Below are a couple more press articles about Yarro's efforts to flood ICANN with its identikit form letters on behalf of the mysterious "Cybersafety" Constituency.
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If there's one thing that scares the bejabbers out of me, it's when organized religion—either directly or via proxies—attempts to nose its way into technology policy issues.
It appears that such a scenario is unfolding currently, with a concerted new effort to fundamentally remake the Internet in a manner befitting the sensibilities of top-down religious hierarchies. An Internet Pope? The Spanish Inquisition? Not exactly—that's the incorrect religion for this particular case.
The Register connects the dots of a rather sordid sequence of events in an article posted today.
Executive summary: It appears that mainly Utah-based Mormon anti-porn crusaders, in league with Ralph J. Yarro III (SCO Group chairman) have combined forces to petition ICANN toward the creation of a new "Cybersafety Constituency"—and are now reportedly using form letters to dominate the brief period of time available for comments.
To better understand how this all comes together and what such a Cybersafety Constituency might be after, one must be aware that Cheryl Preston, a key player for CP80 (headed by Yarro) is spearheading this effort.
CP80, which has been around for a number of years, has been pushing a radical and impractical (decorum prevents me from saying "loony" at this juncture) plan for fundamental restructuring of Internet architecture, along with associated new laws, to "channelize" the Internet into the censorship advocates' dream machine. These are hard-core Internet content control zealots we're talking about, at least judging from their own materials.
CP80 says that a whole slew of big name corporations, including Apple, Toshiba, Wal-Mart, Sony, PetSmart, Office Depot, and on and on, are "contribution partners" to their effort—seeming to imply support for the CP80 agenda. In reality, it appears likely to me that these are merely purchase affiliation links, and I wonder how many of these firms are aware of the manner in which CP80 is using their names and logos.
While it's difficult to visualize CP80's radical agenda gaining much traction in the short term, their entanglement with the new ICANN petition and what appears to be a well orchestrated Mormon pressure campaign certainly rate a "yellow shading toward orange" alert.
To be exceptionally clear about this, the key issue here isn't the particular religion involved. I'd say exactly the same thing about any other organized religion that appeared to be involving itself—in my view—inappropriately in technology policy matters.
Unfortunately, history teaches us that organized religion (a concept that I've always considered to be utterly orthogonal to truly meaningful questions of God, gods, and spirituality in general) is all too often an instrument for societal control rather than enlightenment.
I consider it crucial that the Internet not be sucked into this particular maelstrom.
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Yarro, Anti-Porn Crusaders Want More ICANN Clout
So they can push 'ports for porn' idea harder...
Anti-pornography activists, led by SCO Group chairman Ralph Yarro III, have been busy over the last few years trying to purge the 'net of smut. Dubbed CP80, the group has pushed a number of bad ideas, such as assigning certain ports just to porn, so it could supposedly be more easily filtered. Yarro and his friends are now lobbying ICANN to create a new "Cybersafety Constituency" which would help develop binding policies for the Internet’s domain name system. Of course their "ports for porn" idea is in tow, though it's a technical nuisance and would do little to stop the circulation of porn anyway. For those interested, ICANN is fielding public comment here.
join:2000-08-21 Glen Burnie, MD | Sure you can filter porn to certain ports..... .....if you do the same to the ultra religious sites too.
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edit: March 19th, @01:55PM | Re: Sure you can filter porn to certain ports..... Well, suppose we had either or both of these rules. The first, obvious question is who determines which sites are in which category?
Presumably this so-called "Cybersafety Constituency" would like themselves placed in charge of classifying sites as "pornography" or not. ("safety"? There is actually no proof that pornography is harmful to minors or anyone.) And let's have you, moonpuppy | |
appoint someone to classify sites as fundie/non-fundie. Then the next thing would be attempts to tax internet users to pay for all this classification effort. Soon after would be controversies over mis-classification.
Meanwhile software authors would immediately come up with a browser feature like "if it's not on port 80, try the porno port and the fundie port". Of course, others would soon want more categories (criticizing government, etc.). And who would prevent webmasters in every nation from disobeying the rules and putting everything on port 80?
