Do you find Google’s SafeSearch feature helpful in screening out inappropriate search results?

Back when Larry Lessig first wrote his book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, PICS looked like it would do exactly what you propose: allow us to tag content with metadata that would alleviate some of these problems. But it’s essentially dead on the vine. I’m with you that a more widely adopted PKI system would solve all sorts of problems – spam not least – but I am very pessimistic that this will happen.

Protecting kids on-line is tough. My own tentative view is that client-side filtering may be the best answer, but it’s an imperfect one.

It’s also not clear to me that CP80 is a kid-focused proposal. I think it’s tied to a more general disapproval / concern about porn, and that opens up a different set of policy and legal concerns.

As someone who is a senior technology executive for a Fortune 250 firm’s governance, risk and compliance organization, inappropriate content is an issue we deal with as well. In our case, we prohibit this type of content for different reasons – e.g. safe workplace, preventing sexual harassment issues, reducing the frequency of inappropriate use of company resources, lowering the likelihood of the introduction of malware which highly correlates with inappropriate content sites, etc.

Having previously worked directly with the firewall team (in an organization with over 200 firewalls domestically alone), and working with traffic environments where a single firewall can have as many as 100 million logged session events (web hit, email transfer, etc.) daily, there is a bit more to how TCP/IP works than something as simplistic and unfortunately technically incorrect as the CP80 proposal.

TCP/IP and ports-specific behavior simply don’t work the way the CP80 people would hope or expect. This is not the best idea out there, nor is it one that can be modified to work. The foundational assumptions are wrong, and the Internet doesn’t function in the manner those proposing this approach would hope. It’s unfortunate that someone didn’t guide them earlier on to direct them to a cause that wasn’t so technically silly – in a sense, they’re doing the equivalent of a movie actor pretending to conduct an orchestra, while instead flailing their arms around like a angered bear swatting at bees.

As a parent of two school-age children, I share the concern about inappropriate content. My wife and I both have accidentally hit “the wrong sites” when searching for sites with our kids – Barbie happens to be a high risk keyword for instance. Messing with the plumbing when there is no meaningful relationship nor viable method of creating one given the architecture of TCP/IP isn’t the solution. I’d actually encourage consideration of PKI to support a content rating model and expand definitions to include assessment categories (e.g. type of site, maturity rating of site, whether site has been verified by an accredited third party to be consistent with this rating, etc.). Directory service architectures underlying PKI may have the capacity to provide for content extension and quite possibly work has been done in this space.

In this event, https and the PKI exchange can serve as a method of securely communicating the attributes of the respective website, and browser development (or even firewall rules) can be pursued to limit non-https traffic. As http really needs to be retired due to other issues (e.g. coffee shop use where http is really a poor idea due to too many vulnerabilities from exposed data), a child-safe content initiative that embraced this model might find other advocates to attain sufficient momentum.

Per CP80’s “port channel” model – either drop it and move onto something viable for the benefit of the kids, or get stuck in the mud chasing something that just won’t work.

I disagree with your assessments. I think their proposed laws (state and federal) will make a big positive difference.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/us/28obscene.html

I have my own issues with client-side filtering (NetNanny and its ilk), but this approach looks like the best compromise at the moment. There will always be some obscene material that is beyond the reach of US enforcement (e.g., that hosted overseas) or that isn’t deemed problematic enough when allocating scarce prosecutorial resources.

CP80 remains a terrible idea for all the reasons I put forth in the post…

Hard core pornography, which would clearly be deemed obscene by the Miller test is widely rampant on the internet. Presently, local, state, and federal govenments seem impotent to do any significant thing about it. The harm that could come to society, and especially children, should be of concern to everyone. The old line that “parents should watch their children” isn’t going to solve this problem

If our government won’t enforce the laws against “non protected” speech like hard core pornography, then I suspect we are going to see any number of work arounds like CP80 until something effective is done.

CP80 May not be ideal, but the social fallout from pornography could be worse. Personally, I would like to see existing laws enforced; then maybe we wouldn’t need any more.

Part of my worry about efforts like CP80 is that they are likely to have very large unintended consequences, both for the Internet and for our access to information. Porn is the thin edge of the wedge – there is considerable research (which I view as methodologically suspect, but that’s somewhat beside the point) showing harm from watching violent material. Slippery slopes…