[RANT] Re: CWD -- Jacking in from the "Keys to the Kingdom" Port

[Alan Olsen <alano@teleport.com>]

At 03:27 PM 7/5/96 -0400, Mark M. wrote:

>> B)  Forget the CONFIG.SYS ... what about kids using Macs or some future
>>     "Kid Safe" system that has the filters in an eeprom?  I'm talking
>>     about bypassing the censorship on the client-server level.  Relatively
>>     platform independent.
>
>Using a hardware based filter is about as bad as using the IP security header
>fields for content descriptions.  It's not at the level where filtering
>belongs.  Filtering should be at the software level where it currently is.
>Since this can easily be broken, it might be better to have "Kid Safe" ISP's
>that would use a firewall to filter data.

Or even better yet, they could actually teach thier children to deal with
such information instead of sheltering them from it.

I have dealt with a number of parents who have the idea that they can filter
everything the kid hears or sees.  The type of intelectual and emotional
basketcases that result are not very plesant to interact with.  They tend to
go through alot of rough times when they have to go out into the world and
see a wide variety of views, instead of just seeing what mommy and daddy
want them to.  What happens from there is generally not very pretty or very
fun for the person involved.

I do not believe that these types of filters are good.  If you have that
much concern about what your child can see, then you should not give them
net access at all.  (And remember to also not to leave them at the library
where they might find just as much filth...)  "If you don't want your kids
to be hit by information, then don't let them play on the information
superhighway."

Without contradictoy viewpoints, children do not learn how to decern between
them.  They get indoctrinated into the idea that they must accept ideas as
they are fed to them.  That learning consists of taking what is provided and
not to go out and find those ideas which might be "harmful" or "dangerous"
without perental supervision.  What we are getting is a bunch of emotional
cripples who cannot handle anything intelectually sharper than a rubber
ball.  (And it must be a ball bigger than two inches in diameter, else they
might choke on it.)

With these sort of tools, we are conditioning our children that it is OK if
someone filters their information before they see it. (Without even knowing
the *KIND* of information being filtered, because even *THAT* level of
knowledge is harmful and/or proprietary.) That it is OK for some parental
figure to eliminate all the "nasty" and "awful" information before someone
can hurt themselves with it.  That itt is OK to prevent others from viewing
information to complex for their childlike minds.

We are becoming a nation of the babysat.  Anything that our nannys deem
harmful is hidden away in the bedrooms of the parental units.  And maybe it
is harmful.  They have to scan through it all day long and look what kind of
self-righous pricks they have become!

At least I am able to instill some sort of love of knowledge and exploration
into my daughter.  Hopefully it will stick before the control freaks in this
culture are able to knock it out of her...

---
Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction
        `finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key 
                http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ 
  "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon
                "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."