The Discordant Opposition Journal Issue 7 - File 2
:Censorware:
by cronus [cronus@iol.ie]
For several months now I have been involved in an online group called Peacefire. Peacefire is a group of teenagers who try to build awareness about censorware software. Most people who are familiar with the net know that it takes little more than a search engine and a few minutes of your time to find pornography, facist material and even instructions for drug preparation. The common garden solution is to use 'blacklist' software such as NetNanny, CyberSitter or SafeSurf.
This software is favoured by parents and schools as it uses long lists of socially unacceptable sites such as www.playboy.com and all the other sites that should be kept from young eyes. The main problem with these 'censorware' solutions is that they also use keyword searchs to prohibit sites that are deemed bad. Words such as breast, gay or lesbian are banned by the software, but this also excluded Breast Cancer Awareness, Gay and Lesbian community sites. Even sites that are vital to education such as HIV information sites. Stating homosexual on a HIV awareness site can be enough to get te site banned from the eyes of the children of watchful parents.
Further more, liberies and schools use censorware to guard against children using the freedom and resourcfulness of the Internet to its full extent. The companies that sell censorware software claim that each site that is banned is first check by a human middle-man to make sure it is unsuitable. Since Breast and Testicale Cancer sites are banned it shows that simply mass searchs of the Internet are banned.
To make sure that nasty little brats don't get ahold of the banned sites list and going on a rampage, the lists are encrypted to keep it away from prying eyes. This means that essentially it is impossible to find out which sites are banned and because the censorware companies have immunity in thier choice they also ban sites that voice opinions against them or their software. Peacefire is one of the most commonly banned sites for this reason. Obsecurity through ignorance is not acceptable in the slightest.
I would urge anyone with a slight opinion on human rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion to visit Peacefire's site [www.peacefire.org] and the Electronic Freedom Federation [www.eff.org]
... intoxicated with the madness ...
cronus (at) iol (dot) ie
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http://www.sinnocence.com/fray
