Ports for Porn - Using Firewalls to Block Porn 574
vicpylon writes "A Utah businessman and his non-profit organization wants to limit pornography to certain ports in the TCP/IP protocol. He is literally suggesting legislatively restricting porn sites to certain ports, so that the "offensive" content is easier to block. This is not workable on so many levels that it is laughable. International adult sites not subject to US laws, proxy servers, enforcement issues all leap to my tired mind as major flaws in his plan. He is lobbying congress, so do not be surprised to see this discussed by some headline grabbing politico.
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People should learn (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a non-starter. (Score:5, Interesting)
This idea is doomed for the same reason that the
Great US exports (Score:4, Interesting)
International adult sites not subject to US laws
True, but just getting US-generated and US-hosted porn under control, as well as porn passing through US-owned ISPs, would account for quite a lot of sites, and an awful lot of the sites that tend to pop up in Google. America is regularly cited as one of the obstacles to dealing with Internet porn - if it took any steps, however technically incompetent, to address the issue, it would make an enormous difference.
I realise that restricting access to porn may not be a subject dear to the heart of all /.ers, but I have the impression that most of the rest of this thread is going to boil down to "no-one can do a thing about porn, la la la la I can't hear you", when the reality is that a lot of people around the world would like to see the present situation changed, and, one way or another, sooner or later, that will result in legislation. And if a solution is finally imposed, it may well turn out to be as draconian as the French government's anti-nazi legislation, which has been successfully imposed on Yahoo.
Logic? (Score:4, Interesting)
The dirty bit (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Wow! (Score:2, Interesting)
One simple question (Score:3, Interesting)
Utah and Internet filtering (Score:4, Interesting)
The controlling interest in Utah will not be happy and will not stop until the State is blocked off with something like the Great Firewall of China. Look at who owns the newspaper in question. The Internet and it's ability to encourage people to be challenged by new ideas is not compatible with their interests. While the call is to stop "porn" now, we all know it's the first step down a slippery path.
Personally I think Zappa gives the best advice here:
Re:It seems to me that ... (Score:3, Interesting)
The answer to the "can't define porn well" problem is not that there is no porn, it's that too much is considered "porn" by somebody, and attempts to ban it will necessarily overreach. That's what your parent poster is getting at.
In many ways, porn can be compared to recreational drugs. Some people say that it's bad, and some people say that it isn't. Some people say that it needs to be banned for the good of society, but really, whatever activities it supposedly promotes that should be made illegal already are (like robbing stores to get your porn fix.) In many ways, the police state that would be necessary to successfully ban porn (or recreational drugs) would be worse than simply tolerating that activity and dealing with whatever negative consequences occur.
Re:Let me guess: (Score:5, Interesting)
Quick Solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is my idea, require a <porn> or <adult> tag on all sites that contain porn or are intended for an adult audience.
We could also implement a <safe=040382672178283940405> code for all sites that are safe for children... which only major sites would bother registering for... this would let parents lock down their computers. You can either now allow porn or only allow approved sites...
Good idea? I think requiring a different port would only lead to mass censorship.
Metatags (Score:4, Interesting)
Cleanliness starts at home, Mr. Manning (Score:3, Interesting)
Because except for them, I can't really see how you can get from anywhere on disney.com to a porn site in a single click.
Re:I want to restrict things, too. (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Don't protect the environment
2) Don't protect people from product related fraud
3) Don't protect people from violations of labor law
4) Don't protect people from investment fraud
The balance has changed. The society is a lot less government controlled than it was 25 years ago.
Re:The xxx tld (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People should learn (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless this kid has been watching sado-masochist master-slave bondage hardcore, he hasnt seen anyone degraded - how is a woman degraded by having sex? how is the man less degraded than the woman? You're just going back to the rather medieval belief that women lie back and think about knitting and kittens while men ravish them - *women enjoy sex too*, and if getting paid for sex is exploitation, then the men are being just as exploited as the women - there are no passive performers in porn, the women are there by choice as well; If a girl watched porn (and trust me on this, a lot of them do), are they learning to 'treat men as sexual objects, there for their gratification'?
