I think you misread my post.

I am not advocating the banning anything. I would like to see a separate internet without porn, kind of like it was in the early 90's. I realize that will never happen. Also, that has nothing to do with the gnutella network.

What I am saying is that if you turn your kids loose on an unregulated network you are going to have some pretty confused children. I do support restricting internet access, in your own home, of your own children, as you sees fit.

Our (US) government already seems to be concerned with everything in this country, right down to the perfume in the toilet paper. I would rather not have them get into the child raising business too.

Things in our constitution may be changed by a majority vote of the citizens. So far, what adults do with their own sex life seems not to bother too many of us Yanks. If anyone is offended by 'American' porn (whatever the heck that is) I would recommend they get up a howling mob and tell their government officials to pull the plug on international internet connections. Blaming people, and countries, will not improve anything.

In response to the concerned parent over file remnants:

Programs like Window Washer (by WebRoot) can be used to overwrite the file space taken up by 'deleted' files, so there are no traces left. Window Washer calls this process "bleaching." (as in adding bleach to a load of laundry). Bleaching file space 7 times, or overwriting it 7 times will make any file unrecoverable except by extreme means which probably only a few labs in America have access to.

In response to porn in Gnutella searches:

I have used LimeWire for 6 months and have only ever searched for music files. I have NEVER had a porn item come up as a search result, and I have no filters set up. Is there a benefit to leaving the search type on "All Types" instead of selecting "Audio"? If you are only looking for music, how are you running into adult material?

In response to children surfing unattended:
The Internet, as I see it, is like a huge library. The difference of course is that any yahoo with a thought in his or her head can write a book and submit it to this library. I would not let my own kid cruise the adult section of a library unattended if I was not first confident that his own values were solid enough to guide him through the rough parts.

The issue here is not monitoring our children, but preparing them for a wild and woolly world that doesn't care about their welfare. If you take the time to teach your children about morality, good intentions, healthy attitudes, and sticking to their own values, then your children should be fine and trustworthy no matter what material they are exposed to.

Again, this is another case of shifting blame and responsibility to the government instead of realizing that the duty is ours.

My 2 cents.

I agree with the unregistered poster just above.

A logical instinct for a parent is to want to create a hermetic, disinfected cocoon for their children where everything they see and hear is all sweetness and roses. Perhaps if you brought them up in the wilderness in a house with no electricity, 'phone lines, cellphone coverage or neighbours it might still be possible, but somehow I doubt that many users of this forum live in those conditions.

I've read many articles and posts on the filtering internet/P2P for children issue and I think , like many things, it needs to be placed in context: Imagine that you were able to filter all illegal/adult content from the internet and P2P software (which as others have said is very difficult to do). The child finishes downloading a non-copyrighted song from his favourite file-sharing program () and trots off to watch TV where he sees an ultra-violent, stroboscopic Japanese manga cartoon followed by the news with various images of Israeli tanks and American B52s bombing anyone that looks vaguely Arab. He then goes for a walk in the park with mummy where he sees a drunk bloke swearing at his girlfriend and a teenager sniffing glue. When they stop to buy the newspaper, he sees a row of life-sized, naked Barbies all siliconized and retouched in Photoshop on the top shelf. On the way home they pass a man picking up a prostitute. He then returns to his room for another session surfing the squeaky-clean kiddy-net.

You might be able to filter the internet, but you can't filter the world. Part of a parent's responsibility is to monitor and explain. Simply banning and censoring is not going to do the trick - in fact it will probably be counter-productive and arouse the child's curiosity more.

Hi,

I cannot disagree any with the previous two posts.

I do believe that raising children is up to their parents. My own personal belief, after having raised two children, is that the ultimate responsibility for a kid's welfare is up to the parents.

I, personally, would not allow my children to have free access to the internet. I cannot, however, disagree with the way anyone else raises their children.

The neat thing about the internet is that it is like a 'living' thing that no one has been able to cage. I would sure like it to stay that way.

I think the answer to the original question, 'can't we ban porn...?', would have to be no. We do not have to look at it though.

