At 9:18 PM -0800 3/21/00, Bill Stewart wrote: > >> > If the product did what it was supposed to, sure, it would be immoral >>> > to spread its list of banned sites. >>> Why would this be immoral? >>Duh! Kids would use that file as a bookmark file to find the porn. > >If you pass on the list of sites with real porn in them, maybe, >though your favorite search engine can find you 85943804234 pages >with naked people on them. > >The more interesting part to pass on is pages that _aren't_ porn. >For instance, somebody could write a script that sorts the banned URLs >by domain (or domain and first or second level of directory), >does a whois, and sends out an email saying something like > "Cyberpatrol blocked your page <http://etc...> as <category>. > If this is incorrect, please contact them at <address>, > and if you would like to join our class action defamation lawsuit, > contact us at <address>" A bunch of people, on this list and on lists which intersect with our list, have gone down this "defamation" path. Fact is, we as Cypherpunks/libertarians should not give any support to this statist notion that opinions are a basis for court actions. So _what_ if Cyberpatrol has blocked John Young's Cryptome site? If Roger Ebert says he is giving a thumbs down to "Mission to Mars," or if the Galloping Gourmet says Chez Nous is a place to be avoided, are these "actionable"? What Cyberpatrol wishes to say is porn or bad food or a boring read is _their_ opinion. All of this loose talk in various recent posts about "could be grounds for a defamation suit" causes me to reach for my revolver. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
