From: Information Security <guy@panix.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 00:53:42 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Internet Watch Foundation reports child nudity as illegal!!
Message-ID: <199801051639.LAA26491@panix2.panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



   >   From jrg@blodwen.demon.co.uk Mon Jan  5 05:57:11 1998
   >   
   >   Information Security <The@NSA.sucks> writes:
   >   > Can anyone not biased like Paul "British Twit of the Month" Allen
   >   > confirm the two jpg's now visible at <http://www.panix.com/~guy>
   >   > are in Demon's alt.binaries.pictures.nudism Usenet group?
   >   
   >   too late to check/ a right pain to check anyway bearing in mind how
   >   much is probably available in that group.
   >   
   >   Give some message-ids and it's very easy to check if they are and grab
   >   the headers of the messages from them (if you're really interested in
   >   how they got here, etc.)

My interest has blown over.

PICSRules is a political response to government pressure.

IWF immediately began watching for KiddiePorn and notifying
IWF member organizations (and police) about such posts.

Members are given the MD5 of the post to automatically
delete it when next seen, in addition to the first deletion.

The only thing "watch" organizations are good for is
spotting "controversial" material.

Demon/IWF's Clive Feather:
 
:     Some subscribers to IWF have asked to be notified of certain other
:     classes of material, since they *do* choose to censor and not carry
:     more than just material that is illegal to possess. Demon is not one
:     of these ISPs.

So, IWF supports labeling/spotting of controversial material
for the purposes of censorship, beyond what is illegal.

Thus, the IWF is not going to get anywhere with PICSRules.

No way in hell can they label all of the Net.

Usenet content is produced at a furious rate: it cannot be rated
until it has already expired off of most servers.

Rate WWW? Most are business: who cares about advertising/support?

Any page with a counter on it won't verify the MD5 taken when
it was "rated"...

PICSRules is a political prank on the politicians.

Kind of like The Jetsons was an educational show about the future.

What *is* happening are groups forming to censor material;
funded by governments...

#   http://192.215.107.71/wire/news/june/0630ratings.html
#
#   The Internet Watch Foundation, has already submitted a funding
#   request to the European Commission.
#
#   "Whatever happens, we will carry on trying to get the funding
#   we need," Kerr said. "These things cost money, and we have not
#   got all the money we need", said David Kerr, chief executive
#   of the British-based Internet Watch Foundation

This will probably keep expanding; Germany IWF to zap Nazi logos,
Israel IWF to zap revisionist history, Muslim IWF to zap heresy, etc.

---guy

   The never-ending joke: Dimitry "I suck my male students" Vulis