Censorware that blocks BB mentioned in Denver Post piece on filtered WiFi at DIA
Link. Image: "Dave Lewis of Aurora uses the free Wi-Fi service at DIA. Airport officials say they would rather deal with complaints about blocked sites than an angry parent whose child accidentally saw porn. (Brian Brainerd, The Denver Post )."They say they're using prudent judgment in a public, family-friendly atmosphere. But others see it as cyber-censorship that taints Denver's self-portrayal as a progressive economy.
"Give people some credit," said David Byrne, founder of the legendary art-rock band Talking Heads, who was blocked from boingboing.net. while connecting through DIA to an Aspen workshop last month. "And the more credit you give them, the more they respond. It's just trusting people's discretion."
Critics, like boingboing.net. editor Xeni Jardin and others, point out that DIA uses the same kinds of software filters employed by the repressive regimes of Sudan and Kuwait. Jardin is tired of her tech-update site getting blocked by private and government filters just because it occasionally posts respected artworks that might include nudity.
"This gets to the heart of what the Internet is all about and whose responsibility it is," said Jardin, who is based in California. "It seems particularly unfortunate that something as symbolic as the city's airport, a gateway to culture, commerce and the flow of ideas, would be blocked in such a fundamental way. The intent is understandable, but the outcome is bad for Denver."
Update: Here's a testimonial from a BB reader familiar with DIA, who calls baloneyshit on some of the statements by people in the article defending the use of censorware there...
I travel on United extensively (1K flyer), and have to put up with the DIA "free" wifi system all the time.a few things you should know about the system:
1. "With more than 4,000 Wi-Fi connections a day, the airport has received only two formal blocking complaints so far, he said."
After being frustrated by an inability to access Boing Boing, I spent 15 minutes on the DIA's website trying to find out how to lodge a complaint. There isn't any way that I could find, short of writing a snail mail letter. There is no phone number, no email address, no webform for pubic feedback.
no wonder they only received 2 complaints.
2. I have technology installed on my machine that alerts me to attempted breakins on my computer. The advertising system that DIA uses employs a technique called "cross-frame scripting" that has the potential to examine private information on webpages I am viewing, such as bank accounts and credit card information, as a means of displaying contextual advertising. Luckily my machine is protected against these kinds of attacks, but not every machine is. I have filed a complaint with the CERT, which is run by DHS, against DIA.
3. Because the DIA advertising system uses a proxy server to reformat the web pages with a set of contextual ads, it must intercept all web traffic. This has the effect of preventing the many other applications that use the same communications mechanism (HTTP) as web traffic from operating correctly on the DIA wifi network.
4. Since the system is free, there is way too much traffic on the DIA network, which makes it excruciatingly slow for a business traveller like myself. Since I already have a T-Mobile wifi subscription, I usually hang out underneath the escalators that lead to the Red Carpet Club, and hop on the much faster T-Mobile wifi network. As a "business hub," DIA is hurting its business travelers with this system.
thanks,
bob pasker
the latest
latest episodes
You are going about this in the wrong way. To protect internet freedom, what we need to do is make examples. If a parent complains their child saw pornography on the web, our immediate response should be to have that parent charged with child endangerment.
This is a tech-update site that might include nudity?! I always thought it was just a really easily distracted porn site!
Can I get my membership fee refunded?
I would be interested to know if the Denver airport newsstands sell Playboy magazine.
I would miss browsing BB in the airport, but does anyone take Byrne seriously? "Trusting people's discretion?" Is there any ANY evidence for this being a good idea? Such naive stupidity, but one expects that of the rock n roll crowd.
"just because it occasionally posts respected artworks that might include nudity."
Listen, I love you guys, been reading for years, but there are plenty of posts on this site that are gratuitously vulgar. I am by no means in favor of censorship, but come on. Be honest.
Seyo you took the words right out of my mouth. BoingBoing definitely dips into the vulgar now and then. I like reading it but I occasionally don't bring it up in a public space, out of respect for who is around me.
I'm not following DIA's "whose child accidentally saw porn" argument -- surely there are other transportable forms of pornography, right? That's like saying, "I'm sorry, you can't bring any magazines into the airport, because a child might see porn in them."
For that matter, any REALLY experienced traveler will have their porn collection pre-loaded on their hard drive already and won't need the help of the internet, thank you very much.
Airport officials say they would rather deal with complaints about blocked sites than an angry parent whose child accidentally saw porn. (Brian Brainerd, The Denver Post)
I've looked all through the Constitution, and I don't see the part that permits government officials to make that sort of judgment call.
#3/#7
You beat me to it.
I did a quick google on W.H.Smith (one one the UKs biggest bookshop chains) and they definitely carry Penthouse, Mayfair, For Women and Playboy in their airpost branches.
It does seem silly to block a content delivery system based on the chances of someone seeing something they don't like, when it's as easy to accidently see the same things (or worse) in magazines that patrons may be perusing.
