Interesting and well-written piece. Followups, if any, will be at http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/top/ I assume that Declan is just observing how Safesurf operates. My view is that these private "decency" registries are a healthy part of the free market. Of course the "Angels" are a bunch of hypocrites, but the part about rating sites I support. Let the prudes censor themselves; it's a free net. If anyone tries to sabotage Safesurf by rating things the "wrong" way, then they're an asshole. (I am *not* accusing Declan of advocating this, because he isn't -- it's just something that crossed my mind. Tempting, but highly counterproductive.) -rich ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 01:43:25 -0400 (EDT) From: "Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU> To: Fight Censorship Mailing List <fight-censorship+@andrew.cmu.edu> Cc: angels@wavenet.com, mnemonic@well.com, cp@panix.com Subject: Guardian angels, the decency brigade, and cyberseraphim Attached is a message from the CyberAngels asking for rating volunteers. Jim Thomas published a fascinating and illuminating article documenting the seamier side of these self-appointed net.vigilantes in the Computer underground Digest earlier this year. (I vaguely remember some legal threats soon afterwards.) Their authoritarian and anti-privacy leanings are clear in their FAQ, at <http://www.safesurf.com/cyberangels/>: 9) What kinds of changes would the Guardian Angels / CyberAngels like to see? a) We would like to see an improvement in User identification. User ID is impossible to verify or trace back. The very anonymity of Users is itself causing an increase in rudeness, sexual abuse, flaming, and crimes like pedophile activity. We the Net Users must take responsibility for the problem ourselves. One of our demands is for more accountable User IDs on the Net. When people are anonymous they are also free to be criminals. In a riot you see rioters wearing masks to disguise their true identity. So much for anonymous remailers! But the CyberAngels, in a fit of almost painful hypocrisy, use anonymous remailers themselves, as Charles Platt recounts in his book _Anarchy Online_: How would this decency crusade actually work in practice? Well, later in 1995, one net user received the following not-very-friendly, not-very-literate warning, sent via an anonymous remailer: The Net is out of control, sex crimes, hate crimes and felonies. Just as on the streets, CyberCrime is committed by a minority of criminals who destroy the quality of life for an innocent majority. And just like on the streets the Guardian Angels will combat it. We have good reason to believe that you are involved in unlawful, harmful, hateful, threatening and/or harassment, particularly relating to minors. We will be watching you. The netizen who found this in her mailbox was baffled and irritated. She had no idea what she'd done to provoke the warning, and since the message was anonymous, there was no way to _find out_ what she was supposed to have done. By November, the Angels claimed they had 200 volunteers working for them, busily searching for bad guys on the net. "We have reported a number of Child Pornographers (50) to Sysadmins [system administrators] this month," Colin Hatcher noted, although he was no longer signing his real name to his progress reports, perhaps in fear of reprisals from angry pedophiles. "Letters we have received back all share our concern and promise stern action. Remember, each electronic image represents a real life destroyed." [...] Some net users wondered, though, if Hatcher was qualified to draw a dividing line between good and bad, let alone ugly. They also worried that decency vigilantes might have a chilling effect on freedom of speech. A student at Rutgers University complained that some of the Angels' public statements "are threats to violate the civil liberties of users of the Internet." In addition, he said, "the record of the Guardian Angels suggests that they will step over even the bounds that they publicly set for themselves." And, as Steven Levy wrote in Newsweek last October: "After the issue of child safety in cyberspace came up on his radio talk show, [Curtis] Sliwa decided to pursue in his usual high-profile fashion... Though the CyberAngels cannot document a single case where one of their numerous reports led directly to an arrest, they have compiled a fat file of press clippings." In the attached piece, the Angels hold themselves up as the arbiter of what is appropriate for kids or not under the Safesurf system. So far so good -- but what criteria do they use when checking to see if a site is "genuinely kidsafe?" Where is it documented and published? What training do their self-selected vigilantes have? Will the fight-censorship list be blocked when we have messages like this one on it: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/asst/anti_porn_group_11_22_94.letter -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Those orphan kids in the terminally ill section of the hospital are so fun at night when they are drugged out. I love sucking on their tiny finger-sized cocks and probing their tight holes. Their slender little bodies are completely smooth. They're going to die pretty soon so they won't come back to me several years from now as hairy grown up men blaming me for why they are all mentally messed up. And since they are orphans with no one to look over them except for overworked staff, I could get away with just about anything. Since blocking software like Safesurf and SurfWatch is central to our case challenging the CDA, I believe we should support that software and PICS-like third paty rating systems. Fortunately, that doesn't mean we have to accept or support the efforts of their unfortunate and intemperate net-vigilante allies. But I still want to help rate some web pages, so ---- "Gabriel," I want to be a CyberAngel. Sign me up! -Declan (now a CyberSeraphim) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 19:11:16 -0700 From: angels@wavenet.com Subject: ALERT FOR 20 VOLUNTEERS! APPEAL FOR VOLUNTEERS Hi again everyone. I have a project that requires 20 volunteers. Read on! Most of you I hope are familiar with Safesurf - if not go visit them at http://www.safesurf.com Safesurf are not a commercial software company but are a kidsafe organization who are very involved in the ratings issue for kids and adult material on the Net. Safesurf are also our allies, and it is thanks to them that we have our website at all as it was a donation from Ray and Wendy at Safesurf. Safesurf have a very positive approach to the screening debate - they have developed a rating system whereby instead of spending time rating adult sites you focus instead on rating the kids sites. Then your screening software only allows you to visit sites with the Safesurf rating on it. This is an excellent concept, not least because it doesn't then matter if new sites come onto the web that are not rated yet, because nothing can be included in your screened browser unless it registers itself as kidsafe by marking its site with a safesurf rating mark. Don't worry about my ramblings - just go to their site and read up on it. It's a really positive concept and has been adopted by a lot of sites already. Adopting the Safesurf mark is voluntary and means that you are identifying your site as suitable for e.g. kids. Now here comes the appeal. Several thousand sites have already marked themselves as Safesurf rated - and more are registering every day. The question is - what is to stop a site registering as a kidsafe site, but in reality being an adult site? The Safesurf rating method is that sites can obtain the rating from the Safesurf site and then write in and register themselves. Isn't it possible that a site could claim to be kidsafe but in reality was adult? The answer is yes. So how can Safesurf be sure that sites registered with them are indeed genuinely kidsafe? Simple - someone has to go and check out all the sites who register with Safesurf. Ray had a proposal for me. How about if we could say that all these sites were "Rated by Safesurf, and patrolled by CyberAngels"? I thought that was a great idea - for we CyberAngels to help Safesurf in this way, by checking their sites for them. Ray is proposing to send me 200 sites a week to check out and we will share them out to a CyberAngels team of 20 volunteers - that means that each one of us would volunteer to check out 10 sites per week. Easy right? I want to make something very clear - Safesurf are not a rich commercial company making money from rating sites. They are not selling software and their rating code is free to anyone who wants it. So it's not like they can hire 20 people and pay them to patrol the Safesurf Intranet - it's a volunteer job. So there you are - I am looking for 20 CyberAngel volunteers to make up a regular Safesurf "Intranet" Patrol, with the mission to visit 10 URLs a week and make sure that they are what they say they are. Who's ready? Once I have the team established I will then brief you all on how we do this. Write to me as soon as possible if this interests you. Let's show Safesurf how much we support their positive stand for our InterNet kids! I will take the first 20 volunteers who contact me (yes you will be suitably honored - publicly if you so choose!) Gabriel