Guardian angels, anonymity, and the decency brigade

["Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>]

Attached is a message from the CyberAngels asking for rating volunteers.

Jim Thomas published a fascinating and illuminating article documenting
the seamier side of these self-appointed net.vigilantes in the Computer
underground Digest earlier this year. (I vaguely remember some legal
threats soon afterwards.) Their authoritarian and anti-privacy leanings
are clear in their FAQ, at <http://www.safesurf.com/cyberangels/>:

  9) What kinds of changes would the Guardian Angels / CyberAngels like
  to see?

  a) We would like to see an improvement in User identification. User ID is
  impossible to verify or trace back. The very anonymity of Users is itself
  causing an increase in rudeness, sexual abuse, flaming, and crimes like
  pedophile activity. We the Net Users must take responsibility for the 
  problem ourselves. One of our demands is for more accountable User IDs
  on the Net. When people are anonymous they are also free to be criminals.
  In a riot you see rioters wearing masks to disguise their true identity.

So much for anonymous remailers! But the CyberAngels, in a fit of almost
painful hypocrisy, use anonymous remailers themselves, as Charles Platt
recounts in his book _Anarchy Online_ (their web page also says how
these virtues remain anonymous online):

      How would this decency crusade actually work in 
 practice? Well, later in 1995, one net user received the 
 following not-very-friendly, not-very-literate warning, sent 
 via an anonymous remailer: 

          The Net is out of control, sex crimes, hate crimes 
     and felonies. 
          Just as on the streets, CyberCrime is committed by 
     a minority of criminals who destroy the quality of life 
     for an innocent majority. And just like on the streets 
     the Guardian Angels will combat it. 
          We have good reason to believe that you are 
     involved in unlawful, harmful, hateful, threatening 
     and/or harassment, particularly relating to minors. We 
     will be watching you. 

      The netizen who found this in her mailbox was baffled 
 and irritated. She had no idea what she'd done to provoke the 
 warning, and since the message was anonymous, there was no 
 way to _find out_ what she was supposed to have done. 
     By November, the Angels claimed they had 200 volunteers 
 working for them, busily searching for bad guys on the net. 
 "We have reported a number of Child Pornographers (50) to 
 Sysadmins [system administrators] this month," Colin Hatcher 
 noted, although he was no longer signing his real name to his 
 progress reports, perhaps in fear of reprisals from angry 
 pedophiles. "Letters we have received back all share our 
 concern and promise stern action. Remember, each electronic 
 image represents a real life destroyed." 

 [...]

     Some net users wondered, though, if Hatcher was 
 qualified to draw a dividing line between good and bad, let 
 alone ugly. They also worried that decency vigilantes might 
 have a chilling effect on freedom of speech. A student at 
 Rutgers University complained that some of the Angels' public 
 statements "are threats to violate the civil liberties of 
 users of the Internet." In addition, he said, "the record of 
 the Guardian Angels suggests that they will step over even 
 the bounds that they publicly set for themselves." 

And, as Steven Levy wrote in Newsweek last October: "After the issue of
child safety in cyberspace came up on his radio talk show, [Curtis]
Sliwa decided to pursue in his usual high-profile fashion... Though the
CyberAngels cannot document a single case where one of their numerous
reports led directly to an arrest, they have compiled a fat file of
press clippings."

In the attached piece, the Angels hold themselves up as the arbiter of
what is appropriate for kids or not under the Safesurf system. So far so
good -- but what criteria do they use when checking to see if a site is
"genuinely kidsafe?" Where is it documented and published? What training
do their self-selected vigilantes have? Will the cypherpunks list
be blocked when we have messages like this one on it:

 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/asst/anti_porn_group_11_22_94.letter
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Those orphan kids in the terminally ill section of the hospital are so fun
 at night when they are drugged out. I love sucking on their tiny
 finger-sized cocks and probing their tight holes. Their slender little
 bodies are completely smooth. They're going to die pretty soon so they
 won't come back to me several years from now as hairy grown up men blaming
 me for why they are all mentally messed up. And since they are orphans
 with no one to look over them except for overworked staff, I could get
 away with just about anything.

Since blocking software like Safesurf and SurfWatch is central to our
case challenging the CDA, I believe we should support that software and
PICS-like third paty rating systems. Fortunately, that doesn't mean we
have to accept or support the efforts of their unfortunate and
intemperate net-vigilante allies.

But I still want to help rate some web pages, so ---- "Gabriel," I want
to be a CyberAngel. Sign me up!

-Declan (now a CyberSeraphim)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 19:11:16 -0700
From: angels@wavenet.com
Subject: ALERT FOR 20 VOLUNTEERS!

APPEAL FOR VOLUNTEERS

Hi again everyone.  I have a project that requires 20 volunteers.  Read on!

Most of you I hope are familiar with Safesurf - if not go visit them at
http://www.safesurf.com

Safesurf are not a commercial software company but are a kidsafe
organization who are very involved in the ratings issue for kids and adult
material on the Net.  Safesurf are also our allies, and it is thanks to
them that we have our website at all as it was a donation from Ray and
Wendy at Safesurf.

Safesurf have a very positive approach to the screening debate - they have
developed a rating system whereby instead of spending time rating adult
sites you focus instead on rating the kids sites.  Then your screening
software only allows you to visit sites with the Safesurf rating on it.
This is an excellent concept, not least because it doesn't then matter if
new sites come onto the web that are not rated yet, because nothing can be
included in your screened browser unless it registers itself as kidsafe by
marking its site with a safesurf rating mark.  Don't worry about my
ramblings - just go to their site and read up on it.  It's a really
positive concept and has been adopted by a lot of sites already.  Adopting
the Safesurf mark is voluntary and means that you are identifying your site
as suitable for e.g. kids.

Now here comes the appeal.  Several thousand sites have already marked
themselves as Safesurf rated - and more are registering every day.

The question is - what is to stop a site registering as a kidsafe site, but
in reality being an adult site?  The Safesurf rating method is that sites
can obtain the rating from the Safesurf site and then write in and register
themselves.  Isn't it possible that a site could claim to be kidsafe but in
reality was adult?

The answer is yes.  So how can Safesurf be sure that sites registered with
them are indeed genuinely kidsafe?  Simple - someone has to go and check
out all the sites who register with Safesurf.

Ray had a proposal for me.  How about if we could say that all these sites
were "Rated by Safesurf, and patrolled by CyberAngels"?  I thought that was
a great idea - for we CyberAngels to help Safesurf in this way, by checking
their sites for them.

Ray is proposing to send me 200 sites a week to check out and we will share
them out to a CyberAngels team of 20 volunteers - that means that each one
of us would volunteer to check out 10 sites per week.  Easy right?

I want to make something very clear - Safesurf are not a rich commercial
company making money from rating sites.  They are not selling software and
their rating code is free to anyone who wants it.  So it's not like they
can hire 20 people and pay them to patrol the Safesurf Intranet - it's a
volunteer job.

So there you are - I am looking for 20 CyberAngel volunteers to make up a
regular Safesurf "Intranet" Patrol, with the mission to visit 10 URLs a
week and make sure that they are what they say they are.  Who's ready?

Once I have the team established I will then brief you all on how we do
this.  Write to me as soon as possible if this interests you.  Let's show
Safesurf how much we support their positive stand for our InterNet kids!  I
will take the first 20 volunteers who contact me (yes you will be suitably
honored - publicly if you so choose!)

Gabriel