A Moral Dilemma: Open letter to Gnutella community

[Brett Andrews]

Yeah, both of those groups i talked about do exist, but like i said, people have the right to deciede what goes on their computer.

I still don't see what the big deal is with dirty words in the monitor list. But if you guys still want to go through all that trouble, then by all means go ahead, just make sure the descriptors still get routed.

[LondonFalls]

ROFLMAO HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh my god, that almost killed me, someone sent you dog ****, heehee

You can't be serious. You can't....heehee, dog poo...prevent offensive queries from getting on the monitor list without blocking them. Why can't your program route them? Problem solved. Anyway, that is a stupid excuss. Kids are probably worse off having the really world hidden from them. Come on, you think the word "booby" is somehow going to harm kids? People like this have a very poor oppion of childern. Kids aren't as stupid as you think, they can handle a few dirty words. I've seen what goes threw the monitor, and any child that could be possible be affected by it has been serverly missparented. If parents talked to thier kids about these things, childern would be able to handle a lot more then what could be writen on a screen.

heehee, dog poo in the mail...

[alexis b]

If it moves outside the mainstream of most Gnutella content, then it becomes less of a problem. It follows the old, somewhat ridiculous, somewhat priggish NY laws that prohibit strip joints from opening within so many yards of a school or church. Out of sight, out of mind.




I agree.



Yes, we do know that. We are building a piece of code that can implement this feature across all clients.



I agree. I agree. I agree. BTW: We will offer optional blocking of the other primary P2Ps, shortly.



First of all we don't look at it as an attack. But we will be adding web filtering in the very near future. The code is done. But until we get Gnutella filtering working we don't want to tie it in. There are other web filters on the market.

Thanks. Good comments, Ahri.

Dan

[Klaudia]

that unregisted post is mine, i forgot to login

[Momma]

Implementation of filters... Open Network... Do I hear an idiom? Make us some money... Gnutella's growth as a free, open network. I think I missed something

[Carol R]

InnoVal Systems Solutions, Inc. will modify its original filter design so that it does not block the propagation of queries or query responses that are being passed through the computer on their way to other computers on the Gnutella network. The filter will, however, prevent children from originating inappropriate queries and, more importantly, from seeing inappropriate query responses to their own queries. This will be done in a way that will have no adverse effect on the network or any running servents (server/clients).

There remain two problems: One, inappropriate queries are visible in the monitor windows of servent applications. Two, by not blocking propagation, inappropriate queries will reach the servent and, in theory, allow the user to share a file that a parent, implicitly or explicitly, does not want shared. We are exploring two options:

1) Provide two APIs: The first API would test for the filter and determine if it is running in lock down mode. The second API would test any query to determine if an upload is appropriate. This approach would require voluntary cooperation by servent developers. In addition we would provide Java classes for the Java-based servents running with Windows runtime environments. We would produce a public standard to encourage other filter companies to do likewise so that a single call would work with any servent that chooses to incorporate this feature.

2) Do all propagation at the filter level of those queries and query responses that are deemed to be inappropriate and do so in full accordance with Gnutella specification and protocol. This is more foolproof but requires that the filter become a surrogate-servent. Architecturally, this is a poor idea and it introduces a liability for introducing down-stream error. For instance, BearShare, sends messages to other BearShare servents.

We value advice from the user community and from Gnutella developers and are open to other suggestions on these problems.

We are also exploring several ways to benefit the Gnutella community with out technology. The filter, having no propagation blocking, would be beneficial to some users who want to limit visibility of responses beyond what is provided for in some servents. We might strengthen some of the algorithms, particularly as they apply to spam and hijacking (a special, growing and difficult problem). Another option, high on our list, is to give the user the option to hide himself or herself from web-based

[oreo_luvr]

You agree? You must not have been referring to the legal actions you talked about in your letter. Seems like you were in favour of that. These solutions will hurt your cause, not help it. Napster again provides an example. The lawsuit increased awareness and popularity of the program. It caused an exponential amount of growth in the number of users. Before they were taken to court, very few people knew it existed. When they found out, people rushed to get in on free music. You have the same problem with children and Gnutella. Most kids don't know they can get pornography off the internet, never mind Gnutella. By percentage, few kids use the internet for pornography. Taking people to court over Gnutella and publicizing its existence will influence many more kids to use it, many more then your filter will ever stop. What's better, 50% of 100 kids getting pornography, or 100% of 10?

Your filter has one major problem, and this is why you are getting no support from the Gnutella community. It gives people the option to stop their software from routing descriptors. This causes a disruption in the network and provides absolutely nothing to users of the filter. I strongly urge you to remove that feature from your program. If your software in anyway disrupts the health of Gnutella, such that it is hurting non-users of your filter, you can expect anti-filter software. Think about a free filter remover on the home page of all Guntella clients. If kids can install a Gnutella client, I'm sure they can install a filter remover.

Your company and its supporters seem to oppose legal pornography on the Internet. I say, if its okay in magazines, its okay for the Internet.

[N2k]

I agree with the general, um populace of this board. I felt that even in his speech he had many flaws. No offense, he does raise some good issues, however most of them are being intorduced into software even now (Limewire sub-network of Adult Content). I don't feel threatened by the filter, or its company but I do feel that this network should.

[I ♥ Cleavage]

i just thought of something else, i don't know wheather i should say or not, it might turn around and kick me in the *** later or get people ****ed at me if it works but, have you considered makeing a version of the filter for proxies or network routers? If all computers on an intranet or lan connected through a proxies, the filter only needs to be installed once. This would make tampering impossible if it could be done.

[AsIaN~WoLf LoVeR]

the spam keyword idea does sound good, though