From: thad@hammerhead.com (Thaddeus J. Beier)
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 19:31:51 -0800 (PST)
To: Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: PICS is not censorship
Message-ID: <199612090318.TAA02510@hammerhead.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.netcom.com> says:

> ..Do you agree that sites that deliberately mislabel their
> content, will eventually face legal action? If so, then PICS should not be
> considered truly voluntary.

I think that most of the PICS labels that are on web pages will be those
generated by scripts from groups like RSACi. (http://www.rsac.org)
These groups have contracts that require you to not lie when you fill out their
questionnaires, and if you do lie, you are in breach of contract and should expect
to be sued by them.

These companies should create a cryptographic signature for their labels,
I'm really surprised that RSACi doesn't do that yet; I don't know if other
PICS labelers do.

If you just make up your own PICS label, then I can't believe that you would
have any problems saying whatever you want.  Of course, it's likely that most
of the Surfwatch type programs will have options to block all pages without a
well-known label attached to it, and this will probably be the default in a
couple of years.

If this is the way it works out, then I'd consider this voluntary.  I think that
this is the way it will work out, too.

thad
-- Thaddeus Beier                     thad@hammerhead.com
   Visual Effects Supervisor                408) 287-6770
   Hammerhead Productions  http://www.got.net/people/thad