Re: Blocking certain terrorism/porn sites and DNS

[Kevin <kkadow () gmail com>]

On 8/18/05, Abhishek Verma <abhishekv.verma () gmail com> wrote:
> The community as a whole wants to close all such web sites. I dont
> think there is any ambiguity there.

I disagree.  There absolutely IS some ambiguity there,
the community as a whole does not want to "close all such web sites".

It was bad enough back in the '90s when Internic refused to accept
registration of certain four letter words.  DNS is not a proper venue
for censoring ideas.


> No, that wasnt my point. I just wanted to make sure that my
> understanding of banning a hostname was indeed correct. We can this
> way atleast block all websites with *alqaida* domain names.
>
> I wanted to know if the arguments of "freedom of speech" etc. apply to
> the Internet also, wherein somebody could argue that no central
> authority can stop somebody from expressing their thoughts, etc.

Within the USA, arguments of "freedom of speech" DO apply.

Somebody can and should argue that no central authority
is entitled to stop somebody from expressing their thoughts.

IMHO, it is not the purpose of network operators to make value
judgments regarding the packets that we transport.

Why not just bring back the "evil bit" as a serious proposal?


Kevin Kadow