FC: What CyberPatrol doesn't want you to see

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

So I took a look through the CyberNOT list and was pleasantly unsurprised 
by the program's zaniness, idiocy, and sheer lunacy. Incompetence and 
prudishness are still alive and well in the censorware industry!

To be fair to CyberPatrol, the bulk of the verboten-links are sexually 
explicit, or at least may have been at some point in the last five years. 
But parents and libraries might want to think twice about installing 
something that can't tell a quilting club from sexybabes.com.

For instance, CyberPatrol blocks all student organizations at Carnegie 
Mellon University, including (you guessed it) the Carnegie Threads quilting 
club, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, and robotics clubs:
   http://loiosh.andrew.cmu.edu/org/ (Sexual Acts / Text, Intolerance)

For no apparent reason, it blocks the entire corporate site of Golden West 
Companies ("serving the communications needs of South Dakotans for over 40 
years"):
   http://goldenwestcom.virtdomain.nortel.net/

What Usenet newsgroups Cyberpatrol's morality crusaders find objectionable 
is arguably even more interesting. For instance, journalism discussions are 
off-limits because of "intolerance," which might be a just criticism of 
some corners of the industry, but certainly doesn't seem enough to ban 
discussions of newsgathering:

alt.journalism:
alt.journalism.music:
alt.journalism.newspapers:
alt.journalism.print:
alt.journalism.photo:
alt.journalism.freelance:
alt.journalism.moderated:

Some others include discussions of Philip K. Dick's science fiction 
(alt.books.phil-k-dick is sorted into drug/drug culture), feminism, Jungian 
psychology, food, Chinese culture, and chess and bridge.

More info:
   http://www.politechbot.com/p-00994.html
   http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=censorware
   http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=loudoun

-Declan

alt.abuse-recovery:
alt.answers:
alt.cybercafes:
alt.feminism:
alt.feminism.individualism:
alt.multimedia.toolbook:
alt.multimedia.director:
alt.psychology.personality:
alt.psychology.help:
alt.psychology.person:
alt.psychology:
alt.psychology.jung:
alt.psychology.adlerian:
ba.motss (same-sex issues and discussions)
fj.rec.food:
fj.soc.culture.chinese:
misc.activism.progressive:
news.groups.reviews:
news.groups.questions:
news.groups:
ont.general:
princeton.general:
rec.games.chess.analysis:
rec.games.chess.misc:
rec.games.pinball:
rec.games.backgammon:
rec.games.board:
rec.games.bridge:




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