http://censorware.net/ Exposing the secrets of censorware since 1997 en-us Copyright © 2000-2002, The Censorware Project 2008-10-02T14:00:08+00:00 The Censorware Project jamie@censorware.net Censorware 1970-01-01T00:00+00:00 1 hourly http://censorware.net/images/topics/topicslash.gif http://censorware.net/ http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/12/04/0735213&from=rss Australia has <a href="http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11555864%255E15306,00.html">rejected</a> mandatory use of censorware in an effort to stop child pornography. Sayeth Communications Minister Helen Coonan:<p><blockquote> "The biggest issue is not so much the money but such an expensive scheme would not necessarily solve the problem and small to medium ISPs (internet service providers) would be driven out of business for little or no benefit," Senator Coonan said. "What does work is greater information and parental supervision and that is the kind of program that the government is promoting."</blockquote><p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/12/04/0735213&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jim Tyre 2004-12-04T07:26:00+00:00 gov cost-benefit-analysis mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/12/03/1351223&from=rss BoingBoing has a story today on how Microsoft's new blogging tool, MSN Spaces, does <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/02/msn_spaces_seven_dir.html">word-based blocking of your blog entries</a>. Sad and funny. I saw two stories in the blogosphere today on MSN Spaces -- one a video demo of how to post to it, which I yawned past, and this censorship story, which I'm, well, blogging myself.<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/12/03/1351223&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jamie McCarthy 2004-12-03T13:56:00+00:00 blocked space-between-the-ears mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/09/17/1737241&from=rss As <a href="http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/09/pentagon_acknow.html">reported by Eric Umansky</a>: <blockquote><p>Two Army spokespeople have now explained to me that it is indeed the Army’s intention to purposely block service-members from viewing non-Pentagon casualty sites. (Other services apparently have similar policies and do use filtering software.)</blockquote><p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/09/17/1737241&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jamie McCarthy 2004-09-17T17:40:00+00:00 gov memoryhole mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/06/29/1436258&from=rss <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040629/D83GNMNO1.html">Details</a> are sketchy so far, but it seems the Supreme Court has decided 5-4 that "a lower court was correct to block [the Child Online Protection Act] from taking effect, because it likely violates the First Amendment." I wonder if there will be a reason in the near future for researchers to demonstrate the quality of censorware's "important technological advances" since 1998. <p>Here's <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/06/29/scotus.online.porn.ap/">CNN's story</a>. <p>Here's the <a href="http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-218.ZS.html">Syllabus</a> and the <a href="http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-218.ZO.html">Opinion</a>.<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/06/29/1436258&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jamie McCarthy 2004-06-29T14:35:00+00:00 gov here-we-go-again mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/05/27/1517257&from=rss NewsForge has an article today on how <a href="http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/05/14/2148230">U.S. and Open Source Censorship Slims the Net</a>. Interesting quotes from censorware providers (it's better than governmental censorship, doncha know) and some discussion of whether open-source censorware is better than closed blacklists.<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/05/27/1517257&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jamie McCarthy 2004-05-27T17:00:00+00:00 gov much-ado mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/05/03/175243&from=rss The U.S. government, eager to show oppressed nations how we allow free speech, is <a href="http://news.com.com/2010-1028_3-5204405.html">blocking</a> the people of China and Iran from accessing our embassies, drug education, email, and gay sites. <blockquote><p>Technology used by the IBB, which puts out the Voice of America broadcasts, prevents them from visiting Web addresses that include a peculiar list of verboten keywords. The list includes "ass" (which inadvertently bans usembassy.state.gov), "breast" (breastcancer.com), "hot" (hotmail.com and hotels.com), "pic" (epic.noaa.gov) and "teen" (teens.drugabuse.gov)...<p>The official naughty-keyword list displays a conservative bias that labels any Web address with "gay" in them as verboten--a decision that affects thousands of Web sites that deal with gay and lesbian issues, as well as DioceseOfGaylord.org, a Roman Catholic site.