199 lines
9.7 KiB
Plaintext
199 lines
9.7 KiB
Plaintext
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_____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________
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| ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ |
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| | _/_/_____ | | > > _/_/_____ | |
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| | /________/ | | / / /________/ | |
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| | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | |
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| |________________________________________________________________| |
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|____________________________________________________________________|
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...presents... CYBERsitter
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by Peacefire
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01/01/1997-#323
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__//////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\__
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Est. 1984 \\\\\\/ xXx BOW to the COW xXx \////// Est. 1984
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__ _ _ __ _ _ __ _ _ __ _ _ __
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|__heal_the_sick__raise_the_dead__cleanse_the_lepers__cast_out_demons__|
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CYBERsitter, a World Wide Web blocking program from Solid Oak Software,
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is advertised as an Internet safety tool that filters "offensive" content.
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Demo copies are given away at the company web site, and the product is also
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marketed by Focus on the Family, a long-standing backer of the Communications
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Decency Act.
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CYBERsitter: Where do we not want you to go today?
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Among other places:
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* The National Organization for Women home page.
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* Yahoo web search for "gay rights."
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* All GNN member home pages.
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* The Peacefire web site, www.Peacefire.org.
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If CYBERsitter had been activated on your computer, you would not have
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been able to see any of the pages listed above.
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A close look at CYBERsitter reveals an agenda that infringes on the
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rights of children, parents and teachers wherever the program is used.
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Despite the hype over "parental control" as an alternative to government
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censorship, it is Solid Oak Software that takes control when CYBERsitter is
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running on your computer.
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The Process
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CYBERsitter scans web pages, newsgroup messages, and Internet Relay Chat
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(IRC) channels for words and phrases on its list of banned character strings.
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These characters are replaced with blank space, and the program makes an
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entry in a secret log every time a page is downloaded containing a forbidden
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word. The word "gay" is allowed, but not "gay rights," "gay community" or
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"lesbian." Likewise, "sex" by itself is OK, but not "sexual," "safe sex" or
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"have sex." Also banned are words like "naughty," "violence" and "fairy."
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World Wide Web Censorship
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The National Organization for Women page and Peacefire's page are two of
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the many sites - as opposed to words and phrases - that are wiped out by
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CYBERsitter. Solid Oak Software typically does not ban individual web pages
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but rather entire domains. All GNN member home pages are blocked. Community
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ConneXion, makers of the Anonymizer, and online communities such as WELL and
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ECHO are banned. The mega-ISP CRIS.com, owned by Concentric, is off limits.
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CYBERsitter's definition of "offensive" content cuts a wider swath of
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censorship than almost any other program.
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Behind the Scenes
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Where does the CYBERsitter ban list come from? The makers rely on
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in-house web surfers working for Solid Oak and on tipoffs sent in by
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CYBERsitter customers.
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Solid Oak does not notify service providers when their sites are
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blocked. And unlike arch-rival Cyber Patrol, Solid Oak does not provide an
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appeals process for web authors whose pages are placed off limits.
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What Are We Going To Do Besides Talk About It?
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Peacefire is contacting various domain owners who have been banned by
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CYBERsitter. Solid Oak Software states that their blacklist includes "any
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site that focuses on topics such as adult or sexual issues, illegal
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activities, bigotry, racism, drugs, or pornography," an insult to the
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law-abiding owners of domains which Solid Oak has banned without warning or
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explanation.
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You can contact Solid Oak Software, the makers of CYBERsitter, by
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sending mail to support@solidoak.com or calling (805) 967-9853. Their
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President and CEO, Brian Milburn, can be contacted at bmilburn@solidoak.com.
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Do not put the word Peacefire or Haselton in the subject line as their e-mail
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software has been configured to reject all messages on this topic.
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Visit some of the following sites and encourage their makers to stand up
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to CYBERsitter and hold their ground:
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* National Organization for Women.
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* Community ConneXion (C2Net).
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* CRL Network Services.
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* CRIS.com, owned by
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* LookUp directory pages.
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* Concentric.net.
