From: Secret Squirrel <nobody@secret.squirrel.owl.de>
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 10:45:40 +0800
To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: "Kids Safe" calls for mandatory blocking sw; op-ed on summit
Message-ID: <f59dcbd52e41361708587d5e106bc5dd@squirrel>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>   Dec. 5, 1997--Saying that we must protect children from the dangers of
>sexually explicit material on the Internet, a leading child-safety advocate
>Friday called on Congress to enact legislation to mandate that every
>computer sold in the United States by 1999 be outfitted with parental
>software that can block out sexually explicit or adult Web sites.

"Oh my gawd! A nipple! I'm harmed for life! I'm going to hell! Jesus doesn't
like this! All for a nipple!"

Um, yeah. And the far-right wackos strike again, this time in the guide of
"Kids Safe."

And now in addition to paying for Windoze when you buy a computer you get to
pay for censorware which you don't want. What if my machine comes with Linux
preinstalled? Is censorware still mandated? What if I deliberately come up
with a way to purposefully break the censorware every time they release it?
What if I come up with a way to get around the idiotware...err, censorware?

What if I specify that I don't want them to even TOUCH my hard drive -- just
stick it in the case and hand me the CDs? 

But the #1 reason this is stupid is: What keeps me from using an ActiveX
applet to exploit the "everyone is root" "feature" in Windows to remove the
censorware or, better yet, check to see if it is installed and horribly hose
the system? Granted nothing keeps me from destroying the system as it stands
now, but this just gives people a reason to do it other than the standard
(and justified) "Windows' point and click crap has destroyed the network." 

And of course there are two ways to use the actual ratings for civil
disobediance. You can either rate porn as "acceptable for children" or you
can rate *everything* as "hard-core XXX with graphic gunshots to the head, a
bunch of blood, and people cussing." The same applies for filters; I can
obsfuscate trigger words (i.e. "fuck" as "fsck" or "fuq") or I can
deliberately strewn them all over my pages so that people are, in effect,
FORCED to turn it off to read everything from a technical paper to a FAQ for
comp.lang.c.

One of these days these idiots are going to learn two things: 1) You can
successfully censor very little material, and 2) It pisses people off and
they go out of their way to offend and put up porn. Remember back during the
Exon debacle? Hell, porn was posted to Cypherpunks.