Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > the threshold to add more things to the censorship list gets significantly
> > lowered.

> Yep. *Especially* when it's secret and the general public can't complain at 
> the absurdity of stuff on the list.  Commie Scare coming up!

  I wouldn't say the secrecy is the major problem. (Secrecy is problematic
for other, mostly ideological, reasons because it goes against the principles
of an open democracy where the citizens are, in principle, the ones who
govern a country, through representatives. If the government keeps something
secret from their own citizens, it means that they are not representing them
anymore, but it has become an oligarchy instead.)

  If the police adds something to the censorship list that they have no
legal right to add, somebody is going to find out sooner or later, when
they stumble on that site and wonder why they get the "sorry, we can't
let you into this website because of police orders" message. One of them
is then going to circumvent the censorship eg. via an anonymizer proxy
and find out exactly what is it that is being censored, and when they find
out that what is being censored is actually not something that can legally
be censored, chances are high that they will make a ruckus about it. (This
has actually happened.)

  The major problem is that once the censorship system is up, the threshold
of expanding the censorship law to cover more things is significantly lowered.
It will start with things that most people agree are "bad" (such as racism),
and go from there to things that the government doesn't like (such as
critique of major religions).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> out that what is being censored is actually not something that can legally
> be censored, chances are high that they will make a ruckus about it. (This
> has actually happened.)

Sure. Another way to censor folks is to just not resolve the domain name, at 
which point you don't even find out the stuff is there, because it doesn't 
wind up in google, etc.

The problem with making it secret is that someone has to stumble on it, make 
the ruckus, get the censorship reversed, and then repeat for each improperly 
censored site.  If the list is public, the interested public can go through 
the list and say "Hey, why is Joe's Pizza on that list?" If there's a 
handful of sites on the list "by mistake", that's quite different from 30% 
of the sites being there because some politician didn't want the 
competition, and there's no way to tell the difference if the list is 
secret.  Especially if they then go pass laws saying things like the 
censored site's owner isn't allowed to raise a ruckus.

>   The major problem is that once the censorship system is up, the threshold
> of expanding the censorship law to cover more things is significantly lowered.
> It will start with things that most people agree are "bad" (such as racism),
> and go from there to things that the government doesn't like (such as
> critique of major religions).

Fully agreed. But at least if the list is public, those of minority 
religions can point out they're being censored.

I.e., it's the same reason our court houses are open to the public. If 
you're doing something wrong in secret, there's much more possibility for 
abuse than if you're doing something wrong in public, even *if* the laws 
allow for you to be doing evil legally.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > out that what is being censored is actually not something that can legally
> > be censored, chances are high that they will make a ruckus about it. (This
> > has actually happened.)

> Sure. Another way to censor folks is to just not resolve the domain name, at 
> which point you don't even find out the stuff is there, because it doesn't 
> wind up in google, etc.

  The problem with that is that it's unconstitutional (at least here).
The government has no right to stop people from sending or receiving legal
information. Doing so would be a clear violation of the constitution.
Censoring an entire domain name will usually cause this to happen (unless
the domain name is extremely specific and contains only illegal material).

> The problem with making it secret is that someone has to stumble on it, make 
> the ruckus, get the censorship reversed, and then repeat for each improperly 
> censored site.

  Well, the authority who added the legal site to the list should be held
responsible for breaking the law. Guess if that has happened here. And yes,
completely legal sites have ended up in the censorship list. In one instance
there was actually somewhat of an international controversy because a
website dedicated to the memory of a deceased princess of Thailand ended up
in the Finnish censorship list. Guess if there were any legal consequences
to the authority who made the mistake. (I'll give you a hint: No.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Censoring an entire domain name will usually cause this to happen (unless
> the domain name is extremely specific and contains only illegal material).

Certainly one wouldn't be able to do that to facebook.com. wikileaks.com? 
Probably.

> to the authority who made the mistake. (I'll give you a hint: No.)

