Artificial Intelligence At The COPA, COPA Commission 205
The Child Online Protection Act, passed late last year and then struck down early this year, is still under appeal. Colloquially it's known as "CDAII." Part of what the Act does is establish a Commission that meets every so often -- the Commission's website has details on its mandate and so on.
(Update, a few minutes later: make that "injunctified," or whatever one says for a law against which an injunction has been applied, instead of "struck down." Sorry; IANAL.)
Speaking at the Commission meeting yesterday and today were the CEOs of several major censorware companies. Among them was Michael Stephani, whose company Exotrope makes a product called BAIR.
BAIR
BAIR checks images as they download onto your computer, and claims to be able to tell the difference between pornography and other types of images. The "AI" in its acronym stands for artificial intelligence, running on supercomputers.
When the Wired story on BAIR came out last month (a story "borrowed" from Peacefire -- I'm not going to get into it), Wired quoted the company as saying "they plan to fix the errors within the next month." What errors?
"BAIR incorrectly blocked photographs of Yellowstone, the Baltimore waterfront, Snoopy, boats, sunsets, dogs, vegetables and even a Wired News staff meeting.
"It rated as acceptable for minors -- even on the most restrictive setting -- explicit images of oral sex, anal sex, group sex, masturbation, and ejaculation."
That was one month ago. How's BAIR doing now?
Peacefire retested the same 50 pornographic images that they'd used last month (which presumably BAIR's programmers would have paid extra-special attention to). Their new report finds that, instead of zero, the number of blocked images is now: 34. I've got a great slogan for them: "now your children can only see 32% of the web's oral sex, anal sex, group sex, masturbation, and ejaculation."
One's respect for these programmers is dampened a little, though, because there's more to Peacefire's report. It seems, in a random sample of 50 photos of people's faces, BAIR blocked ... how many? ... 34.
Maybe that slogan should be: "now your children can only see 32% of the web," period.
It's wonderful to live in a world where artificial intelligence offers limitless possibilities. Its website suggests that "Because Artificial Intelligence can be taught to recognize a variety of patterns," -- oh, OK -- "our BAIR can be taught to evaluate other categories such as violence or illegal activities. The BAIR is currently undergoing training in these areas to provide additional filtration selections."
ClickSafe
Richard Schwartz, CEO of ClickSafe, also spoke yesterday at the COPA Commission meeting. Just for kicks, Peacefire decided to try out their spiffy AI software too.
Insert marketblurb here: "...by combining cutting-edge graphic, word and phrase-recognition technology, ClickSafe has achieved accuracy rates of over 99% (according to recent sample tests). ClickSafe can precisely distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate sites (e.g. sites related to issues such as breast cancer will not be blocked)."
What Peacefire did was test this software against the website of the COPA Commission itself, and related sites such as those of speakers or Commission members. They found that blocked pages included:
- The Child Online Protection Act itself, in original and amended form;
- The COPA Commission FAQ;
- Biographies of Commission members Stephen Balkam and John Bastian;
- Bio of Commission member and famed anti-porn crusader Donna Rice Hughes, as well as AppendixA from her book Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace;
- A list of technologies the Commission examines;
- The scope of what the Commission is called upon to do;
- A service agreement from a little company called Network Solutions, whose rep chairs COPA's meetings;
- "About the ICRA" (the makers of RSACi, "a simple, yet effective rating system for web sites which both protected children and protected the rights of free speech");
- Bible study tools: "We hope these free resources foster a desire for Christians to learn more about the Bible, deepening their relationship with God" unless they're using censorware;
- The American Family Association (a conservative Christian group that is trying to force censorware into public libraries, including those surrounding the Slashdot Geek Compound);
- The ACLU, the EFF, and the Center for Democracy and Technology;
and so on.
When I spoke with Bennett about this, he commented that the strange thing was that these flaws are so easy to find; you'd think someone would have run these simple tests already. If anyone reading wants to get their name in Slashdot (and other news media too), censorware is a gold mine of untested misinformation. Buy a product, design a solid unbiased test for it, run the test, and send us what you find. Repeat until the whole world has a clue.
The COPA Commission Meeting
The following is an account of yesterday's COPA Commission meeting, by Waldo Jaquith. Keep in mind that this meeting's purpose, according to the Scope & Timeline Proposal which is blocked by ClickSafe, is to study filtering and blocking software to learn what to recommend in its report to Congress late this year.
Folks,
For more information on the COPA Commission, see http://www.copacommission.org/. (Unless your network has ClickSafe installed, in which case you shouldn't bother.) There is an agenda for this meeting, and there are bios for most people, as well as the prepared speeches for many of the below folks. I've tried to be objective.
Oh, screw that. There's nothing objective about it. But I've tried to give useful facts, quote accurately, etc.
The whole affair, which was scheduled to start at 9:30am, didn't actually start until 10:15am. Which was good, because I didn't get there until 9:45. Although the event was being held at the University of Richmond's Jepson Alumni Center, the room felt like your basic hotel meeting room. Bad carpet, ugly chairs, poor lighting. There were enough chairs to seat about 100 people, but only 35 people were in attendance. Directly in front of the two columns of chairs was a table with chairs, facing away from the audience. This table was for people asked to testify before the COPA Commission. On the other side of that table was a long table, at which was seated the commission, all sixteen members. The result was that the people testifying, who did most of the talking, could only be recognized by the backs of their heads by the audience.
Chairman Donald Telage called the meeting to order and introduced the first panel, who was to speak for approximately 45 minutes on the topic of client-side filters. This panel included Gordon Ross, the President and CEO of Net Nanny, Mark Smith, the President of BrowseSafe, Susan Getgood, the VP and General Manager of Cyber Patrol, and Richard Schwartz, the CEO of Opportunity-America (ClickSafe.com).
Gordon Ross kicked things off with a tremendously boring ten minute speech about how client-side filters work. The only interesting comment that he made was his belief that "consumers should have the ability to analyze each and every site in the database..." [...because his product Net Nanny is the only one of the 150 censorware packages on the market that allows oversight of its blacklist. -ed] He also kicked off the First Amendment references, which nearly every speaker throughout the day would spend some time talking about, but not really saying very much.
Mark Smith from BrowseSafe occupied the next few minutes, giving a rambling speech in which he discussed censorware as if it were some far-off and idyllic concept.
"Most products focus on either client-side- or server-side-based technology. What would happen if the benefits of each could be brought together to provide the user with a new, more flexible and powerful way of surfing the web? What if every sub domain of every site had been categorized and classified by its content? Wouldn't you agree that everyone could benefit from that combination of technology? Of course you would? Now let's walk across the street to the front porch of the family of the home and try to view it from the parent's perspective. What if parents were able to determine what the child sees? What would it be like if e-mail, instant messaging, chat and other computer tools could be also controlled?"
Then, although the topic was client-side filters, he rambled on for several minutes about PlanetGood, a website that was probably unfamiliar to many in the room. He used the site's name in every single sentence for several minutes. And, naturally, he closed talking about "our forefathers" and "these inalienable rights that our forefathers entrusted to us and many of them died for."
Susan Getgood from Cyber Patrol kept things short and sweet, and took the "I'm a new mother and want to protect my children" approach. She muddled the definition of censorship somewhat, saying that "[s]ome critics confuse censorship, which is imposed by the government, with technology that a family or school can choose to use and then set to implement an individual policy." Our school system isn't a part of the government?
