Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
On Fri, 2006-12-01 at 20:41 +0100, Satyam wrote: > - Original Message - > From: "Satyam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > The Wikipedia article of the day provides some interesting facts about > > when if became naughty: > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_erotic_depictions > > > > -- > > May I add something that came to my mind related to this. As the Wikipedia > article says, the idea of pornography was developed mostly in the Victorian > era. It is fitting to mention that at the same time, those we would now > call scientists (the term wasn't popular then) devoted much of their time to > screwing. Pretty much as anybody else, you would say. Not quite, the term > meant something else then. > > The Industrial Revolution was facing a big problem , the lack of standards. > Each and every machine was unique, when something broke, a replacement had > to be crafted, just like the original piece had been. One of the most > important pieces, due to the quantity used in each and every machine, were > screws, bolts and nuts. Thus, it was important to develop standards for > screws, length, diameter, threads per inch, depth and profile of the thread > and so on, so they could be manufactured in quantities. > > This subject was referred to as 'screwing' and I am sure Queen Victoria > would have wholehartedly aproved of it. That's really screwed up! :B Cheers, Rob. -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
- Original Message - From: "Satyam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Wikipedia article of the day provides some interesting facts about when if became naughty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_erotic_depictions -- May I add something that came to my mind related to this. As the Wikipedia article says, the idea of pornography was developed mostly in the Victorian era. It is fitting to mention that at the same time, those we would now call scientists (the term wasn't popular then) devoted much of their time to screwing. Pretty much as anybody else, you would say. Not quite, the term meant something else then. The Industrial Revolution was facing a big problem , the lack of standards. Each and every machine was unique, when something broke, a replacement had to be crafted, just like the original piece had been. One of the most important pieces, due to the quantity used in each and every machine, were screws, bolts and nuts. Thus, it was important to develop standards for screws, length, diameter, threads per inch, depth and profile of the thread and so on, so they could be manufactured in quantities. This subject was referred to as 'screwing' and I am sure Queen Victoria would have wholehartedly aproved of it. Satyam -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
The Wikipedia article of the day provides some interesting facts about when if became naughty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_erotic_depictions -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
At 8:57 PM +0100 11/28/06, Rory Browne wrote: I didn't mean something quite that simple, or as an absolute solution. I meant something slightly more advanced, but based on that idea. From a robot point of view, what do you think is the difference between the php archives and a porn site? There's a difference? Both provide things you can't get? tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
At 11/29/2006 01:51 AM, Robin Vickery wrote: Cubist Porn - very big in certain 'artistic' circles. What, both eggs on the same side of the sausage? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
On 29/11/06, Travis Doherty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Tom Chubb wrote: > On 28/11/06, Dave Goodchild <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Hi all. I am building a web app and as part of it advertisers can upload >> their ad image and website URL to go with their ad. Is there a good >> way to >> detect whether that site is a porn site via php? >> >> -- >> http://www.web-buddha.co.uk >> >> > I remember seeing something that used GD to detect colours similar to > flesh within an image and thinking it was funny that someone had taken > so much time to to it, but I can't remember where it was. > I think it was on phpclasses.org but can't find it. Maybe someone else > remembers it? > And more recently a commercial vendor is performing something along the lines of 'curve recognition' to the same effect. That's fine for any vector graphics (banner ads might fall here.) False positives will be high with beach photos from family vacation, for example. Cubist Porn - very big in certain 'artistic' circles. -robin -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
Tom Chubb wrote: > On 28/11/06, Dave Goodchild <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Hi all. I am building a web app and as part of it advertisers can upload >> their ad image and website URL to go with their ad. Is there a good >> way to >> detect whether that site is a porn site via php? >> >> -- >> http://www.web-buddha.co.uk >> >> > I remember seeing something that used GD to detect colours similar to > flesh within an image and thinking it was funny that someone had taken > so much time to to it, but I can't remember where it was. > I think it was on phpclasses.org but can't find it. Maybe someone else > remembers it? > And more recently a commercial vendor is performing something along the lines of 'curve recognition' to the same effect. That's fine for any vector graphics (banner ads might fall here.) False positives will be high with beach photos from family vacation, for example. Travis -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