</blockquote><p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/05/03/175243&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jamie McCarthy 2004-05-03T17:07:00+00:00 news deja-vu mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/04/24/1231214&from=rss Remember the bad old days of 1996 when censorware was like CyberPatrol and CyberSitter: utterly atrocious, almost too bad to be worth criticizing? Well, the bad old days are still here. The difference is that, with the kind of censorware we have now, many, many more people are affected. <p>CNET brings us the story <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5198125.html">Google's chastity belt too tight</a>, in which it's revealed that Google's <a href="http://www.google.com/help/customize.html#safe">SafeSearch</a> feature blocks PartsExpress.com, GirlsSchoolOfAustin.org, Pornichet.org, and RomansInSussex.co.uk. Unbelievable. </p><p>And an EarthWeb column, <a href="http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/executive_tech/article.php/3341991">Is One-Fourth of Your E-Mail Getting Lost?</a>, explains that the overanxious spam filtering provided by ISPs like NetZero, SBC/Yahoo!, and Mac.com blocks one-quarter or more of requested email (corporate newsletters and the like). The majority of</p>...<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/04/24/1231214&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jamie McCarthy 2004-04-24T12:40:00+00:00 news bad-old-days mainpage 2 2,2,1,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/04/09/0038238&from=rss <a href="http://www.firstmonday.org/">First Monday</a> has a new piece by Mary Minow, a former librarian and currently a lawyer and library law consultant. In the piece, <a href="http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_4/minow/">Lawfully Surfing the Net: Disabling Public Library Internet Filters to Avoid More Lawsuits in the United States</a>, Minow argues that, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in the <a href="//censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/06/23/1645224&tid=8">CIPA case</a>, <em>United States v. American Library Association</em>, public libraries may be less at risk of a lawsuit by adopting and following an aggressive policy of disabling censorware.<p> Minow defines two types of public libraries:</p><blockquote><div><p>Cautious Public Library installs filters and tries to follow the law as written: its policy is to unblock a site when an adult patron asks a librarian to unblock the site for bona fide research. Cautious Public Library will disable the entire filter rarely, if</p></div></blockquote>...<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/04/09/0038238&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jim Tyre 2004-04-09T00:21:00+00:00 news good-advice-from-an-expert mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/01/14/1452203&from=rss Robin Miller is in Saudi Arabia right now, and has filed a <a href="http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/01/12/2147220&mode=nested&tid=100&tid=49&tid=96">report</a> on the country's censorware: <blockquote><p>The Saudi Internet filters are easy to defeat. I found at least a dozen anonymous surfing sites that let me view all the porn anyone could want in less than 30 minutes, and I have viewed more online porn while testing the Saudi content filters than I had looked at in my entire life before this experiment. Al-Hejery, too, knows that anyone with much knowledge of the Internet and computers can blow right by the Saudi content filters. He sees the filtering as a way to protect children and other innocents from Internet evils, and not much more than that. <p>... just about any site that portrays Judaism or Israel in a positive light isn't allowed ...</blockquote><p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=04/01/14/1452203&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jamie McCarthy 2004-01-14T14:58:00+00:00 news air-conditioned mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/11/16/1616259&from=rss The creator of weblog.infoworld.com discovered that his blog is <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/06/13.html#a721">blocked by SurfControl</a>. Specifically, SurfControl puts blogs in the same category as Usenet, the category that might as well be named, "too damn big, we give up." <p>Hey censorware makers -- yes, we're talking to you -- you really ought to pay more attention to blogs. Don't block them willy-nilly. This is 21st century citizenship, it's the global conversation you'd have us ignore. That's not nice.