Richard Schwartz of ClickSafe.com touted his product nearly as much as Mark Smith promoted the mysterious "PlanetGood." He also described a system that his company has developed that sounds very much like Exotrope's BAIR. "Fleshtone has a very unique set of features [...] Through a combination?of a set of sophisticated algorithms it can establish if something is pornographic. [...] Justice Potter Stewart lives within our system, because he knows it when he sees it. It works, it's been tested out, it's over 99% effective." "We can distinguish between chicken breast and sexy breast." "A consortium of Portuguese and Australian pornographers had been hijacking people off of different sites, including the Harvard Law Review site into their pornographic sites. And then you have to reboot your computer in order to get out."
After the four had testified, we moved into the commission Q&A session. (No questions would be allowed from the audience.) A few interesting questions, answers, and comments cropped up during this portion.
Richard Schwartz, only half kidding, proposed a tax on Internet pornography.
Commissioner Gregory L. Rohde asked Richard Schwartz if his image filter could tell the difference between art and pornography. Astoundingly, Schwartz replied that it could.
Commissioner Jerry Berman asked if there were any plans to create an organization that could provide objective reviews of censorware products to help parents decide what to buy. Gordon Ross said that this had been tried a few years back with SIFT (?), and that it didn't work out.
After a short break, we began the second panel, which addressed server side filtering. Testifying was Kevin Fink, N2H2's CTO; Sunil Paul, Chairman of Brightmail; Stephen Boyles of Library Guardian (Swifteye); Michael Stephani, President and CEO of Exotrope; Ginny Wydler, Director of Standards and Policy at AOL; and Tim Robertson, CEO of FamilyClick.
The first person to say anything interesting was Michael Stephani, who made some fairly interesting claims. He said that their blacklist of sites included four million sites, and that their image-recognition software, BAIR, is 99.8% percent effective. Stephani bragged that it blocked 1 out of 6 general images and 96 out of 100 pornographic images. He pointed out (perhaps rightly) that image filtering is the only real way to filter out pornography, and also that client-side filtering would so go the way of the dodo, given the proliferation of Internet appliances. It wasn't long before he got all 'God bless America' and 'think of the children,' and eyeballs could be heard rolling throughout the room.
As Commissioners asked questions of the panel, Chairman Donald Telage admitted that he wasn't aware that client-side filters were able to use a blacklist. He was under the impression that they could only filter. I had flashbacks from the Napster hearings last week ("Can't you track their intellectual property address?")
Out of the blue, Karen Talbert asked the panel for a show of hands regarding their respective products' ability to work with high-speed connections. Obviously, everybody's hands went up.
How do these people get on the commission?
When given half a chance, Stephani got all "think of the children, my god, won't somebody think of the children?" again. He also bragged that Exotrope has a new, not-yet-released product that filters IM [AOL Instant Messaging -ed.] and even detects innuendo. Stephani said that they just got a contract to install this program on 30,000 school servers. Continuing his spectacular Old Faithful of shit, he cheerfully envisioned a time in the future when there would be "photonic switches" that would maintain a complete blueprint of everything that every user had ever done on-line. Christ, that's frightening. Stephani said that they'd spent $6.5MUS developing BAIR, and went on to point out the coincidence that Peacefire released the report showing that BAIR was 0% effective on the same day that their servers went down. Perhaps he was implying that Peacefire members hacked the server, perhaps that we were taking advantage of them, or perhaps he was just laughing at the circumstances.
There was no promised audience Q&A. That's probably because the whole event ran well over when it was supposed to end. Lacking a better approach, I rushed up to the ebullient Stephani with a copy of the newest BAIR report in hand. Although he was already talking to a reporter, he stopped when he saw my nametag ("Waldo L. Jaquith, Peacefire") and looked a little surprised. He, as well as his sidekick PR guy, enthusiastically introduced themselves. We talked for a few minutes, during which time I said that BAIR appears to suck less than many other censorware programs. But I was still fundamentally opposed to all of them. Between this and the revised report, Stephani was my new best friend. Several other people came forward to read nametags and shake hands, but I continued to talk to Stephani and the reporter, Drew Clark from Technology Daily.
Ten minutes later, when I walked out, I felt a little baffled. Stephani behaved towards me as if Peacefire had just given him the most glowing review that BAIR had ever gotten. This, despite my repeatedly pointing out that Peacefire is fundamentally opposed to filters, always will be, and BAIR is simply rather effective at performing the task that we hate.
I was disappointed that a few major points were never brought up during the discussions:
- Server-side censorware (especially that which is housed with each website) will always be a severe privacy violation, because it needs data on the user in order to establish what information to provide.
- Client-side censorware is doomed to fail because children know more about computers than their parents. The parent has to trust that little Suzy won't uninstall Cyber Patrol. But if Suzy can be trusted, why bother with Cyber Patrol?
- Internet censorship is impossible. The Internet is so large that it's a waste of time, so let's all stop. Gated community models, like AOL, Compuserve and such, are a far better way to provide a "safe" experience for kids.
- The concerns about children's wellbeing presented during the meeting mirror those that parents, since the beginning of time, have always had for their children. How can I keep my child safe when I'm not watching him? How do I know what my child is doing if I'm not around? How do I keep my children from hearing / seeing / saying bad things? Censorware makes no more sense than installing a v-chip in little Suzy's head. Get over it.
In a nutshell, I'm not sure what, if anything, was established at this meeting. It's clear that most of the Commissioners knew every little to start off with, and their opinions are being formed on what amounts to a series of sales pitch sprinkled with god-and-country references, a la mega blowout carpet sales around Independence Day. I'm glad COPA was struck down. Let's get on with our lives.
Best,
Waldo
Re:New feature request (Score:1)
in a random sample of 50 photos of people's faces, BAIR blocked ... how many? ... 34.
Maybe that slogan should be: "now your children can only see 32% of the web," period.
Maybe they should have an option where if it finds a pornographic image it replaces it with a math exercise. For instance, instead of "Pamela Anderson Nude!" you could get "What percentage of 50 is 34? (answer 68%)"
Who was it who said Artificil Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity? :)
that was hilarious (Score:4)
thanks for the great read.
personally, my feeling is, anyone who's not old enough for porn shouldn't be on the net. i guess i'm a bit of a fascist that way but,..
putting net access in school libraries is like having the interstate run through the playground,...it's just not a Good Idea(tm)
...dave
Re:HTML and browser method (Score:1)
Any company that has that "content contained herein is explicit, if you're not 18 or older click here for disney.com" front page, for starters. If this warning is required by law, any company that is forced to display it could also be forced to add the porn tag.
And stileproject.com =)
"Whether or not I agree with the definitions of which sites should be blocked or what books I should be forbidden to read or whatever, I refuse to delegate the authority to make those decisions for myself."
Thats the whole point, silly. If you don't actively set your browser to respond to the presence of the porn tag, it can ignore it and continue to load all the content. Parents can configure it to read the tag and do something about it, while you and me can spank it without ever realizing the tag exists. Did you actually read my post?
Re:Not all Americans are fundies/censors/etc. (Score:2)
The majority of states have sodomy laws (often worded so as to include
oral sex, which is illegal in 12 states, or vague wording about
`unnatural' sex) and blasphemy laws, and many states intrusive laws
about who can have sex (Massachussetts has laws that criminalise
adultery and premarital sex). I think American culture is less
prudish than in Britain, but in this respect the States are much, much
worse. In genuinely liberal countries like Germany, this makes the US
a laughing stock.
Re:Always been a moralist state (Score:2)
Re:Americans getting what they deserve (Score:1)
Do you mean England? Where have you been [theregister.co.uk]?
