Bill Would Create 'Dot-Sex' To Filter Porn Web Sites

[Kadie]

Bill Would Create 'Dot-Sex' To Filter Porn Web Sites
Delegate Hopes To Block Pornographic Sites From Minors

UPDATED: 10:38 AM EST January 21, 2005

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Despite the best filters, pornography could still find its way onto children's computer screens -- but perhaps not for long.

A Maryland lawmaker believes he has come up with a simple, cost-free way to block online pornography, television station WBAL reported.


Even the most innocent, innocuous commands while searching the Internet can turn up sites that make parents blush and dive for the delete button, the station reported.

The solution? Calling porn what it is by adding ".sex" to the end of the Web site address.

more...
http://www.thekcrachannel.com/technology/4115752/detail.html

[Magleetis]

1. Doesn't sound like a bad idea

on the surface. I'm sure our Gov would find a way to abuse it.

[Skink]

2. Finding porn just got that much easier.

:headbang:

[livinginphotographs]

32. Good call!

:)

[Chovexani]

34. LOL!

:thumbsup:

[mccoyn]

3. I like the idea.

Its opt in censorship, which is a useful tool for parents. Some type of standard is needed to help block these pages. I suspect most of the operaters would agree. They don't want the problems that might result for children accidently visiting their sites.

I always thought they should have a tag in the html that marks it as pornography, so it could be blocked like that. I think existing sites would prefer that system since they can keep their domain name and not have to worry about breaking links.

Of course, this can all be subverted by someone who wants to get around such blocks. Its difficult, perhaps impossible, to make a perfect system while still protecting free speech.

[WahooJunkie]

6. Not so sure...

....I agree that web-porn operators would like the idea.

True, they don't want to be slapped with lawsuits if a minor accesses the page...but they like to "hide" their porn so that it just kinda pops up on you.

For example, they buy out domains that people will commonly mistype to get more visitors - these aren't real, but here are few examples to illustrate my point.

www.esn.com (instead of www.espn.com)
www.whitehouse.com (instead of www.whitehouse.gov)
www.cnnn.com (instead of www.cnn.com)

You get the point. I think a lot of times they rely on being "stumbled" upon and go to great lengths to ensure that they DO show up when you do google searches for things completely unrelated to sex, or when you mistype a popular web address.

[Occulus]

11. I agree with this in principle, however,

they need to guarantee that people won't be ripped off completely by having to buy 50 billion access passwords apiece, each costing $19.95 a month to maintain. There need to be some sort of age verification provision which costs no more than a stamp.

One thing I remember from the legislation creating the requirements for age verification on porn sites on the internet was that the verification requirement seemed to have been written in such a way that it could be done by any method of ID- that is, credit cards didn't have to be the way the age was verified. Such verification ought to be a lifetime deal, and if they really wanted to rid the internet of porn, that's how the law would be written, as doing so would starve the industry.

I hate the idea of businesses (or the government itself) "forgetting" how old you are unless you keep giving them money. It's like you give them ten dollars, and they say, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I still don't recall your age," and then giving them another ten, and they say, "Oh, YEAH! Now I remember you!"

Ridiculous. I smell the putrid, fetid stench of a bunch of lobbyists.

[ticapnews]

23. There was supposed to be a tag...

I always thought they should have a tag in the html that marks it as pornography, so it could be blocked like that.

In the CDA passed by Congress in 1996 (and overturned by the Supreme Court) there was a provision calling for a tag "L18" that would identify any document or web page as "offensive" and allow the page to be blocked very easily. Of course, no one could quite define what "offensive" meant, although the bill that was passed and signed into law by President Clinton meantioned "lewd, lascivious, filthy" communications which are meant to "annoy, abuse, threaten or harass."

In a term paper I wrote at the time I asked if this meant a farmer who took a picture of his freshly picked crop of potatoes and posted it online in an attempt to sell his product would be sent to prison for 10 years and fined $250,000 because the potatoes weren't clean. I am particularly proud of that paper because I was able to work in quotes from sources as varied as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Cardinal deTorquemada and Yoda ;)

The easist method of tracking what your kids do online has already been mentioned once, and it was the main point of my paper way back then: Parents need to be more involved with their kids and monitor these things. Would a parent simply send their child to the park alone? No, they go with the child, watch them play and then when they're old enough they might get to go play by themselves or with friends. So treat the Internet the same way. It's a whole new playground, but with many of the same dangers. So parents, work with your kids to make sure they use it responsibly. And if that means you have to invest some time and money into learning about it yourself, then do it. This is your kid we're talking about. Isn't it worth it?

