IP: One in Twenty - the failure rate of censorware

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 22:32:45 -0400
> From: Jamie McCarthy <jamie () mccarthy org>
>
> The Censorware Project has just completed a followup report to its
> real-world analysis of SmartFilter in Utah.
>
> http://censorware.org/reports/utah/followup/
>
> Three months ago, we analyzed 54,000,000 web hits and compiled them
> down to a list of 300+ websites that were wrongly blocked, by our
> government, from library patrons in the state of Utah.
>
> In this followup report, we do the math to determine how often
> SmartFilter, a typical censorware product, makes mistakes.  The answer:
> for every twenty times it blocks a site like hustler.com, there is one
> block of a site like the Life Education Network [1] (an anti-drug
> site), Responses to the Holocaust [2] (a documentary history site), or
> the Student Association for Freedom of Expression [3].
>
> [1] http://lec.org/DrugSearch/Documents/
> [2] http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/holocaust/basichist.html
> [3] http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/safe/
>
> (Those three sites, and many more, are still blocked to this day.)
>
> In other words, the real-world failure rate is a _minimum_ of 4.56% to
> 5.24%.  That's just the infringements on freedom of speech;  it doesn't
> count all the pornography and so forth that the software lets through.
>
> This figure stands in contrast to the propaganda put forth by the
> pro-censorware industry.  Secure Computing, the makers of SmartFilter,
> gave Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) a tour of their facility, and took
> the occasion to issue a misleading press release.  Without seeing our
> original data and without consulting us, they announced that our work
> had shown that the failure rate of their software was 0.0006%.
>
> Not quite.
>
> Today, Sen. McCain's "Childrens' Internet Protection Act," inspired by
> the industry's misleading PR blather, has passed out of committee.  It
> will almost certainly be enacted into law. This bill requires
> censorware like SmartFilter to be installed in every library and school
> across the nation that receives federal E-Rate funding -- at taxpayer
> expense, of course.
>
> Our press release follows.
>
> (Cc:  Sen. McCain;  >(Cc:  Sen. McCain;  webmaster () securecomputing com.)
>
>
>
> CENSORWARE PROJECT CORRECTS GROSS DISTORTION OF ITS REPORT
>
> For Immediate Release
>
> Contact: Jamie McCarthy 
> Day: (616) 381-9889 
> Evening: (616) 375-7637 
> Email: jamie () mccarthy org 
>
> New York, June 23, 1999 - Last Friday, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.)
> toured Secure Computing Corporation, makers of "SmartFilter," and was
> told that a three-month old report by the Censorware Project proves
> that product's accuracy. The Censorware Project is an activist
> organization opposing the use of content-blocking software in
> libraries and universities, and its report clearly shows the opposite.
> The Project strongly protests the misuse of its name to support
> pro-censorship legislation.
>
> Today, the Senate Commerce Committee approved Sen. McCain's filtering
> bill (S.97), which subsidizes censorware by mandating its installation
> in every school and library which receives E-Rate funds.
>
> "Apples and oranges," said Project member Jamie McCarthy. "Secure
> Computing's phony math compares two numbers from different categories
> to claim their product has only 0.0006% error. Our real-world analysis
> shows that errors occur eight thousand times more often. Every twenty
> times their software blocks a library patron from reading, say,
> hustler.com, it blocks another from reading Mark Twain, William
> Shakespeare, or the Declaration of Independence.  Secure Computing's
> software can't tell the difference -- and its PR spin is an
> illustration of Twain's classic adage about lies, damn lies, and
> statistics."
>
> Added McCarthy, "The Bill of Rights doesn't allow our government to
> burn Shakespeare, even if they try burning twenty Hustlers to make up
> for it."
>
> Though the raw data from the Censorware Project's report was made
> available, Secure Computing never obtained this data - which was drawn
> from 31 days of logs, not the "two-week period" that Secure Computing
> claims.  In a followup report released today, the Censorware Project
> exposes the statistical sleight-of-hand, sheds light on last year's
> censored sites still censored to this day, and reveals new blocks
> which were not listed in the original report.
>
> "One is 'Responses to the Holocaust,'" said Project member Michael
> Sims. "SmartFilter blocked it from Utah students in September and they
> still block it today.  Only because its blacklist is put together by a
> computer, with no effective human oversight, can documentation of Nazi
> genocide be called 'hate speech.'"
>
> Another wrongly-blocked site not mentioned in the March report is that
> of the Censorware Project itself. Secure Computing's first reaction to
> the same criticism that it now praises as an "exhaustive and thorough
> review" was to ban it under all 27 blacklist categories.  Censorship of
> critics is common with this type of software.
>
> The Censorware Project also found accessing inappropriate material to
> be easy, using the latest version of the software.  "With the trial
> proxy installed, I found hardcore porn within three minutes, and
> instructions for making drugs and bombs were just a few clicks away,"
> said McCarthy.
>
> The Censorware Project has written to the president of Secure
> Computing, demanding that he withdraw the false information in the
> company's press release.
>
> -30-
> --
>         Jamie McCarthy
>         jamie () mccarthy org
>  http://jamie.mccarthy.org/