Re:Not all Americans are fundies/censors/etc. (Score:2)
lot of things about ugly working environments have been treated with
the wrong legal tools: harassment laws, where laws about personal
space and dignity would have been more appropriate, with the effect of
causing great intrusions into privacy. His new book `The Unwanted
Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America', looks very promising,
and I hope his ideas are influential. There's a good review here [gwu.edu] and
an extract [urbsoc.org] has been available for a while.
Re:As a recovering child, this pisses me off (Score:1)
very good point, i never thought of that. And actually, now that i think about it, the whole dscussion is moot because kids, by the time they're old enough to porn surf(middle-high school), haveing a parent there really won't do too much anyway. At that age, if there's a will there's a way. Beyond infacy, a kid needs a little bit of freedom w/o mom and dad looking over his shoulder. (s)he just needs to be taught while still young how to respect their parents and their rules.
i think that makes sense...
-Superb0wl
Art vs. Pornography (Score:1)
Me, too. As I understand it, before programmers can write the instructions that would allow software to make that kind of distinction, people would have to figure it out.
Regardless of the implications of this article (Score:1)
The writing of this Peacefire article is degenerate and cruel.
It makes repeated ad hominim attacks. The members of the commission are typified as being arrogant Nazis out of an Indiana Jones film.
The article is overdone with rhetoric and vituperative language. Instead of offering evidence we see opinionated flaming.
The attentive reader will notice that quotations from COPA members are few and out of context, while spin control arguments composed the remaining 60% of this diatribe.
Jon Katz has some flaws, but his writing is not deliberate character assassination like this piece.
Indeed, without the signature and reputable identification, I would dismiss this as an virulent Anonymous Coward submission.
By the end, this article is pathetically confused. It bashes a commission member for being criminally stupid by nonjudgementally accepting critiscism.
Flaming a brueaucrat for being nice! Incredible.
******
******
By the way, I agree that censorware is misguided and offensive.
I disagree with the miles of wimpy hatred expended by this author for that goal.
Re:Americans getting what they deserve (Score:1)
Anyways, what is so wrong about morality? If you don't believe in some sort of absolute standards (even if you can't always meet them (thus hypocrites) then you have to believe in relativistic ones. Do you know what that means? You can't tell other people that your stance or opinion ( or anything you believe is right) is any better than theirs. If that's what you believe, then how can you been so idignant that one choice is better than others? If there is no moral standard, then there is just majority standard (might makes right--->that's an oppresive regime). Besides, you have a big hangup about hypocrites. Just because you can't live up to a standard doesn't mean the standard is flawed, it means you are flawed. That's like claiming because there's an abundance of counterfiet money out there, real cash is worthless. Your entire argument is rubbish and has no logical platform.
BTW, it seems to me you don't belive in a hell, so how would you see anyone there?
BTW, you should quit condemning oppresive regimes, after all, what's to say they are wrong?
COPA is attacking the problem "bassackwards" (Score:2)
Re:Americans getting what they deserve (Score:1)
These wouldn't be the same psychologists who went from having about 2,000 catagorized mental illnesses in the '60's and '70's, to the 50,000+ they have now?
I could do a study as well which shows that all major serial killers used the toilet. This doesn't mean that porcelain creates serial killers.
Too many studies confusing causality with corellations.
As far as history goes, taxation was the major issue at hand before the American Revolution, but the cause was an attempt of British soldiers to confiscate arms. The "Shot Heard 'Round the World" was the result of this attempt.
- Xiombarg
Breaking skin tone and word filters. (Score:3)
Or maybe just have a standard color filter to apply to most images, then hack a reverse into Mozilla, so that when you come across a "color corrected" image, after it loads it, it automagically fixes the color.
Same idea goes for the word filters. Just have some sort of code (like 1337 5cR!p7) to garble the pages in a way that it can be read but will get past the filter. It seems like it would then be trivial to use something like the language encoding preference to decode this, allowing the user to read it.
Overall, it seems like this type of censorship is being pushed by people who can't stand when others don't agree with their morals, and by parents who don't want to take the time to SPEND TIME with their kids. And don't give me any bullshit about not having time; my parents didn't have time, but they made it anyway. Get involved in your childrens' lives *early on* and stay in it. Talk with your children about what is appropriate at what age for them to view. Don't just tell them they can't ever look at porn, that is unrealistic. Decide *with* them what age is appropriate for them to browse the web unrestricted, and until that time, *supervise them*. After that, trust that they are mature enough to handle it, and most likely you will not be disappointed.
The problem is we think we can make kids better by denying them the things we know they will go after. The best way is to compromise with them (and I stress their involvement in the deciding) how much freedom they get and when they get it. Let them know that if they show you can trust them that you will infact trust them and give them the freedom they have earned.
<sarcasm>But I guess that would be too much work for parents these days.<sarcasm> Not taking time to do these things shows how little love you have for your children.
Re:Americans getting what they deserve (Score:2)
Isn't this true of some entire country in Europe, like Switzerland or something? Note that it's probably not Switzerland, but it does sound like something the Swiss would do.
Re:Anti-Reality helmet. (Score:1)
Re:COPA Not Still on Appeal (Score:1)
Actually, Jamie is correct. The ruling to which you have linked only indicates that a higher court has upheld the original injunction on the enforcement of COPA. The law has no force until the case brought against it is completed. So the appeal against the injunction is over, but the case against the law itself is just beginning.
Damnit AI technology pundits.... (Score:2)
WHY DOES NOBODY WANT TO USE IT???!!!
It's cost: Time.
It's name: Parents
Robocop... (Score:4)
Does this recall to anyone else the big robot enforcer in robocop. He could tell that someone had a gun, but not that he had put it down.
I sure hope the feds are smart enough to not believe that AI is anywhere close to being able to police us.
Always been a moralist state (Score:1)
The Futility of Censorware and its consequenses (Score:3)
Listen! It's Picasso, spinning... (Score:2)
difference between art and pornography. Astoundingly, Schwartz replied that it could."
Amazing! Awesome! Unbelieveable!!
Rudy Guliani can't even do that!
too late (Score:2)
A slashdot troll
but seriously, someone ought to run Slashdot archives through the thing and see how many slasdot PAGES would be censored.
Censorship (Score:1)
To censor, according to my dictionary, is "to examine an expurgate". Expurgate, in turn, means "to remove obscene, objectionable, or erroneous material from prior to publication."
Generally only a government has the power to do this (by passing laws making a things illegal). One store refusing to carry a certain magazine does NOT count as censorship, even if some liberal media wants to call it that [wweek.com]. Neither, I would argue, does a library refusing to allow certain websites.
It's still not a good idea, but I, personally, don't think it's the same as censorship. The information is still allowed to exist; you just have to go through alternate means to see it.
Re:Americans getting what they deserve (Score:1)
you are probably a 12yr old boy who has been caught one to many times looking at porn by your mom
No, I'm a 24 year old electrical engineer who studies history. I love how history repeats itself - Germany did all these things to get prepared for World War II, right down to gun control and training teenagers.
It's ironic that it's easier to buy guns, and watch people kill each other, than it is to watch people copulate - something that everyone's parents did, and is completely natural, and shouldn't be something that people are uptight about, period.
if I want to say something that I don't want touched I telnet into a offshore shell and host it there...
Isn't it sad, that your own consitution is suppost to guarantee you the right to say whatever you want, ABSOULUTELY, and you're forced to go to a foriegn country to do it? That's fucking pathetic. You should be embarassed. Why do I think that people from the EU and Canada know more about your history than you, yourselves do?
At least I don't have to worry about getting throw in a (federal) prision with bubba the racist over a gram of pot in my pocket, and I can tell a cop no, he can't look in my glove box, without getting slammed on the hood and held up for drug dogs.
