Just say NYET to censors

Copyright 1994, Nathan Zook.  All rights reserved.  Intelectual copyrights
pending.

NYET-- Non-Youths Exhibit Temperance.

Before I start, it may be informative to consider that I consider myself to
be a hard-line member of the Christian Conservative movement, and a hard-
line advocate of electronic privacy.  I am a PhD candidate in mathematics
at the University of Texas of Austin, and I got the Electronic Privacy
language added to the 1994 Republican Party of Texas platform.  I am a
member of Trinty Evangelical Free Church, and am twenty-seven years old.


As the Internet community continues to grow, the differences of conviction
that exists generally in the world find their way into the community.  Some
demand that newcomers to the net adapt to the mores of this society.  Some
demand that the net, as a newcomer to the world, adapt to the outside.  As
recent events have demonstrated, the less reasonable, on both sides, may be
endangering the integrity and availablity of the net.  Calls for net
censorship, it may be expected, will continue to grow unless the net can
find some way to police itself.  Yet "police itself" is a term that sends
the net into fits.  My solution, NYET, is for the appropriate users to
directly censor the data that they might legitmately lay claim to
censoring--data that flows to minors over which they have legal authority
and responsibility.



Specifically, this is a plan to create two sorts of accounts to the net--
adult and minor.  Adult accounts may only be obtained by persons of age
eighteen.  Minor accounts may only be obtained as adjuncts to adult
accounts, refered to as supervisor accounts.  Adult accounts would have
full access to anything on the net.  News readers, telnet, ftp and like
software being operated from a minor account would check a file in the
adult account to allow access.  Newsreaders, in particular, would censor
any posts crossed from a non-allowed account.  The control files in the
supervisory accounts would default to allow-only mode, but could be
selected to deny-only.

The legal framework that I see important in aiding such a system is as
follows:

State Level:
1)  Declare to hold harmless those BBS operators for charges of Contributing
to the Delinquacy of a Minor that obtain and verify the age of account
holders, and maintain a NYET system of access for minors.  Certain
acceptable verification methods specified, with authority to add methods
delegated to a regulatory agency.  Emphasis to be on ease and speed of
verification.  Special consideration for in-house systems.

2)  Make it illegal to misrepresent age and name data to a BBS.  Require
BBS operators to maintain a record of age and name of account holders for
thirty days after opening of account for hold harmless agreement, and
allowing deletion of said data afterwards.

3)  Declare aiding in tampering with NYET system to be "Contributing to the
Delequency of a Minor".

Federal Level:
Pass paralell laws for BBSs operating with local numbers from two or
more states, or for BBSs operating with 800 numbers.



I believe that such a system would protect the full free expression 
currently enjoyed by the net, while reaffirming parental responsibility in 
the upbringing of their children.  The burden of controlling access
devolves all the way to the parents, making charges against BBS operators
patently frivolous.  Porno charges would then be MUCH more difficult to
press, since a jury could be told that specific steps were being taken to
prevent access to minors.  If parents complained that they didn't want to
go to the trouble of spelling out what their children could access, the
response is clear:  "Oh, so it's not worth the effort to you?"



Despite slurs in this group to the contrary, I believe that the proposed 
us.* heirarchy may well be the first in a series of attempts to censor 
the net.  Remember, we already have had a censor for TV, movies, and radio.
It is not really a question of _if_ but _who_ and at _what level_ will this
censoring take place.

Nathan

(Adjusting flame gear)

Gee, what about POTS?  Oh well, I guess we'd better make sure that you
can't dial the phone without first entering your personal ID code;
otherwise, Junior might be able to dial up 1-900-BMY-SLUT.

And cable TV?  Nope, can't switch on that cable box without first
keying in your ID.

Hmm... NYET to censorship?  Ok:  No thanks, NYET (or maybe, niet,
spasebo, NYET).




[ You're not serious, right? ]

| GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com>       |
| TAKE TWA TO CAIRO.          ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX:        |
|     (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |

Mike McNally writes:

 > And cable TV?  Nope, can't switch on that cable box without first
 > keying in your ID.

Would you agree to: Nope, can't watch that XXX movie without first keying
in your ID?

