News More Child Protection Laws from the US

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/07/26/more_child_protection_laws_from_the_us/

 

They could allow an .xxx domain... Oh wait, hang on, they tried that

 

Not specifically child-protection, but I just came across some thoughts that apply to all illegal activity over the internet.

It's time all the "innocent" people who bleat about their privacy being invaded whenever any form of ID system is suggested grow up and realise their demand for anonymity allows cybercrime to flourish. Society doesn't work without an effective police force, civil rights should benefit society as a whole, not a few individual members - that's just selfishness.

 

"Im gonna search for action man on my internets"
One google search later...
"Mummy whats that man doing to that lady? And why is there a midget covered in grease watching them?" And so ends the innocence of another child all because of the horrors of porn... WHY GOD...WHY?
This is just a load of rubbish parents should take some sort of responsibility in this matter and even though I hate them... put a few restrictions here and there and the ludacrious jail terms make it seem like they think the Internet is rife with pedophiles, just like every city street.... right?

 

What's that photo from?

 

If I remember correctly it's from Tim's recent visit to Taipei...

 

Barbie??!!?

Hmm...words like "Barbie" used to lure children. Aren't there a handful of 80's type porn stars and nude models "named" Barbie?

I wonder how many other child-friendly words have legitimate place on websites.

Maybe children looking for funny sound effects might type in "Ding Dong" -- that's a simple child-friendly term until you drop the Ding.

And, while there is quite ridiculous "porn" on the internet that damages even my brain...as far as I know half the kids in the world accidentally walk in on their parents at some time or another...and in most countries other than the US, casual nudity is quite widespread -- I don't think kids are really being damaged by happening on a boob or some sex now and then on the internet (although a kid happening on your naked greased up midget watching as two weirdo's engage in some ultra-deviant fetish acts...that's a different story).

 

@Cpemma...

I'll take the crime over the regulation any day. There will always be crime, but I think the value of a truly anymous forum far outweighs any offset in that crime. If you want to see how this sort of internet ID system is used, look at China

 

Child protection from the "horrors" of the internet should be parents' job - not the societies. And I do not want to be tracked and ID'd because parents won't take responsibility for what they should.

 

a child should not use the internet unprotected, and thats the job for the parents, use software to block bad sites, or only let them to certain safe sites and none other.

 

Brilliant! Now stop and think for ten seconds. Who issues these "Internet Passports"? Who has the authority to check them and deny access based on that check? Have you not heard of real-life identity fraud and identity theft? What's the Internet equivalent of a picture ID?

I'm so very glad that I'm not the only person to realise this sort of thing. Yes, we should simply ban certain words. Then more words we didn't think of. Then yet more words that, really, are entirely justifiable, but they're still a problem from the perspective of this legislation. Not to mention that this entire farce presumes that the kids aren't actively searching for the porn in the first place. "Honestly, Mum, I was looking for, uh... pictures of cats!"

If these guys actually wanted to pass some sort of serious attempt at content control into legislation, they would make it mandatory for all websites to have some sort of header on every page that grades the content of the page/site against some arbitrary set of indexes (violence, gore, sex, language, etc.). In fact, these systems already exist in a variety of forms, have been shown to work (when used), but they're not mandatory.

But how do we grade all of these constantly-changing sites? It's a logistical nightmare! Simple solution: Allow every site to grade itself. If someone with a browser that supports the rating system discovers that they or their child has surfed to an "offensive" page, then that is the point at which the government-appointed arbitrators step in. If the site owner is in the wrong (no header, inappropriately low gradings), then it's time for jail sentences, fines, etc.

Nezuji

 

Actually that's the most sensible idea I've heard of yet. The hardest part will be getting it accepted as a world wide standard. The other part will be getting it implimented into browsers. While I'm sure it might get implimented into IE and FF which would cover most people, there would always be other open source browsers which kids could use to bypass this. Perhaps another idea would be to include this sort of feature into firewall software which effectively screens all internet traffic regardless what the kid is doing.

Porn Stars listed on Wiki

Yep, Barbie seems to be a valid word to be used with connection to pr0n.

 

Actually the world tried to take the first step with the .xxx TLD. The US killed it. Figures, doesn't it?

 

The way I heard it, BOTH the porn sites and the parents' lobby groups were against it.

Apparently, the porn sites thought that it would segregate them right out of business, and the lobby groups thought that it would make the porn too easy to find. Are these guys mentally retarded, or what? If they just could've seen each others' viewpoints, it would've been passed into law like a shot, wouldn't it?

Porn vendors: People want porn. Those legitimately allowed to purchase and view it WILL find you, no matter where you are. It has been thus for centuries, OK? CENTURIES.

Parents'/"Decency" lobby groups: If all the nasty people are gathered into one place, you can build a wall around them with one extremely well-guarded doorway. I might draw a parallel to leper colonies. Kinda makes it hard for your kids to "stumble" into a porn site, doesn't it? Now, if your kids are looking for porn, and you don't want them to, and they try their darndest to get around your security systems... well that'd really be... a PARENTING issue, wouldn't it?

Nezuji

 

I must say, that idea of a content header would be the best thing I've ever heard of. While it would be a logistical nightmare to get every site in the world to have it, I don't think it would be overly difficult to require sites with adult content (basically, anything that needs that "models were 18 or older at time of shooting" disclaimer) to have said header. While regulating the internet is almost impossible, regulating a sector which tends to be under close watch shouldn't be. Especially since it could be incredibly easy - set a due date, and have people report it if the site's not blocked after that date. Shut down and fine those in violation.

Seeing that any number of sites (including a great number of non-porn, The Onion comes to mind) say "You must be xx years of age in order to view this site" it shouldn't be that hard to actually enforce it with some Web 2.0^TM tag. Sure, people could get around it, and probably do so fairly easily, but having some minimal sane protection in place is far better than any stupid legislation we've tried so far.

And Nejuzi, you're two for two. People wanting porn will find it, and it's most certainly a parenting issue if you can't stop your kid looking at it. If it bothers you, supervise; if not, then it's a non-issue. This is just more BS coming from Washington so parents don't have to live up to the same responsibilities that every other parent has had to do since the start of the human race (that'd be what, a trillion or so people?).

 

Oh Noes!

The parents taking responsibility for their offsprings actions? Who would punish them so much!

 

I find it hilarious that these parent lobby groups hear that there is to be a .xxx domain and they're suddenly up in arms and lobbying the s*** out of it.

If someone slapped them to get their attention and explained to them that having this domain doesn't advocate porn but it would make it easy to stop people getting to it, they'd have been all in favour.