back to article Mormons demand ICANN plugs net smut hole

Mormon anti-pornography activists led by SCO Group chairman Ralph Yarro III are calling on ICANN to give more political clout to those who want to kick porn off the web. Scores of Yarro’s followers have this week petitioned ICANN to OK the formation of a new “Cybersafety Constituency” which would help develop binding policies …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about

    Just firewall Utah?

  2. Robbie
    Flame

    Oh noes, not religious cencorship to

    Great if its not australia or china who wants to cencor us, its the goddamn mormones....

  3. Steven Knox
    Thumb Down

    Huh?

    It also suggests that “ISPs could simply block all IP addresses originating from a non-compliant country”.

    Sounds like they really understand the concept behind the internet there.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Oops.

    "controversial Linux Vendor SCO"

    That will go down almost as well as a mormon hooker on a Sunday.

  5. Code Monkey

    Hey morons

    Hey morons leave my pr0n alone as Pink Floyd defiinitely once said.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Block port 80 to Utah, give them their own internet WWW port

    Much better to create a new clean internet on port 8888 or something that 'cleanies' can connect to, and wait for the rest of the world to slowly bit by bit reconfigure their HTTP servers to support. That way they get to live in a new clean world, untouched by normal internet web pages. Port 80 can be blocked to Utah, or anyone who declares themselves to be a Mormon. Job done.

  7. Paul
    Alien

    Gah

    DUMDUM DUM DUM DUMMMM

  8. Paul

    Mormons... who decides what constitutes smut?

    Seriously this is not the worst idea in the whole world, certainly not the craziest to come out of Utah!

    And it would make it easy for cops, simply check who is trying to connect to port 15.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    What happend to .xxx TLD?

    This is clearly what the .xxx TLD was going to be used for. But that got killed off by some other daft religious septics.

    Setting up a .xxx TLD would be so much easier all round. Very simple to filter for ISPs and home users. And I expect the sex industry would be keen on that as it does not require many technical changes anyway.

    Why does one religion think it knows better than another religion? Leave my internets alone :)

  10. Ralph B
    Paris Hilton

    Make Your Mind Up

    > CP80.org wants all adult material banned from Port 80

    Are these maybe the same (sort of) people that previously fought _against_ a .xxx TLD?

  11. Jonathan Richards

    Ermm...

    <quote>Yarrow, who is also the chairman and largest shareholder of controversial Linux vendor SCO</quote>

    Yarro, no dubya. But *Linux vendor*? Can it be that you don't know about SCO v IBM? SCO sells Unixware, and maintains that Linux 2.6 and beyond is a knockoff of their IP. They haven't sold/distributed Linux for bloody years. They're also in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the courts have ruled that they don't own the Unix copyrights. Sounds like a great company to be Chairman of.

  12. Stuart
    Thumb Up

    Right On!

    What a terrific idea all of us who want to protect children can support.! OK the evidence linking porn to kiddy fidling is a bit vague but there is much better evidence linking religion to child abuse.

    So let's start right there!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Argh!

    Too.. much... tech... ignorance... will... to... live... fading...

  14. Les
    Joke

    OK, my turn

    I want all religion banned from the web. Make them use port 666 for it if we can't have it removed. Oh, and I'm not keen on sport, either, so let's get rid of that, too.

    Come on, let's make a definitive list and ban everything that anyone doesn't like. Won't be much left after that, of course, but at least someone will have thought of the children.

    Sarcasm? Moi? Never!

    *Lie mode off*

  15. Lewis Mettler

    I do not represent the porn industry but

    I guess it figures that someone would come up with a new way of censoring web content.

    This article reminds me of a comment by one Athony Kennedy, US Supreme Court justice. He said (and I am not certain he coined it) "everytime someone proposes that censorship should be engaged they are the same persons suggesting they be the ones to impose it".

    And, of course, there are many ways to implement some form of censorship upon oneself other than imposing it upon everyone else. And that is particularly so on the Internet.

  16. Henry Wertz Gold badge

    Maybe Utah should try that...

    “ISPs could simply block all IP addresses originating from a non-compliant country”.

    Maybe Utah should just block all "non-complaint" IPs, and let us know how that works out. By phone of course, since they won't be able to contact anyone online.

