Re: Free speech debate on MSN Encarta
At 10:17 PM 3/21/96, Raph Levien wrote:
So here's a random idea: have an ISP that essentially firewalls the Internet connection to the house, so that it is very difficult to get unwanted stuff over the wire at all. The ISP can maintain and update the latest high-tech tools, including filtering by URL, filtering by keyword, and other stuff like detecting proxies. While they're at it, they can filter out junk email.
This is easily done from a technical standpoint. There is a set of patches for the CERN server that lets you have it automatically delete advertisments from certain prominent sites (used to be called NoShit, I heard they changed the name) when you're running in proxy mode. You can even have it change profanity into "EXON EXON" on the fly. Running something like this is probably a good thing for the ISP as running a cache will allow them to get more mileage out of their net connection. However, I don't think it likely that many ISPs will go this route from a liability point of view - if some parent is paying them to filter out smut, and little Zippy finds a brand new x-rated site, chances are some irate parent will sue them. With the proliferation of new pages, it is impossible for anyone to keep up, unless the authors voluntarily include some smutscan codes in their pages.
Raph (whose son, Alan Mathison, was born Sunday morning at 5:01 am)
Congrats. Joseph Block <jpb@miamisci.org> "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ..." -- Bill Clinton (USA TODAY, 11 March 1993, page 2A) PGP 2048bit-Fingerprint: F8 A2 A5 15 56 42 9B 16 3F BD 57 0F 8A ED E3 21 No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sat, 23 Mar 1996, Joe Block wrote:
This is easily done from a technical standpoint. There is a set of patches for the CERN server that lets you have it automatically delete advertisments from certain prominent sites (used to be called NoShit, I heard they changed the name) when you're running in proxy mode. You can even have it change profanity into "EXON EXON" on the fly. Running something like this is probably a good thing for the ISP as running a cache will allow them to get more mileage out of their net connection.
However, I don't think it likely that many ISPs will go this route from a liability point of view - if some parent is paying them to filter out smut, and little Zippy finds a brand new x-rated site, chances are some irate parent will sue them. With the proliferation of new pages, it is impossible for anyone to keep up, unless the authors voluntarily include some smutscan codes in their pages.
Couldn't the proxy be configured to deny access to all "unrated" pages? Of course, this would mean that some kind of standardized web page rating system be devised; however, I think there are already several proposals for rating schemes. BTW, does anyone know how such a proxy system could be used in all Internet traffic, not just the web. It is not very difficult to get a gopher client or telnet client to communicate with a web server, bypassing any access restrictions. ObCrypto: The next step would be a rating system using digital signatures and the proxy software being setup to trust certain signatures more than others. - --Mark =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= markm@voicenet.com | finger -l for PGP key 0xf9b22ba5 http://www.voicenet.com/~markm/ | bd24d08e3cbb53472054fa56002258d5 "The concept of normalcy is just a conspiracy of the majority" -me -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBMVSsCbZc+sv5siulAQFJWQP/cA4Mmciv8u6InH/8cXU9aq36qLCKVUQT Y/uhpWJXfWd1gdv8+TanIYFj6oSoLSMCmqk/Q71bICajajrz1znyyNWT+S0X1hE/ maXQriu5CW1bj7ncA6L9Eb8Snk95ARiOSE2lPlfTcKq0jOwxsDVD6QrliBrYHpuW AuW5Ml57JUE= =z174 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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Mark M.