If you think you're an expert on porn, the National Research Council needs your help.
The esteemed scientific organization this week put out a call for volunteers to join a government advisory panel. The goal: to prepare a report on how to protect kids from smut "and other inappropriate Internet content."
They're looking for experts in fields including psychology, e-commerce, image recognition, law, and religion to serve a two-year term.
The opportunities for ridicule were too much for some folks to resist. (Remember the Reagan-era Meese Commission mocked in Deep Throat 2?)
Thomas Lipscomb, chairman of the Center for the Digital Future and a member of another National Academy of Sciences panel, wrote, "I have some appropriate nominations."
Some of his picks, who rank among some of the more censorial public figures of the 20th century: Catherine MacKinnon, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Pat Robertson, Andrea Dworkin, John McCain, and Louis Farrakhan.
Segregating sex: Some corporations are hoping to segregate sex-oriented Web sites.
In a post apparently sent accidentally to a public mailing list, a British Telecom delegate to an ICANN working group says erotic-themed sites must not be able to register in, say, a new top-level domain like .ent created for "entertainment" purposes.
"This is becoming a more significant issue for us as the introduction of Digital TV and its potential for distribution on the Net raises the public awareness of this issue," wrote BT's John Lewis, who said in a follow-up message that he just wants to "protect vulnerable members of the community."
It might sound like a good idea at first, but there are lots of problems with it. For instance, who decides what sites have an unacceptable percentage of sex-themed content? ICANN? British Telecom? Network Solutions? Morality in Media? Police in a small town in Tennessee? The members of the National Research Council's advisory panel?
Digital divide?: The United States government has redefined "digital divide" to include ... no cable TV!
In a speech at the Media Institute this week, a top Clinton administration official suggested that rural areas don't have the same quality cable service as city-dwellers. That's the new "digital divide," according to Assistant Commerce Secretary Gregory Rohde.
"Rohde singled out the town of Foxholm, North Dakota, which he described as a small farm community near Minot. Because Foxholm is in a ravine, over-the-air television signals can't reach it, he said, and it has no cable television service," wrote Adam Clayton Powell III in an article for the Freedom Forum Online.
The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration quickly backpedaled. "As a facet of [Rohde's] general concerns over a digital divide -- that is, a significant part of the population being left behind by technological advances available to others -- the NTIA is looking into the question of how rural TV viewers could be able to receive the same types of service that will be increasingly available to urban viewers in a package provided by satellite operators," replied NTIA spokesman Art Brodsky.
Protecting privacy: If the Congressional Privacy Caucus actually did anything, it could be a very dangerous group.
The group, which announced its existence this week in customary self-congratulatory press-releases, is a collection of legislators not known for their commitment to individual rights.
It is not focused on government invasions of privacy, and is instead intended to lobby for severe restrictions on businesses' use of information. The goals may well be worthwhile, but it makes sense to be a little skeptical of the means.
It also won't tackle the biggest privacy problems. Some of the principles that ostensibly apply to government agencies -- "individuals must be informed in a clear and conspicuous manner when ... governmental agencies plan to collect ... personally identifiable information" -- clearly won't. The NSA is not likely to request permission when conducting Echelonesque surveillance, and the FBI is not known for asking nicely before wiretapping you.
Y2K Denial?: This week's denial-of-service attacks have become the latest events to be blamed on -- you guessed it -- Y2K glitches.
Paula Gordon, a visiting professor at George Washington University with a background in public administration, is circulating theories about Y2K Internet glitches that would put Pierre Salinger to shame.
One of the perpetual problems of being a conspiracy theorist is finding new fodder for your conspiracies. The latest culprit: Cisco routers. The message Gordon circulated claimed that date failures in Cisco routers "could be easily mistaken for an attack of the *denial of service* kind."
The theory is, of course, complete nonsense. Cisco engineer Paul Ferguson replied: "This has got to be one of the most ridiculous assumptions and assaults on the character of Cisco Systems I have seen."
There's some background here. In a pleasantly conspiratorial 1999 article on Y2K, Gordon tells us that Clinton was afraid of revealing Y2K's impact because the truth "would trigger an immediate downturn in financial markets, something that could have major ramifications, including profound political repercussions. Indeed, his legacy could be shattered beyond repair."
