Blocking certain terrorism/porn sites and DNS

Thu Aug 18 16:16:55 UTC 2005

Abhishek Verma wrote:

>coz i assumed that everyone wants to block such sites.
>  
>
Bad assumption.  After all, terrorist is poorly defined, and from the
perspective of a particular government. 

For example, Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by Israel
and the US, but other governments note a "freedom fighter" humanitarian
organization that runs schools and medical facilities.  Zionists were
once considered terrorists by the British and the United Nations (the
settler that shot unarmed Palestinians yesterday would certainly count
even these days), yet those freedom fighters now have a country code
of their own.

Under a strict definition, the continuing zotob et alia attacks are
terrorism.  But we block their sites as a "police" of their actions
that hurt us on the Internet, rather than because of their thoughts.

Funny thing though, they don't seem to call their sites "spam-king",
but instead "opt-in-real-big", or the equivalent.  So, we have to
examine their binaries to find the sites.

>sorry if i hurt some feelings.
>  
>
It's not our feelings, it's that you didn't think of the consequences. 
Apparently, you need a bit of life experience, "Class of 2004".

Some of us remember there was a coup in Russia, and the Parliament was
being shelled.  They cut the phone lines, yet the Internet didn't go
down, and became the only method of communication.  Real-time reports
were passed across the border; international outrage helped save lives. 

Certain governments considered the export of packet switching technology
to Russia as treasonous.  Was it a good thing, anyway?

>On 8/18/05, Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>>Again, I am not discussing "censoring ideas".
>>>      
>>>
>>then why did you use emotionally loaded words such as "terrorist?
>>    
>>
and "porn", which is also clearly in the eye of the beholder....  ;-)
-- 
William Allen Simpson
    Key fingerprint =  17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26  DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32