Any port in a storm?
Yeah, this will work. As the article points out, a major problem is who decides what to segregate in the non-port 80 ghetto. Nudes in old master’s paintings, anyone? Underwear ads at Target?
SCO chairman wants Congress to make port 80 porn-free
The governor of Utah signed a nonbinding resolution on Tuesday that calls on the US Congress to do something about the rising tide of Internet pornography, preferably using technology to stick it in a ghetto where those who don’t want to see it don’t have to do so. The resolution, which passed both houses of the Utah legislature, was backed by CP80 (“Clean port 80”), a group founded and headed by Ralph Yarro. CP80’s plan to cleanse the Internet isn’t the only controversy that Yarro’s involved in, though; he also happens to chair the board of directors for SCO.
[…]Yarro now spends time trying to get “graphic” art pushed into its own corner of the Internet through his work with CP80, which wants Congress to legislate that all porn must use a series of alternate ports. Port 80, the main HTTP port, would be reserved as a “community channel.”
CP80’s solution would apply to the US only, of course, and their plan for dealing with international pornographers (who are unlikely to move to another port dictated by the US) is a simple but draconian one: consumers would ask ISPs to “simply block all IP addresses originating from a non-compliant country.” Problem solved!
When your company is going down the tubes,
you gotta find something to do with your time
He’s from Utah, what do you expect from the land of morons, I mean Mormons. Oh well, same thing.
But does the rest of the world care? Perhaps they should install a “Great Firewall of Utah” so that he and his fellow Mormons don’t stare on smut until their eyes pop out?
I have always supported some sort of porn apartheid on the ‘net. I thought the xxx domain was a good practical idea. I also thought some sort of porn watermark on pictures and videos was a good idea. And a porn tag for email and web sites. All voluntary.
I assume that most porn sites want to be legitimate and would rather not have the legal hassles of kids seeing their stuff.
It’s not just for kids, either. It would be very smart for adults to set a “no porn” option on their work machines.
Am I naive?
“those who don’t want to see it don’t have to do so”
last time I checked you aren’t really “forced” to go anywhere
perhaps if they spent a quarter of the time they spend trying to move porn off of port 80 actually talking to their kids about porn and healthy sexual attitudes their kids might actually be better people for it instead of trying to put blinders on a section of the internet.
Cause we all know, it’s super easy to prevent a teenager from seeing pornographic images.
“it’s super easy to prevent a teenager from seeing pornographic images.”
Yeah, gouge out their eyes.
Yeah, setting aside .xxx for the commercial porn sites who’ll cooperate, since they’re out to make money – and smacking down hard the scum who won’t coöperate – that would be waaay too easy…
#1 – gquaglia
“…the land of morons, I mean Mormons. Oh well, same thing.”
Now that ain’t nice. Them there Moron Tavernackles sing real purty.
Porn and the resulting masturbation make you lazy.
#1 gquaglia – how do you make the jump from debating a viewpoint to belittling an entire state and religion? So, you are basically saying that his idea shouldn’t be considered since it came from Utah and the guy might also be a Mormon? The idea has big problems, but neither its state of origin nor the religion of its sponsor is relevant. Prejudice is disgusting.
#8- Yup, that is exactly what I’m saying. Need another example, Orin Hatch.
al, are saying that Utah is not run by the LDS and that said LDS is not a loony cult?
#3 – Am I naive?
Comment by Greg Allen — 3/16/2007 @ 8:42 am
No… But I never supported a .xxx domain… rather I wanted a .adu domain (for adult) because the porn industry wants to be legitimate, and they deserve to be, and its very hard to be that with the stupid puritanical stigma of .xxx hanging around your neck.
#8 – Prejudice is disgusting.
Yes it is. I agree. My message to those who feel that certain comments made by certain people about certain religions are disguisting… If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.
Conservative Christians sounded the trumpets to wage a cultural war. I’m sure as fuck not gonna disappoint those sorry sons of bitches.
