Re: The Censorware Summit: A Preview, from The Netly News

[Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>]

At 07:44 AM 7/16/97 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>        Stephen Balkam, the head of RSACi, now says he has a solution. He
>   calls it RSACnews and says that legitimate news sites can use it to
>   rate just their home pages without having to review each article. Now,
>   what's a legitimate news site? The Netly News might qualify, but what
>   about the NAMBLA News Journal? "People who generate firsthand reports
>   that have been in some ways verified or structured in a way that gives
>   clear and objective information as possible about events," Balkam
>   says. "We will be working with the news industry to help us develop a
>   criteria." (This, presumably, means groups that have signed on as
>   supporters, including MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the Well, CNET 
>   and Ziff-Davis. I'm told that the White House wants to qualify as a 
>   "news site" -- even though the information there is rarely clear and
>   certainly not objective.)

I can't remember how RSACi authenticates the tags. I assume they are either
signed by a CA or not authenticated.

1) If the tags are signed by a CA.
Who operates the root CA? Who will operate the CA that issues RSACnews
tags, also knows as Online Publishing Licenses.?

2) If the tags are not signed by a CA.
What is someone to prevent from labeling the NAMBLA monthly site,
"government authorized news site, suitable for all ages"? Just as the
various GAK proposals do not make sense unless GAK is mandatory, online
rating systems do not make sense unless "misslabeling" sites will become a
felony.


--Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>
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