  17. Martin Gregorie
    Thumb Down

    Why is a Pron Port such a good idea?

    I think I need somebody to explain in simple monosyllabic words exactly why a special Pron Port is such a great idea when the proposed XXX tld was really bad.

    I see no difference between having a dedicated pron port and setting up a dedicated pron tld.

    I wouldn't expect pron-mongers to be bound by either convention[*] if it was ever agreed on by ICANN or the US Department of Commerce. So, why even discuss it?

    Lastly, it seems to me that the people who are now behind the pron port are the same bunch who shouted down the .XXX tld, so what has changed?

    [*] I said 'convention' because either idea is utterly unenforceable within a global Internet.

  18. David Hicks
    Thumb Down

    Why is it always that the loudest protesters

    Are the worst offenders?

    Sort it out Utah. If you don't want kids seeing porn then use filters. If you don't want to see porn then don't go looking for it!

    Also, I don't really get what the point would be of moving to a new port, it doesn't mean you can't point a browser at it...

  19. Paul
    Thumb Down

    Doh

    Quote : "ICANN is responsible for managing internet port and IP address allocations globally."

    Er, port allocation ? Not 'Names and Numbers' ?

  20. JRallo
    Thumb Up

    New protocol announced!

    porn://... :-D

    Uses standard HTTP, but turns on 'porn mode' in browsers and uses an alternate port (6969)...

    Any takers?

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    And yet they wonder

    These people wonder why folks either simply disregard anything they say or have hatred for them. It's this self righteous attitude which makes them think they are some how in a position to speak for everyone and force their point of view on the rest of the world that causes those reactions.

    I'd like to propose a counter measure to ICANN, create a standard that routes any traffic from an ISP in Utah to a sanitized version of the disney channel. That way these holier than thou assholes can have the "clean" internet they desire and leave the rest of us alone.

  22. Ian Ferguson
    Thumb Down

    Hahahahaha

    ahahahahahh. Ha.

    Oh dear.

    Couldn't they just petition their own state and own ISPs to implement a blacklist system similar to Australia or the IWF? Then they'll be happy and safe and free from scary porn, without interfering with the rest of the internet, or trying to change things they know nothing about.

  23. raving angry loony

    hopeful

    I hope ICANN's response was "fuck off you religious fruitcakes", that being the only correct answer to such a request.

  24. Nigel
    Happy

    Sorry

    Sorry, just misread

    "ICANN is responsible for managing internet port and IP address allocations globally"

    as

    "ICANN is responsible for managing internet porn and IP address allocations globally".

  25. Jamie Kitson
    Thumb Up

    Brilliant

    CP80.org wants all adult material banned from Port 80 ... and ... suggests that “ISPs could simply block all IP addresses originating from a non-compliant country”.

    Brilliant, just brilliant. One wonders what their definition of the word "simply" is.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    The SCO scam failed, so Ralph needs another one.

    This scam artist Yarro has got to be kidding - of course, his previous efforts of getting his plan approved by government, through his "connections" to Sen. Orrin Hatch, failed miserably - so now he tries an end-around, using the gullible sheeple of the LDS to do his bidding; all in an attempt to position HIM as the source of all that network filtering hardware that would be required, and most likely single-sourced, so that only CP80 can make a killing selling it. Still, it's a more lucrative gig than a failed Microsoft Paint graphics designer, so you do have to give Ralph credit for that.

    This greedy fucktard needs to be blacklisted from anything to do with IT, NOW.

  27. Cameron Colley

    Bigoted, pathetic loosers.

    The only immoral ones here are the people suggesting pornography should be hidden.

    As for "safety" how is keeping tits and ass to a different port going to stop virus and trojan propogation?

  28. Jeremy
    Paris Hilton

    Children

    Won't somebody please think of them?

    Wasn't it the religious lobby that got .xxx kicked into the very long grass time and time again? Now they want to introduce something similar? Idiots.

    I wonder what port they want? 80085 would be a good choice, I think...

  29. Alan W. Rateliff, II
    Paris Hilton

    Do we really have to rehash the arguments again?

    Morons.

    The arguments against blocking on the Internet have been discussed to the point of ridiculous. Will people like this just keep hammering and hammering until the clears heads get tired of fighting against the idiocy?

