PC Magazine Article - 02-06-2007

["Marc Pearl" <mpearl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  <http://www.pcmag.com/default/0,2602,,00.asp> 

 

Porn and Revisiting .XXX
ARTICLE DATE:  02.06.07

By John C. Dvorak 

According to research published in the February issue of Pediatrics, the
journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, 42 percent of teens
surveyed indicated that they were confronted by unwanted porn on the
Internet. So when is some sort of action going to take place to stop
this? And by that I mean installing an-easy-to-block .xxx top-level
domain (TLD). Though it may not solve the problem, it will not hurt, and
at least it would be an attempt to do something! 

This particular research resulted in the following interesting
assertion: "Although there is evidence that most youth are not
particularly upset when they encounter unwanted pornography on the
Internet, [the unwanted porn] could have a greater impact on some youth
than voluntary encounters with pornography. . . . Some youth may be
psychologically and developmentally unprepared for unwanted exposure,
and online images may be more graphic and extreme than pornography
available from other sources." 

And yes, despite all the promotion for porn, most people do not like it,
and nobody likes it shoved in their face out of the blue. So ask
yourself: Why do various family and fundamentalist pressure groups
detest the idea of the .xxx top-level domain, which can be effortlessly
blocked by people who do not want porn in their lives? They think it is
because porn will be easier to find. So what? It will be easier to
block, too, and most people will block it. 

This brings me to an incident that happened in the Kelly Middle School
in the apparently backward community of Norwich, Connecticut. There, a
substitute teacher was on a school computer
<http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=200441,00.asp>  and ran
into a pop-up porn storm. I haven't seen one of these for years, since
pop-ups are easily blocked with Firefox. But, apparently, they still
exist. 

So this teacher couldn't stop the pop-ups and some kids saw it, and she
got 40 years in prison as a sentence because she didn't unplug the
computer immediately. Just to make sure that she got Connecticut
kangaroo-court justice, nobody who knew anything about these sorts of
Web sites was allowed to testify. The case is outlined in a news report
here
<http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070106/NEWS
01/701060312/1002/NEWS17>  and updated here
<http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070120/OPIN
ION/701200303/1014> . And finally, here is a blog discussion of it
<http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=9366> . Oh, and PC Magazine's Larry
Seltzer covered it in his Security
<http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=200441,00.asp>  Watch
piece in late January.-Continue reading... 

Here are a couple of things that were not made clear to the jury. First,
you have to know how easy it is-especially for someone who knows little
about computers-to be caught up in a pop-up storm. She had to be trying
to clear the screen for the storm to initiate. I guess there's not a
person in Norwich that has a clue about how that works. And second, I
doubt seriously that someone who is a substitute teacher, with
apparently little computer experience, would know to unplug the machine.
I would think that such a person thought that unplugging would harm the
machine somehow and she'd get in trouble for doing so. Most people
unfamiliar with computers
<http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=200441,00.asp>  are
constantly afraid of damaging them. 

Of course, if anyone should be prosecuted by the government, it
shouldn't be the teacher, but the pornographers pumping out pop-up
sites. Were they indicted for anything that happened in Norwich? I think
not. And, apparently, the school was remiss for not having adequate or
up-to-date blocking software. The principal should hang then. 

Would an .xxx TLD have prevented this situation and its subsequent
miscarriage of justice? Maybe. Maybe not. But you would have to worry
less about the up-to-date blocking software, since .xxx will always be
.xxx. 

And, yes, I know that some porn kingpins will not abide by the .xxx
domain and still force porn upon us. But if they ever end up in court,
they will not have any excuse, and that possibility should lead them all
into the domain eventually. 

Someday .xxx will happen, and this whole thing will become marginalized
and controlled, as it should be. 

 

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