And @ #5 & #6, is vulgarity a reason to lock it down completely, when I can just as easily bring the latest edition of 2GirlsOneCup-Uncovered magazine and look at it all I like?
(yes I may be asked to not do so by staff, but so can a laptop user.)
How long is it going to be until pages just embed a tag in offendable content and be done with it? Is this really such a hard problem?
no webform for pubic feedback.
Well, duh. "Pubic" wouldn't get past their filter.
"And @ #5 & #6, is vulgarity a reason to lock it down completely, when I can just as easily bring the latest edition of 2GirlsOneCup-Uncovered magazine and look at it all I like?"
Not at all. I think our (my at least) point is that BB et al shouldn't call themselves tastefully artistic. Sometimes it's purposely vulgar. It doesn't do "the cause" much good to talk one way to the press but act another online.
Last time I checked, the Constitution does not require the government to provide free wi-fi, complete with access to adult sites. The law does make the government liable for potential crimes, like child internet porn, so they take preventive steps. Consequently, the service is free, it sucks, and it monitors users' movements and credit info to boot. Sounds like typical government; they shouldn't have gotten into airport wi-fi in the first place. Bob Pasker says T-Mobil is better anyway. So why not use that, quit complaining, and take responsibility for personal web-viewing choices?!
Nothing more vulgar than the hypocritical
"baloneyshit"
hee hee
xeni said "baloneyshit"
for some reason that just brought out the sniggering kid in me - from now on all incidences of hypocritical self-serving fartward censoring will be referred to as "baloneyshit"
hee hee - baloneyshit
All Hail Baloneyshit!
#9, did you read my post? I said I was not in favor of censorship. I also said that it is pure baloneyshit to qualify BB as only occasionally posting articles about respected artworks that might include nudity as the reason for which the fascists flagged the site. Again, I'm not in favor of ANY flagging, but that statement is totally false and hypocritical. Especially when it comes to Xeni posts, that very often are interested in such universally respected artistic memes as tele-dildonics, just to name one in particular. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
"there are plenty of posts on this site that are gratuitously vulgar"
ANSWER! ANSWER THE HOLY INQUISITOR! For the good of your immortal soul! CONFESS! (guard, the pilliwinks)
#13 wrote: "The law does make the government liable for potential crimes, like child internet porn, so they take preventive steps."
What law? Why does this law only apply to DIA but municipal wifi and private wifi don't have to install filters? Nevermind, it must be a seecret law like the TSA guidelines.
No, there are only two reasons for these filters:
1. Lazy CYA (Is that vulgar :-?)
2. Nanny state.
Since Denver's a pretty liberal town I'm guessing it's lazy CYA. Someone just installed the filter because they thought it would make their job easier. Posts like Xeni's shift the balance so it's easier for the lazy admin to remove the filter.
what censorware is used on this site to remove vowels of even non-vulgar posts?
"I'm guessing it's lazy CYA"
Bravo! You win the big prize!
@ #18: I LOL'ed! Although I don't really get your point. Do you have one?
Xeni, and everyone else at BB: please, don't change a bit, even if DIA has blocked you. This is an adult site. That's why I like it. I'm an adult! Where else can I get such wide ranging ecclectic info from howto sneak shit past the TSA, all kinds of whistleblowing articles on egregious abuses of power by government and corporations, pop and geek culture, art, technology from the high to the low tech, and yes, (sometimes weird) erotica?
That's what it's all about. As intelligent, educated open minded adults, I don't see why these things should be segregated, and I enjoy the fact that you mix it all up. Just be honest about it. That's all I'm saying.
American culture has always been and will always be prudish and has always enjoyed scapegoating sexuality as the root of all of society's ills. That will probably never change. Even places like so-called liberal Denver will practice "won't somebody think of the children" CYA policies. This is non-news. Get over it.
DIA's WiFi has been so slow as to be unusable ever since they moved from a pay- to free- system. I suspect it's a combination of increased volume and the fact that they have to do some serious (and I would argue, potentially illegal) deep-packet modification to insert advertisements into all of your unencrypted HTTP. It was pretty clear to me that the advertising system was poorly written; it looked like something out of 1998, and slowdowns were so bad (often caused by the banner ads' loading, not the remote sites) that loading on many pages would time out.
The good news is that they haven't blocked port 22, so it's entirely possible to SSH out and use a SOCKS proxy to browse the Web instead, or connect to a VPN. But that really shouldn't be necessary, and the fact remains that the connection is so slow as to be unusable. DEN must be aware of this, but they haven't done anything about it in three or four months now. Maybe this is because they also have pay-per-minute "Internet cafés" scattered around the terminals that you can use to play WoW or browse the Web.
Oh, and no other airport I've been in that offers free WiFi censors it -- and I'm a United Airlines 1K like the guy in the story's addendum, so I've seen a few.
