11-03-03 I wasn't surprised at all that the Aussie gubmint's attempt to censor the Internet has fallen over. The trials and tribulations of the censorship were reported worldwide. In particular though, it was quite damning of the NetNanny product, when in fact the focus of the reporting should have been on how it was doomed to failure from the beginning.
I participated in the anti-war-in-Iraq protests that took place worldwide earlier in February, and the parasites circulating through the masses diluting the impetus by handing out leaflets and waving banners for other issues (anti-meat, anti-detention, anti-Carr), reminded me of the parasites handing out leaflets and waving banners (anti-detention, anti-WTO, anti-Carr) the only other time I've actually felt strongly enough to get off my behind and protest something: when I took part in the anti-Internet censorship rally in Hyde Park in Sydney when it was first proposed.
So, after that rambling sentence, the point is that Internet censorship has been bubbling away in the back of my mind ever since the Iraqi protest, and I'd been wondering how it was going, considering I hadn't had heard much from Tricky Dicky's department in the intervening years.
And now we know.
I've evaluated Internet filtering software over the years, (for, *ahem*, magazines other than PC Authority) and not one single package does the job effectively and competently even though they take a different tack. These programs work in a few ways: blocking, filtering, or monitoring.
Blocking software does just that -- it consults a list of sites allowed or sites to be blocked (supposedly updated by real people -- but more often then not updated by bots) and then either allows or blocks depending on content. You can prevent egress to porn sites, hate sites, bomb sites and more. Filtering checks incoming packets or pages for dubious content as listed in an internal database of bad words, and monitoring lets people surf anywhere, but keeps track of it all.
There are arguments aplenty on the bot issue: groups that have proven that the blocking lists are populated by bots, not verified by people, whereas the software writers claim that they use the bots to trawl for bad pages which are then checked off. Regardless, with some clever tests you can judge for yourself.
Another form of Net filtering involves blocking all Websites aside from those on an 'allow' list. This is one of the most effective ways of working, but it greatly restricts the Internet as the there are far more pages blocked then there are allowed. We found that sometimes pages that featured ambiguous phrases such as 'boys under 10' (describing sports teams) and 'XXX' (for SuperBowl 30) were banned and blocked. Any human could tell you these aren't dubious pages, but a bot only sees bad phrases and blocks willy-nilly. Most telling, is that the software would block its own homepage, as it often featured words like 'porn' and 'white supremacy' in the text referring to what the software blocks.
In further tests we also found that software that analysed images for porn would block baby photos (due to the amount of flesh-tones present), and that software that blocked porn would allow ingress to hate sites (anti-white, black, Jewish etc), bomb-making sites (often over-hyped in the media), bestiality sites, morgue photo sites, extreme fetish sites, sites hailing rapes, murders and mutilations and plain text pages detailing the above.
Yes, the Internet is a damn scary place, and it's given every creep, kook and crazy a platform to promote their likes and dislikes, but it's also one of the greatest entertainment and research tools ever conceived. While I won't enter into a freedom of speech debate, I will say that I strongly believe in protecting children. I'm 100% for protecting kids from porn, accessing bad sites or from meeting creeps online -- there's a lot of terrible things in the world, but the Internet is like any other situation your kids might face when they're walking home from school, seeing a movie, or hanging out with friends.
The best way I've discovered of preventing your kids from accessing bad stuff is to install a monitoring and logging program -- something that logs every site they visit. Let them know that logging their activity is a condition of using the PC for the Internet, then let them go. If they surf to porn or anything else dubious, discuss it with them. Be honest about what they find -- if they do -- and then start a frank dialog.
Is it a perfect solution? No, it's far from it, but it is a viable one and it seem the less draconian. Let me know what you think? Is censorship the way forward? Email me at dellis@pcauthority.com.au.
Extra! Your bonus for scrolling past this rant are the following links: Websites devoted to pictures of dogs in cars, girls eating sandwiches, and pets with their heads in bags of food. Genius!