Re: Free speech debate on MSN Encarta

[jpb@miamisci.org (Joe Block)]

At 10:17 PM 3/21/96, Raph Levien wrote:
>So here's a random idea: have an ISP that essentially firewalls the
>Internet connection to the house, so that it is very difficult to get
>unwanted stuff over the wire at all. The ISP can maintain and update the
>latest high-tech tools, including filtering by URL, filtering by
>keyword, and other stuff like detecting proxies. While they're at it,
>they can filter out junk email.

This is easily done from a technical standpoint.  There is a set of patches
for the CERN server that lets you have it automatically delete
advertisments from certain prominent sites (used to be called NoShit, I
heard they changed the name) when you're running in proxy mode.  You can
even have it change profanity into "EXON EXON" on the fly.  Running
something like this is probably a good thing for the ISP as running a cache
will allow them to get more mileage out of their net connection.

However, I don't think it likely that many ISPs will go this route from a
liability point of view - if some parent is paying them to filter out smut,
and little Zippy finds a brand new x-rated site, chances are some irate
parent will sue them.  With the proliferation of new pages, it is
impossible for anyone to keep up, unless the authors voluntarily include
some smutscan codes in their pages.

>Raph (whose son, Alan Mathison, was born Sunday morning at 5:01 am)

Congrats.

Joseph Block <jpb@miamisci.org>

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