FCC wants a magic, porn-free wireless Internet
David Weinberger writes, "The FCC is suggesting that it will make a slice of spectrum available for free Internet access to users, so long as the providers filter out all the porn...and, if the filters don't work, then the providers have to use 'other means,' which presumably might include blocking entire application types or protocols, or blocking encrypted data. It includes filtering p2p traffic. The idea is now open for public comment.
One of the prominent supporters of this idea, M2Z, which is bidding for it, bills itself as a 'free family friendly broadband' company. "
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What's porn?
Funnily enough, I want a magic, FCC-free, wireless Porn-net.
It's geezer-speak for pron.
I'm not sure i see what's wrong with this. Enough people would have no interest in such censorship that alternate internet accessibility would never die, and the people who enjoy being censored and told what to view could do so at their leisure.
IMHO, anyway.
Oh I see, just the implication that its wishful thinking on their part. Heh heh.
You misunderstand. I am a geezer. The joke is that I took his question literally.
Ok, all pr0n will be "filtered" with the end-to-end strong cryptography of IPsec (along with all traffic). The portion of the network within the scope of FCC regulation -- the wireless spectrum slice -- will in fact then be compliant.
p.s. Thanks Dave for all your hard work evangelizing Open Spectrum. I loved your interview with David Reed.
p.p.s. The season 6 premiere of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! covered "The War on Porn".
...or, I should say, I pretended to take it as a request for translation, instead of what it obviously was, the opening salvo in Ye Whatte Is Porne Debate.
I apologize if I offended.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/23/fcc_unveils_free_wireless_plan/
This smacks a bit of prior restraint.
From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/23/fcc_unveils_free_wireless_plan/
hmm... "protect" implies harm; can the FCC provide scientific evidence that exposure to pornography is harmful?My preference is for a steamy prawn-net. Do you use nets to catch prawns?
Zuzu,
Why are you including a link that Takuan added an inch above you?
harmful content... OK ,I don't have to be EVERYWHERE, I have unholy minions for that. Or do you think they mean violence content? Or political lies? Or evangelizing? (Traps work better for prawns)
Exactly. It's a trap!
Nice punnery.. but no less true.
I'd rather have it ad and commerce free, but I'll take porn-free as long as there are no ads or stores or marketing of any sort.
If the FCC bans Pron, then they better ban anything violent as well.
I would much rather have my kids watching some girl get plugged in the bum, than let my kids watch the latest movie/media that involves violence and/or death by violence. That pretty much eliminates teh whole internets.
That is.. if I had kids.
Kids must be protected from the sort of parents who want corporations and the government to do their parenting for them.
wireless prawn trap?
I was under the impression that the internet is for porn.
So... excuse the ignorant Swede... but is this FCC the Federal Church of Christ and, if so, why do you have them in charge of regulating communications?
@13 Antinous
Trying to attribute where I was quoting from. Hence "From ..."I guess that looked strange? I'll try to remember to format such a circumstance different in the future.
Weren't there already an attempt or two at a porn-free, low cost internet? Prodigy and CompuServe.
What's the point in free tubes if you can't fill them with pr0n and bittorrent?
Oh wait... I forgot, it's the US .gov behind this.
They're all about the user tracking/ad content.
Yeah, I'm sure this'll stay as free from porn as a Catholic Church.
Good try USA, maybe instead of worrying about kids jerking off, how about you i dunno... STOP TORTURING PEOPLE!
/rant
In short, this spectrum will be used by Federally-employed clerks to communicate /with each other/ over a closed network to locate digital copies of works on an approved list, which copies will then be supplied to the requestor.
Because as soon as you let one single free end-user self-interested person have direct access to the network, IT WILL HAVE PORN.
Yeah it's silly that they want this, but why do they want it? That's what I don't get. Are they really that concerned with porn content or is there something else going on here? Is it just that boobies are bad?
Let's just say we all agree on what "porn" is...which we don't. There still isn't a program out there that can "know" porn when it sees it, 100 percent of the time. But this point is moot, since if you had 500 different people in the same room, you'd get 500 definitions of what porn is, or isn't.
Good luck with your "porn-free" wireless interenet, FCC!
It sounds like this idea was hatched by some 80 year old spinster who knows nothing about computers, the world, or yes, porn.
Yeah, funny that US politicians are so against porn. Since more often than not, they're the worst kind of perverts (gay or straight).
@ENOCHREWT #28:
Yeah it's silly that they want this, but why do they want it?
It looks like a control thing to me. (I'll leave aside the ridiculousness chances of success for now.)
This little "free family-friendly ISP" is a test case. If this little ISP can make a go of it, then powerful interest groups will have something to point at "This works, why can't all y'all (ISP's) do that?!? Think of the CHILDREN!!!!"
Then they lobby, and the FCC smacks all ISP's with the same requirements.
As it is "easier" to apply the same rules to everybody than to split out service, the "filtered" version becomes the default version.
Unfiltered access becomes very expensive, and as far fewer people will pay for it they will be easier to watch.
Everybody else doesn't see what the gov't and special interests don't want them to see, and thus get further behind in the "well-informed" department.