"Just be honest about it. That's all I'm saying."
and by imputation they were being dishonest? I don't recall the word vulgar emerging until you brought it up and some other hanger on jumped on the bandwagon.
"Since Denver's a pretty liberal town" .... uh, nope. There are liberals there, but mostly, it's pretty judgmental and heavily influenced by the christian churches. Boulder used to be liberal, but now it's just baby Palo Alto with miserably overpriced food and a sea of Land Rovers.
I remember when DIA was just being finished and there was a spectacular piece of conspiracy about it being the Queen's "danger room", has a world-wide control center buried deep beneath the ground, and suspicious freemasonry symbols all over the place... Oh sweet, it's back up: http://www.geocities.com/Baja/5692/
wow, no baloneyshit, the runways DO make a swastika ... hrm...
TAKUAN this statement:
"just because it occasionally posts respected artworks that might include nudity."
is dishonest.
Posts about Uncle Dirty the 100 year bodybuilder in a thong who enjoys pasting penises onto magazine photos are VLGR. Posts about tele-dildonics are VRTLY SXL. There are tons of posts to this site that are about sexual things having NTHNG T D WTH RT. Not just the occasional peepees or teetees as depicted by a work of art. That statement makes it sound like they were banned for showing Michelangelo's David. And that, again, is DSHNST.
What is your problem anyway? You have a real baloneyshit attitude.
tut-tut my boy, a gentleman does not need to exclaim at length over the unseemly, he just continues on his way.
Mmhmm. You still have no point.
Why make it so complicated? Some doinkbrain at DIA decided, wrongly, that they had to filter their internet access. They bought a commercial package built to satisfy repressive regimes that believe women should wear dustcovers. Their filters aren't making fine distinctions between artistic nudes, realistic sex dolls, and Uncle Dirty. They're registering the presence of nekkid bodies. I'll bet you that if Our Bodies, Ourselves were available in a free online edition, it would be blocked too.
Charles Merriam (10), the word you want is offensive, not offendable. How hard would it be to settle on tag for offensive content? As hard as it is to sort out any other aspect of the "offensive material" issue, viz.:
1. Is the unclothed human body offensive per se? Does it matter what the body's doing?
2. Does the stated intent of the author, photographer, or editor matter?
3. Which is naughtier: (a.) Someone masturbating, seen nude from behind, so that you can only infer what he or she is doing? (b.) Someone masturbating, photographed with thin opaque latex stretched tightly over the pertinent area, so that you can see all the outlines clearly, but no skin is showing? (c.) Someone masturbating under a heavy quilt that hides all the details, but with a description of their methods and fantasies printed alongside the photo in 24-point boldface?
4. Does a purely technical discussion of teledildonics qualify as "sexual content"? Is it offensive?
5. Does a story about an erotic encounter in which one or more characters are under eighteen years of age constitute child pornography? Is it offensive?
6. Does that change if it's a first-person nonfiction account? Is it offensive?
7. Is a photo of a woman in her underwear offensive?
8. Is a photo of a woman in her underwear, striking an intentionally suggestive pose, offensive?
9. Is it more offensive if she's got her hair up in pigtails, a teddy bear under one arm, a lollipop in her hand, and a credit line in eight-point type under the photo saying she's twenty-two years old?
10. Are naked men more offensive than naked women?
11. If nudity occurs in a Renaissance or Baroque painting, is it offensive? How about Ukiyo-e?
12. Is color photography more offensive than black and white?
13. If a magazine runs a breathtaking photo spread of feet and shoes, and you don't have the shoe thing and consequently don't register the photo spread as intensely sexual, is it offensive?
14. If the foreground of a comic book splash page is a lovingly rendered butt shot of a scantily dressed female warrior about to go into battle, and the middle and background is taken up by a massive and elaborate monster that's charging the babe head-on, which figure will a ten-year-old boy focus on? Is the one he's not looking at offensive?
And that's only scratching the surface.
Radboy (13):
Last time I checked, the law was perfectly capable of adjudicating questions involving technologies that weren't an issue when the law was written.Last time I checked, the Constitution didn't specifically require the government to provide any
commercial services to speak of, so WTF are you on about?
Last time I checked, the Constitution said nothing about how Denver's city and county governments run their airport.
Note: "having your child see porn" does not equal "child pornography." Furthermore, the government is not Constitutionally required to forestall potential crimes.The production of pornography is not governed by the existence of content filters in the wireless at Denver International Airport.Squa tront? I give up. If you couldn't be bothered to sort out what you were saying and make something coherent out of it, why should I do it for you?Bolamig (19), good comments.
Dafoink (20), vulgarity is not the issue.
Drinian (23): excellent point. If other airports don't have to filter their WiFi, DIA doesn't have to do it either.
Seyo (26), I disapprove of all-caps shouting.
How can something be offensive if there's no art in it? How can a purely technical article be sexual? Those are both serious questions.