Re: PICS required by laws

From:	IN%"frantz@netcom.com"  6-APR-1996 16:21:56.32

>I am less worried about this possibility than most.  PICS scrubbers will be
>as easy to produce as any other web intermediary.  (e.g. The one which
>replaces "bad" words with "censored".)

	Quite... as will ones that flip-flop the various packet bits that
people are discussing. 

>I do not make these comments publicly, because I don't want to poke holes
>in network self censorship while the courts are grinding on the CDA.  (Note
>that true self censorship, where the viewer wants the filtering would not
>be impacted.  Those viewers would just not use that kind of intermediary.)

	I don't plan on mentioning it on CuDigest, either... just that any
imposition of this standard will leave countries where it isn't imposed.

> I applaud the ACLU's position in not rating their web page.  I will also
>note that it is possible for a PICS filter to refuse to pass unrated pages.

	Yes... and it would be possible for a PICS unrating filter to simply
set all of them to child-OK. With the current discussion of packet-based
censorship, it would appear possible for the bit in question to be reset by
_any_ of the systems it passes over at least as easily as those systems could
use this bit for filtration. I would suggest a "Trojan Horse" program to do
this, in order to A. get governmental systems and B. give SYSOPs an excuse to
run the flipping program.
	This flipping could produce either child-visible or child-invisible
material, depending on what result the system in question wished to produce.
Child-visible would help the children; child-invisible would make the Net
unusable for children whose parents weren't sensible enough to not use such
software. The latter, applied to technical material, would also drive China,
Singapore, et al nuts.  

> If much of the technical information on the net is unrated, China,
>Singapore etc. will be between a rock and a hard place with the
>anti-censorship intermediaries.

	-Allen

"E. ALLEN SMITH" writes:
>From:	IN%"frantz@netcom.com"  6-APR-1996 16:21:56.32
>
>>I am less worried about this possibility than most.  PICS scrubbers will be
>>as easy to produce as any other web intermediary.  (e.g. The one which
>>replaces "bad" words with "censored".)
>
>	Quite... as will ones that flip-flop the various packet bits that
>people are discussing. 

This is a bit naive.  The "packet bits" I've discussed are added by the
content provider (since he doesn't want to open himself to charges of
"contributing to the delinquency of a minor", which exist regardless of
the CDA) and packets with the "bits" are never delivered to the
minors.  To think that someone along that path would subvert the system
is ridiculous.  As an example, the path for packets from playboy.com to
me is entirely controlled by two entities:  MCI (Playboy's provider)
and DigEx (my provider).  This will generally be true, and though the
number of entities may be larger, the "kinds" of entities will be the
same.  Even if we're discussing a mom & pop porno shop instead of
playboy, the general picture is the same:  the content provider will
hand off the labelled data to someone with "network common carrier"
status, who will not jeopardize that status by delivering the packets
to a minor's connection.

The sorts of organizations that form the core of the internet, and are
involved in this network layer censorship scheme, just *aren't* the
sort of "subversives" (or "patriots", take your pick) that would try to
bypass the system.