No Subject

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 frissell@panix.com wrote:

> What ever happened to "de minimus non curat lex."  The social damage from a 
> misrated website is too trivial to be believed.  Punishing it is like 
> executing you for farting.

  In some cases that may not be a bad idea :). But getting back to the
original point, if I'm going to be subject to jail for mislabeling my
pages (and how do you tell, given that some systems use a numeric rating? 
count the nipples and add the size of any erections?) then that would 
seem to be a good reason to move my Web site out of America. 
  Idependent rating systems are a good thing, and we've talked about them
here many times in the past (e.g. 'repuation markets'). A mandatory
requirement for web authors to rate their own pages is a hideous idea
which will simply move more of the Web overseas, helping to destroy the US
economy. 

WebMonger

At 9:45 AM -0700 7/17/97, Name Withheld by Request wrote:
>On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 frissell@panix.com wrote:
>
>> What ever happened to "de minimus non curat lex."  The social damage from a
>> misrated website is too trivial to be believed.  Punishing it is like
>> executing you for farting.
>
>  In some cases that may not be a bad idea :). But getting back to the
>original point, if I'm going to be subject to jail for mislabeling my
>pages (and how do you tell, given that some systems use a numeric rating?

There are some core issues in this debate:

* What is truth? What is "adult material"? What is "violent material"? What
is "appropriate for 10-year-olds"?

* Who can possibly determine this?

I conclude that the only possible option (that will withstand review by the
courts, including eventually the Supreme Court) is "purely voluntary
labeling, including none."

Whether search engines or browsers will index or point to unlabelled
sites/material is of course up to _them_ (again, in a voluntary way).

The one possible legal sticking point is "misrepresentation" of labels. But
even this problem goes away.

Digital signatures prevent others from forging labels.

What's left is then the original issue, e.g., "What if Tim's Rating Service
says material is OK for children of all ages, and it isn't?" This is an
_opinion_ issue, and the State must not get involved in opinions.

There is no role whatsover for government in this issue, of course, any
more than there is any role for government in regulating, overseeing,
licensing, approving, or interfering with publishing in general.

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

>And can you name ANY part of society that Government has been willing to
>"leave alone"?  It does not matter what portion of society it is...  If it
>is a "hot button issue", government feels compelled to get involved.  It is
>part of the control freak nature of government.  Have you ever known a
>government agency to "mind its own business"?  You are refering to a
>philosophy not followed by the US government.

The only recent example I can think of is the FCC's decision, led by
Commissioners Ness and Wong, refusing to regulate TV content.

--Steve

At 06:45 PM 7/17/97 +0200, Name Withheld by Request wrote:
>
>
>On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 frissell@panix.com wrote:
>
>> What ever happened to "de minimus non curat lex."  The social damage
from a 
>> misrated website is too trivial to be believed.  Punishing it is like 
>> executing you for farting.
>
>  In some cases that may not be a bad idea :). But getting back to the
>original point, if I'm going to be subject to jail for mislabeling my
>pages (and how do you tell, given that some systems use a numeric rating? 
>count the nipples and add the size of any erections?) then that would 
>seem to be a good reason to move my Web site out of America. 
>  Idependent rating systems are a good thing, and we've talked about them
>here many times in the past (e.g. 'repuation markets'). A mandatory
>requirement for web authors to rate their own pages is a hideous idea
>which will simply move more of the Web overseas, helping to destroy the US
>economy. 

Furthermore, if you have no smut on you page, but you link to offensive
content (rated or unrated) somewhere else, how does that rate?

A while back on a whim, I created a page that is based on a type of ambush
humor.  The link describes something in a way where you think you are going
to one thing, but go to something entirely different.  If they push
something where you have to label everything for the most clueless out
there, it will ruin the whole page.  (I find the idea that I might get
prosecuted for my Goth page absurd, but it is possible considering the
clueless morons in power.)  The page (outdated links and all) is at
http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/goth.html .

Something else...  Why does the press refer to Gore in such terms that make
him look like he is some sort of techno-nerd?  The man is totally without
clues.  (I believe the proper term is "Connection to Clue-server refused by
host.")  The "Information Superhighway" that he was pushing was a souped-up
cable system for Ghod's sake!  (The extra bandwidth was going to be used by
starting movies every 10-15 minutes instead of having to wait.)  The
hearings on that were high clueless theatre...  Maybe Declan can due an
article on how far removed Gore really is from the process.  (But that
might offend his corporate masters...)

  
---
|              "That'll make it hot for them!" - Guy Grand               |
|"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer:         |
| mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!"  | Ignore the man      |
|`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key  | behind the keyboard.|
|         http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/       |alan@ctrl-alt-del.com|

At 10:44 AM 7/17/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>There are some core issues in this debate:
>
>* What is truth? What is "adult material"? What is "violent material"? What
>is "appropriate for 10-year-olds"?

And not all 10-year olds are created equal.

Mine is able to handle alot of things that many adults cannot.  (She was in
the front row of the last H.P. Lovecraft film festival in the area.  Had
alot of fun and no nightmares.  Got some interesting looks from the people
running it...)  It depends on how the child was raised.  Most kids I have
seen are raised to be weak and fragile little ornaments for their parent's
ammusement.  They have little or no intelectual curiosity.  Many of them
have a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction.  (And some grow up that
way as well.)

>* Who can possibly determine this?

