IP: Request for help --- More on "British Association lecture on

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 13:08:52 +0100
To: farber () central cis upenn edu
From: Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk (Brian Randell)


Dave:


The media here are, as I feared would happen, having a field day following
Harold Thimbleby's lecture at the  BA Conference. I attach another example
of the sort of report that is being printed - this was from The
Independent, I believe.


I'd be grateful if any of your IPers could provide pointers to any
*scientifically-rigorous* surveys of the level of (mis)usage of the
Internet that could be used to rebut (or buttress, if this happens to be
appropriate) Thimbleby's statistics, either as given in the quotations on
the article below, or in his paper, which is at


http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/research/village.html


Cheers


Brian


=======




Pornography most popular subject for Internet searches


STEVE CONNOR Science Correspondent


'Much of it makes adult shops in Soho look tame'


Pornographic "sites" on the Internet are by far the most popular visiting
places in cyberspace, according to an analysis of thousands of computer
searches around the world. Nearly half of the most repeated searches on the
worldwide network of computers were for pornography, Harold Thimbleby,
Professor of Computing Research at Middlesex University, told the British
Association meeting in Newcastle upon Tyne.


"A surprisingly high proportion of searches . . . are for such material.
The numbers are not as important as the ease with which you can find it. My
nine-year-old son, if he wanted to, could find this material," Professor
Thimbleby said.


"The Internet has been called a global electronic village. If so, most of
it is a heavily used red-light district. Too few people are providing any
other interesting or useful services on the Internet."


Although some people see the Internet as providing an information-rich
Utopia, the reality is quite different, he said. "The Internet brings
pornography and computer viruses; it tells you how to take drugs and make
bombs. These things aren't necessarily what you want in Utopia."


Professor Thimbleby said there was a plethora of hardcore pornography which
was easily available through the Internet. "Much of it makes adult shops in
London's Soho look very tame indeed. Material includes high-quality
graphics, instructions, stories, sounds, movies, shop catalogues ... for
both conventional sexual interests as well as all variations."


In his research he found "very disturbing" material, such as instructions
for killing children. "Overtly sexual pornography is not the only problem.
The Internet has information on every activity that Amnesty International
and, I believe, all sensible humans, would wish to eliminate from the
planet."


Professor Thimbleby found that one in 10 shops using the Internet sold
erotica and 10 per cent of computer bulletinboards were pornographic. "Of
an analysis of searches made with a Web 'search engine' [which looks for
key words] by people all around the world, 47 percent  of the 11,000
most-repeated searches were pornographic. Like everything else, this is a
subjective estimate because, for example, I counted searches for 'hardcore'
but I did not count searches for 'gay' or 'lesbian'."


Professor Thimbleby said there was no reliable way "technical or otherwise"
to detect or intercept pornography.


Pornographers were already using uncrackable encryption techniques to make
material inaccessible to people who did not have the right keys to break
the encoded information.


If more material of a more edifying nature were made available, then
pornography on the Internet might take a fringe role rather than being a
mainstream activity, he said. "The Internet has very little interesting
material, it needs more. When it has more, it is just possible that
pornography will slip into its statistically appropriate place, one aspect
of humanity, but not the most prominent on the Internet."


Schools are interested in getting on to the Internet for all the good
things if offers, he said. "But they need to be made aware that it is not
just good things."


Dept. of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/