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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Sep 30th 2008 9:06pm


Filed Under:
filtering, porn, w3c



What Kind Of Filtering System Thinks W3C Is A Porn Site?

from the one-that-won't-stay-in-business-long,-hopefully dept

We've all heard stories of various online filters that block perfectly legitimate sites as being "porn" or something else objectionable, but sometimes there are such extreme cases that it makes you wonder what people are thinking. Apparently, some ISPs are using a filtering system that believes the W3C site should be blocked as porn. W3C, of course, is the body that manages standards for the web. It was founded, and still run, by the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee. Any filtering system that classifies the W3C as porn doesn't deserve to be in the filtering business. Hell, they barely deserve to be on the web at all.
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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2008 @ 9:20pm

    They probably added it because they use IE and didn't want people to see how poorly coded their 'this page is blocked' pages are.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mr. Giggles, 30 Sep 2008 @ 9:42pm

    2009 IBC

    similarly, the construction industry is having hearings about classifying the new building code as porn...

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    zcat, 30 Sep 2008 @ 10:00pm

    Finnish police to blame

    Apparently the blocking list is one compiled and distributed by the Finnish Police.. so perhaps they don't deserve to be in the policing business?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    qez, 30 Sep 2008 @ 10:03pm

    National Bureau of Investigation

    Any filtering system that classifies the W3C as porn doesn't deserve to be in the filtering business.

    I totally agree. The list of filtered web sites is provided by National Bureau of Investigation.

    The whole censorship is a like a bad joke. Here's one of the Electronic Frontier Finland's press releases about the issue. I don't know if you would laugh or cry if you would know all the details, this kind of stupidity shouldn't happen in modern day democratic society. I guess Finland is not part of that.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Overcast, 30 Sep 2008 @ 10:25pm

    I get all my best Porn there.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Chunky Vomit, 30 Sep 2008 @ 10:45pm

    Can't a geek get off on reading HTML references any more? What is next, A List Apart? CSS Zen Garden?

    If this keeps up, I might have to go have sex with my wife.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2008 @ 12:27am

    Finland is quite a bit more democratic than the US. That two party system seems to work so well. Which side of the sane coin is going to win this time? Why do USians think they own it? Oh yeah, its the US. Creators of the world.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Ima Fish, 1 Oct 2008 @ 4:01am

    My work uses SonicWall to block sites. Once Slate and the New York times were blocked as pornography.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Lisa Westveld (profile), 1 Oct 2008 @ 4:06am

    Actually...

    There are many porn sites that contain links to the W3C sites. This is a nice trick to tell webspiders and webcrawlers to get lost and stop spending bandwidth of the porn site itself. As a result, you can find plenty of references to the W3C on porn sites.

    Then again, many other sites including the TechDirt sites contain links to the W3C site. Techdirt uses this reference:

    So when an ISP blocks a porn site and everything it references to, W3C gets blocked too. :-)

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2008 @ 4:54am

    One other option

    If you have an axe to grind with a web site you can hit the big filter companies and subit there URL as this or that.

    Once you have done this the site gets added to the bad list untill the site owner can try and get it fixed.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    NullOp, 1 Oct 2008 @ 5:41am

    W3C, porn?

    "When in doubt, filter it out." Thats how a lot of filters work. In todays litigious climate companies are trying to protect themselves from litigation in every way possible. An "All Ya Gotta Do" solution looks very attractive but, in fact, is not currently possible. So in the long run, deal with it.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Michael Tulloch, 1 Oct 2008 @ 8:03am

    Blocking sw

    When I taught introductory psychology at the University of South Dakota my students complained they couldn't access the class website from libraries or schools. I found out the state was blocking the Intro to Psych website because their blocking SW said the site contained "occult" material.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Chris, 1 Oct 2008 @ 8:06am

    3 Women one Cup?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Eric the Grey, 1 Oct 2008 @ 11:28am

    Filtering software

    I've seen problems like this, where sites were incorrectly labeled by filtering software. One of my radio stations (area93.com) is filtered at work as being a hacker site.

    Oh, and I find it interesting that www.w3c.org is owned by Yahoo. Talk about typo squatting.


    EtG

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    known coward, 1 Oct 2008 @ 12:25pm

    you mean

    the web consortium is not porn???

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    JoelMBenge (profile), 1 Oct 2008 @ 2:05pm

    It's obvious.

    Like you said, it's a "body". Need I mention that it strips code down to its bare essentials? *snerk*

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jason, 2 Oct 2008 @ 12:19am

    Typed soft porn into google and this was one of the results, i thought it was pretty funny: http://leeannejaud.pictiger.com/albums/42405/16939866/

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]


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