They will determine some standard, not based on any actual 10-year olds or
any knowledge of what is good for them.  It will be based on input from
various preasure groups as to what a "good little 10-year old" should be
like.  And what is "good for a 10-year old is good for America".

The real reason for these controls is to impose their "moral" views on the
rest of the net.  Children are of little concern here, except in enforcing
control over future generations.  What is important is exerting control
over the rest of the population.

>I conclude that the only possible option (that will withstand review by the
>courts, including eventually the Supreme Court) is "purely voluntary
>labeling, including none."

It will be as "purely voluntary" as taxes.  They will come up with various
"incentives" for pages to be rated.  Those "incentives" will be things like
"not being beaten with a rubber hose" or "not getting your feed to the net
cut".

>Whether search engines or browsers will index or point to unlabelled
>sites/material is of course up to _them_ (again, in a voluntary way).

But they will be "discouraged" through quasi-legal means from indexing
unrated and/or unauthourized pages.

Makes me want to build a web crawler that looks ONLY for offensive pages.

>The one possible legal sticking point is "misrepresentation" of labels. But
>even this problem goes away.

Labels are subjective.  I expect a few small fish will be made an example
of just to frighten others into complience.

>Digital signatures prevent others from forging labels.

If they are signed.  Many of the would-be labelers are not especially clued.

>What's left is then the original issue, e.g., "What if Tim's Rating Service
>says material is OK for children of all ages, and it isn't?" This is an
>_opinion_ issue, and the State must not get involved in opinions.

It comes down to an issue of "Lawyers, Guns and Money".  How bad do they
want to hurt you.  I expect that they will come up with some sort of
"certification authority" for labeling organizations.  Those who are not
"certified" will not be "recognised" by the filtering software.  

>There is no role whatsover for government in this issue, of course, any
>more than there is any role for government in regulating, overseeing,
>licensing, approving, or interfering with publishing in general.

And can you name ANY part of society that Government has been willing to
"leave alone"?  It does not matter what portion of society it is...  If it
is a "hot button issue", government feels compelled to get involved.  It is
part of the control freak nature of government.  Have you ever known a
government agency to "mind its own business"?  You are refering to a
philosophy not followed by the US government.

They will regulate until no Cypherpunk breathes free air...


---
|              "That'll make it hot for them!" - Guy Grand               |
|"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer:         |
| mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!"  | Ignore the man      |
|`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key  | behind the keyboard.|
|         http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/       |alan@ctrl-alt-del.com|

At 10:32 AM 7/17/97 -0700, you wrote:
>At 06:45 PM 7/17/97 +0200, Name Withheld by Request wrote:
>>
>>
>>On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 frissell@panix.com wrote:
>>
>>> What ever happened to "de minimus non curat lex."  The social damage
>from a 
>>> misrated website is too trivial to be believed.  Punishing it is like 
>>> executing you for farting.
>>
>>  In some cases that may not be a bad idea :). But getting back to the
>>original point, if I'm going to be subject to jail for mislabeling my
>>pages (and how do you tell, given that some systems use a numeric rating? 
>>count the nipples and add the size of any erections?) then that would 
>>seem to be a good reason to move my Web site out of America. 
>>  Idependent rating systems are a good thing, and we've talked about them
>>here many times in the past (e.g. 'repuation markets'). A mandatory
>>requirement for web authors to rate their own pages is a hideous idea
>>which will simply move more of the Web overseas, helping to destroy the US
>>economy. 
>
>Furthermore, if you have no smut on you page, but you link to offensive
>content (rated or unrated) somewhere else, how does that rate?
>
>A while back on a whim, I created a page that is based on a type of ambush
>humor.  The link describes something in a way where you think you are going
>to one thing, but go to something entirely different.  If they push
>something where you have to label everything for the most clueless out
>there, it will ruin the whole page.  (I find the idea that I might get
>prosecuted for my Goth page absurd, but it is possible considering the
>clueless morons in power.)  The page (outdated links and all) is at
>http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/goth.html .
>
>Something else...  Why does the press refer to Gore in such terms that make
>him look like he is some sort of techno-nerd?  The man is totally without
>clues.  (I believe the proper term is "Connection to Clue-server refused by
>host.")  The "Information Superhighway" that he was pushing was a souped-up
>cable system for Ghod's sake!  (The extra bandwidth was going to be used by
>starting movies every 10-15 minutes instead of having to wait.)  The
>hearings on that were high clueless theatre...  Maybe Declan can due an
>article on how far removed Gore really is from the process.  (But that
>might offend his corporate masters...)
>
>  


What about a page saying "the hottest pics around" or "these girls must be
seen to be beliveved" or "want to see them take it all off?" but offering
no pictures the way most "porn" sites on the web do.
	How would you rate the implication that the page may contain sex or
violence if the site dosn't really contain much of anything. And if the
phrases themselves contain nothing objectionable would you have to rate the
implications?
	
	Maybe people should look on the bright side. Rating porn sites may keep
you from looking at 500 pages of links that contain no actualy pornography.
You could simply check the rating to see if there really is any sex. And
somebody could create an index that searches by rating, so you could seach
by sexual content. search for a 5 when you just want to see some skin , or
a 10 when you want to see a bit more.
	But of course people could just max the rating saying their site has more
sex than it actualy does. The powers that be would never stop them, who
would object to people saying their site is less suitable for children than
it really is.It would be like saying "this movie cant be rated r, they only
say fuck 3 times! send them all to jail for misrating the movie"