    Paris, hammering and hammering until someone gets tired.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Don't like pr0n on the web?

    ...then don't look at it.

    PH because she'd be out of a job without it.

  31. Lyndon Hills
    Thumb Down

    Linux vendor SCO

    After all that SCO has done for Linux in the past 4 or 5 years, you were joking weren't you?

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    oh look..

    The extremists are at it again, thinking that everyone should think like them and willing to get in bed with 'Big Bussiness' to get it done so they can force there own form of 'ideals' at everyone and make it law.

    *\. Getting my coat, as there is a war against terrorists you know (well apparently)

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hey leave porn there for the rest of us

    Those Mormons don't need porn - after all when you have 3 wives you don't have time for it.

  34. Peter Simpson
    Paris Hilton

    This is a great idea!

    Because, you know, the whole CAN-SPAM act worked so well to totally prevent anyone from sending us email spam. Why couldn't we legislate porn away as well?

    It would be interesting to take a vote and see how many wish to continue receiving porn on port 80 vs how many want it banned.

    Paris...who else?

  35. Adam Connelly
    Joke

    Smoke Screen

    "Utah is 58 per cent Mormon, and according to a recent study has the highest consumption of internet pornography of any US state"

    This isn't an attempt to make it less likely that innocent [insert item here] view porn, it's an attempt at making it easier to find porno sites! Might I suggest the .utah domain?

  36. DR

    really

    because linking to www.porn.com or www.porn.com:81

    I don't see much difference, it's not going to reduce internet pron.

    it's not going to make it harder to find.

    and it'll still be logged by search engines that follow links...

    so this will have how much effect of stopping internet porn? (unless we count the internet as only things that happen on port 80)

  37. Simon Buttress
    Paris Hilton

    Jesus H Christ

    Can they not just fuck off?

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Should change his name to "Carrie A. Nation"

    Apparently, being SCO Group chairman doesn't let Yarro be enough of a pr*ck already....

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "...led by SCO Group chairman..."

    Just when you thought SCO had run out of ways to make itself look ludicrous...

  40. Christoph

    Gibberish. Total gibberish.

    Exactly how is this effectively different from the propsed .xxx top level domain?

    And just who is going to be defining what is banned? And who is going to be enforcing it?

  41. Dennis
    Coat

    Miracles require Saints

    Does the miracle of a porn free port 80 occur before or after turning water into wine?

    Why don’t they do mankind a real favour and propose a spam free port 25?

    Mine's the Technicolour Dreamcoat 'cos I've managed to turn wine into water.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    It figures....

    The Mormons wouldn't know good smut if it ran up and humped their leg!

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    .xxx

    Let me guess, these are the same sort of people that blocked the formation of a .xxx domain that could have then easily been blocked by the simple expedient of adding *.xxx to a block list on a firewall?

    Idiots.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Hypocrisy in action

    “Utah is 58 per cent Mormon, and according to a recent study has the highest consumption of internet pornography of any US state, boasting an average of 5.47 porn subscriptions per 1,000 broadband users.”

    If they don’t want to see porn, then don’t look for it. If they are referring to getting spammed with porn, then do us all a favour and legislate against the spammers.

    Morons! Sorry, Mormons!

  45. Joe Drunk

    Moron is only one letter short of Mormon

    There are a lot of crackpot religions out there but this one is soooo funamentally flawed! It firgues that SCO Group chairman Ralph Yarro III would be part of this ridiculous waste of time. They're asking for Censorship at the ISP level. This should be entertaining to watch. Where's the popcorn?

  46. Disco-Legend-Zeke

    Who needs free speech anyhow.

    There are already technical means which people may use block materials from their or their childrens internet screens.

    better to leave port 80 alone, and create a new port for akidsafe.net

    for sites that sign off on some list of mormon-approved subject areas a simple DNS upgrade would be all that is required.

    or perhaps we need a .LDS TLD.

    i won't insult whats her name by putting her pic on this post.

  47. alain williams Silver badge

    Please define SMUT

    One person's smut is another person's eye candy and another person's medical images, ...

    This would be ripe for political censorship.