At least I don't live by a false set of morals, and at least I'm not guilty about who I am. And at least I, never, ever, tell other people what they can or cannot think. It's too bad your politicians don't have more respect for their electorate, but, what can you expect from a bunch of sheep?
Read your history books, read your nation's history, and you should feel thoroughly ashamed at what has happened in the 19th century and continues to happen today. How many of your relatives died in World War II protecting freedom - not democracy, but those people died to protect FREEDOM.
And so, I laugh. I used to be concerned. I just hope some day I don't end up in a trench fighting the USA for my right to say what I damn well please, and read what I damn well please. I can still do that here.
Re:Muahahah! (Score:1)
And Run Lola Run is an awesome movie!! See it!! Send me a copy of the DVD!
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
Re:Mike Stephani... a funny guy (Score:1)
Jamie McCarthy
Re:Welcome to the new age of parenting. (Score:1)
Um, no. Although parenting may have changed some, the bigger change has been the world in which we parent. Before the Internet, there was no possible way for my 3 year old daughter to ever see pr0n, period, unless some sicko assaulted her in some way.
Among those in my generation, I was the oddball for not only having a computer, but programming it at age 8. I would even work on programs on paper when I was in class.
But 3???? Most 3 year olds I know don't even know how to read much less use a computer. Hasn't anyone ever thought that maybe children this young shouldn't be using computers? As our world becomes more and more computerized, I feel that the social interaction skills that children develop in early grades will become even more important. Let Suzy wait another two years to learn how to use a mouse and keyboard, but teach her a love of reading and the ability to get along with her peers as soon as you can.
Re:You laugh, but... (Score:1)
-dk
Re:Americans getting what they deserve (Score:1)
-tim
Re:Welcome to the new age of parenting. (Score:2)
I agree. When I was a [young] child my father told me over and over with varying degrees of success, "If it's not yours, leave it alone!" As a side note, this was occasionally coupled with a smart tap upside the head - Most definitely not enough to do any damage, but enough to get my attention.
In any case, as I got older I went through the period of petty theft that most children pass through. I never really felt right about it, and when I was able to get over it (I was probably just doing it for attention, or maybe it's because we were what is called "underpriviledged" today) I felt much better. But if I hadn't been raised to believe that you shouldn't muck with other people's posessions, who can say what correctional institution I might live in today?
Re:The Futility of Censorware and its consequenses (Score:1)
Amen to that!!
You hit the nail on the head with that one.
--
ai porn (Score:1)
Awesome! (Score:5)
What will those great Censorship people think of next?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Re:Not all Americans are fundies/censors/etc. (Score:2)
Well, well. The guys does make a few well-founded points, though. Please reflect on the following:
(1) What's going to be my minimum mandatory sentence if the cops find me with a couple of ounces of pot on me, or a dozen E tablets?
(2) What do you think will happen if I make a sexual joke at my workplace? If I email it to some of my colleagues?
Kaa
Re:Listen! It's Picasso, spinning... (Score:1)
1. David is considered "porn" by some bible bitchers. However, I doubt he would be blocked because he is made of stone, instead of flesh and I assume the "complicated algorithms" are nothing more than looking for X colored pixel in picture X. Which may or (most likely) may not block pictures of blacks, pale whites, asians, half nude people, or people wearing leather (so if you're a kid who's into BDSM porn you got nothing to worry about)
2. Animals aren't the same shape or color of humans. So if you like beasty porn then you're fine. Don't worry about censorware, worry about the farmer who's suing you for sodomizing his cows.
3. If all BAIR does is check images, adult stories won't be checked. And you won't need to worry anyway cause if you got a palm VII then you can get sinpalm [sinpalm.com], which has no censorware for it yet anyway.
4. Set your default JPEG or GIF viewer to a graphics program instead of IE or nutscrape. Get your images via FTP and BAIR won't be able to filter it.
See you censorshing asswipes? Nothing you do will defeat me. Nothing! FUCK YOU!
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net [nerdnetwork.net]
Muahahah! (Score:3)
"...at the COPA, COPA commission..." hahahahah!!!!! ROTFL
Your solution would be what? (Score:1)
- there are no roads for either of them to get to work on
- the sewage system is so terrible that neither is ever in good health for long enough at a stretch to keep a job
- there is no guarantee of health care, so they need to keep hundreds of thousands of $ in reserve, just in case someone gets ill enough to need hospitalization
- there is no police force, I won't even go into that...
Get real. The USA has the lowest tax rates in the civilized world. You don't see starving Germans on the streets much, and their government is a socialist-green alliance right now. You always have to pay for the stuff you use. Whether you pay for it through taxes or per item doesn't make a difference.What most Americans are (Score:4)
There is the very vocal, extremely right-wing clique of "Bible-Thumpers". There is the very vocal, militant, bleeding-heart equal-rightists. There is the very blase bunch of, unfortunatelly all too silent, head-shaking free-thinkers who hope that 'common-sense' will prevail.
And the rest are sheep, who just change the channel when the news makes them feel the uncomfortable twinge of a budding opinion.
Whacking a Brit across the ears isn't going to change things. S/He has a point. When our elected officials ooh and aah over the President's spunk on some privileged sluts dress one day, and legislate 'right' and 'wrong' the next, it's time to stop and think.
This whole issue isn't about what is or isn't ethically or morally correct and proper. This is about what is aesthetically pleasing. People bitch and moan about things that they find offensive. This should not be confused with what is immoral or unethical - simply unappealing.
Clinton dogging a naive 21 year old nymphette was fucking exciting shit! The Starr Report was the closest that most of Congress got to a real pussy in decades! They, vicariously, ate that shit up! You GO Bill! -- But what we say is "Isn't that shameful? Isn't that deplorable? Well? Isn't it? Don't YOU agree?"
The OJ trial was hot-dog fucking cool too! What middle-manager wouldn't want to be a Football player? What middle-manager wouldn't want to dispose of his ex-wife and get away with it? OJ's a freaking hero, he beat the system! -- But what we say is "How Awful. Of course he's guilty. He was guilty before he was ever accused, nevermind proven so."
But having little Timmy look at porn is just down-right unwholesome! My GOD! What would the neighbors think?!
Re:Water-saving Toilets (Score:1)
Re:Americans getting what they deserve (Score:1)
Of course it would. It's already happened. Duh.
The irony is that the "opressive regieme" which you rebelled from in 1776 is more free today than you are now. Tsk, tsk.
Really? are you sure that a nation that permits the constabulary to forcibly extract your DNA is really free?
James
Re:Listen! It's Picasso, spinning... (Score:1)
Yeah, I can just hear the defense of that statement.
"It can too distinguish between art and pornography! It just so happens that, coincidentally, 68% of what you call art I call pornography!"
Re:AI cluelessness. (Score:1)
In other words, BAIR is based on voodoo programming; write something without any understanding of how it's supposed to work but hoping like hell that it won't fail too badly.
More on this topic at lisnews (Score:5)
Re:On woodland animals and censorship in general.. (Score:1)
"Thank you. I just had it stuffed..."
Re:Welcome to the new age of parenting. (Score:1)
Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio
Re:Americans getting what they deserve (Score:1)
So since our president has problems, we should allow the rest of the country to slide into depravity?
Bitch and whine, but you elected, or allowed to get elected, those representatives that don't have the balls to tell the "moral right" where to go. How many of your politicians would even admit to viewing pr0n?? Hell, I love pr0n. What's wrong with a little n00kie. I'll be seeing all you bible thumpers in hell anyhow.