The response would be an attempt to get ISPs to block the ports assigned to certain types of content. But millions of users would object. So a crucial, implicit part of the proposal would have to be legislation to force ISPs to censor the internet.
The list of severe problems with the whole idea goes on from there - my list is only the most egregious items.
BTW, most of the support for this is form letters put out by one organization in Utah - and it happens that Utah is the state with the highest pornography consumption in the USA.
--------------- Edit: Moonpuppy, I didn't mean to imply that your proposal was serious, and in fact I agree with the sentiment. I was only using it as a start on pointing out the craziness of the idea.
Let's have the technical authorities just be in charge of keeping the internet working as well as possible from a technical point of view, and parents in charge of what their children do on the computer, and the two not step on each other's jurisdictions. | | | |
join:2008-01-29 Eustis, FL | |
edit: March 19th, @10:01AM | |
The Outer Limits of censorship! | |
We will control the Horizontal, we will control the Vertical, we will control all that you see and hear! This is the slippery slope of censorship. Why don't these tyrants spend their efforts helping those evicted from their homes, rather than trying to be the thought police! | | | |
Not born yesterday Premium join:2005-07-01 Atlanta, GA | |
| and look at Utah... It is quite interesting that the highest porn consumption on internet and cable comes from states like Utah. Such hypocrites!
Why anyone would believe a word that comes from anyone connected with SCO is beyond imaginable. But then, these religionists believe in talking snakes, too. | | | |
What a bunch of idiots. Sure, let's ban porn on port 80, and since the US is the world - let's block all other countries since they still allow pr0n on port 80.
I have a better solution for them - get off the internet - we don't need you here! | | | |
join:2008-11-20 Pleasant Hill, MO | |
| Dude............. I do not support porn, but people have free will if they want to do something they KNOW they should not I, and we, cannot stop them. The Government trying to force stop them will phail epically. People are flawed imperfect creatures we cannot change that, or stop them. | | | |
Premium join:2005-01-23 Boise, ID | |
| Re: Dude............. said by me1212 | |
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...if they want to do something they KNOW they should not... Many that enjoy adult content don't share your moral outlook. Don't make the mistake of assuming that your morality can (or should) be ascribed to everyone else. | | | |
join:2008-11-20 Pleasant Hill, MO | Re: Dude............. I never said they do/did, just they no1 can stop them. Let them be they have free will. I choose not to do it, I will not stop them, I haven't the right to do so. No man can really stop them especially the Government they will phail epically. | | | |
edit: March 19th, @01:05PM | Re: Dude............. I think Dark Fiber was referring to this:
"they want to do something they KNOW they should not"
Based on your morals, they shouldn't. Fine. Based on others' morals, it's not necessarily something they should not do, and their morals would likewise not guide them to believe they shouldn't do it.
Your comment implies that you feel it is wrong and everyone else should know it is wrong as well, but at least you support them making an alleged bad decision. | | | |
join:2008-11-20 Pleasant Hill, MO | Re: Dude............. Oh ok. Whatever. And there were some people I was talking about who shall remain nameless. | | | |
We don't miss you Bush Premium join:2002-10-01 North Babylon, NY | If they don't like it... ...Why are they even bothering? | | | |
join:2001-03-15 Smithtown, NY | |
| Spend a few million of taxpayers money, quick. And some 14 year old taking school computer classes will have it hacked or a workaround in about a week.
Why do people who know nothing about the internet keep coming up with stupid ideas.
Usually these come from politicians and aren't known for their brains, at least since the financial collapse of AIG etc. | | | |
| So many more important things out there... Let's think of a few:
-Teen pregnancies(specially unwanted ones) -Crime rates -Global warming -The massive stupidity out there -Graduation rates and public school systems -Terrible train systems that seems you are in third world country(actually theirs might be better) -Faster and cheaper broadband -Our massive homicide per capita rate(they are off the charts amigo, we are now Mexico JR.) -Better health care
Oh, I don't know, and about a million other things out there. I think I will leave the porn fighting for when some of the more serious issues above have been addressed. People watching a lot of porn and masturbating themselves to death is not necessarily affecting society. Nor is unsupervised teens or younger watching a boob on the Internet because moronic and incompetent mommy has no idea how to raise her kid.
