On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 5:25 PM, Erik Lane <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 5:20 PM, Michael Rasmussen <[email protected]> > wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 09, 2010 at 05:09:51PM -0700, Roderick A. Anderson wrote: > >> [email protected] wrote: > >> > I'm on the Free Geek Grant group. One group wants to be able to stop > the > >> > access to porn on their grant computers. Any suggestions? > >> > >> I understood your request but it took several readings. > > > > WT_? > > > > "One group wants to be able to stop the access to porn on their grant > computers." > > > > That is a simple declarative sentence. > > One only needs to retain four phrases in their short term memory to grok > it. > > > > OK, not as simple as Hemingway. Simplier than Stephanson, Dick, Carroll > or LeGuin. > > > > May the linguists among us flame me if I'm wrong. > > It is an ambiguous sentence. It could be read to mean blocking access > to porn that is *already* on those computers, either from people on > the computer, or from the outside world, as well as what he likely > meant, blocking people using those computers from accessing porn sites > out there on the internet. My $0.02 here. The confusion, from my perspective at least, was this- Is the OP asking for help setting up filtering on computers that they or their group owns, that they received from Free Geek, or are they asking about setting up filters on ALL computers given out by Free Geek, regardless of whether the recipient wants such filters in place? This is where the individual rights issue comes up, whether Free Geek has the right to set up filters on all the computers it gives out. This is (or at least should be) separate from the moral issue of XXX on the internet, but the issue of the rights of the donor (Free Geek) and the rights of the recipient of the donated computers, to control what kinds of materials can be accessed on said computers, once the donor takes the computers to their private home. This is, and should be, separate from the right of, say, an employer to control access to certain materials on the employer's computers at the employer's place of business, using the employer's internet connection. This type of TOS restriction is common in most workplaces. (Or also employee's computers while accessing the employer's internet connection, etc) The OP mentioned being on the Free Geek Grant Group, and since I am not involved with Free Geek I don't know what kind of control they exercise over the computers being given out to individuals and groups, so thus the confusion. In other words, if this is about computers that an individual or group owns, received from Free Geek but no longer under their control, then they should be able to setup any kind of filtering they want for their private use. However if this is about controlling the access to any kind of material on all Free Geek computers after they leave Free Geek, and go into other people's private homes, that then crosses the line into censorship by one group over another, IMHO. The individual (or group) owner of the computer should decide for themselves if they want to filter content, not someone else. Is that clear as mud now? ;) ---------- Matt M. LinuxKnight _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