In any event, the government needs to stay out of this. It's got to be up to parents to take care of their kids. We don't need a nanny-state.

[ixion]

4. just another good example of a lawmaker who knows nothing about the net

many porn sites are not hosted in the us, and hence will not have the typical top level domain markers such as .com, .org, .net, etc, so this will really resolve nothing in that regard, only add more irrelevant laws to the books.

[htuttle]

7. "What? You mean the internet goes outside the United States?"

That's a direct quote from a Republican congressperson during the debates about the Communications Decency Act in the 90's. I wish I could remember which one said it...but it was probably a widespread misbelief, in any case.

[maxrandb]

36. Don't You Mean "Internets"?

[rocktivity]

15. How would you get them all to register? And what would be the standard?

Any kind of nudity at all? And how sexually explicity would qualify as sexually explict?

:shrug:
rocknation

[Ravenseye]

5. It Won't Work

It'd be nice, even if they made a law saying that if your'e going to have 'adult' content of a sexual nature you need to have a .sex extension. The only way it'd work is if they banned different words from .com extensions, some which might be in alternate usages acceptable in a .com.

If they just ban images and movies etc...it won't work because then the .sex sites will just get .com sites that have links to the .sex sites....the pornography websites are the forefront of internet technology. They'll find a way.

Nice idea, but it won't do the full trick. Thats why there were such things as cybernanny so that parents could pay to have the stuff blocked.

[pinerow]

10. Agreed..It is obvious that this fellow has too much time on his hands

The best way to keep porn away from your kids is to monitor and limit their computer time...keep the computer in a common area of the home. Too many parents allow computers in their homes without supervision...first it was television as child-care...now it's a computer.

[jayfish]

16. No, No ,No,

that would require too much of that "personal responsibility" and "rugged individualism" Republicans are always squawking about.

Jay

[UL_Approved]

8. This will not work

Many porn sites will not get on this idea, and this will do NOTHING to stop pop-up ads and porn spam. And short of having smart-card ID's that tie into a web browser, this cannot stop people from accessing these sites anyway.

Young kids run into it by accident. Older kids run into it on purpose. Young kids get the pop-ups and spam end that is not wanted by anybody (real customers go to the sites themselves). Older kids will have the drive and skills to get around filters.

This could be a marketing ploy at best, unless we get the cow-brand ID cards necessary to ensure this system will work.

[tx_dem41]

9. Why would a Maryland legistor think he could regulate the WORLD WIDE

Web? Laughable. I don't think most websites are hosted out of Maryland.

[Voltaire99]

12. Heh. They think big in Maryland.

Wait--don't slap a dot-sex on that comment. That's not what I meant. ;-)

Stupid censors. Millennia of evolution and what do we have? Maryland puritans who want to stick their tongue depressors into the world's mouth and make it say, "Amen."

[Comicstripper]

38. Maryland is hardly a puritanical state

We're a deep blue, thank you.

[DemSigns]

13. Put porn one on tcp/ip port like 69.

I have had this idea for years. It is hard to enforce but easy to block or not block by any router at any level and does not have free speech restrictions in my opinion. It is like putting drug store porn in wrappers high on the shelf.

Any comments?

[Bono71]

14. Not bad...but now the battle becomes 'what is porn'...I don't want

to have to search for Ulysses by James Joyce at a .sex website.

[Occulus]

17. Just reading the responses here so far

We've come up with a number of angles on why this might not work so well, and all of them seem to be good, sound reasons, from fleecing the customers to overseas sites not covered by our legislation to regulation and enforcement. We've even seen a comparison between the TV nanny and the computer nanny.

Nice job, people. I think the recommendations from another poster here were correct: put the computer in a common area. No use without adult supervision.

Did you know?

Most PCs I've ever worked with (almost all of them, but for some very old ones) have a feature called a BIOS password. BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System and is an actual "program" running in the background as soon as the PC boots. This is what shows the text-only screens you may see when you power up your PC after shutting it off; some boilerplate PC manufacturers (Dell, HP, etc) splash a logo there instead.

Modern BIOS's often have a system boot password that one must type in to get to any operating system. To clear the password, one must (usually) physically open the computer's case itself and connect a jumper on the motherboard. You'll have to refer to your computer's printed documentation or call customer support to find out how to set up a BIOS password, but once you do, so long as you don't tell your kids what it is, the only way they can get around it is to open the case and connect the jumpers- and if you don't have the little jumper connectors in plain sight, that's a little hard to do. :)

I always tell people with kids and a computer to set up a BIOS password. There's no "software" to disable and it's real obvious when anyone clears it.

[aden_nak]

21. That would require a rudimentary level of computer literacy.

Which is likely far beyond the level possessed by the people who this law is being written for.