<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/11/16/1616259&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jamie McCarthy 2003-11-16T11:30:00+00:00 blocked unsurprising mainpage 1 1,1,1,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/11/13/1927244&from=rss First, David Sobel, the General Counsel of <a href="http://www.epic.org/">The Electronic Privacy Information Center</a>, in conjunction with <a href="http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/default.aspx">The First Amendment Center</a>, has published a new piece entitled <a href="http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=12208">Internet Filters and Public Libraries</a>. Written in the wake of the June 2003 <a href="//censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/06/23/1645224&tid=8">U. S. Supreme Court decision</a> upholding the constitutionality of the Children's Internet Protection Act, Sobel surveys the field, speaks of difficulties and challenges that may occur as libraries attempt to implement CIPA. There is little new material here, but it is worth reading as an overview or by those not intimately familiar with the subject.<p> Second, <a href="http://bluehighways.com/">Karen Schneider</a>, a librarian and long time censorware critic (among other things, she was an expert witness</p>...<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/11/13/1927244&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jim Tyre 2003-11-13T13:58:00+00:00 news self-explanatory mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/10/28/234222&from=rss Today, the Librarian of Congress completed the triennial rulemaking process concerning exemptions to the <a href ="http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html#1201"> anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a>, 17 USC Section 1201(a)(1). The rulemaking consists of the <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/1201/docs/librarian_statement_01.html">Statement of the Librarian of Congress</a>, <a href ="http://www.copyright.gov/1201/docs/registers-recommendation.pdf">The Register of Copyrights' Recommendations to the Librarian of Congress</a> and <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/1201/docs/fedreg-notice-final.pdf">the final rulemaking</a> itself.<P> Of 29 exemptions sought, only four were granted, including the exemption to circumvent censorware access controls, as follows:<P> <blockquote><div><p>Compilations consisting of lists of internet locations blocked by commercially marketed filtering software applications that are intended to prevent access to domains,</p></div></blockquote>...<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/10/28/234222&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jim Tyre 2003-10-28T22:14:00+00:00 news score-one-for-the-good-guys mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/10/15/177237&from=rss For some, the news may be sad, for others, it may be good, still others may not care a whit. But we feel compelled to note the passing of <a href="http://www.n2h2.com/">N2H2</a>, the makers of BESS censorware, at least as a freestanding censorware maker. <p>Yesterday, the <a href="http://www.securecomputing.com/archive/press/2003/oct14,03.htm">corporate merger</a> of N2H2 into <a href="http://www.securecomputing.com/index.cfm?skey=85">Secure Computing</a>, the makers of SmartFilter, was completed.</p><p> The underlying technologies of BESS and SmartFilter being fairly different, we do not know what Secure Computing may plan on doing with BESS. Nor do we know what the fate may be of David <A href="http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2003/hearings/transcript-apr11.pdf">"Iraqi Information Minister" Burt, the principle spokesperson for N2H2, who was the darling of the pro-censorware crowd, the chief nemesis of those who advocate against the use of censorware in public schools and libraries.</p>...<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/10/15/177237&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jim Tyre 2003-10-15T16:38:00+00:00 blocked so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/06/30/1543214&from=rss <a href="http://www.northjersey.com/margulies/images/j062903.gif">Here</a>.<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/06/30/1543214&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jim Tyre 2003-06-30T15:40:54+00:00 gov hard-to-say-any-better mainpage 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/06/24/0422235&from=rss Perhaps coincidentally timed with the Supreme Court's decision in the CIPA case, today <a href="http://www.eff.org/">EFF</a> and <a href="http://www.onlinepolicy.org/">the Online Policy Group</a> released a joint report, <a href="http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Censorware/net_block_report/net_block_report.pdf">Internet Blocking in Public Schools: A Study on Internet Access in Educational Institutions</a>. Weighing in at 117 pages, the study measures the extent to which blocking software impedes the educational process by restricting access to web pages relevant to the required curriculum. Below, we quote in full the study's <a href="http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Censorware/net_block_report/abstract.php">Abstract</a>.<p><a href="http://censorware.net/article.pl?sid=03/06/24/0422235&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at The Censorware Project.</p> Jim Tyre 2003-06-24T04:02:51+00:00 blocked won't-be-cited-by-the-Supreme-Court mainpage 2 2,2,0,0,0,0,0 Search The Censorware Project stories query http://censorware.net/search.pl