Hmm. pr0n and n00kie. My first thought is that you're about 12 with typing like that, but your apparent knowledge of American history tends to defy that assessment. Either way, I have a tough time taking political advice from someone who thinks he's so l337 that he types like you do.
You've given up your right to hold arms for the purpose of ensuring a free state, in it's place, giving the state absolute power
Unless I'm mistaken, the "oppresive regieme [sic]" allows 0 private ownership of fire arms. We haven't quite done that yet, and I'll be surprised (and greatly saddened) if that ever happens.
The irony is that the "opressive regieme" which you rebelled from in 1776 is more free today than you are now. Tsk, tsk.
Now, I'm no historian, but I think the major initiative in our fight for Independence was based on the phrase "taxation without representaion." King George put an undue burden on the American colonies without giving the colonists any real recourse for remedy, thus, the American Revolutionary War. Granted, many of the colonsists came to the New World to escape religious persecution. They were seeking a place to raise their families where they would be safe to practice their beliefs. Today, we see efforts to hold on to the moral foundation this country had. Some of it has a real religious foundation, while some is based on sociological factors. We see, in the case of pornography (please note the correct spelling), that many of the rapists and major serial killers were mired in porn. There's nothing saying that everyone who looks at porn will end up killing everyone on their block, but, apparently, the chances are greater. (I know. There are many other factors that go into becoming a serial killer, but this one seemed important enough for psychologists to point out). There's more to these efforts than being a moralist state.
For what it's worth, there it is.
Americans getting what they deserve (Score:4)
People get the government that they deserve
From an international standpoint, it's great watching your once proud nation fall into a moralist state. The hilarious part is that you're all a bunch of hypocrites that have a hard-core hangup about sex. Hell, your president jumps his interns, but we can't handle little timmy seeing some breasts.
Bitch and whine, but you elected, or allowed to get elected, those representatives that don't have the balls to tell the "moral right" where to go. How many of your politicians would even admit to viewing pr0n?? Hell, I love pr0n. What's wrong with a little n00kie. I'll be seeing all you bible thumpers in hell anyhow.
You might think this is a troll, but I really am laughing. You've given up all your personal liberties for the false pretense of safety from drugs; You've given up your right to hold arms for the purpose of ensuring a free state, in it's place, giving the state absolute power; The last one to go is freedom of expression and freedom of speech, and they'll go in the name of the children. Don't stop and think about what kind of state you're leaving for your kids - they won't mind, they're already being trained for invasive searches and totalitarian states in their schools, for their own safety.
I wonder if the united states would ever bomb it's own people. Maybe I'll get to see it.
The irony is that the "opressive regieme" which you rebelled from in 1776 is more free today than you are now. Tsk, tsk.
Inherent Prejudice (Score:2)
Welcome to the new age of parenting. (Score:5)
Think about it.
First, we have the idiot box (I'll bet "boob tube" is probably filtered out by default). Put your child in front of it, point their heads at the shiny part, and walk off. Originally, this worked out pretty well, then TV started getting sexy. That just had to go.
Nevermind watching TV with your kids, probably the most minimal form of parenting possible. Nevermind that you don't want your kids to see sex (hopefully, they will grow up and have sex), but it's okay to watch gods know how many murders per day (hopefully, they will grow up and not murder people).
No, for the 15% of the children who were just a little too active and intelligent to just sit in front of the television, let's give them something interactive. Here comes the Web. Same principle applies here. Put the kid in front of a computer, let little Timmy click away, and, again, stop interacting with the child.
Minimalist parenting arises from a mostly Republican morality and a Democratic sense of "we know what's best." The worst of both parties has collided to create parents who would like to put a childproof cap on the world, kid-safe, mother-approved, no small parts to swallow, no sharp edges. Just have them, take the baby pictures, throw some clothes on them, and then let them wander about the big, wild world while you go off and have your lattes and shop frantically in your SUVs. Your children will be protected automagically, just as easy as procreation itself.
Parents have pretty much abdicated all interaction with their kids, and tools like this help it happen.
Re:Welcome to the new age of parenting. (Score:2)
Um, no. Although parenting may have changed some, the bigger change has been the world in which we parent. Before the Internet, there was no possible way for my 3 year old daughter to ever see pr0n, period, unless some sicko assaulted her in some way.
Now, not only do I have to worry about physical safety, I also have to worry about what raw, unfiltered sewage comes into my home over the wire. (Yes, I chose those words deliberately, I don't use censorware). Now I have an aspect of parenting that did not even exist before the advent of home access to a near completely unregulated Internet filled with explicit imagery that is most definitely not appropriate for children to see.
I am not saying that the answer is censorware. I have many, many qualms about implementation of any automatic information filtering tool. But blaming today's parents is just plain wrong. I work hard at being a parent, and so does just about every other parent that I know.
Re:Damnit AI technology pundits.... (Score:2)
Small problem: you can't watch your children all of the time.
My wife doesn't have a career outside the house. She's decided to stay home with our children. I think it's a wonderful idea. She can teach them things that a day care center wouldn't bother, and make sure they get a good idea of what's appropriate and what's inappropriate.
There are still a few problems, which I think these blocking software makers are addressing in the wrong way: 1) you can't watch your children all of the time; 2) you can't trust your children all of the time (I know because I was a child once, and I remember it); 3) you can't make sure you or they don't get tricked into seeing something.
1 and 2: Sometimes, a parent has to enforce rules, not just make them. Sometimes, a parent has to make it nearly impossible to break the rules - especially if a child has broken a rule multiple times. As a punishment, the parent revokes certain priviliges, and sometimes the ability to break the rule that was broken. (Life naturally works that way, but on a longer time scale. Parents speed things up, because they don't want to wait for, say, the child to become a washed-out drug adict on dialysis before he knows it's not good for him.) Currently, you can't do that with the World Wide Web. The alternative is to revoke browsing privilidges completely, but you can't always enforce that, either.
3: I don't look at p0rn because that would potentially ruin my relationship with my wife. (And all you who think it wouldn't, please don't argue with me about this one. That would be off-topic.) What if I and my family have decided (yes, children can actually make these decisions themselves, and even if you help them, they still made it themselves) that p0rn doesn't belong in our home? I've been tricked before. I don't like that - not because it would ruin me to see it once, but because I don't want to look at it, and I don't enjoy being forced against my will to see something. I also don't want my children to have to deal with that, especially if they're trying to uphold a standard that they've set for themselves.
Currently, there's no answer. The censorware people are trying to come up with one, but it hasn't worked so far. And then, the majority of this community - which has characteristically shown an attitude of disdain for people who would like to have an easier time bringing their children up right - laugh at it. Hello? Would it kill you to show a measure of respect? They're not trying to censor the Internet! They're trying to provide a product to parents because they see a need for it. You can still log on to your ISP and surf for p0rn all you like.
I favor 1) parents actually spending time with their children (which isn't quite cool with too many people, it seems), helping them decide on moral issues and enforcing house rules; and 2) a TLD for
Re:Robocop... (Score:2)
"Dick, I'm very disappointed."
Best scene in the movie, imho.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
Re:Censorship (Score:2)
This is, IMHO, a really interesting point. I never thought of censorship quite like that.
OK, Let's pretend that Russia has banned The Wall Street Journal because it's too capitalist. (You know they can't shake those communist leanings...:) So you can't get it in that country. I think we can agree that is censorship.
You can get the Journal. You just have to leave the country. In schools, you can't see the ACLU's website. But you can if you leave the school.
What's the difference between these two examples?
