RE: [Asrg] 4a. Taxonomy. Censorship vs. filtering

["Denny Figuerres" <denny@figuerres.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asrg-admin@ietf.org [mailto:asrg-admin@ietf.org] On 
> Behalf Of Jon Kyme
> Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 7:12 AM
> To: ASRG
> Subject: Re: [Asrg] 4a. Taxonomy. Censorship vs. filtering
> 
> >   For those who are don't read long messages, I'd like to 
> summarize my 
> > thoughts in a short message.
> > 
> > 
> >   Censorship =~ rejection of traffic based on content
> > 
> >   filtering =~ rejection of traffic based on invalid 
> control messages
> > 
> >   Unlike Telecom, IP sends control traffic "in-band".  This 
> means that 
> > when that control traffic is filtered, people get confused, 
> and call 
> > it "censorship".
> > 
> 
> Can someone remind me why "censorship" must be a Bad Thing. 
> As long as it's explicit and appropriately authorised, I 
> don't see any sensible objection.
> 
> Of course the word "censorship" carries a lot of emotional 
> weight for some people - I'm not sure it can be defined in 
> narrowly technicals terms as above - even approximately - 
> It's a social thang.
> 
> 

Well I think there are several reasons why Alan's comments are "right".

First thing is:
Filtering the content of a message is *subjective* not *objective* like the
issues with
"This is art!" and "No it's porn!" too much ambiguity and room for "wiggle".
This relates to what has been said about classifying "SPAM" Vs. "HAM" some
folks want to get what you might call "SPAM".

Next thing is an offshoot of the first:
I can write a program to reject a connection based on IP or based on some
other set criteria and it can be verified to work 100% of the time. (well
99.9999% or whatever in the "real world")
But as far as I know of no one can write a program that will be 100% correct
in processing random text, we do not yet have a system that can write, read
or "Understand" human communications
(where's Hal 9000 when you need him?)

And there are the legal issues:
If you permit some content to be "Published" and not other like or simmilar
content then you are engaging in the role
Of "Editor / Publisher" ISP's found that this can get them into legal
hassles .... USNET News / NNTP servers 
ISP's found that to stay clear of some problems they had to take a "Use at
your risk, we do not edit / monitor the content here" policy.

If you can be shown to Edit and control the publishing of content then you
can be sued for what content you chose to publish and for what content you
chose not to publish.
Freedom of the press and all that....


   Censorship =~ rejection of traffic based on content
Is a mine field that can and will get you hurt.
NOTE:  if you censor *your* inbox that's filtering, the issue is when some
third party does it "on your behalf"

 filtering =~ rejection of traffic based on invalid control messages
Safe and legal.... Can be strutured as an "Objective" system.

Does that make this more clear?

Alan: are we close here? I hope we are on the same line of reason on
this....

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