Re: UK ISPs v. US ISPs (was RE: Network Level Content Blocking)

[Keegan.Holley () sungard com]

Keegan Holley
Network Engineer, Network Managed Services
SunGard Availability Services
Mezzanine Level MC-95
401 N. Broad St.
Philadelphia, PA 19108
215.446.1242 (office)
609.670.2149 (cell)
Keegan.Holley () sungard com
___________________________________________
Keeping People and Information Connected®
http://www.availability.sungard.com 



Mark Smith <nanog () fa1c52f96c54f7450e1ffb215f29991e nosense org> 
06/11/2007 09:01 AM

To
Keegan.Holley () sungard com
cc
Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>, nanog () merit edu
Subject
Re: UK ISPs v. US ISPs (was RE: Network Level Content Blocking)






On Sat, 9 Jun 2007 17:38:20 -0400
Keegan.Holley () sungard com wrote:

> IMHO, unless it's something blatantly illegal such as kiddie porn and 
the 
> like I don't think content filtering is the responsibility of the ISP's. 

> Besides all of the conspiracy theories that are bound to surface, I 
think 
> forcing ISP's to block content is a bit like forcing car makers to 
police 
> what can be played on the radio.  I think that giving parents the option 

> of manually turning off porn sites would be an improvement.  Although 
> still not within the responsibility of the ISP they are in the best 
place 
> to implement such a technology.  However, I don't like the idea of a 
> mandatory global traffic filtering initiative.

I think in the home is the best place to implement the technology - a
power switch or BIOS password.



I guess that would go for the cell phone and the computer at the friends 
house as well...


Here is a true analogy. My father worked for a TV station, so you'd
think we'd have the TV on all the time, yet right through up until
after I left high school, my parents wanted to limit my TV watching ...
significantly.


Did you ever have to do homework or check you grades on the TV?  Did your 
mother ever pay bills with the TV? Also, did any child molesters ever try 
contacting you during the commercials.


How did they do it ?

(a) they didn't buy a TV set and put it in my bedroom - the TV was in a
common area of the house i.e. the lounge and/or dining room

(b) they didn't allow me to watch the TV unsupervised



And you never got up after they went to bed to see what you were missing..


So what I don't understand is why parents put computers in their
childrens' bedrooms and don't supervise their children's Internet use.

Substituting a piece of filtering software that won't ever do as good a
job as a parent in enforcing parental responsibility is just bad
parenting in my opinion, and not the responsibility of government or
ISPs.





I agree but there are many houses where both parents work and the kids for 
better or worse spend alot of time alone.  I think it would be a good 
thing to give them a way to filter what comes into their living rooms. I'm 
probably showing my age with this one but my parents actually caught me 
downloading porn and tried some of those filters.  I actually found a 
website that explained how to disable it.  I think we have come a long way 
from cable TV, both in terms of accessibility and what is deemed 
appropriate content.  Also I think teenagers are different now then they 
were a few years ago.   While a content filtering solution will never be 
able to replace good parenting and plain common sense.  I have no 
objections to having all three in the same household.


Keegan