    In the immortal words of Tom Lehrer: ''For filth, I'm glad to say, is in The mind of the beholder. When correctly viewed Everything is lewd.''

    http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/smut.htm

  48. LaeMi Qian
    Stop

    Can we have a special port for nutjobs?

    then we can ignore them more easily.

  49. MacRat

    No Religion?

    How about kicking Mormons off the net?

  50. tony booth
    Paris Hilton

    ICANN....

    YOU CANT!!

    Paris because shes a Latter Day Saint

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why not disconnect Utah from the internet?

    Jesus had no internet. There is nothing in the Bible about internets. Why are these people even using it, then? I bet the Amish* don't have these issues all the time.

    *The Amish are the only Christians I respect as they are the only ones I see actually trying to live a Christian life.

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mormon = moron

    Enough said

  53. EvilJason
    Alert

    I have a radical idea....

    Why not ban everything they are saying they represent of port 80 and onto there own port.

    Let port 80 be the free port, the wild west of ports where what ever happens goes and your responsible(terrible word to those people) for what you see and click on.

    Make a new port that you have to register and sign a contract that what you upload is "family" friendly and respects all cultures and religions...even if they don't respect each other anyhow,

    Make that port and the net it forms separate from the rest of the public net and let that one be monitored and restricted and filtered.

    Then make it so that parents can select that new port for there family Internet and save the rest of us the stupid cries of ban this or poor them.

    Why is it when people object to what you are doing they want to change you and your activities rather than realise that the net is virtual and infinite and they can just go away and MAKE there own "clean" version of the net for them to use.

    But then again.....do they really care about having a clean net to use or are they just using it to censer and get rid of stuff they don't like....kind of unAmerican or so i am lead to believe....

    Anyhow there you go the solution to everyone's problems make a separate "safe" net for them to use and leave the rest to us who like it how it is.

    -Jason

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    subs?

    "5.47 porn subscriptions per 1,000 broadband users"

    People subscribe to internet porn? I thought you just went out and got it when you wanted... no need to subscribe.

    Failing that, bugmenot comes in quite handy!

  55. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bad assumptions

    There are many invalid assumptions in this article. I have voiced my support for the CyberSafety constituency, and am in full support of providing some mechanism for a currently un-represented group to have a voice within the ICANN policy making group.

    The author makes a leap here that all those in support of this new constituency are in support of CP80, and will back their attempts to change how the Internet is currently architected. This is simply not true. I do not support the CP80 solution, but strongly believe that the proposed constituency would have a great impact on helping to make the Internet a safer environment for our children.

    I also happen to be a Mormon. But, the fact that I have a solid religious foundation for my belief that the Internet should be more family-friendly should not lead one to believe that this new constituency is a uni-denominational initiative. Read the petition - any religious entity would be able to have a voice through this new constituency.

    If a Catholic happened to spin up this effort, and several Catholic friends happend to support it, would the Author have said that it is a Catholic conspiracy to take over the Internet? I doubt it. In attempting to take this leap and make this assumption, the author is only trying to use scare tactics to garner more opposition to this initiative.

    Read the petition, and see if you agree with the constituency. Then, make up your mind based on the facts - not on this one person's distorted view and bad assumptions.

  56. E

    Blinders

    "CP80.org wants all adult material banned from Port 80..."

    How would pron be banned from port 80? It requires rather deep packet inspection methinks.

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Not the Mormon Church

    The LDS church has nothing to do with this, no need to drag them into it. This is an individual effort by people who may or may not be members of the church. The article should be titled "Utahns demand..." or "Conservatives demend..." or even "Nutty SCO chairman demands..."

    Don't ascribe all actions of individual members of the LDS church to the Church itself. Every group has its weirdos, we wouldn't ascribe the actions of Muslim terrorists to Islam itself, would we?

  58. James Butler
    Thumb Down

    Blahblah

    Parental controls blahblah. No legs on this whorse.

  59. Brian Mankin

    Ban Hospitals!

    Imagine that you don't know what a hospital is. Someone with an axe to grind explains to you :

    "Everyday, hundreds of people pass through the doors of this building here. Few of the people who go in there in there want to be there and most feel that they have no choice. Inside they are ordered around by strangely dressed men and women who sometimes wear masks and gloves. They are made to undress and then they are poked and prodded and probed at by these masked and gloved men and women. On occasion they are made to drink vile tasting concoctions and sometimes they must urinate or defecate and preserve their excretions. Sometimes they are drugged and then cut upon by gangs of masked and gloved men and women. Even children are not spared from these horrors."