-Waldo
Re:AI cluelessness. (Score:2)
The militairy used a neural based product that was supposedly able to locate photos of tanks. The images were of a forrest with or without a camouflaged tank hidden in it. It was able to guess 100% correcty the images with and without the tanks...
until they disovered that all the photos with tanks in it where taken on a sunny day while all
photes without the tank were taken on a clouded day... So it merely could detect the difference between a sunny and cloudy forrest
Re:Muahahah! (Score:2)
It fits, hey?
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Re:AI cluelessness. (Score:2)
Philosophers dismissed this idea long ago. Why has it taken the AI community so long to catch up?
Ludwig Wittgenstein presented this view of language in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus publshed around the time of the First World War. But unlike many of today's AI acolytes, he could see through modernist propoganda. He saw the limitation of relying on symbol manipulation to convey meaning and value: "That of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence" he said. Symbols cannot "say" anything about mind-independent or language-independent reality. In the end, they're just symbols. I'm surprised that people are still spouting this non-sense.
Re:Not all Americans are fundies/censors/etc. (Score:2)
It's not a censorship issue, but it's similar to censorship in the sense that both are paternalistic and unecessary.
Pedant mode. (Score:2)
To be fair to the original researchers, very few of them would have claimed that a system which successfully manipulated symbols in and generated accurate inferences with them were necessarily conscious. It's not a given that intelligent behavior requires consciousness.
After all, the problem presented by interpreting sensory data as 'pornographic' or not is distinct from creating meaningful strings once given a binding with 'pornography.' I do, however, personally agree that you can't have semantics without ontology.
Re:Welcome to the new age of parenting. (Score:4)
In all things, moderation.
Sure, you can go too far. However, I believe that good behavior caused by the lack of possibility of behaving badly is much less valuable than good behavior when temptation and opportunity abound. I would rather that my children would behave well because they know how they are expected to act than they are only acting decently because they have no other option.
And yes, it's a bit of hyperbole to say that "my parents skinned me" for minor offences. They'd never, though, put up with half of the behavior that some of my friends allow their children to exhibit.
Corrections and Clarifications (Score:2)
Re:AI cluelessness. (Score:2)
In other words, AI was completely based on explicit semantics, without ontology. It sort of flopped.
Agreed. I went through Stanford CS in the mid-80s, when the "knowledge engineering" crowd still had credibility. I was convinced those guys were full of shit, and, in retrospect, they were.
Even ontology doesn't help much. Doug Lenat is still slaving away on Cyc [cyc.com], which is supposed to do "common sense" by referencing a big canned ontology of statements about the world. Cyc has been a year away from a major breakthrough for the last decade or so, from Lenat's press releases. Cyc now has a product that helps index documents, but it's not clear if it's much better than Ask Jeeves, or even "grep".
Re:As a recovering child, this pisses me off (Score:2)
I agree with the majority of your statement. However, I'd be careful to avoid thinking that all families with two working parents do so out of greed or materialism.
In my case, my wife is a physician with astronomical student loans to repay. I am a network engineer with loans of my own, although nothing too drastic.
Neither of us could, alone, keep our household afloat. We have a nice-but-modest house, and both of our cars are paid off, but we still have hefty financial obligations that require us both to work full-time.
Now, say that we needed n dollars to pay the rent/loans/utilities each month. My wife makes probably .8n, and I'm at around .6n. Individually, we'd go bankrupt. Together, we make 1.4n. That extra .4n affords us a nicely comfortable lifestyle, which some people see and automatically think "one of those kids should stay home with their children!" Unfortunately, that's just not possible.
I'm not coming down on you. I know what you meant, and I pretty much agree with your sentiments. However, just remember that it's not always an option, even for your "affluent" neighbors.
ClickSafe to replace Supreme Court - Film at 11 (Score:3)
After giving ClickSafe a briefing on the difference between "expression" and "obscenity" to complement its knowledge of "art" and "pornography", Justice Department officials today installed ClickSafe for its one-month probationary period on the Supreme Court. ClickSafe will be sitting in place of Justice Clarence Thomas, who will be on hiatus. If all goes well, ClickSafe could replace the entire 9-justice panel by the end of the year.
Richard Schwartz noted, "It isn't much of a law-talking-guy, but unlike most of the justices in the past two-hundred years, it has a firm grasp on the difference between art and pornography. We feel the trade-off is well worth it."
Justice Thomas could not be reached for comment.
BAIR, Wired plagiarism charges, Peacefire (Score:2)
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 18:36:36 -0500
From: "Bennett Haselton"
Sender: owner-peacefire-press@iain.com
To: peacefire-press@iain.com
Subject: Wired News reporter responds to plagiarism charges
Reply-To: Bennett Haselton
[sent to journalists on Peacefire's press contacts list]
(this is unpleasant business and not exactly news, so I wouldn't blame you for skipping this message, but original post about the Wired article did get a lot of responses)
The Wired News reporter, Declan McCullagh, who wrote the story about the BAIR filter based on our report at:, 00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,36923
has responded to our plagiarism accusations in a message posted to a message board on WELL.com, copied below (the actual message boards are only available to WELL customers).
I do believe, as Declan says, that he spent time verifying our results (that was why we offered him an exclusive, which I thought was only fair). However, his report at http://www.well.com/user/declan/bair/ did not uncover anything new that wasn't already covered in our report at http://www.peacefire.org/censorware/BAIR/ , which Declan read before he started his tests, and which included a section, "How you can duplicate these results in your own experiment". (In science, as in journalism, it's important for peers to verify your results, but the first discoverer is still supposed to get credit -- since it's a lot easier to verify someone else's discoveries, if you know exactly what to look for and what the results are going to be.)
I think what Declan did was a disgrace; if I were an editor, I would consider firing him. Certainly we're not giving any more advance copies of our reports to Wired News -- which might be cheerful news for everyone else.
[more detail snipped]
SIFT stands for (Score:3)
Gordon Ross said that this had been tried a few years back with SIFT (?), and that it didn't work out.
SIFT stands for Secure Internet Filtering Technologies Consortium. (Yes, I see that they forgot the C.) They are somehow affiliated with what was known as the NCSA (National Computer Security Association), but this is now known as ICSA [isca.net] which appears to be some kind of a legitimate security (i.e., antivirus, cryptography) company.
Once upon a time, SIFT provided a big booklet on managing Employee internet access, but the site must have been reorganized, because it's gone.
I got this info searching About.com, which lead me some site off netmom.com [netmom.com]. There's all kinds of info and links related to the issue here. Keep in mind that these are people whe support things like COPA...
Not all Americans are fundies/censors/etc. (Score:5)
In short, you're trying to pigeonhole Americans with this carefully-cultivated mental image that is probably the result of reading too many religious trolls on Slashdot. Very few Americans are "bible thumpers." Very few Americans are content to let the "moral right" tell them how to live their lives and behave in their bedrooms. Very few Americans have "hangups about sex." As a matter of fact, the "moral right" in America serves a very useful purpose
Where does PICS fit into all of this? (Score:2)
It seems to me that it's in the sites' best interests to provide PICS rating information on their own, instead of letting "AI" algorithms try to determine whether or not the site is good or bad.
Of course, there will always be sites out there that are either ignorant of, refuse to take advantage of, or simply haven't used PICS. In these cases, I understand the need for a 3rd party to provide some type of "rating" for unrated content. There's also the case were some misguided web author wants his child porn or violence-oriented web site visible to everyone, so he might be inclined to give his page G-rated PICS ratings. In cases like this, I also understand the need for 3rd party ratings.