What the hell is wrong with all those politicians who want to control and ban all kinds of stuff on the net. Yes, I heard the stories that the internet was created for the military and scientific purposes but everybody knows the internet was created for porn and other adult content. Why do those politicians want to change everything and annoy the majority of normal people. Why do they want to “clean” port 80? If they are so concerned about the children they could create a clean port 1984 or something. All the people who are bothered by porn on the net(all 5 of them) could use their clean port and stop getting on the nerves of the rest of the world.
Man… I sent John a note about this over two weeks ago and he never blogged it — or even answered me back. Boo Hoo – I didn’t get my props on this. Sniff Sniff.
4: The problem is what one considers porn; it’s in the eye of the beholder.
Some people would consider the Venus de Milo to be porn because the statue’s breasts are showing. Others consider violent stuff to be porn, and consider any kind of consensual sex to be OK.
No censorship–let adults/parents figure out what should be looked at on their computers.
#14 – I agree with your point, but I don’t agree that it is a problem that different people define porn in different ways.
For the purpose of this discussion, I think its safe to assume that porn is sexually explicit content… and it is enough to leave it at that.
The actually problem is that some folks think it is their moral duty to be prudish and self-righteous on my behalf and offer up up their brand of fire and brimstone stone “help” with raising my children… or yours… or anyone else’s… when what they really need to do is focus only on their own.
I’m not fighting for porn. I’m fighting for my right to make my own choices and the rights of others to publish what they wish as they see fit.
Rhetorical question: You can buy porn on any street corner for $5. Do you think that’s too high a price to pay for freedom of speech.
Rhetorical answer: No. But $5 is too high a price to pay for porn.
yep, porn is definitely in the eye of the beholder. back in the day, one of the southern states found the movie ‘Body Heat’ to be obscene.
Congress needs to remember that the intertubes are international and their power means very little when there’s off-shore servers around. But then, the real purpose of this sort of thing is to pander to their constituents, not to actually accomplish anything.
Here is an idea. Why not turn the tables and insist that those moral police create their own DNS server. Any web site they deem inappropriate they can route to a safe alternative.
Then those who want to protect themselves from such porno can simply change their computers to use this “safe” DNS server instead of the DNS server their ISP points them to.
They can fund their DNS server with church contributions and ads they sell.
This solution lets them decide what is and is not appropriate. If you agree with them, then use them. If you don’t, then don’t use them. It gets the government out of the business of making decisions as to what is porn.
#9, gq, geeze that was funny. I’ve been laughing at that one for a few minutes now. I have to admit, when you’re on your game, you are good.
The funny thing is, there just isn’t a need for this kind of legislation. If you don’t go looking for it, you tend not to find it – I get no porn, because I don’t set out to find it.
So what this legislation is really about is controlling what people do with their time on the interweb. So it’s a way to restrict citizens’ freedoms, rather than something likely to affect the companies producing this stuff.
[Editor: That’s too far]
17 – Best answer yet. Gives all those moral people a fine alternative, kinda like that Xtreme Xtian alternative to Wikipedia that was blogged here awhile ago. And it keeps the government out of the Legislating Content business. And it leaves everybody else the hell alone.
Oh. That’s the problem. Those censor types aren’t really about morality, they’re about controlling what YOU can see. Just like China and the Middle Eastern regimes with their that-shall-not-be-seen mentalities. It’s about power, not morals, good taste or whether porn’s woth $5 at the corner store.
What do you want to bet Ralph Yarro is being groomed for a run at a Republican candidacy for something. He’s a failed executive who sends for lawyers, not technologists, when his technology company is in trouble. A natural control-freak political “conservative.”
Porn pays the bills and is the earliest adopter of new technology-see:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-03-09-onlineporn_x.htm
Never-the-less the porn industry should be eager to adopt a XXX domain – as using it to filter away underage viewers, who have comparitively low con$umer clout, should make XXX site’s legal expenses less.
I’m sure they could setup a statewide system to filter out whatever the government finds offensive (oops, I mean “inappropriate for children”) – China, UAE and various others may be able to help them set this up.
#22 – The hell you say… The underage demographic has amazing consumer clout, controlling more expendable capital today than that group has ever had…
However, that group is also tech savvy enough to sidestep paying for porn, opting instead to pirate it…
Fortunately for my kind, the majority are not tech savvy enough to keep from screwing up their PCs with viruses 🙂