    If hospitals were explained to us in these terms and we knew no better we would demand that they be banned at once. Most people don't know how the internet works. It's not surprising then that someone with an axe to grind exploits their ignorance of the mechanics of the internet and their desire to do the right thing. It would be surprising if they actually managed to get anywhere with it.

    Yarro : Shame on you! Have my shoe!

  60. James

    Contradiction

    Surly the Mormons are against the Internet completely as they are against any modern tech, but strangely not all tech as they still ware cloths, use medicines and so on.

    Who in there right mind is going to lessen to them... oh wait any broke US lobby group will...

  61. Steven Hunter
    Flame

    Of all the...

    What the hell is wrong with these people? How the hell hard is it to keep your children from finding porn? ... It's God Damned impossible is what it is; get over it already!

    When I was a lad, I found all the porn I ever needed on BBSes and trading floppies at school. I imagine that plenty of copies of Playboy et al have found their way into the hands of children LONG before those days. There has been porn since the days of antiquity and there will be porn in the future. And your children will find it and masturbate furiously as an end result.

    Jebus, kids can get off on the Sears catalog's brazier section...

  62. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    You know what

    I know it would be hard to police or even impractical but if pron had it's own place it might be safer for the children

    What about xxx instead of www?

  63. Duncan Hare

    Not port 80?

    We need a new protocol

    httporn ?

    and more port police - aha - using port on port 80, hre take this ticket, oops, you in antigua, belize, or zambia, wrong police!

    Better - just cut Utah off from the Intertubz.

  64. Steen Hive
    Thumb Down

    Another day

    Another brace of authoritarian religious wing-nuts.

    Having seen the coupon on Cheryl Preston, I can safely say that wall-to-wall images of horse-felching on port 80 are infinitely preferable, thanks.

  65. Nick L
    Flame

    Let them do it

    Let the loonies block access to port 80 in any other country of the world. Why should we in the rest of the world care if they once again choose isolationism ? We can simply block their port 25 in return, and halve the rest of the world's spam problem.

  66. Another Anonymous Coward

    I bet they're also opposed to the .xxx domain.

    Any filtering has to be done at the user level, it's not the ISP's problem or responsibility.

    As for as the children go, parents need to keep internet access for their kids in the living room, problem solved... bit hard to rub one out to horse porn while your family is watching the telly.

  67. Al

    got a better idea?

    Any better ideas for creating a family safe internet solution? Filters and so on are incompetent at best, so we need a real solution. I've followed Yarro since his linux drama 10-15 years ago, and he's had some ridiculous ideas along the way, but this one, if nothing else, at least gets the ball rolling on a huge oversight in our internet infrastructure. The fact that if I want to do business on the net or give my kid access to google to research for a school project, I have to open the door to the horseporn as well.

    We all know porn's not going anywhere, so why not give a solution to what a large number of us see as a problem and let it all coexist?

    I'd love to hear other ideas

    Al - Not from Utah

  68. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Mormon port

    In keeping with their special kind of logic, all mormon websites should be on their own port, to protect the worlds children from their Mormonity.

    Wait, I wonder how many special interest groups there are in the world? Oh, more than 65,000 ish? Oh no Jebediah, we ran out of ports! Quick, lets pray for more.

    Idiots.

    They should apply to ICANN for a .mormon extension and then they can just block everything else, and everyone else can block all .mormon emails and websites.

  69. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wow

    all this time and not one published comment. They can't have all been THAT bad, hell even mine wasn't as bad as it could have been :-). Just sayin'.

  70. Carl Jokl
    Alert

    Tone

    I can see a clear tone of this article is being disparaging towards Mormons.

    I think it is desirable to be able to control adult content on the Internet. Those who want access to it can carry on accessing it and those that don’t have a way to block it out. I don’t see that is so unreasonable. I dare say I don’t think that the Mormons are the only ones who are trying to control adult content. Many parents would wish to keep their children away from adult material too.

    As for Mormons being fruitcakes, I am but I know some others who are more normal.