Please don't start on the 'pornography exploits women' bullshit, it's not true, and if you don't believe me, here's a BBC article about a (female) performer who agrees that if anyone's exploited in porn, it's the buyers [bbc.co.uk].
Whatever your opinion on whether porn degrades or not, claiming one sex is more exploited than the other (unless you were talking about the nasty S&M stuff, but then even that has a *huge* niche of women dominating men) is an entirely unfounded suggestion rooted in the belief that women do not have sexuality or sex drive - if women want to get paid to have sex, and are paid handsomely for doing so on camera, precisely where is the exploitation occurring?
Re:People should learn (Score:1, Interesting)
One of the many "endearing" qualities of Slashdot is it's plethora of sagacious single young males without children ready to snidely share their opinions about how parents should parent. Apparently, these young men were all raised in fascist regimes and never managed to defy their parents directives. Or maybe they just love their porn and panic whenever somebody threatens their endorphin buzz supply.
If we can assume that 99.9% of people disobeyed their parents at one time or another, we can safely say that parents, no matter how concerned or controlling, cannot regulate everything their children see and do. There needs to be a balance so that parents are given the tools they need to help protect their children. And one of the things kids need protection from is porn. Pop under ads, spyware, adware, hijacked IE preferences, and domain squatters are all gunning for our eyes and wallets. Kids being reeled in are just collateral damage to pornographers - future customers to others.
Now, I'm from Utah and I think Ralph Yarro is misguided. I think his plan is poorly thought out, but Hatch, who wanted to blow up my computer for using P2P networks, will probably love this guy, and maybe so will others. Sense and reason haven't always been employed when laws were passed. Not when a politician can look like a golden boy during an election by "saving the children".
What disturbs me is that this issue always seems to gravitate towards the moral realm. There is so much more to this issue than naughty boys and girls enjoying sex outside the bounds of marriage. The issue becomes clouded in free speech issues with conservatives edging towards censorship and progressives waxing eloquent about what porn is or isn't. Some people say porn is demeaning to women, but you don't hear the porn stars complaining about their paychecks. Feminists choose to defend a women's right to demean herself instead of worrying about the affect on society when the younger generation grows up thinking being a boy toy is a good idea. Then the issue loses traction when jurisdiction is brought up. How do you regulate what Hong Kong servers send out into the world? Censorship? Go back to free speech issues.
One issue that hasn't been discussed much is addiction. Why isn't the fact that pornography is addictive gaining any traction? This is the most harmful aspect of porn on the mind. It's one thing to enjoy a woman's naked form. It's another to be compelled to enjoy hundreds of them all in one sitting. Nameless, sometimes faceless, they depersonalize sex while feeding a craving. Can anyone really argue that this addiction to sexual stimulation is not damaging to relationships or one's own mind?
You talked about your aunt's 11 year old as an example. You covered some really good points, many of which aren't popular around here. One thing you didn't mention is the effect that porn has on expectations in relationships. Young minds don't know these are actors playing out fantasies for profit. They certainly don't know these actors are surgically augmented. It's enough to give any sex an inferiority complex. At best kids are growing up thinking that sex lasts for hours and involves awkward poses - oh and you need to look like Ken and Barbie. At worst they expect women to beg to be covered in body fluids while swinging from a trapeze over a den of specula specialists. Of course, I exaggerate, but porn can be as silly as it is sick, and it certainly does nothing to build the intellect.
As porn peddlers look for new and more exciting images to sell, porn on the internet gets harsher and rawer. Studies I've read show that most kids don't experiment with sex, but the few that do experiment are getting into kinkier stuff than previous generations and at earlier ages. They cite porn as their in
Clueless libraries Re:Free our libraries! (Score:2, Interesting)
They also had and have a disclaimer [lib.oh.us]that they would not be stand-ins for parents.