[SeekingDemocracy]

18. I'm sure Republicans like Smigiel everywhere are working...

...overtime to try to figure out ways to control the internet.

It's one of the only sources of news we have that isn't run by corporations! Hmmmm.... find a way in with a law to protect children and BAM!! - DU is in violation of ACT 23876 and therefore must be shut down for providing content with profane language. Fuckers.

Keep the laws away and learn how to spend time with your kids.

[BadGimp]

19. simply not enforceable ...

eom

[aden_nak]

20. More ideas from legislators that understand SHIT about the internet.

"What took so long? Why didn't anybody think of this before?" he said others say.

Well, first off, I'm guessing it would only be a US law, and the vast majority of sex sites (especially the ones that refuse to regulate themselves, refuse to put up the Net-Nanny type services, and attempt to trick people into going there with email and ad banners) operate outside of the United States. These are often (although not always) the sites with the most graphic content as well.

Then of course there is the issue of cost, and the issue of switching millions of DNS entries. . . that's possible, but if my boss came in tomorrow and told me that was my job, I'd fucking quit. And after that there is the "know it when you see it" pornography issue. What about a site that has artwork featuring naked people? What about a side that has provocative photos with NO nudity?

Mostly, though, this sort of thing is targetting the least troublesome sites in the first place. Major /shovelspang to these ineffectual lawmakers who think that their rudimentary understanding of technology enables them to understand problems they have not properly studied.

[DubyaSux]

22. Shit..

...now I'll have to change all my bookmarks...:evilgrin:

[fob]

24. .sex wouldn't cover all the existing pages, so here's a few more

suggestions

.cum

.xxx

:evilgrin:


And like Skink said, no more fruitless SEARCHING for porn!!

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

25. a few more

.suk

.lez

.teen

.18

.milf

.snm

[fob]

28. Challenge accepted...

.dik

.tit

.ass

or

.tna

.3sum

.orgy

[enki23]

26. and suddenly, once again, we have to define "porn."

while sex-ed, contraception, women's health, and some science sites are required to get a .sex ending, or remove "objectionable" words and images.

[paineinthearse]

27. I've never had dot sex, what's it like?

[fob]

29. Short and to the point

:evilgrin:

[mccoyn]

30. Zing! -nt

[killbotfactory]

31. It would make porn browsing easier, but...

They would have to define what porn is. Simple nudity? Erotic classical paintings? Or would it have to be some form of intercourse/sexual stimulation?

[Ariana Celeste]

33. I'm not a parent...

but I dunno... seems to me if you don't want your young kids looking at porn, watch them while they surf the net... and as for teens... if they want porn they will find porn, whether it be online, or their buddies big brother's stash.

Jeez.. I just checked out my step-dad's stash while they were at work. :eyes:

[DireStrike]

35. What about sites with some porn and some not-porn?

And... what is porn?

[On the Road]

37. Really, It's Not a Bad Concept

I don't know if it's workable or not. But having hardcore porn easily available to children is not a good long-term solution. Especially if the kids run across it innocently via spam or a typo in the URL.

I am not against porn at all. But there are and should be restrictions on what's in the public domain. There are supposed to be age restrictions which are ludicrously ineffective and usually ignored. Some of these sites displaying graphic sex acts without screening should be prosecuted.

What a .sex domain could do is to simply the issue by segregating it and making it easier to deal with. I think most pornsites would adopt the domain if it offered them a degree of protection. The laws should be applied to the remaining ones openly marketing to kids and people who aren't looking for it.

I have a daughter. I'm a liberal parent. I give her a lot of freedom. But I don't want an 8-year-old or a 13-year-old girl coming across graphic sex acts in the process of using the internet. And that's what happens today.

To say that parent have to control their kids' behavior is a ludicrous proposal. And it proposed a degree of micromanagement of kids' lives that is really not healthy. And it's also a terrible political issue for the Democrats. You don't have to be anti-sex or anti-porn to see that the status quo needs fixing.

[Imnottelling]

39. We must be VERY careful

The internet is one of the, if not the only, place to get true uninfluenced news. I am becoming more and more afraid of this country moving to full fledged fascism. The government/corporations already have basically ruined the main stream "free" press in this country. The internet is the last bastion for the free press.

It is obvious that the GOP (and maybe Dems too) will now try to take away the internet from us in the form of "cybercops" or whatever. It is clear to me that the way to go about this is to do it under the guise of regulating pornography on the internet. If this sort of thing is allowed to push through (and it will be very hard to stop because public support will be high since it will curb porn) it could be disasterous. Seriously disasterous.