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* ECHO Communications.
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* The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link.
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Questions, comments, or tipoffs: webmaster@peacefire.org.
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Sources and more information:
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* The CyberWire Dispatch article from July 1996 about CYBERsitter, Cyber
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Patrol, and other blocking programs.
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* The Internet World article about blocking software.
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* The Solid Oak Software home page.
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* Commentary in PC World at www.pcworld.com/annex/columns/rose/index.html.
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Mirroring Our CYBERsitter Page Without Getting It Blocked
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Solid Oak Software has added Peacefire.org to its list of sites "not
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appropriate for children." When the news broke that CYBERsitter was
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filtering this page, we received several offers to mirror this page on other
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sites. The CEO of Solid Oak Software has vowed that CYBERsitter will not
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only block all Peacefire pages wherever they appear on the Net, but even
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block all newsgroups where Bennett Haselton, founder of Peacefire, posts any
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information about their product.
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If you'd like to set up a mirror site and you have your own virtual
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server, then you can prevent Solid Oak Software from doing a web search to
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find your mirror. By using a "robots.txt" file you can prevent search
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engines from indexing pages on your site that you don't want them to visit.
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There is a sample "robots.txt" file on Peacefire's server at
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http://www.peacefire.org/robots.txt which reads:
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# robots.txt for www.peacefire.org
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User-agent: * Disallow: /cgibin/
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This means that all search engines should not index any of the pages in
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the /cgibin/ directory. So, if you put a file in the lowest directory of
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your web site containing the lines:
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# robots.txt for www.yoursite.com
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User-agent: * Disallow: /mirrors/
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then the search engines will not index any pages that are kept in the
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directory "mirrors/".
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If you don't have a virtual server (for instance, if your main web page
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has an address like www.yoursite.com/~yourname, then you don't have your own
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virtual server), we'd still be grateful to anyone who mirrors this file.
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We'll keep track of mirror sites and let you know if any of them get blocked
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by CYBERsitter.
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Special thanks goes out to the authors of the following articles, for
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originally calling national attention to the blocking practices of programs
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such as CYBERsitter, Net Nanny and Cyber Patrol:
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* "Keys to the Kingdom," from the CyberWire Dispatch. By Brock Meeks and
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Declan McCullagh. First published July 1996.
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* "Who Will Watch the Watchmen?," from Internet World. By Eric Berlin and
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Andrew Kantor. First published September 1996.
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Every fact can be verified by referring to the articles from HotWired
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and Internet World magazine, or by downloading a copy of CYBERsitter from the
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Solid Oak Software web site, http://www.solidoak.com. Note: Solid Oak
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Software has violated the CYBERsitter user license agreement by denying us
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access to the latest version of the CYBERsitter filter file. Please notify
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webmaster@peacefire.org if you have a copy of the filter file updated after
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December 13, 1996 and any of the blocked sites listed here have been
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unblocked.
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CYBERsitter and Solid Oak Software are trademarks of Solid Oak Software
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Incorporated. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders.
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.-. _ _ .-.
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/ \ .-. ((___)) .-. / \
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/.ooM \ / \ .-. [ x x ] .-. / \ /.ooM \
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-/-------\-------/-----\-----/---\--\ /--/---\-----/-----\-------/-------\-
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/lucky 13\ / \ / `-(' ')-' \ / \ /lucky 13\
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\ / `-' (U) `-' \ /
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`-' the original e-zine `-' _
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Oooo eastside-westside / ) __
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/)(\ ( \ WORLDWIDE / ( / \
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\__/ ) / Copyright (c) 1997 cDc communications and the author. \ ) \)(/
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(_/ Award-winning CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a trademark of oooO
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cDc communications, PO Box 53011, Lubbock, TX, 79453, USA. _
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oooO All rights reserved. Edited by Swamp Ratte'. __ ( \
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/ ) /)(\ / \ ) \
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\ ( \__/ Save yourself! Go outside! Do something! \)(/ ( /
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\_) "THE COW WALKS AMONGST US" Oooo
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