The problem becomes what should be censored and who should make that
decision. When you use a closed product, you often turn your network
over to that product's blacklist (or even worse sometimes, a deny then
allow method...).
For example, I think we all agree that Mr. Goatse should probably be
blocked from 100% of the internet.
The problem is that sometimes people cross the line and start blocking
things that aren't "just plain gross" or "completely unsuitable for the
environment" (the environment often being a K-12 school). Often, these
filters will block things that are just "questionable". For example, a
student I know recently needed to look up information regarding the
hallocaust. Unfortunately the filter was blocking a bunch of these
sites so that admin had to set her up on a system still on our old T-1
(which will be gone in a few months) so that she could see this
information. The hallocaust has an entire class at this school, but
when a student wants to use the internet to research it, she has to have
special provisions made since the content is "questionable."
Should the Google cache be blocked? There have been times that the only
site that has the info I need has been taken down or is temorarily
unavailable and the google cache has saved the day. What about
babelfish? I think most people will agree that both of those services
have more of a use for good than for bad. However, the filters have to
block them because they can be used to circumvent the filters. A person
will always be able to circumvent the filters if they want to bad
enough, so the filters should just prevent a direct connection and warn
the person that this content isn't allowed by the AUP (that's the real
purpose of a filter, to enforce the AUP, not to censor people with no
other backing). This means that, yes, people could circumvent the
fitlers using things like the google cache, babelfish, or the wayback
machine, but they would also have access to the wonderful services that
these provide.
Conclusion: I run some filtering on my home system to prevent things
like accidental clicking of the goatse links in /. trolls as a service
to myself, but only things which very obviously have NO value whatsoever
(ad servers, goatse and the like, etc) are in my block list.
--MonMotha
Joe Linux wrote:
To see why censorship is necessary on computers connected to the
Internet in schools and libraries type in "www.whitehouse.gov" and then
"www.whitehouse.com" This is an innocent mistake that a young student
can make and can be very distressing in a classroom situation. This
actually happened when I was substituting in a school computer lab with
a second grade class. The teacher had "www.whitehouse.gov" as a place
to visit on the Internet, and the second grader accidentally typed in
"www.whitehouse.com"
Warren Togami wrote:
We don't like censorship,
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