At 11/28/2006 11:57 AM, Rory Browne wrote: I didn't mean something quite that simple, or as an absolute solution. I meant something slightly more advanced, but based on that idea. From a robot point of view, what do you think is the difference between the php archives and a porn site? What eaxctly do you mean by "porn"? Certainly there are websites that 99 people in a room of 100 would label as pornography, but the grey area is the killer -- an enormous volume of material that various people will label "pornographic" and others won't. Whose opinion will you use in crafting your software? Only when you define "porn site" with sufficient specificity can you attempt to write an algorithm to recognize one. When you've accomplished all that, you can apply similar logic to recognizing truly good movies, really delightful reads, absolutely delicious recipes, and undeniably correct political opinions. You'll be a genius -- providing you can find enough people to agree with you. If we humans can't reliably define the boundaries of a set, how can we write software to recognize its (pardon the expression) members? How would we know when the software was functioning correctly? Who would judge the accuracy of its findings? You can work for weeks developing an algorithm to detect "porn" and it will take others an hour or a day to find the gaps in the definition. I think any program you could write would have so many false positives & false negatives that you'd end up having to manually moderate the process anyway. Please understand that I love (if I may use that verb ever so delicately) writing software that parses human expression in search of patterns and specific content. I love bestowing on a program the flexibility and grace it requires to enter that messy jungle and return with a map or a fact. I could write a spider that flagged websites containing certain words (in English, at least, without assistance), but I'm not as comfortable with the prospect of writing a sexual content filter so dependable that I'd be happy to leave it to guard a gate on its own. I'm sure it would slam the door on many undeserving people and would happily let in others my client wouldn't want. For a commercial site hoping to make money from advertisers, it wouldn't pay to have a near-sighted or illiterate gatekeeper. Perhaps the only way to do what you're suggesting is to write an image pattern recognition algorithm so sophisticated that it can differentiate a photograph of a hand caressing a breast from a photograph of a breast self-exam. Or are photos of breast self-exams pornographic? Yikes, Paul -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
I didn't mean something quite that simple, or as an absolute solution. I meant something slightly more advanced, but based on that idea. From a robot point of view, what do you think is the difference between the php archives and a porn site? On 11/28/06, Paul Novitski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Hi all. I am building a web app and as part of it advertisers can upload >their ad image and website URL to go with their ad. Is there a good way to >detect whether that site is a porn site via php? >If the sites home page contains the words sex, babes, and a few other >choice words, which I'll leave to your imagination, then chances are >it's a porn site. What chances are those, exactly? One in a blizzard? This is exactly why filtering realistically for "pornography" is virtually impossible -- we can't define the problem sufficiently to derive realistic solutions, and our inherently flawed solutions are weak. This listserve thread, containing as it does the words "sex" and "babes" and "porn," has now flagged the PHP list archives as a "porn" site -- for anyone silly enough to use a simple keyword match to identify "porn." Such a trap would also catch websites discussing the social & historical significance of "porn," sites that detail ways to identify "porn" which might include the FBI's, dictionaries and encyclopedias that explain "porn," vendors who try to use sexy keywords to attract visitors to their non-"porn" sites, websites on human sexuality, websites about safe sex, sites about scientific research in human sexual response, and on and on and on. Such a simplistic filter would overlook websites written by people smart enough to obfuscate the key words, say by imagizing them, misspelling them, or using metaphorical language. More to the point, though, "pornography" isn't one concrete thing out there in the world. It's nebulous, self-defined, ambiguous, ever-changing, and psychologically and culturally dependent. This is why anti-pornography laws are pissing into the wind (oops, did I just commit "porn"?) -- they want to legislate human desire by attempting to define one corner of creative expression, then discover that that's like trying to contain any aspect of the human spirit. You can only accomplish it partially and temporarily by brute force or intellectual repression or both. Better to challenge those aspects of our culture that breed men who take and take with no empathy for their victims. I don't think an automated solution (PHP or otherwise) is feasible. The best you can do is to create a club advertisers can ask to join but can remain in only if their ads meet your approval. There's no machine that can judge what's "porn" -- machines get turned on and disgusted by a whole different set of words and images than we do -- you know, like muddy screwdrivers and oily vises -- you're going to have to do it yourself. Look at each image and judge for yourself. At least you can rest assured that your own judgement is sound. Regards, Paul -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
Hi all. I am building a web app and as part of it advertisers can upload their ad image and website URL to go with their ad. Is there a good way to detect whether that site is a porn site via php? If the sites home page contains the words sex, babes, and a few other choice words, which I'll leave to your imagination, then chances are it's a porn site. What chances are those, exactly? One in a blizzard? This is exactly why filtering realistically for "pornography" is virtually impossible -- we can't define the problem sufficiently to derive realistic solutions, and our inherently flawed solutions are weak. This listserve thread, containing as it does the words "sex" and "babes" and "porn," has now flagged the PHP list archives as a "porn" site -- for anyone silly enough to use a simple keyword match to identify "porn." Such a trap would also catch websites discussing the social & historical significance of "porn," sites that detail ways to identify "porn" which might include the FBI's, dictionaries and encyclopedias that explain "porn," vendors who try to use sexy keywords to attract visitors to their non-"porn" sites, websites on human sexuality, websites about safe sex, sites about scientific research in human sexual response, and on and on and on. Such a simplistic filter would overlook websites written by people smart enough to obfuscate the key words, say by imagizing them, misspelling them, or using metaphorical language. More to the point, though, "pornography" isn't one concrete thing out there in the world. It's