26 REDS & A BOTTLE OF WINE

Some of you may be having problems accessing this “website” from work. Although we here at 26 Reds are an occasional source for pornography and masturbation techniques we have not (yet) posted any actually smut. So we’re a little surprised that we’ve so quickly caught the attention of some IT goons.

Generally I agree with the ‘no porno at work’ principle that underlines Internet related censorship in the workplace. The last people I want to imagine watching some online bukkake video are my co-workers. Plus Internet porn is so substandard.

Anyway, I’ve been caught in a few (at least that I know of) nets, all of which made this little story that I came across last week all the more interesting. MORE AFTER THE JUMP


If you don’t know Boing Boing you’re missing out. It’s the self-described ‘Directory of All Things Wonderful’, which post a half dozen or more links a day. Boing Boing is the very definition of Internet meta. It houses very little content of its own, serving mostly as a curiosity cabinet of all things digital. It covers many topics; a recent check found links to a gallery of Combat Robot Fest photos, a lost in translation Chinese menu and a link to a blogger on Antarctica. Yet one thing Boing Boing isn’t is pornographic. That was until the middle of January.

According to an article by Tom Zeller Jr., published March 6 in the New York Times sometime at the end of last month corporate computer surfers, eager to check out Boing Boing were greeted with this message: “Access denied by SmartFilter content category. The requested URL belongs to the following categories: Entertainment/Recreation/Hobbies/Nudity.”

Now, there are three major questions that a would=be surfer will raise here; in order of importance they are: “What the fuck happened to my Boing Boing?”, “What the fuck is SmartFilter?” and “What nudity? There was nudity? How come no one told me?” Well, that last one is three question but you get the picture.

The answers are best given in reverse order. The nudity in question was a post from mid-January about two recent books on the history of pornography. The post (with links) featured a thumbnail size nude picture. Thusly SmartFilter, a computer product from Secure Computing out of San Jose, flagged the site.

SmartFilter is designed to give companies Tsar-like control over their network and anyone on it. It works using a central database of millions of website which are organized into 73 categories. Network Administrators can then decide which of these categories visitors (or employee) can see and which are banned. Until recently Boing Boing was fair game on millions on networks but this change in category has had them nearly universally banned, thus exposing SmartFilter and Secure Computing’s client list which includes Halliburton, American Express, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. All of whom, we can assume, would rather keep their Internet censoring clandestine.

Leaving aside question about how much control over employee’s Internet activity an employer should have, there are still issues raised by Secure Computing tactics. Internet censorship is always a tricky game. It’s impossible to actually view ever website for content, with millions of pages added and millions more changing every day controlling that body of content would bankrupt Exxon/Mobile. Attempts in the past to use keywords have had laughable results, with some nannyware programs blocking medical websites based on the use of the word “breast” or “penis”. Students in one California High School, doing a report on breast cancer found research in the school’s computer center impossible. Secure Computing is having similar troubles. By account of the Times artistic representation, including Michelangelo’s David have been blocked by SmartFilter. This ridiculous lapse has been seized on by bloggers who have taken to posting images of David on in solidarity and protest.

Secure Computing stands by their guns, stating that for their purposes a website that has any nude content is the same as a website with only nude content. This 1% = 100% theory is often the basis of on-line censorship and will be, in the future a major huddle to any company or country interested in regulating what people can see and cannot see.

In taking such an unrealistic position Secure Computing is setting themselves up for a showdown with a internet community already mindful of Big Brother’s gaze and salivating to take on anything so keenly absurd as Secure Computing corporate stance. Already there has been a flooding on cheats, tricks and go-arounds designed to subvert the slow moving and poorly adapting SmartFilter. In the Serengeti of the Internet censorship protocols are the slow moving gazelle.

To avoid this showdown Secure Computing has suggested that Boing Boing and other sites put their questionable material onto a separate server, allowing SmartFilter to block that while leaving the rest of the site accessible. Boing Boing (to their credit) has refused saying that they have no interest in helping censors do their job.

I agree, to paraphrase Jennifer Aniston in Office Space; You know, there was a separate serve that the Germans put the Jews on.