When I first heard about the Australian Government plans to make free internet filtering software available to anxious parents, I muttered the phrase ‘PornFinder more like it’ under my breath. The software has been available for about a week now and this morning I read THIS article from the ABC news suggesting that it took a kid 30minutes to render the filter useless. Since any filter must contain a list of naughty words and sites the ultimate prize for any hacker is to obtain and publish that list with a set of scripts so that any ’script jockey’ can snigger at the list of words and save their parents bandwidth by surfing immediately to quality porn ;-)
So, my question is, how long will it be before such scripts appear turning the PornFilter into a PornFinder?
The moral of this story is that anyone who thinks they can shirk their responsibility by relying on software to ‘delete internet nasties’ needs to think again. Danah boyd’s words of wisdom (especially the short segment on Sunrise mentioned in THIS post) should be compulsory. Parents, talk to your kids about what they do online, dont spy on them and let them hang out with their friends in real life. Teachers, learn to use the web, understand what’s out there, deal with ‘inappropriate content’ don’t try to hide it. Leaders, lead - don’t spend all your effort covering your backside.
technorati tags:seyfang, mikeseyfang
technorati tags:government, pornfinder, pornfilter
1 response so far ↓
1
Graham Wegner
// Aug 27, 2007 at 8:59 pm
It is indeed interesting that the best efforts to lock down web nasties in effect help to create your aptly named P**n Finder - that could be ultimately more morally and legally irresponsible than not filtering the web at all. And while I’ve got your attention, check this out and read the comments before maybe adding your two cents worth if you want.
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