All the incompetent baboons always want to censor everything and have everything hidden behind a barrier because they do not want to take some of the responsibility of managing their kids. These same idiots trying to hide porn from everyone are the same parents who do not know how to instill values and knowledge in their own children and while they are fighting for these ludicrous implementations their 14 yr old daughter is prostituting herself on the street.
I tell it like it is. | | | |
join:2000-09-13 Hazelwood, MO
| Re: So many more important things out there... said by Aozora | |
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Let's think of a few:
-Teen pregnancies(specially unwanted ones) -Crime rates -Global warming -The massive stupidity out there -Graduation rates and public school systems -Terrible train systems that seems you are in third world country(actually theirs might be better) -Faster and cheaper broadband -Our massive homicide per capita rate(they are off the charts amigo, we are now Mexico JR.) -Better health care
Oh, I don't know, and about a million other things out there. And ALL of these things can be resolved if we just stop porn! | | | |
join:2001-10-02 Columbus, OH | |
| Re: So many more important things out there... said by Skippy25 | |
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And ALL of these things can be resolved if we just stop porn! And nobody's even said "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!" yet! | | | |
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20 Cheyenne, WY
edit: March 19th, @03:32PM | What I find a real Howler I work at a Veterans Hospital and I have a great deal of contact with fellow Veterans returning from Iraq. They tell me every time they capture a computer, mostly laptops, from Iraqi holy warriors, they are all full of XXXXXXXXXXXXXX rated porno. I suppose they want a sneak preview of those 71 virgins. The point is these stateside holy warriors will have no more success with porno then they did a 100 years ago with prohibition. -- I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's. - Mark Twain in Eruption | | | |
join:2004-10-14 Draper, UT | |
| Re: So many more important things out there... said by Aozora | |
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......People watching a lot of porn and masturbating themselves to death is not necessarily affecting society...... Agreed.
Ask yourself; would you rather someone: A. Masturbating to porn in their own house not disturbing others. B. A stalker (or dare I go as far as rapist) who can only get their 'fix' by being a predator. | | | |
| I forgot to mention the already massive amounts of way of restricting porn access to kids if parents want.
My router has features for that. There are programs apart from that and GUESS WHAT? You can make sure their account on their computer is restrictive. OMG. All these features and nobody is using them. I am so worried about porn... its little harm along with the millions of ways to prevent kids access to porn already. This is an issue that needs massive attention and resources right now. EVERYONE, QUICK, TO THE ANTIPORN MOBILE!! | |
Technically feasible Premium join:2001-07-23 West Hartford, CT | |
| Kick SCO off the 'net. It's a dangerous cult. They can appoint themselves the arbiters of porn right after they appoint me the arbiter of what is and isn't a harmful religious cult [or maybe not, since they'd have just been determined to be part of a harmful religious cult and kicked off the 'net].
I'm liable to be a lot more tolerant of porn than I am of people who advocate censorship.
First SCO thins it owns Linux, now it wants to play 'net Nazi. Get lost and stay there, SCO! | | | |
| I really liked this response...
And, I also liked my own, posted to the ICANN comment forum:
Perhaps the Cybersafety Constituency should simply shut down their computers for good. That would definitely be preferable to letting this minority dictate the permissibility of on-line content in any sense.
The methods and goals of the Cybersafety Constituency are similar to those of other organizations and interest groups whose censorship agenda has been repeatedly struck down by the courts. No need to waste the time, energy or money on the futile pursuit of a "pure", porn-free world wide web. It simply will not happen.
The founders of this so called constituency ought to do a bit more fiddling with themselves, and lot less diddling with the rights of the rest of us. | |
IP JUSTICE
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