As far as shady characters distributing porn under fake file names, I don't know. There are always people who are going to operate outside of existing laws. I doubt more laws will fix that. Downloading copyrighted material is illegal, I guess that would be the 'bad guy's' defence.

ken

This is an interesting thread from an Australian perspective because it highlights the difficulty of seperating the best from the worst of US developement - Whereas the US was first colonised by puritans, Australia was settled by convicts shipped out from England as punishment for petty crimes (so lots of prostitutes and petty thieves) - one consequence of this is that Australia has a far more relaxed and sensible attitude towards sexuality - (the leaders of the third and fourth largest political parties who together hold the balance of power in the Senate are both gay a fact that draws no undue/adverse comment) - in contrast - the puritanism of the early US settelers continues to cast a dark and shizophrenic shadow upon contemporary american life - but but but - that very puritanism was (crucially) a particular variant of ascetic calvanism that placed a huge value on hard work and progress (spiritual worth was indicated by worldly success) - with the transplantation of that ethos to an immense resource rich new world - capitalism takes off and never looks back - whilst we've all benefited from that we nevertheless still see the same tension being tirelessly played out in ever new forms - the present danger is that the latent puritanism of computer iliterate american policy makers can be drawn upon to provoke moral panics about the dangers of the internet by absolutely amoral folks actually only concerned with a perceived threat to their worldly success (come on down RIAA/Hilary)

creating some sort of all powerful internet nanny or internet-lite wouldn't address the underlying cultural/economic tension that leads to so much (very easily filtered out) pornography being available via gnutella - all it could ever be would be a profoundly undemocratic strategy that concentrated even more power in the hands of businesses that are so afraid of their clients that they'd rather smash the telephone exchange than risk people making calls to someone other than themselves

bad_vlad

Cool

(ethos eh?)

ken

It's really simple actually: make a .porn suffix.

I do think there are FAR more important issues facing the world than naked men and women in various positions.

1. starvation
2. war
3. lack of medicine
4. pollution
5. social inequality
6. western matierialism

on the other hand - for every complex problem there's always a simple answer - and its always wrong

explicit porn is illegal in many jurisdictions so a .porn suffix could probably be blocked by the ISP without jeopardising their common carrier status which is what permits all this file sharing via gnutella

of course there are - but sexuality is experienced in the 'here and now' whereas the misfortune of others is all too often an abstraction

plus - the connections between 'porn' and third world starvation are far from straightforward - todays 'acceptable marketing image' is yesterdays pornography - in the west, sex sells and is therefore fundamental to capitalism - world starvation could easily be 'fixed' (the pet food fishing industry in america alone could feed all the starving) - the problem is that of distribution - it is no coincidence that the countries most at risk fom starvation/social inequality etc are those least integrated with global capitalism - which is of course driven by materialism and lashings of sex

it is also no coincidence that the most materialist society in recorded history (america) is also the society that has done more to advance issues of equal rights/social equality etc than any other country in recorded history

you can be uncharitable and say this is just because of a never ending desire for new markets/consumers or you can take the alternative view thar capitalism 'works' best in the context of educated, liberal, pluralistic and tolerant democracies (who knows?)

either way - part of the process is an increasing sexualisation of popular culture - personally I'd rather have gnutella absloutely flooded with porn (that I could easily filter out if I want) than live in a sexually repressive society that punished very human behaviours because they went against some idealised moral code that ignores the fact that most people spend an enormous amount of time focused on sex (and thats ok)

I am saddened that so many educated people have been abandoned by the voice of reason. The presence of sex (the mere mention of the word causes me discomfort) in a person's mind can only mean one thing - the weakening of the human spirit and vastly increased susceptibility to sin.

Pornography is evil. Its debauchery leaves cracks in our will that will be penetrated by the voice of the devil. I myself have been forced to see a mass of this evil on Gnutella as, in order to fight one's enemy, one must get to know him - however painful and arduous this task might be. The box of tissues in my office is for hayfever. By the way, I don't suppose anyone would have the last five minutes of.....I was unable to sample the full extent of its immorality.....oh never mind.

Ahem...We must give a better example to future generations. We should lead them to follow the example of popular icon Edit whose chastity is a shining light in a sea of darkness. You can rest assured that her partner, Edit (another popular icon and companion to a future astronaut, no less), would not even consider placing his beloved's purity under threat. If only more of their peers would follow this excellent example and avoid the Siren call of sex and pornography - especially as so many have temptation so near in the form of a computer with internet connection.

So I bid you to join me in my quest to preach a message of morality to young people , especially to the slim, sweet , beautiful, teenage blondes of my neighbourhood as they, poor things, are the most vulnerable to moral corruption. I have even taken the trouble to avoid burdening my wife with knowlege of the ****** of this responsibility.

It is time for the American government to take the lead and begin a cybernetic war against the rogue service providers who allow this offensive data to pass through their systems. To march against them as if they were Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden rolled into one. In fact, I sincerely believe that much of the pornography on the net and P2P systems has been placed there by followers of Bin Laden in order to weaken the will of Western Civilisation, so this crusade could be legitimately undertaken in the interests of national security. The net must be cleansed at all cost!!!

I'm ready to fight the good fight - where do I sign up - my loins are girded and my soul is pure