Porno!
"What answer did Jon Lovitz give when asked if he had to choose one role for the rest of his life?"
Further attempts to legislate porn.
Note 1: For the sake of this discussion, I'm going to define porn as any media which is created with a primary purpose being that of titillation. Let's just ignore the holes in that definition for now.
Note 2: I keep switching between "we" and "they". I am with "them" when it comes to a desire to make it possible to block porn completely for those who choose, without making it impossible or even difficult to get to porn for consenting adults who are not at work. I do not, however, believe that either of the recently publicized methods are workable, and I can assure you that I know more about DNS and TCP than 99.999% of the people involved. I daresay that I know more about DNS and TCP than 95% of the people who run it all, but that is a different rant entirely.
Here's the thing that you need to try to understand about the .xxx domain, and this port 80 thing. People who do not use pornography (as defined above), and who consider it a sin and a danger, want to make a way for it to be easier to absolutely keep their kids from viewing it, accidentally or otherwise.
That's it. That's all they want.
The accidentally is a huge thing, by the by. I would be willing to give up a certain measure of freedom, if it meant I was allowed to short-stake the expurgated-clowns who try to get people to view porn who were not looking for it. Them and tele-marketers, who are in the same business - annoying the expurgation out of me.
Now, I would imagine that there are businesses who get behind some of these kinds of ideas, because they have to deal with issues of sexual harassment falling out of guys who view porn at work, so making it easier to block is good for them. But they aren't the folks behind this sort of thing. They are probably heavily enlisted, because a business reason for anything goes a lot further in this country than personal, moral kinds of things, even if those things have sufficient numbers behind them.
And I would further suppose that the various bodies that make up the US federal and local government would love anything that makes it easier for them to control and/or monitor what people do. No, no, not what everyone does, just certain ... persons of interest. Don't be silly.
But the Governor of Utah does not care if you get your porn on. He just doesn't care. It doesn't matter to him. Many of us Mormons would like to convert you away from porn, but we do not for a second believe that legislating the use of lotion is constitutional. Or practical. Can you imagine what would happen under that sort of prohibition? I shudder to think about consequence...
The bottom line is, as with everything else, there is no solution. Not yet, at least. Perhaps if ... well, that wouldn't work either. Meh. My kids are going to stay away from it until they move out, or they're going to lose their use of the computer in my house. Simple as that.
Incidentally, if you've a need, I would recommend the use of this anti-porn product. They make a corporate product as well, though I've no knowledge or experience of that. The K9 is free, for home or business use, though it would be impractical to deploy in a large organization - there are no centralized controls. It seems to leave a very small footprint on your system, though it does inject itself into your TCP stack. Er, the last version did. I haven't installed it anywhere since the update.
Further attempts to legislate porn.
Note 1: For the sake of this discussion, I'm going to define porn as any media which is created with a primary purpose being that of titillation. Let's just ignore the holes in that definition for now.
Note 2: I keep switching between "we" and "they". I am with "them" when it comes to a desire to make it possible to block porn completely for those who choose, without making it impossible or even difficult to get to porn for consenting adults who are not at work. I do not, however, believe that either of the recently publicized methods are workable, and I can assure you that I know more about DNS and TCP than 99.999% of the people involved. I daresay that I know more about DNS and TCP than 95% of the people who run it all, but that is a different rant entirely.
Here's the thing that you need to try to understand about the .xxx domain, and this port 80 thing. People who do not use pornography (as defined above), and who consider it a sin and a danger, want to make a way for it to be easier to absolutely keep their kids from viewing it, accidentally or otherwise.
That's it. That's all they want.
The accidentally is a huge thing, by the by. I would be willing to give up a certain measure of freedom, if it meant I was allowed to short-stake the expurgated-clowns who try to get people to view porn who were not looking for it. Them and tele-marketers, who are in the same business - annoying the expurgation out of me.
Now, I would imagine that there are businesses who get behind some of these kinds of ideas, because they have to deal with issues of sexual harassment falling out of guys who view porn at work, so making it easier to block is good for them. But they aren't the folks behind this sort of thing. They are probably heavily enlisted, because a business reason for anything goes a lot further in this country than personal, moral kinds of things, even if those things have sufficient numbers behind them.
And I would further suppose that the various bodies that make up the US federal and local government would love anything that makes it easier for them to control and/or monitor what people do. No, no, not what everyone does, just certain ... persons of interest. Don't be silly.
But the Governor of Utah does not care if you get your porn on. He just doesn't care. It doesn't matter to him. Many of us Mormons would like to convert you away from porn, but we do not for a second believe that legislating the use of lotion is constitutional. Or practical. Can you imagine what would happen under that sort of prohibition? I shudder to think about consequence...
The bottom line is, as with everything else, there is no solution. Not yet, at least. Perhaps if ... well, that wouldn't work either. Meh. My kids are going to stay away from it until they move out, or they're going to lose their use of the computer in my house. Simple as that.
Incidentally, if you've a need, I would recommend the use of this anti-porn product. They make a corporate product as well, though I've no knowledge or experience of that. The K9 is free, for home or business use, though it would be impractical to deploy in a large organization - there are no centralized controls. It seems to leave a very small footprint on your system, though it does inject itself into your TCP stack. Er, the last version did. I haven't installed it anywhere since the update.