--JYL

Jacob.Levy@Eng.Sun.COM (Jacob Levy) writes:
>   Mike McNally writes:

>    > And cable TV?  Nope, can't switch on that cable box without first
>    > keying in your ID.

>   Would you agree to: Nope, can't watch that XXX movie without first keying
>   in your ID?

teach your 12 year old how to hack.

josh

> 
> Mike McNally writes:
> 
>  > And cable TV?  Nope, can't switch on that cable box without first
>  > keying in your ID.
> 
> Would you agree to: Nope, can't watch that XXX movie without first keying
> in your ID?

Of course! All decent Americans understand the need to monitor who
watches this filthy smut.

I was meeting last week with Secretary of Decency Falwell and the
President. Dan proposed that we extend the National ID Number to a
range of other services, including books and magazines. After Jerry,
Dan, and I watched that filthy "Debbie Does Fort Meade" again, we were
all very excited about stopping this trash.

--Klaus! von Future Prime Time

(P.S. If a family wants Junior to have no access to the Playboy
Channel, they can damn well buy one of those parental lock-outs. Or
whip him good for accessing the channel when they told him "nyet." Or
whip her good (and hopefully get it on tape!) if she tunes into Oprah
to hear about teens who married their transexual gym teachers. I don't
want any stinking government type telling me I have to have an ID
number! I'm sure Nathan Zooks is sincere, but, gadzooks, this reminds
me of why the Republican Party is as much a threat to libery as the
Clinton Gang is.)

--Tim


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

> I was meeting last week with Secretary of Decency Falwell and the
> President. Dan proposed that we extend the National ID Number to a
> range of other services, including books and magazines. After Jerry,
> Dan, and I watched that filthy "Debbie Does Fort Meade" again, we were
> all very excited about stopping this trash.

Of course, you would be allowed unrestricted access to such "trash".  For
purposes of monitoring compliance, of course ;)

I hear the ex-director of the Texas American Family Association has the
most extensive collection of porno flicks and mags around.
-- 
Ed Carp, N7EKG/VE3	ecarp@netcom.com, Ed.Carp@linux.org

"What's the sense of trying hard to find your dreams without someone to share
it with, tell me, what does it mean?"        -- Whitney Houston, "Run To You"

Jacob Levy writes:
 >  > And cable TV?  Nope, can't switch on that cable box without first
 >  > keying in your ID.
 > 
 > Would you agree to: Nope, can't watch that XXX movie without first
 > keying in your ID?

No!  Who's going to keep track of all these ID's?  Who'se going to
get access to the database?  Who's to stop "them" from changing their
minds one day and making it such that I need to key in my ID to watch
broadcasts from political fringe groups?

Sorry.  I realize that in some sense things today on cable hover in
the balance; my interest in this group stems from a desire to see the
Great Global Net of the future be one based on the premise that
anonymity has great value.

| GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com>       |
| TAKE TWA TO CAIRO.          ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX:        |
|     (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |

nzook@math.utexas.edu writes:
 > NYET-- Non-Youths Exhibit Temperance.
 > [...]
 > As the Internet community continues to grow, the differences of conviction
 > that exists generally in the world find their way into the community.  Some
 > demand that newcomers to the net adapt to the mores of this society.  Some
 > demand that the net, as a newcomer to the world, adapt to the outside.  As
 > recent events have demonstrated, the less reasonable, on both sides, may be
 > endangering the integrity and availablity of the net.  Calls for net
 > censorship, it may be expected, will continue to grow unless the net can
 > find some way to police itself.  Yet "police itself" is a term that sends
 > the net into fits.  My solution, NYET, is for the appropriate users to
 > directly censor the data that they might legitmately lay claim to
 > censoring--data that flows to minors over which they have legal authority
 > and responsibility.

[ proposed laws to prevent minors from accessing questionable material
  deleted ]

     Your basic idea is excellent, so excellent in fact that you could
probably make some money by providing the service.  As a parent of a
soon-to-be netsurfer, I would be willing to pay more for an account
that gave me some control over my daughter's access than I would for a
standard netcom style account.  Let me know when such accounts are
available.

     In the meantime, there is no need for force.  The immediate
reaction of "there ought to be a law" is a direct contradiction to the
net "policing itself".

Regards,

Patrick May
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                              "A contract programmer is always intense."
pjm@gasco.com