roundtable: Re: Congress Brokers Censorship Deal

roundtable: Re: Congress Brokers Censorship Deal

Re: Congress Brokers Censorship Deal

Vadim Antonov (avg@sprint.net)
Mon, 4 Dec 1995 17:52:43 -0500 

Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 17:52:43 -0500
From: Vadim Antonov <avg@sprint.net>
Message-Id: <199512042252.RAA10737@titan.sprintlink.net>
To: karl@mcs.com, paulp@CERF.NET
Subject: Re: Congress Brokers Censorship Deal


On Sat, 2 Dec 1995, Karl Denninger, MCSNet wrote:
> 
> If the ISPs out there had taken steps to remove (1) the bestiality and 
> (2) the child pornography that is in the erotic pictures groups *every 
> day* these folks wouldn't have had enough ammunition to pass legislation 
> dealing with the rest.

That is silly.  How do you control what your network carries in the bytes
it receives from the outside world?  The only viable solution for that
is to prohibit using your network by anyone under legal age.  I would
suggest that ISPs should start doing that to show the idiots on the top
what they're going to achieve.

Any massive attempt to ban alt.sex.pictures will only cause the pictures
to go all over the place.  The Net is very much self-policing, you don't
generally find objectionable material in rec.movies.disney (or whatever).
Then, there's a (relatively) easy way to do thing anonymously by either
using remailers in democratic countries or with Steve Bellowin's trick
(spoofing TCP).  Finally, there's MixMaster (and probably other flow
analysis-resistant remailer schemes).

Let me tell you what -- the most censure in Soviet Union was done by
writers and journalists themselves.  When everybody's afraid everything
they publish avoids offending the holders of power -- just in case.
BTW, accusing a person in the pornography (and "amoral behaviour" in
general) was the best way to silence dissidents while keeping the pretense
of being "democratic".  For you it may be wild tales, for me it is the
personal experience.

The Net is ultimately dangerous to the political establishment as you can't
buy its attention no matter how much bribe (er, political contribution)
money you spend on it.  It does not put up with bullshit, and it represents
the most politically active (and wealthy) part of population.  No wonder
the knee-jerk reaction of the "servants of the people" is to get rid of the
dangerous competition by the usual tactics -- smear it with dirt, create
atmosphere of fear and uncertanity and finally make it into the insturument
of perpetuating their power, the same way they did with TV and newsprint.

--vadim

Vadim Antonov
<avg@sprint.net>

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