Re: FCC wants a magic, porn-free wireless Internet

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Mark Berman [Mark.I.Berman () williams edu]
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 11:43 AM
To: David Farber
Subject: RE: FCC wants a magic, porn-free wireless Internet

This may have been pointed out already: Time Warner, along with others, has
completely dropped Usenet support for its customers. Customers (and I'm one)
were told that it was due to lack of customer use, but it is obviously a
result of a recognition of their inability to block child porn while
allowing other usenet usage. While I am certainly opposed to child porn and
support efforts to catch and punish those who abuse children in any way, I
can't understand how blocking my access to rec.pets.birds aids that effort.
Now if I want to participate in that online community of bird lovers (I
admit it, I love my parrot!) I need to pay more for a commercial usenet
server. Not a huge deal, but yet another tiny nail in the coffin of free
speech.

 - Mark
--
Mark Berman, Director for Networks & Systems
Williams College, Office for Information Technology
*** Please consider the environment before printing this message


-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 11:58 AM
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: FCC wants a magic, porn-free wireless Internet


________________________________________
From: Lauren Weinstein [lauren () vortex com]
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 11:24 AM
To: David Farber
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: FCC wants a magic, porn-free wireless Internet

Dave,

There is only one way to provide an "Internet" that meets the FCC's
requirements for this proposal, and that's to NOT provide a real
Internet at all.  The real Internet cannot be successfully filtered
or censored in such a manner (or any manner in the long run, but
that's a somewhat different issue).

The only "viable" course for such an, uh, "FCC-NannyNet" is a closed
"walled-garden" environment.  You would have to only give access to
specific sites that were deemed "sanitized for your protection" in
advance, and under which sufficient operational control were present
to drastically limit both on-site and off-site (linked) materials.
How much you want to bet that some sort of fee (probably ongoing)
will end up being involved for sites that want to achieve inclusion
in the FCC-NannyNet?

And by the way, I'd just love to know who is going to determine the
full range of what's "harmful" to "teens and adolescents" -- here we
go again with the self-appointed morality cops trying to do us good.
Whoopee.

This whole proposal is yet another misguided and futile attempt to
provide parents with cover for letting their kids use computers
without a modicum of supervision most of the time, and looks very
much like a sweetheart deal from the FCC for whomever gets the
nod to run the FCC-NannyNet fiasco.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
   - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com

 - - -

> ________________________________________
> From: David Byrden [farber1 () byrden com]
> Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 4:48 AM
> To: David Farber
> Subject: Re: [IP] FCC wants a magic, porn-free wireless Internet
>
> Dave;
>
> I am intrigued by the FCC's proposal to filter
> "any images or text that otherwise would be harmful
> to teens and adolescents."
>
> There is no mention of pornographic *sounds*, the stock-in-trade
> of the telephone "hot line" industry.
>
> David
>
>
>
>
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