Very anti net-neutrality, of course.
Side "bonus": It becomes easier to sue/indite providers of non-filtered wi-fi.
As for why the little ISP and their prospective customers want it? Short answer: They appear to consider humans in general to be base animals that can't control themselves when exposed to "naughty bits" - they appear to want to remove all "temptation" from the world, to make us more "pure" in the eyes of their God.
Long answer: Read the three books of "His Dark Materials" by Pullman. Excellent depiction of people who want to at all costs return Man to a pre-Eve level of purity, and use that goal to justify the means of total dictatorial control...
Later,
-cajun
How is this any sort of surprise? Any free publicly broadcast signal has regulations put on it by the FCC. Television and radio broadcasts have decency standards. The FCC just expects the same soft of enforcement on the waves if they're going to get behind free broadcast internet.
Whether or not it's feasible, they're not going to change their entire outlook. And I would expect we're going to see an extremely limited application set for access, those nice big block buttons, maybe eight or so options (weather, news, sports, stocks, games...) that we saw in the old AOL/CompuServe days. It's not your signal, you're not leasing it, you're not paying for it. The only way you're going to have any sway over it is in how you "tune in".
I'm sure they'll equate free internet browsing to signal piracy or some such nonsense, but you get what you pay for, kids. And it's free, so write your congressman.
More simply, the FCC used to be able to control media, but the writing is on the wall. In my household we no longer watch broadcast TV - airwaves, cable or satellite.
Video on demand is the future, and right now the FCC cannot control it.
So they are looking for ways to re-assert something that is soon to vanish.
I actually am ok with this. The internet should be free to everyone. And porn should go back to being paid for. Maybe this will fix both the porn industry's internet issues and the need for free internet for everyone.
I know my viewpoint is wildly unpopular, but it's not like they're doing away with the paid-for networks most BoingBoing users are already using for porn.
So how do they propose to keep people on this magic free wireless network from emailing each other porn?
The answer is, they'll be scanning your email, if you're on the network. You can trust the government to not look at other private information, like political speech, or business information, right, chumps?
is it porn if it's pictures of me?
keep the porn, dump the fcc.
It really is simple to keep "pron" off a computer.
(1) disconect the modem
(2) remove all hard drives
this has fail written all over it.
why?
because americans are more about saying they're anti- porn than actually being anti- porn
and also, someone will hack it. just to hack it.
This sounds as retarded as trying to move all porn to the .xxx TLD. I have never figured out why there is this desire in the US to pretend like porn is harmful and that no one really wants to look at it (they all do). I work for a decent sized porn company and we have to keep 10 people on staff just to answer phone calls from idiots that swear that they never bought porn on the internet/they would never look at that kind of thing/porn is bad mmkay.
I still don't understand why there's such a push to end porn. I understand that not everybody wants to see porn, but if that's the case, then don't go looking for it.
You will rarely, if ever, see porn while visiting "safe" websites. If you start venturing into the shadier areas, like hacking or warez, then yes, you'll see all sorts of other shady things, including drugs and porn.
They keep saying they want to "protect children and families," but what are they protecting them from? Seeing a naked person? God help them if they ever looked in the mirror while they themselves were naked. They are merely enforcing the rheotoric of certain religious groups that believe that sex is both sacred and shameful.
You don't have to sanitize the Internet to keep children from being exposed to things their parents don't want them to see: let the parents act like parents and watch their kids. Give parents the option as to what their kids (and they themselves) may see. Just becuse some people think it inappropriate doesn't mean we should all be limited from accessing it.
Some people are arguing that you're still able to use paid-for services, but I think that's missing the point. Why should people be given free access as long as they don't look at porn? Why should a company be allowed exclusive access to precious radio spectrum as long as they agree to sanitize the signal? It sets a very definite double-standard: you can view porn, but not on our network. They do so in the name of children, but it applies to adults too -- the rules don't make exclusions to the filtering policy for those who can prove that they won't be harmed.
As everybody else pointed out, what is "obscenity or pornography and, in context, as measured by contemporary community standards and existing law, any images or text that otherwise would be harmful to teens and adolescents."? Whose community standards? At what granularity -- town, county, state? What is harmful? I would quickly argue that violence is harmful: should we ban all images of war? Many people are arguing that violent video games are harmful, will those be banned as well? What about communities where it's not acceptable to talk about contraception, abortion, or homosexuality? What about drugs? What about political dissent?
Obscenity laws have seen centuries of argument with no clear agreement on what is or isn't obscene. Laws have, in general, steered clear of much of the discussion -- most laws which would seek to define and punish obscenity have been stricken or otherwise made lame by the courts. The FCC's insistence on such measures merely allows a government body to, in the public interest and outside of the existing judicial system, enforce its own laws about what is to be considered obscene. It allows some people to enforce their beliefs upon the masses in the name of "protecting the children".
“I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” -Voltaire
what is being sold here is not the absence of pornography. Rather, it is the assurance that the witch hunters are not looking for you personally. People need to hear that. Usually every Sunday.
