A Transparent Filter URL List

Turner writes “The lack of transparent filter lists has always been an issue. Libraries ‘s collectively have the power to “demandâ€? filtering companies supply unencrypted lists. To facilitate this I have placed our porn site list on the web in html. http://research.internetfilter.com
Be aware the links are “liveâ€? so it is probably the largest gateway to pornography in the world. Also there is an article on this event… Porn, More Porn Than You Can Imagine by Jay Currie at: http://www.libraryfilter.blogspot.com/“

June 6, 2004 by Uncategorized 13

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13 Responses

  1. rochelle says:
    June 6, 2004 at 9:14 pm

    Can someone explain this to me?
    I don’t really get the point of this site. From my understanding, it’s someone with a filter program s/he’s trying to sell, calling the bluff of anti-filter people, by offering what might possibly be the most comprehensive list of live porn links anywhere (the variety is astounding, by the way). Is this incredibly disingenuous, or am I just daft?

    Reply
  2. Fang-Face says:
    June 6, 2004 at 10:09 pm

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?
    Bob Turner is a tad daft. Bob is writing what is supposed to be a transparent filter. One in which the list of blocked sites is available to the user, which has a click through feature for those who wish to disable the filter for full surfing, and which does not use the much ballyhooed and faulty key word blocking feature.

    Where Bob is wrong is in supposing that anti-filter advocates will not support this software. In fact, if the censormorons in congress, the ultra-conservative filter groups, and the corporations the ultra-conservatives had set up to produce censorware, had turned out such software in the first place, we would not have objected nearly as much.

    As it stands, Bob’s assumption that we will equally oppose his product simply because it is a filter is misplaced. I predict that it is the filter advocates who will oppose him, because his product will be too accessible and easy to turn off. Especially, you can bet that Bob’s porn link page is going to go into all those filters pretty quickly.

    Bob seems to have posted the page in an effort to prove his misguided assumption that free speech advocates are going to oppose his filter. I dunno why.

    Also of some note is the fact that not all of those sites are what might be called pornography. One, at least, is a site for nude photography. I, for one, do not categorize photography of nudes as porn, but erotica, and some of it isn’t even that. What Bob might be doing, albeit inadvertantly, by posting his page, is proving to free speech advocates there is no method by which one might distinguish between pornographic and non-pornographic art.

    Reply
  3. Turner says:
    June 8, 2004 at 12:05 am

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?
    Rochelle, you are correct in the sense that I am someone with a filter that is for sale and has been for since 1995. I think the site explains that very well. It has two tables one on the right and one on the left. The one on the right is a hyper link list available to our clients and as you can see that list is transparent. The table on the left contains information on filtering companies, their philosophies and filtering information in general. This includes our competitors, our critics , our allies, and will be expanded over time.

    The primary issue is transparency. I’m not really trying to sell our filter here at Lis serv I’m trying to sell the idea of transparency. In my view librarians can demand
    transparency . If they do then the industry will give it to them. This is a model of transparency. As far as I am concerned libraries can buy any filter they want or no filter at all. Obviously, I consider transparency a key feature or strategy .

    http://research.internetfilter.com is saying “this is what transparency looks like�.

    Reply
  4. Turner says:
    June 8, 2004 at 12:19 am

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?
    Yes my company at:

    http://www.internetfilter.com

    has been in the business of producing filters that have evolved to more or less what you describe.

      It is also true that I do not believe anti filter advocates will support our software because by definition…they are anti filter activists.

      Yes it is to bad we did not start out in the beginning with these concepts and it is too bad we didn’t start out in the beginning with G 4’s. (there wer’nt any in 1995) Technology as well as culture is an evolving process.

    I suspect filter advocates will not have much opposition ..well, because they are filter advocates.

    I’m not sure what you mean by being too easy to turn off. The ability to easily ‘turn off the filter’ is decided by the system administrator. Whether a list is transparent or encrypted, it is not a factor on de-activating the filter. The click through feature is also controlled by the system administrator.

      The filter comes in “transparent or non-transparentâ€?, “click through ON or click through OFFâ€?, “original flavor or extra crispyâ€?, “strawberry chocolate or vanillaâ€? as well as “blindfold ONâ€? or “blindfold OFFâ€?.

    Your observation about the nudes is a good one. What is important here is “you can make the observation� and report it and it can be deleted or recategorized.

    It is a given to me that computers can’t distinguish between art and pornography …also people don’t agree upon the differences between art and pornography
    people don’t even agree about art and art or art and politics…

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2004/05/30/BAGF46UAJB1.DTL …so in terms of a filter obviously such discrimination cannot be accomplished. Filters “alwaysâ€? over or under block Only a “good site onlyâ€? approach is fail safe.

        http://www.internetfilter.com/ifonly.html

    However, with transparency “what is doneâ€? can be made visible…..or not.

    It’s about choice. What a concept !

    Even if it appears a “tad daft”.

     

    Reply
  5. rochelle says:
    June 8, 2004 at 3:42 am

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?
    Thanks Bill. I think I was disoriented because of the full range of filtering information presented, in addition to the juicy links.

    As a public librarian who is getting her first taste of filtered access, the lack of transparency and ability to tinker with the filter itself is really cranky-making. It is a marketing strategy, though, yes? I admire it and hope it works for you.

