IP: One in Twenty - the failure rate of censorware

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 22:32:45 -0400
>From: Jamie McCarthy <jamie@mccarthy.org>
>
>The Censorware Project has just completed a followup report to its
>real-world analysis of SmartFilter in Utah.
>
>http://censorware.org/reports/utah/followup/
>
>Three months ago, we analyzed 54,000,000 web hits and compiled them
>down to a list of 300+ websites that were wrongly blocked, by our
>government, from library patrons in the state of Utah.
>
>In this followup report, we do the math to determine how often
>SmartFilter, a typical censorware product, makes mistakes.  The answer:
>for every twenty times it blocks a site like hustler.com, there is one
>block of a site like the Life Education Network [1] (an anti-drug
>site), Responses to the Holocaust [2] (a documentary history site), or
>the Student Association for Freedom of Expression [3].
>
>[1] http://lec.org/DrugSearch/Documents/
>[2] http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/holocaust/basichist.html
>[3] http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/safe/
>
>(Those three sites, and many more, are still blocked to this day.)
>
>In other words, the real-world failure rate is a _minimum_ of 4.56% to
>5.24%.  That's just the infringements on freedom of speech;  it doesn't
>count all the pornography and so forth that the software lets through.
>
>This figure stands in contrast to the propaganda put forth by the
>pro-censorware industry.  Secure Computing, the makers of SmartFilter,
>gave Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) a tour of their facility, and took
>the occasion to issue a misleading press release.  Without seeing our
>original data and without consulting us, they announced that our work
>had shown that the failure rate of their software was 0.0006%.
>
>Not quite.
>
>Today, Sen. McCain's "Childrens' Internet Protection Act," inspired by
>the industry's misleading PR blather, has passed out of committee.  It
>will almost certainly be enacted into law. This bill requires
>censorware like SmartFilter to be installed in every library and school
>across the nation that receives federal E-Rate funding -- at taxpayer
>expense, of course.
>
>Our press release follows.
>
>(Cc:  Sen. McCain;  >(Cc:  Sen. McCain;  webmaster@securecomputing.com.)
>
>
>
>CENSORWARE PROJECT CORRECTS GROSS DISTORTION OF ITS REPORT
>
>For Immediate Release
>
>Contact: Jamie McCarthy 
>Day: (616) 381-9889 
>Evening: (616) 375-7637 
>Email: jamie@mccarthy.org 
>
>New York, June 23, 1999 - Last Friday, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.)
>toured Secure Computing Corporation, makers of "SmartFilter," and was
>told that a three-month old report by the Censorware Project proves
>that product's accuracy. The Censorware Project is an activist
>organization opposing the use of content-blocking software in
>libraries and universities, and its report clearly shows the opposite.
>The Project strongly protests the misuse of its name to support
>pro-censorship legislation.
>
>Today, the Senate Commerce Committee approved Sen. McCain's filtering
>bill (S.97), which subsidizes censorware by mandating its installation
>in every school and library which receives E-Rate funds.
>
>"Apples and oranges," said Project member Jamie McCarthy. "Secure
>Computing's phony math compares two numbers from different categories
>to claim their product has only 0.0006% error. Our real-world analysis
>shows that errors occur eight thousand times more often. Every twenty
>times their software blocks a library patron from reading, say,
>hustler.com, it blocks another from reading Mark Twain, William
>Shakespeare, or the Declaration of Independence.  Secure Computing's
>software can't tell the difference -- and its PR spin is an
>illustration of Twain's classic adage about lies, damn lies, and
>statistics."
>
>Added McCarthy, "The Bill of Rights doesn't allow our government to
>burn Shakespeare, even if they try burning twenty Hustlers to make up
>for it."
>
>Though the raw data from the Censorware Project's report was made
>available, Secure Computing never obtained this data - which was drawn
>from 31 days of logs, not the "two-week period" that Secure Computing
>claims.  In a followup report released today, the Censorware Project
>exposes the statistical sleight-of-hand, sheds light on last year's
>censored sites still censored to this day, and reveals new blocks
>which were not listed in the original report.
>
>"One is 'Responses to the Holocaust,'" said Project member Michael
>Sims. "SmartFilter blocked it from Utah students in September and they
>still block it today.  Only because its blacklist is put together by a
>computer, with no effective human oversight, can documentation of Nazi
>genocide be called 'hate speech.'"
>
>Another wrongly-blocked site not mentioned in the March report is that
>of the Censorware Project itself. Secure Computing's first reaction to
>the same criticism that it now praises as an "exhaustive and thorough
>review" was to ban it under all 27 blacklist categories.  Censorship of
>critics is common with this type of software.
>
>The Censorware Project also found accessing inappropriate material to
>be easy, using the latest version of the software.  "With the trial
>proxy installed, I found hardcore porn within three minutes, and
>instructions for making drugs and bombs were just a few clicks away,"
>said McCarthy.
>
>The Censorware Project has written to the president of Secure
>Computing, demanding that he withdraw the false information in the
>company's press release.
>
>-30-
>--
>         Jamie McCarthy
>         jamie@mccarthy.org
>  http://jamie.mccarthy.org/
>