From: "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle@mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 13:29:58 +0800
To: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: misunderstandings of PICS
Message-ID: <9605072131.AA20062@rpcp.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 01:19 PM 5/7/96 -0700, you wrote:

>well, in any case the idea that there should ever be any pressure
>of page designers to include certain tags I find wholly inconsistent
>with the original PICS proposal and rather abhorrent. unfortunately
>it may be unavoidable.

        I understand at one level, but not the visceral response.

>my fear is that the supposed "failure" of self-ratings could be twisted
>by its opponents as evidence that it is inadequate to deal with the
>real problem.

        I think your fears are a little too paranoid here, but maybe they
aren't. The question is how much of this hoopola stems from fundamentalist
thought police, or concerned but ignorant parents/congressmen. If
self-labeling worked (which I see few cases in which it wouldn't) I can't
see the concerned but ignorant being unhappy. Rather they'd be a bit better
educated and feeling pretty secure their kids won't get their hands on
naughty material. And then if self labeling had some failures, that's an
incentive for others to provide third party services (as others have
argued). PICS had to sell itself to the net as much as to the masses.
Self-labeling appeals to the net, it may appeal to the masses, but there are
other things in there to sweeten the deal for them if not.

>I am not against self-ratings, I'm just saying that they seem to
>be the area most ripe for being misunderstood by the public, or
>lead to undesirable situations, and this is already happening.

        Then we should help educate the public. I dislike dumbing the net
down for the masses.

        The real question here -- as far as the public having a fit -- is
the use of digital signatures in the labels. I expect we will not see
signatures used in the first generation of label services or ?compliant?
browsers. Just like ecommerce, it takes a break or catastrophe to get people
to move in a constructful manner on the security front. 
_______________________
Regards,       Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues,
               and can moderate their desires more than their words. -Spinoza
Joseph  Reagle      http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html
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