    Reply
  6. commonsense says:
    June 8, 2004 at 10:03 am

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?

    Finally… Internet filters are getting some respectable “press” on LISNEWS.COM!!!

    Reply
  7. Fang-Face says:
    June 8, 2004 at 3:09 pm

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?

    It’s about choice. What a concept !

    And that is why your filters will never be accepted on public computers. Censorship is not about pornography, or obscenity, or protecting anybody. It is about control, and choice is antithetical to control. Kindly take note, Bob, that censormorons who squeal the most about protecting children by filtering computers in the children’s section of libraries, also demand that all computers in public institutions be filtered so adults will not be allowed to look at what they want.

    Also take note that filterware producers built that wall of secrecy into their products, and staunchly defended it against all rational arguments. It would not have been at all difficult to make those lists open access when asked to do so.

    Reply
  8. rochelle says:
    June 8, 2004 at 6:25 pm

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?

    Thanks Bill.

    I mean “Bob.” Apologies. I used to work with a “Bill Turner.”

    Also…trying to figure out the symbolism of all those snail photos. 😉

    Reply
  9. Turner says:
    June 9, 2004 at 1:45 am

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?
    Thanks for your comments..you ask…is this a marketing strategy ?

    We don’t have any marketing unless you count these occasional inputs into places like this and our web site. This means we send no e-mail, letters, we make no sales calls and we never buy ad’s print or electronic. We also never go to trade show and give out goodie bags, hold parties and attend conventions and appear as expert witnesses in court rooms. We also try and stay away from “we are the biggest the best and will save you from the horrific dangers of the Internet and blah blah blah….â€?

    We do not do that here.

    Those marketing activities are huge expenditures of time and money. Our revenues consists of dealing solely with “clients� who request our product for what ever their
    purposes and are appreciative that the cost is about 25 percent of our business competitors.

    We attempt to understand and communicate to those who express interest our findings and product evolutions. This means I answer the phone reply to e-mail and input into the occasional “Lis Serv� about subjects that I am interested in at a certain point in time. Which is what I am doing right now.

    Is this marketing? Yes, of a sort. It is tiny spoke in a wheel if you consider the marketing description I have just given. It appears to me marketing really is �Branding� and having that brand viewed through the mythological perceptual veils of an active comprehensive campaign.

    Reply
  10. Turner says:
    June 9, 2004 at 2:01 am

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?
    Ok Let me rephrase that.

    It is about “informed choice”. You can choose transparency and a click through feature or just take what the “Branded ” filter companies sell you.

    Assuming we are on the same page, CIPA requires all adults be allowed to view whatever they want. So this means the librarians have to bypass the filter upon request. There are two ways they can do this. One is attend to every request by physically doing so or activate the click through feature. This complies with CIPA and if you think about it there is no difference between click through “ONâ€?or a librarian ruming up and down except how much Lis Serv time the librarian gets at work. For the library patron the result is the same with an annoying “time lag”.

    What “censormorons� do has nothing to do with the point. This argument is dead.
    Adults must be permitted to view what they want. CIPA is clear about that. End of intellectual freedom argument.

    Certainly filter ware producers “built a wall of secrecy� into their products and I am telling you that we do NOT and have not. I am not a spokesman for the industry I am a spokesman for IF-2K which is my companies product.

    http://research.internetfilter.com is saying that loud and clear.

    What I am trying to accomplish is for libraries systems that choose to filter (reluctantly or not) realize they can demand transparency from the industry and not just take what they are offered.

    They could get “in touch with their inner Fang Face�.

    You are certainly right about the issue of control but in this case that issue for adults
    is /has been circumnavigated.

    In my view “if” our filters “will never be accepted on public computersâ€? the reason has to do with marketing. We are a research company not a marketing company unless you really want to consider this dialog a marketing campaign.

    The cultlural effects of “Branding” could easily dominate and in fact have at this point.

    It is probably a little early to discuss my “defeat and eventual demiseâ€? but I’m not unwilling to do that. However, first we would have to “get pastâ€? the 1997 “filtering mythologyâ€? debate…my “real or imagined failureâ€? would not be for those reasons.

    Reply
  11. Turner says:
    June 9, 2004 at 2:07 am

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?
    Apology accepted….

    I would tell you about the symbolism of the snail’s but I do not want to be attacked by a “self styled snail rights advocate”

    and then of course there is the flowers…

    Reply
  12. Fang-Face says:
    June 9, 2004 at 3:42 am

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?

    Adults must be permitted to view what they want. CIPA is clear about that. End of intellectual freedom argument.

    Tell that to the censormorons. There’s not a one of them that has understood a single word in the First Amendment since it was ratified.

    And informed choice is still about choice. Which part of: “they will not allow you access to information so you can make your own choices” do you not understand? “They” do not want you making any choices whatsoever; informed or otherwise.

    Reply
  13. Turner says:
    June 10, 2004 at 12:24 am

    Re:Can someone explain this to me?
    The part I don’t understand is who “they” are….

    I am assuming “they” are part of the filtering /library issue which is what is being discussed….

    Who are the “censormorons” ? ….and why should I care “what they want” and why do “they care” about my choices ?

    Reply

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