It's actually simple. Global War on Drugs == money for enforcement. Global War on Terror == $$ for enforcement. Global War on Music == $$ for enforcement. So Global War on Prawns == (fill in the blanks.)
All it needs is a slick salesman saying "We've got a technology that can detect this stuff" who has some connection with someone with budget...
wil
why teh hating on the little prawns?
Garlic Prawns
Recipe Type: Non Veg.
Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients:
500 gm Prawns, large shelled
4 tbsp Garlic, crushed
5 tbsp Butter
5 tbsp chilli and lime salad dressing, lemons or lime juice, maybe used as substitute
1 tsp Marjoram
1 Big onion, sliced
Freshly cracked black pepper and ground sea salt to taste
Cooking Instructions:
Heat pan on stove and melt butter in it.
Combine onion and garlic with it, cook for about 30 seconds on high flame.
Add prawns to it, mix well.
Combine chilli and lime salad dressing or lemons or lime juice with it.
Sprinkle marjoram over the prawns.
Add black pepper and sea salt to it.
You can dress them in little lingerie too!
We *nix users already have such a thing. It's called /dev/null.
@CAJUNFJ40: See, that's why I asked why. I was figuring it was a lip service offer that nobody could achieve so they'd never have to make a slice of free-internet in the spectrum. I didn't even think of the possibility that it was a stepping stone of setting precedent for further regulation in other areas.
I wish the FCC would just stick to defining frequencies and bandwidth standards. That's something we do need. Censorship is something that we don't.
The answer to why is really simple. It's just hard to see if you're stuck on the idea that the government wants to censor and control you.
Here's the deal. Parents, hypocrites, and religious extremists vote. Progressive youngsters, and disillusioned adults don't. The FCC can't create a free wireless internet if they don't cater to the voters; those same voters who are either too stupid to actually know what's good for their children, too ashamed to admit that they have indulged in pornography, or are all bibled up.
The FCC is doing this because they're giving the majority (counting only the people who make their voices heard in a fashion that holds their bosses accountable) what they demand.
It has nothing to do with what we need. It has to do with what we (collectively) ask for. We asked for this. (Either directly or through inaction)
The obsession of protecting people from seeing sexually arousing material is quite mysterious to me. Of all the things to protect kids from, it is the least dangerous.
There have been few if any deaths by sex (except by disease), while violence, dangerous stunts, irresponsible behavior, and mindless aggression are given a free ride despite their obvious consequences. When a game like GTA comes out, most of the outrage from the Authoritarians is against the prostitutes and sex. The gunning people down and running them over hardly rates a peep.
The only theory that I have come up with is that a militaristic society needs a populace who is jaded to violence for recruiting and unquestioning support for wars.
On the other hand, sex encourages bonds and behaviors that are not easily controlled by authority figures. People will do most anything for sex, so in a way it is a competing influence to the Government in peoples lives.
Fuck family friendly. Kids should see all the nasty shit going on in the world. Eventually they are all going to be part of it, or not. The internet isn't going to make that choice for them.
Quote:
"Enough people would have no interest in such censorship that alternate internet accessibility would never die, and the people who enjoy being censored and told what to view could do so at their leisure."
The difficulty is that this would create an alternative system. Subsequent regulations could be made to the detriment of the unfiltered, unsponsored system using the logic that an alternative existed. A hypothetical regulation I'll use to provoke outrage might be, for instance, a national registry one must sign up for in order to access the unfiltered network. Even without snooping in acting invasively, it would be easy to attach a stigma to a system "the innocent" would not need to use.
The second issue that must be dealt with is the filtering process. To filter for porn or inappropriate material, you have to filter everything. What if porn wasn't going to be the only thing filtered?
I'm reminded of an online game I once played, which shared servers with Chinese players. Swearing was prohibited, and such words were filtered out. So was any mention of Taiwan.
One of the worst things about this is the potential for them to define anything they want as "porn". There have been cases elsewhere of fine art masterpieces (like the David) being declared porn because it they show a nude guy. You want those people running your internet? I sure don't.
"It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use, in the form of soma, a powerful psychotropic rationed by the government that is taken to escape pain and bad memories through hallucinatory fantasies, referred to as "Holidays". Additionally, social stability has been achieved and is maintained via deliberately engineered and rigidly enforced social stratification.
Brave New World is Huxley's most famous novel. The ironic title comes from Miranda's speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:
"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world
That hath such people in't!"
I have to wonder about the why... why is free wifi the place where the FCC starts filtering? Why is free wifi different from all the other internet signals that the FCC regulates? If porn is so problematic, why wasn't it problematic for regular wifi, which also travels over FCC regulated airwaves?
I really don't get it. People with laptops can view porn whenever they want, irregardless of wifi. When was the last time you saw someone watching a porn DVD in a public place? I've never ever seen it. It's just not an issue.
^_^
p.s. "Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi)" is a really silly marketing term.
'irregardless' has been gaining momentum, and I expect it to be listed as non-nonstandard any edition now.
Agent 86: Deplore, deplore, deplore.
Ah, all negative jokes should be deplored