Talks with the staff demonstrated that they were unaware that:
1. Children of such an age should not be unaccompanied by adults.
2. Most children of that age cannot read and lack other skills necessary for the utilization of a computer.
3. To the extent that some of the children are school age, they are required by law to be in school for a specified time several times out of the year, during which they cannot use the library computers set aside for them.
4. While adults generally have to have jobs, their job options are flexible enough that a good number of them can be into the library during the time that children of school age have to be in school.
5. People are children of the ages that they have computers set aside for, for a relatively short time of their lives, so the number of patrons that are not in that category vastly outnumber those that are.
On the basis of these facts, I tried to explain to them that dedicating those computers for the use of children was an extremely inefficient use of resources, but they would not hear me out.
They do not appear to have material regarding their computer allocation and policy regarding chld only computers online, so it's hard to speak definitively, but the whole point is to illustrate how those who try to make decistions with kids in mind may have no idea what a kid is, nor remember their own childhood well.
Re:People should learn (Score:2, Interesting)
Granted. However, in some areas, where exposure would tend to be more of a repetitive thing, you would expect parents to have some ability to control their offspring. For example, in the violent video games debate, you shouldn't expect parents to regulate what their children see at their friends' houses, but it's reasonable to expect them to notice if their children buy M-rated games themselves. Likewise, in terms of porn, you would expect parents to notice if their children are viewing porn regularly.
There needs to be a balance so that parents are given the tools they need to help protect their children. And one of the things kids need protection from is porn. Pop under ads, spyware, adware, hijacked IE preferences, and domain squatters are all gunning for our eyes and wallets. Kids being reeled in are just collateral damage to pornographers - future customers to others.
I totally agree that porn sites that employ things like pop-ups on non-porn sites, spyware and the like are evil, evil bastard-whores who must be found and killed (and not just for the childrens' sake). However, these threats generally require an entirely different set of tools (spyware/adware checkers, pop-up blockers, etc.) to deal with than the problem of children actively looking for porn, and you seem to be arguing for the latter set of tools rather than the former.
Now, I'm from Utah and I think Ralph Yarro is misguided. I think his plan is poorly thought out, but Hatch, who wanted to blow up my computer for using P2P networks, will probably love this guy, and maybe so will others. Sense and reason haven't always been employed when laws were passed. Not when a politician can look like a golden boy during an election by "saving the children".
*Sigh* I know exactly what you mean.
One issue that hasn't been discussed much is addiction. Why isn't the fact that pornography is addictive gaining any traction?
I would dispute this as a valid point against pornography. Just about everything is addictive. Gaming is addictive. Tasty food is addictive. Alcohol is addictive. Reading is addictive. (You'll probably want to contest that one, but I'm sure you can remember a few times you stayed up late to finish a book and ended up half-dead from sleep deprivation in the morning.) I, personally, am addicted to computers. I literally start to get mental withdrawal symptoms if I can't use one for a few days. I don't care though, because there are no real long-term effects except (perhaps) a good job later in life.
This is the most harmful aspect of porn on the mind. It's one thing to enjoy a woman's naked form. It's another to be compelled to enjoy hundreds of them all in one sitting. Nameless, sometimes faceless, they depersonalize sex while feeding a craving. Can anyone really argue that this addiction to sexual stimulation is not damaging to relationships or one's own mind?
*Blink* Addiction to sexual stimulation comes with being young (at least for males - not sure about females). Testosterone. Think about it. The only question is where the "fix" is going to come from, and in most cases the answer is Mrs. Palm and her five lovely daughters. Porn is in this sense simply an aid - without it, the mind would simply be visualising naked women rather than seeing them. Whether or not the addiction is harmful to relationships, it long predated porn.
Young minds don't know these are actors playing out fantasies for profit. They certainly don't know these actors are surgically augmented. It's enough to give any sex an inferiority complex. At best kids are growing up thinking that sex lasts for hours and involves awkward poses - oh and you need to look like Ken and Barbie. At worst they expect women to beg to be covered in body fluids while swingi
Why not offer free blacklists? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I want to restrict things, too. (Score:2, Interesting)