Re: V-chips, CC, and Motorcycle Helmets

17 Dec 2003

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The V-Chip is a political kluge, nothing more. It's a useless technology 
that at best will encourage lax parents to further surrender their kids 
to the neon-nanny.

And besides... why rate program just on violence?  Why not "quality" from 
a variety of orgs?  Other content ratings, from various organizations.  
And why limit it to ratings... why not a special subband of broadcast 
used for sending out schedule updates? Subtitles (in other languages, or 
English for foreign films...)? etc.? etc.? Chances are the V-Chip will 
interfere with any such expansions of TV capabilities in the future...

Then again, the heck with TV. I rarely watch it.  I prefer the radio 
myself... at least they didn't require V-Chips for that.  And with the 
Internet "expanding", chances are in a generation or two TV will be a 
dead technology.

Rob.

Timothy C. May wrote:
...
ObCypherpunks: A truly surprising number of people on this list are on the
one hand lambasting the government for thievery, incompetence, corruption,
and violation of their rights, while on the other hand explaining why they
think some particular intrusion is justified. We have people arguing for
mandatory V-Chips, for Data Privacy Inspection Services, for
anti-discrimination laws, and for government key signing services.
It's not a far jump from arguing any of these points to talking about the
"legitimate" (their term) needs of the government to ensure that encryption
is not used for criminal purposes, for kidnapping and extortion, for tax
evasion, etc.
People need to think about the powerful implications of strong crypto, and
decide if they are _for_ access to strong crypto by citizens, or _against_
it. All things follow from this decision.

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Deranged Mutant

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