned Parent can set the V-Chip to read from the Children's
Television Workshop content service, available for a small
monthly fee, and be certain that graphic violence and sex are
pixelated on screen, and that bleep words that the child might
practice in front of Grandma are garbled.

Mr. Islamic Fanatic can filter out all blasphemy against Allah
and his one and only prophet, pork commercials, and women showing
more than 100 square centimeters of exposed epidermis.  Uncle
Ernie can program his set to beep loudly when shots of nude
adolescent boys are about to appear in foreign films.  Everyone
has a filter which they can tune for their own viewing and
listening enjoyment, and a free market system of content
description services will cater to every conceivable taste.

What are the dangers of this new technology?

First, the government might want only one description of content,
which it controls.  My notion of what is offensive probably
differs greatly from that of Jesse Helms, for instance.

Second, once content descriptions become available, they might be
used to control content at the transmission end, not the viewing
end.  Congress could mandate that the same information that Uncle
Ernie uses to alert himself to "interesting" scenes, be used at
the transmitting end to pixelate the same material. V-Chips for
consumer products are our friend. V-Chips for broadcasters and
publishers are not.

It should be noted that the V-Chip is currently vaporware, and
exists only in the minds of politicians.  There probably will
never be an actual "V-Chip", just a little additional software in
our already heavily computerized televisions, radios, and
personal computers.

One desirable side effect of the V-Chip.  It will probably have
the effect of extinguishing hysterical reactions to nudity, sex,
bleep words, and special effects violence, by allowing people to
gradually increase what they are exposed to as they become
tolerant of it.  Sort of the opposite of aversion therapy.

Perhaps in the distant future, the population will wonder what
the thing was ever used for, and why anyone bothered to develop
it.

Just a few random thoughts...

--
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $