Rich writes:

...

It's good to see they make at least an attempt at preventing the PICS filter from being turned off without a password.

True, but my point was stronger.

The program *will not work* if there have been even inadvertent changes to the self-censorship files. This person emailed me because he couldn't get it to work after an unrelated change.

My original response was really just meant as humor. (The other paragraph in particular.) I'm of the school that ratings are a profoundly useless idea for their supposed purpose, and dangerous in their possible misuse by the government.

This sort of contradicts Microsoft's claims that they don't require ratings because they're turned off by default. If the file can't fix itself, I'd say that's not "default."

If a user randomly deletes parts of an application and it stops working I'm afraid the fault is entirely with the user. Reinstalling the damaged software would seem the obvious answer.

Sorry, I didn't get the context across. Read it again alongside this:

http://pathfinder.com/Netly/daily/961213.html

That article say in part, "Microsoft has indicated that future generations may well come out of the box with RSAC-i, by default, activated." I follow Microsoft's strategy and announcements very closely and as far as I can tell this is sheer fabrication. The closest thing they've announced (and shipped) is the IE Admin Kit that lets a corporation build a custom version of IE with the settings to their liking. I can't find any fault with that. regards -Blake (who's played apologist to Rich's MS-bashing before)