nebulous, self-defined, ambiguous, ever-changing, and psychologically and culturally dependent. This is why anti-pornography laws are pissing into the wind (oops, did I just commit "porn"?) -- they want to legislate human desire by attempting to define one corner of creative expression, then discover that that's like trying to contain any aspect of the human spirit. You can only accomplish it partially and temporarily by brute force or intellectual repression or both. Better to challenge those aspects of our culture that breed men who take and take with no empathy for their victims. I don't think an automated solution (PHP or otherwise) is feasible. The best you can do is to create a club advertisers can ask to join but can remain in only if their ads meet your approval. There's no machine that can judge what's "porn" -- machines get turned on and disgusted by a whole different set of words and images than we do -- you know, like muddy screwdrivers and oily vises -- you're going to have to do it yourself. Look at each image and judge for yourself. At least you can rest assured that your own judgement is sound. Regards, Paul -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
On 28/11/06, Dave Goodchild <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi all. I am building a web app and as part of it advertisers can upload their ad image and website URL to go with their ad. Is there a good way to detect whether that site is a porn site via php? -- http://www.web-buddha.co.uk I remember seeing something that used GD to detect colours similar to flesh within an image and thinking it was funny that someone had taken so much time to to it, but I can't remember where it was. I think it was on phpclasses.org but can't find it. Maybe someone else remembers it? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
RE: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
One way that could work is to check the urls against a list of keywords and if a match is found put these submissions into a pending state waiting for you to check and approve or decline. You could also have a second "hot" keyword list that rejects the submissions outright if you find a match in the urls. You can back this up with a proper T&C. If you've got something like this in place you can fine-tune the keyword lists as the site develops and you find consistent false matches or urls that slip through. Arno -Original Message- From: Dave Goodchild [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 28 November 2006 03:54 To: PHP Mailing Subject: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites Hi all. I am building a web app and as part of it advertisers can upload their ad image and website URL to go with their ad. Is there a good way to detect whether that site is a porn site via php? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
If the sites home page contains the words sex, babes, and a few other choice words, which I'll leave to your imagination, then chances are it's a porn site. On 11/28/06, Jochem Maas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Dave Goodchild wrote: > Hi all. I am building a web app and as part of it advertisers can upload > their ad image and website URL to go with their ad. Is there a good way to > detect whether that site is a porn site via php? buy a screen, a PC, a heartrate monitor and small man from thailand - plugin the PC, sit the man down behind it and hook both him and the heartrate monitor up to the PC - now start feeding him urls to watch and sync that with the output of the heartrate monitor. you may need to run an number of these systems in parallel to counter extreme sexual preference in any one unit. on a more serious note: NO. neither Yahoo nor Google is capable of successfully filtering pron - if they can't do it neither can you (there is a million to 1 chance your god's own programmer and that you can/will come up with a rock solid solution but I'm not holding my breath. e.g.: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/23/yahoo_search_result/ (no bias against Yahoo intended, It just happened to be a relevant example that was still floating around my short-term memory.) I would suggest using a combination of: 1. solid, legally-sound T&C 2. require real address, etc with registration - and use a CAPTCHA technique, which may not be nice and accessible but then again when did you last here of a blind man uploading a banner ad image? 3. delay publication of ads until each image has been verified by a human 4. to counter the annoyance of no.3 you could add a 'niceguy' flag to your userdata so that people you trust not to upload pron don't have to wait to be verified. alternatively only allow text ads (works for Google ;-) > -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Detecting naughty sites
Dave Goodchild wrote: > Hi all. I am building a web app and as part of it advertisers can upload > their ad image and website URL to go with their ad. Is there a good way to > detect whether that site is a porn site via php? buy a screen, a PC, a heartrate monitor and small man from thailand - plugin the PC, sit the man down behind it and hook both him and the heartrate monitor up to the PC - now start feeding him urls to watch and sync that with the output of the heartrate monitor. you may need to run an number of these systems in parallel to counter extreme sexual preference in any one unit. on a more serious note: NO. neither Yahoo nor Google is capable of successfully filtering pron - if they can't do it neither can you (there is a million to 1 chance your god's own programmer and that you can/will come up with a rock solid solution but I'm not holding my breath. e.g.: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/23/yahoo_search_result/ (no bias against Yahoo intended, It just happened to be a relevant example that was still floating around my short-term memory.) I would suggest using a combination of: 1. solid, legally-sound T&C 2. require real address, etc with registration - and use a CAPTCHA technique, which may not be nice and accessible but then again when did you last here of a blind man uploading a banner ad image? 3. delay publication of ads until each image has been verified by a human 4. to counter the annoyance of no.3 you could add a 'niceguy' flag to your userdata so that people you trust not to upload pron don't have to wait to be verified. alternatively only allow text ads (works for Google ;-) > -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
