Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!ucsdhub!ucsd!ames!elroy!gryphon!mhnadel
From: mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Net.Porn ?
Keywords: porn, underage, lawsuit
Message-ID: <7232@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 23 Sep 88 21:57:01 GMT
References: <1278@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel)
Distribution: na
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 44

In article <1278@cbnews.ATT.COM> wbt@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) writes:
>
>Given recent court action in matters such as Dial-a-Porn, and a
>growing "moralist" objection to mature subject matter, I feel that
>unless some measures are taken, the net stands at risk of becoming
>a future target of "anti-porn" crusaders. All it would take would be
>one closed-minded fundamentalist finding out that 12-year-olds with
>computers and modems can get access to alt.sex, soc.motss, soc.women,
>and other "adult theme" groups.
>
I can see the potential problem but it seems hard for a child to get access
to the net without his parent's knowing.  Kids can't afford computers and
modems by themselves; certainly, they don't pay their own phone bills.  So
it seems somewhat unlikely that someone who objects strongly to children
seeing pornography will find out.  (Parents ought to be able to exert
some control over their children.)

BTW, I suspect you read neither soc.motss or soc.women if you think they
are "adult theme."  There's very little discussion of sex (as defined by
fundamentalists) in either.  Rec.humor is far more likely to be a problem.

>Were the net to be thus targeted, the most likely approach, given the
>chaotic structure of the net, would be for the activists to focus attention
>on the larger corporate contributors. Many of our employers would thus
>find themselves in an unpleasant position; the effect on the net would
>be obvious.

Most large corporations do not have any significant number of employees under
the age of 18.  Universities have a slightly larger problem as many freshman
are under 18.  But the problem seems biggest for public access sites.  It's
easy to solve if you do know someone's age since it's possible to restrict
a given user's access to certain groups, but you'd have no way of knowing 
whether they were telling the truth about their age.  How would you handle
age verification given the nature of the medium?  (One game I've seen bases
age verification on trivia questions - but I still missed a couple of the
"prove you're 30" questions.)

So maybe there's a problem but it seems hard to verify intent.

Miriam Nadel
-- 
"I deny that I have ever given my opinion to anybody"   - George Bush

mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM    !gryphon!mhnadel