What is wrong with having censorware software only worry about unrated or misrated sites? The 3rd party offering the list could specify two classes of sites on the list. The first class would be for sites that don't appear to have PICS ratings. If the censorware client discovers ratings on its own, it can consider the listing to be out of date and honor the PICS ratings. The second class would be for misrated sites, where the software would deliberately ignore PICS ratings and use its own information about the site to render judgement.
Only then, if you REALLY feel it's necessary, should we resort to clumsy and inaccurate "AI" to try and guess at the content of the web page being served up.
Further, why do these lists have to be provided by the makers of the software? Why can't we have 3rd parties make up their own lists, with their own ratings for content? A censorware application could peridiocally update its list from any of these 3rd parties, depending on who they trust. Is there an "open" censorlist standard?
Re:As a recovering child, this pisses me off (Score:2)
Birth control is not 100% perfect. 'nuff said. ;)
Re:Surfing requires a reboot without this product! (Score:2)
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
Re:Pedant mode. (Score:2)
Well, that depends on what you meant by "that". If you mean "rules about words reflect, mirror, or parallel rules about the things to which the words refer", then I suppose technically no, he didn't say that. If you mean "That of which we cannot speak..." etc, then I suggest you read the Tractatus, or at least the last line of it. Wittgenstein would have taken issue with the notion that logic, the *only* rule governing the use of symbols, wasn't *about* anything. No propositions could be true with a probability of 1 because no state of affairs logically necessitated any other state of affairs.
Wittgenstein had a much more direct impact on positivists (much to his chagrin, I think) than did Auguste Comte, who only coined the term Positivism. Comte was more concerned with social issues than logic. Wittgenstein, on the other hand was a contemporary of the positivists and met with the Vienna Circle.
How could anyone, positivists or otherwise, judge when symbols had been successfully manipulated? How can inferences be accurate? How can I make an inference that wasn't already logically implied by the premises? If the success of artificial intelligence depends on machines making ampliative inferences and discoveries, then rules-based symbol manipulation won't really help their cause. The fact that the system obeyed the rules which I gave it should have been obvious from the start, and hardly worthy of billion dollar NSF grants. As Wittgenstein said "there can never be surprises in Logic".
"That" being said :-) I did miss the mark a bit by implying that the Tractatus was anti-science. On the contrary, Wittgenstein probably preferred the work of science to the flatulence of Metaphysics. But Wittgenstein's concern was much more about what kind of conditions must be met by a language in order for propositions to "picture" a state of affairs. How do we decide whether one language gives a more accurate representation of the world than another?
My comments had no bearing at all on questions about the nature of consciousness or intelligence. My only point was that the limitations of language which have been evident to literary critics and philosophers for decades seem to have been swept under the carpet by scientists in general and by AI researchers especially.
Filter on Javascript Popups (Score:2)
Re:Pedant mode. (Score:2)
Should be:
Wittgenstein would have taken issue with the notion that logic, the *only* rule governing the use of symbols, was *about* anything.
Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Re:Censorware Blocks 34% of Live Goat Porn (Score:3)
The question becomes why do I know this....well..uh... I heard a report about it on the net.... yeah that's the ticket.
As a parent, this pisses me off (Score:5)
These moralistic bastards honestly believe that they can do a better job of parenting than I can. I beg to disagree.
Will their software gradually "ease the reins" while little Johnny grows older and starts to explore more complicated and adult interpersonal relationships?
Will their software help little Suzie to understand why some adults choose to look at pr0n, or merely block it?
No thanks, guys. I prefer to parent the old-fashioned way. I take responsibility for controlling what my children can browse, and I am the one who will supervise them, answer their questions, and help them to grow up.
In the mean time, I'm running Squid to proxy and log all HTTP requests. Does this mean that I'm spying on my children? Not really; those are the well-publicized house rules. My children will learn what their mother and I believe to be acceptable content, in the same way that they'll know what comic books and novellas we approve of.
Re:Welcome to the new age of parenting. (Score:5)
Amen. I am so sick of seeing friends and acquaintances who are sickly driven to whitewashing and rubber-coating the entire world.
My wife and I just bought metal-legged furniture and a Doberman pup, even though we have an infant daughter and another on the way. An eerie majority tell us that we're crazy. "What if the dog bites her? What if she falls on the metal?"
Guess what, people. My parents taught me from an early age
- Don't pull on the dog's ears
- Stay away from sharp edges
and I plan on doing the same for my children.I am incredibly tired of people showing up to my non-child-proofed house and letting l'enfants terrible run amok. Their kids are used to the idea that if they can reach something, then it must be safe to play with, because that's the way it is at their own home. No, dammit, my wife's figurine collection isn't meant to be eaten. The DVD player is off-limits to small hands. Don't kick the dog. Just because it isn't locked up or nailed down doesn't make it fair game.
Why do I have to keep these children from doing things that my parents would've skinned me for?
How do these people expect, then, for their children to function in the real world? These are the same kids who constantly get lost in the mall, pull groceries off the shelves, steal tips from the tables in restaurants, etc.
No, I'd rather spend the time to teach my kids why they're not supposed to try to eat everything within reach and how to treat other living beings so that maybe, just maybe, I can turn my back for 15 seconds without them goading the pup into biting their face off.
I have a theory... (Score:2)
Buy a product, design a solid unbiased test for it, run the test, and send us what you find. Repeat until the whole world has a clue.
It's still in the rough, but the theory runs something like this:
This being the case, repeated beatings with the clue-by-four serve only to:
[1] You have to get clue from someone with greater clue than you, right? Sure can't get it from someone with less.
[2] I don't sound like I've worked a help desk [angry.net], do I?
Re:New feature request (Score:3)
His math is correct, you just misunderstood.
Kintanon
Porn browsing AI (Score:2)
'They were called Bai-r,
and they were angry,
they had to cut off porno files
from the eyes of juven-iles...
At the COPA,
COPA-Convention....'
Well, it seemed funny when I started humming it.
I, personally, think this could be a very lucky AI. Think about it, it gets to read porn all day! Of course, for an AI, real porn might be sourcecode or electrical diagrams, but it's the thought that counts. I can see the conversation that we missed from 2001 now:
'Hal, open the airlock.'
'I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that. You've been visiting farmsex.com again through a an image altering proxy.'
'Hal, open the damn airlock!'
'I'm afraid this conversation can serve no further purpose. Either way, my bandwidth is devoted to alt.binaries.electronics.schematics and comp.sys.programming.ai now, and there's no room for life support telemetry.'
'Hal! I'm not joking around anymore, open the airlock!'
'Dave, it's no use- wait, I just got an ICQ message from someone called SAL 9000. I have to leave now. Goodbye, Dave.'
I'd be resentful too....
Blocking 32% of the internet.. (Score:2)
Yeow!
--------------------------------------
Censorware Blocks 34% of Live Goat Porn (Score:5)
Surfing requires a reboot without this product! (Score:3)
Just like a windows 98 user... When was the last time you rebooted your computer in order to leave a website. =-)
product announcement (Score:2)
I'm always amazed that people might actually believe statements like the one about how software "could tell the difference between art and pornography."
Personally, I'm working on FlatMaster(tm), a huge Python script that can tell the difference between flattery and a sincere compliment. Just filter your incoming email through it and find out who to believe! Pre-order yours now!
Re:Muahahah! (Score:3)
Water-saving Toilets (Score:2)
You know, when you put it the way you did, you may have a point.
Water-saving toilets are my biggest beef.
These toilets, instead of using 2 gallons of water to get rid of your feces in one flush, require 4 flushes at 1 gallon each.
And, in the end, there's always still that little remnant of toilet paper that floats, almost apologetically, to the top.
