SPUG: Downtown Seattle JoB, Porn Filtering

[ced at carios2.ca.boeing.com]

> Warning, off-topic (Perl), my apologies in advance:

> Before you apply for this job, consider what this company (N2H2) has been
> doing.

> Recently N2H2 decided to collect and chronicle the surfing habits of
> childern (via their filtering software) and selling that information.  This
> from a company who is supposed to be "protecting" children.  One of the
> first buyers of this information?  The Department of Defense -- yup, the
> military -- who won't say why they want the information.  The Electronic
> Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is currently suing under the Freedom Of
> Information Act to find out why.

> A recent MSNBC article described this as "the biggest cyber-rights story of
> the year."  http://www.msnbc.com/news/524057.asp

I'll agree this is very off-topic. Hopefully, this thread wouldn't
start a war. but, as I recall, childrens' individual identities 
are kept secret; only aggregate surfing patterns were divulged.  
Correct? How does this differ from the mining which occurs 
pervasively both on and off the Net all the time... Or, the
ubiquitous voting polls which also cast light on the behaviour of
masses of people. 

I guess my shock threshold is much greater. This does not seem 
unacceptable. Certainly not like selling actual names and 
identifying info - which is much more ominous and is occuring 
all the time.  Nor do I view with paranoia the government acquiring 
the info. What would really shakes me up is the idea of the government 
holding "public key escrow".   
  

There has to be balance between a business's need to survive and
and the perception that any and all information will be used 
used destructively.



Rgds,
--
Charles DeRykus

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