interesting-people message

Subject: [IP] More on pornography as a consequence of p2p?

From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
To: ip@v2.listbox.com
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 17:49:38 -0400

Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 16:21:02 -0400
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>
Subject: More on pornography as a consequence of p2p?
To: dave@farber.net

The purported linkage of pornography to networks is getting worse.
Per http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/09/08/3f5be89a63245
there's a Senate hearing on Tuesday on "Pornography, Technology and Process:
Problems and Solutions on Peer-to-Peer Networks."  One of the people
testifying, Prof. Doug Jacobson of Iowa State, is quoted in the article
as saying "[Peer-to-peer] is like anything -- it's a tool.  There are
few legitimate uses of peer-to-peer networks." [ DUMB DUMB djf]

There's also misleading news coverage.  On a local all-news radio
station (WCBS-AM), I heard a heard a brief story saying that users
at New York universities were downloading a lot of pornography and
chlid pornography.  They gave no details, but cited a report by
"Media Defender".  It turns out that Media Defender is primarily
an anti-p2p company that is apparently employed by the RIAA, which
was not mentioned in the story.  I don't know if this was due to
a misleading press release or if I was simply experiencing the joys
of sound byte news coverage.

                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb


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