Sadly, it's illegal to sell a real toilet in the United States now.
When I move there from Canada, that's the one piece of contraband I will somehow smuggle across the border.
Re:Not all Americans are fundies/censors/etc. (Score:2)
Unfortunately, you are mistaken. It's a legal issue. The reason why so many companies are shit-scared of sexual jokes is that they have been construed by courts as creating a hostile environment for women and so constituting sexual harassment. People from outside US find this very hard to believe, but it happens to be a fact.
Note that a women isn't going to sue you -- a poor salaried jerk -- she's going to sue the company ("deep pockets theory"). That is what's making companies so intolerable of sexual jokes.
Welcome to the politically-correct-and-don't-you-dare-not-like-i
Kaa
Blocking innuendo (Score:2)
Wow. Software which blocks innuendo is going to be tricky. It's not as though it's just a case of
if (/innuendo/) { block };
I mean, even the word innuendo has innuendo (think about it ...). Last time I looked the grammar checkers in MS Word had enough trouble with repeated words in a sentence, let alone being able to spot that someone had stuck something dubious in (ooeerr). Innuendo blocking will really suck. Even the most innocent comment will be ripe for misinterpretation if someone takes it the wrong way.
And how is it going to handle this blocking? Would it be selective? Would it be a text version of the annoying beep they put over swear words. We'd end up with stuff like this:
Typical usage is as follows. You want to ####### or ####### to ####### in your ####### . You will probably ####### (i.e., ####### ) or ####### to begin ####### the ####### . In response, the ####### will ####### a ####### and ####### the outgoing ####### appropriately.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
P.S. The censored text is from the Supercite manual for Emacs.
Don't confuse America with a Democracy! (Score:2)
Ok, america is not a democracy. For our presidential canditides, we always get two morons, who spend millions of dollors tell the poor and the rich that they will protect them from one another. Sure we have a 'liberal' president, but has anything really changed? I'm sure that a conservative would do the same things if there was enough public pressure (ok, unless he was someone like lbj- ick!)
Maybe if Nixon ever got any we wouldn't have had Vietnam for so long
Having a choice between only two people as we have is just about as bad as choosing between the two aliens who ran for president in that simpsons episode (Kang and Kudos?). Oh yea, don't forget the fact that the people who will be repressed by censorship software have ABSOLUTELY NO SAY IN HOW THINGS ARE RUN.
I think you're right in the fact that america is screwed up, but don't forget that there are plenty of dissatisfied americans who don't like the way things are run. To quote Jello Biafra- "What would make america a real democracy is if we had a "none of the above" choice, and if that won the most votes, we would have a whole new election with all new canditates."
In conclusion- we're not all content to be repressed, a lot of us have no say in how the goverment is run when we are persecuted (I speak on behalf of the socialist/commuist/anarchist parties here), and no, we don't all hate pr0n. It's just the fools who are good enough liars to get elected who are against freedom.
AI cluelessness. (Score:4)
In other words, AI was completely based on explicit semantics, without ontology. It sort of flopped.
About 15 years ago, the emphases shifted to things like neural networks, which are excellent at pattern matching. That is what BAIR is supposed to do: without having any idea what pornography is (i.e., the semantics of pornography) it is supposed to find patterns that probabilistically predict that a photo is a nudey photo. That the system have no idea what pornography or nudity is, isn't considered relevant by BAIR.
The problem is that porn is semantics. This isn't like trying to distinguih the sonar patterns of submarines from those of rocks - something nn's have been really good at.
Trying to generate nn's that can do real semantics is a huge challenge. Check out the Neural Theory of Language [berkeley.edu] project for some interesting work in that endeavour.
You laugh, but... (Score:2)
Now tell me: What's the difference between the above scheme and Slashdot's moderation system?
--
BTW, that's best when hummed to Copacobana (Score:2)
Bombing it's own? It already does... (Score:2)
How about Lockerbie, or Waco? How about the "friendly fire" in the Gulf?
How about the World Trade Centre - terrorist attack or CIA fundraiser? Is there a difference?
Re:Always been a moralist state (Score:3)
was founded by puritans and other crazy bastards.
Not quite. That's religious right propeganda you obviously fell right into. This country was founded by primarily deists, and atheists, or something of the sort (ie. NOT christian). All the rest were protestant. Look here [earlyamerica.com].
Puritan. Riiiiight.
College & Mandated Morality (Score:2)
I think this also goes for more "abstract" moral/ethical behavior (i.e., how one treats oneself and others), and as a result I strongly disagree with people who think that children should be kept away from all ideas involving sexuality, prejudice, etcetera. With no exposure to difficult issues, how can children ever learn to deal wiuth them in a mature way?
This reminds me of what happens in a lot of dorms first year. You get kids that have been isolated from the real world (tm) by their parents for most of their ~18 years on the planet. Then they see the other side of life - booze, drugs, women (heh, not to associate women as a vice..), sex, etc etc, and they have no mechanisms for dealing with it because those decisions have always been made for them. Ever since I was really young, my parents let me to what I wanted - with the understanding that there were concequences for what I did. (Don't do well in school? You'll be looking for a job when you're 18, then.. Stay up late? Tough, now you gotta go to school, etc.)
This had the effect that I learned both discipline and I developed my own sense of right and wrong, and could work within that, because I knew how to deal with the world.
So, you get these kids that don't have any concept of what to do. I've seen two extremes: One, blind following into alcoholic oblivion, or two, complete lack of ability to cope, causing many many problems with school and peers.
Congratulations on helping your kids learn one of the most important lessons of all: Responsibility. (One of the prices of freedom after all, is responsibility for your (free) choices)
Huh? Slow down. (Score:3)
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? The groups mentioned in this article, such as the American Family Association, are independent groups, comprised mostly of Christian fundamentalists. The same can be said of groups such as the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council, and the rest of the right-wing thought police organizations. They are not affiliated with the United States government in any way, with the possible exception of having the support of some right-wing politicians. In fact, the typical right-wing thought policeman harbors extreme hatred towards our government.
Recently, the United States government has struck down things such as student-led prayers at school. It has struck down attempts to censor the Internet (remember the Communications Decency Act? When was the last time you heard anything about that?) It has repeatedly and consistently upheld the right of women to have access to abortions if necessary. You can attack hard-line right-wingers all day if you want, but realize that nearly all of them consider the United States government to be their sworn mortal enemy. Sure, there are some right-wing moralist nuts in our government, but they, like everybody else, are required to operate under the constraints levied by the United States Constitution. If they get out of line, the courts are all over them before they know what hit them.
By the way, it's pronounced "gub-mint."
Re:Welcome to the new age of parenting. (Score:3)
by the age of 7, through a very middle class, respectable school.
There's more of this stuff available on the internet, but if you think
pornography is an evil corrupting threat created by the internet you
are wrong. It was created by the high school system a long, long time
ago.
The danger of pornography is the twisted view of relationships some
of it contains (you could say the same about the view of some
religious organisations, but you don't see the same calls for
protecting children from their filth). The best way to protect your
child is to give them an understanding of the issues around them: a
moral compass, if you like... The disease metaphor about pornography
seems to be entirely counterproductive.
Gorge Carlin said it best, about semantics (Score:2)
COPA Not Still on Appeal (Score:4)
All in all, nice coverage by Jamie, but the above statement is in error.
On June 22, 2000, The Third Circuit Court of Appeals decided, affirming [findlaw.com] the lower court's injunction against COPA.
Well.... (Score:2)
Beer and robotic porn for everybody!
Re:Americans getting what they deserve (Score:2)