Exactly. Guess why the people who decide what goes on this list is also 
secret? I can't imagine why that would be secret either, except to protect 
the people adding things to the list they shouldn't.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 1/20/2011 3:36 PM, Warp wrote:
> UncleHoot<jer### [at] questsoftwarecom>  wrote:
>> http://www.efa.org.au/category/censorship/mandatory-isp-filtering/
>
>    "The good news is that the European Parliament are already skeptical of
> mandatory filtering. Will national governments be so sensible?"
>
>    Not the Finnish government, at least.
>
>    (What is even stranger, and scary, about the Finnish internet censorship
> is that not only is the exact list a secret which ISP's must not divulge,
> but the exact authority or authorities who decide what goes into the list
> is also a secret. Nobody outside the government and the police force knows
> who is making the decisions.)
>
That is any entirely different problem. Such filtering is kind of like 
stretching a net across a river, with random sized holes and **hoping** 
it only catches fish, the right *kind* and *size* of fish, and misses 
tree branches, otters, recreational boaters, boulders, and what ever 
else ends up going down stream. Short of an AI based system, which can 
process stuff like a person, **not a filter**, it just isn't going to 
work *period*. Sane people know this, stupid people imagine computers 
are "magic", and all they have to do is demand someone make it happen, 
and it will work, somehow, eventually...

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On 22/01/2011 03:56 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> stupid people imagine computers
> are "magic", and all they have to do is demand someone make it happen,
> and it will work, somehow, eventually...

I think you just articulated "reason #1 why computer projects fail"...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Exactly. Guess why the people who decide what goes on this list is also 
> secret? I can't imagine why that would be secret either, except to protect 
> the people adding things to the list they shouldn't.

  Do you know what's the most egregious part of this whole issue? The
authorities themselves know that the majority of the stuff they put in
the list is not illegal. They are simply padding the list for shows, to
pretend that they are doing something, when they really aren't.

  There are partial lists of banned websites out there (collected by people
who stumble accross them). A big bunch of the urls point to European or
North-American web servers. There is not a single country in Europe or
North America that would not take child pornography seriously and wouldn't
start an immediate investigation if the police department of another country
reported such a website located in their country.

  However, as far as I can tell, the Finnish police does not report these
allegedly illegal websites to the countries where they are located. Why not?
Obviously because they know the material isn't actually illegal. They are
just padding the list for shows. (From the published partial lists, the
majority of the websites contain gay porn, and a small portion have nothing
to do with porn or anything illegal at all.)

  Obviously if there was a website with real child porn in it, the proper
course of action for the Finnish police would be to contact the authorities
of the country where the server is located (as said, many of these servers
are located in Europe and North America). Just adding the websites to the
censorship list and then forgetting about it is probably the worst thing
they could do.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   However, as far as I can tell, the Finnish police does not report these
> allegedly illegal websites to the countries where they are located. Why not?
> Obviously because they know the material isn't actually illegal.

That is an excellent point as well.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4d3ad55f$1@news.povray.org...
> On 22/01/2011 03:56 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> stupid people imagine computers
>> are "magic", and all they have to do is demand someone make it happen,
>> and it will work, somehow, eventually...
>
> I think you just articulated "reason #1 why computer projects fail"...
>

Reminds me of an idea that I had for a comic strip that I'd like to paste on 
my cubicle.

Panel 1:
(young man talking to wizard)
young man: So...  I really want this girl to fall in love with me.
wizard: Hmmm...

Panel 2:
(wizard looks pensive)
wizard: What you are asking is not simple.  There are a variety of factors 
to consider.  I should be able to give you an estimate within a couple of 
days, but you're probably looking at a couple weeks of work, at a minimum. 
This will not be cheap.

Panel 3:
(young man looks shocked, wizard looks stern)
young man: What???  I can't afford that!  I thought this would just take a 
couple of minutes!
wizard: Well what do you think this is?  Computer programming???

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> young man: What???  I can't afford that!  I thought this would just take a
> couple of minutes!
> wizard: Well what do you think this is?  Computer programming???

Heheh. Yeah. Like it's that easy. ;-)

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