From: Alan Olsen <alano@teleport.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:52:11 +0800
To: Arun Mehta <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: [Noise] [Smut] [Off-topic] Re: A Global Village, or the future of porn on the net
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960725070145.00d77a58@mail.teleport.com>
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At 08:04 AM 7/25/96 +0600, Arun Mehta wrote:
>At 10:00 24/07/96 +0000, Alex F wrote:
>>
>>why is it that Bill(ary) signed an unconstitutional law?  I 
>>am referring to the CDA and the telephony bill. 
>
>... arguments that I wholeheartedly support deleted..
>
>>Anyway, getting off-topic again.  I'll be quiet now :)
>
>Let me see if I can bring this back on track. We have some interesting
>developments that could converge:
>
>1) Legally, the Internet is more or less in the clear as far as indecency
>is concerned. The moralists will rally again and put through a bill that
>doesn't so blatantly violate the constitution, but for the time being
>we're OK.

Unless they start using prosecutions similar to what they pulled back during
the Meese years with video distributors.  I am waiting for them to start
using RICO laws on sites carrying Usenet groups deemed "obscene".  RICO has
already been used in some juristictions for shutting down video stores (and
maybe even bookstores).  It is not over yet...

The control freaks will not be happy until everything you view and see has
previously been approved by some board or ministry.  (Or they at least have
some way of hurting you if you step out of line.)  Whether that control
freak behaviour is driven by religion, morality, "your own good", greed,
power or lust does not matter.  the results are pretty much that same.

>2) Porn is very, very popular. As a consultant, I often use Netscape from
>the offices of my clients, and invariably take a peek at the bookmarks. 
>Guess what is  pointed to more than anything else. By making a hullaballoo
>about porn on the net, its enemies may have shot themselves in the foot:
>it will attract people rather than repel.

But there is a social stigma surrounding porn.  Most people who look at porn
are not willing to admit it in front of friends and family.  many of the
more vocal opponnents to porn are the ones most attracted to it.  Look at
jimmy Swagart.  He crusaded against it for years.  Never stopped "Lonesome
Cowboy Jim" (5 point if you can name that album and artist) from wanking off
to it...

>3) Porn on the net by and large isn't all that great, so if there is a risk, 
>it is that people might be bored. What you mostly have are stills of nudes
>on the web and Usenet postings of indifferent quality.

Depends where you go.  Most of the Usenet stuff is crap, but that is true of
any medium.  (It is called a medium becuase it is rarely well done. (Stolen
line...  Forget the original author.))  There are exceptions.  Usenet will
give you smut that may (or is) illegal in your area.  Some of this sort of
stuff can be mail ordered, but there is more risk.  (Like postal service
stings/entrapment and the like.)

There is much better quality available on the pay sites, but since you
usually have to pay to view any of it, you never know what is available
until you have forked out a bit of cash.  (I am surprised I have not seen
more sites using e-cash for this purpose...  Porn drove the VCR industry for
many years.  I expect the same for the web and e-cash.)

>4) the web is changing from static to dynamic through Java and the like. 
>VRML in fact adds a 3-D element.

Most pay-for-porn sites are going for interactive video instead of java
and/or vrml.  (Yes, you can pay $$$ to duplicate the experience of a stroke
booth via the net.  All you lack is the resolution, the interaction, and the
requisite sleeze of the experience.  Dancers the size of postage stamps!  Wow!)

>Stir, add some spicy curry, and see if you get:
>
>Java classes for males and females corresponding to VRML
>objects. The class methods might include kissing, hugging,
>spanking, restraining...

Might be interesting...  This is more evident in CD-ROMs though.

>A female object might be  initialized with Hillary Clinton's face,
Evangelista's
>body... 

I think that was the cover of Spy magazine...

>Anyone could now write a script which you could view enacted on
>your screen, or interact with one another as in MUDs. Why,
>someone might write a translator 
>that takes a story off alt.sex.whatever and produces
>an appropriate script. People would only need to download the software and
>appropriate objects once, then receive emscripts which could be
>run in total privacy.

"Be a Great porn Actor at Home!"  Reenact bad plots, cheezy dialog, and bad
writing in the privacy of your living room!

>People should we willing to pay small amounts for use of the
>classes and objects,
>as well as for the scripts. Of course, it would only work in our
>prudish societies if
>the transactions were totally anonymous. If Digicash payment
>systems were built-in,
>that might be a reason for people to start adopting eCash.

Well, if it is something that will cause arousal in male humans (or computer
geeks), I am sure you can sell it.

>Of  course, this opens up a whole can of worms. For instance,
>given the violence of
>many pornographic stories on Usenet, it won't be long before
>famous personalities
>routinely get violated in cyberspace. Talk about copyright: do
>you have the right
>to prevent someone from doing this to you?

Porn stories and/or hacked pictures of celebrities already occurs.  Has
since I have been on usenet...  (Many years now.)  One of my favorites
involves the Brady Bunch...  In fact there are celebrities who have hired
people to track down phoney pictures and get them pulled from web sites.

(I always expected something like this to show up on Star Trek:TNG.  Having
Beverly Crusher catching Weasly with the holodeck porn programs involving
all sorts of convelutions of the bridge crew.  He would probibly blame it on
Riker...)

>I unfortunately lack  the bandwidth to find out the extent to
>which porn on the net
>is already moving in this direction. However, if you have
>pointers, I'll go *find*
>the bandwidth! Where on the net do people discuss such matters?

Bandwidth is the only thing preventing the smut from getting farther than it
already has.  The easiest way to kill a web server is put porn on it and
advertise.  All of the schemes coming out for "cool gee-whiz web extensions"
take more bandwidth than most people have...  Just wait and see what happens
when cable modems become available.

Check out the alt.sex heirarchy.  Something there I am sure...

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