    I am not even from Utah or the US for that matter.

    I must say it is disappointing to see the statistics of pornography usage in Utah though I am not all that surprised by them. It is true that members of the Church have moral standards which they endeavour to live by but ultimately do so imperfectly. I can understand why this causes others to make accusations of hypocrisy.

  71. chort
    Thumb Up

    Thanks for alerting the public

    to this idiocy. ICANN comment = submitted!

  72. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Is there a diametrically opposed pressure group

    dedicated to getting more pornography onto the Internets?

  73. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just because...

    CP80.org was started by some people who HAPPEN to be Mormon doesn't mean that all Mormons support the concept. Come on people...let's not paint with such a wide brush here. And remember that the Cybersafety constituency is neither a "Mormon" initiative nor a "CP80" initiative - regardless of what link may be assumed by this author.

  74. J. Max Wilson
    Unhappy

    Misleading & should be corrected

    As a Mormon from Utah, I find this article, and the hate filled comments after it, very disappointing. As I think at least one other commentator mentioned, the actions of individual members of the LDS Church do not represent the church itself. Do the actions of individual members of the Anglican or Catholic churches represent the official efforts of those churches themselves? No. And this is likewise true of the Mormon church.

    To my knowledge, The LDS Church has not sponsored or promoted the CP80 proposals in any official capacity. Official actions, such as the support from California's Proposition 8 which protected the traditional definition of marriage from redefinition, are made known to the members through clear official channels. I had not even heard of the CP80 Proposal before this article. It is an effort by individuals, a number of whom are Mormons. It is not a Mormon effort.

    The LDS Church does teach its members to protect their families from lecherous material. At the same time, Mormons value the freedom of speech a great deal. Creating an Internet red-light district seems like a good compromise to many people, including Mormons. It is neither fanatical, or irrational. It is an imperfect attempt to find a balance between family and religion on the one hand, and freedom of speech on the other. It has its problems, but at least it is an attempt to consider the point of view of those who disagree, which is a virtue sorely lacking in many of the comments here.

    Regardless of the merits or difficulties with the proposal, painting it as a Mormon conspiracy to ban lecherous material from the internet is plainly false and should be corrected. The connection to Mormonism is tenuous to the point of disingenuousness. Especially when the CP80 websites lists such companies and Apple Computers, Wal-Mart, Amazon.com and BestBuy as sponsors. Why not an article saying that iTunes is trying to restrict porn on the internet instead of Mormon hate-mongering?

    And just to clarify to those commentators who said Mormons are Polygamists: The LDS Church has not practiced Polygamy for over 100 years, and any member attempting it is kicked out of the church.

  75. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Suggestion???

    May be they should just delete the contents of their hosts file and point all Internet traffic to 127.0.0.1? or 0.0.0.0?

    Now that would simply just help everyone out would it not?

  76. none
    Thumb Down

    Another suggestion..

    Why do these fools just simply set up their own dns server? And point all of their port 53 traffic to it?

    Oh right, they're not that technically viable. Dumbasses...

  77. Michael Smith
    Thumb Up

    /etc/services

    p0rn 81/tcp

    You know that looks quiet convenient to me.

  78. Mostor Astrakan
    Heart

    Michelle Knight

    http://forum.icann.org/lists/cyber-safety-petition/msg00190.html

    I was going to open up the dungeons and show these people what I think of their misguided attempts to impose on all of us their view of the world, and then I read this, and I saw that it has been done already, politely, convincingly, and finally.

    Oh, I saw there were exactly 69 comments. But I'm posting this anyway.

  79. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Hmm

    Someone must have sent Ralph Yarro a goatse.cx link! Or, given his involvement with SCO, probably several hundred.

  80. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Another suggestion..

    Why do these fools just simply set up their own dns server? And point all of their port 53 traffic to it?

    Oh right, they're not that technically viable. Dumbasses...

  81. Dan Paul
    Flame

    Religious Right Banning Porn is Like Pot Calling Kettle Black

    The idea of the "Religious Right Wing " calling for port or IP blocking of porn sites is so ludicrous it makes me heave chunks. Aren't they the ones who stopped the .XXX domains from happening that would have made it easy for simple porn site filtering?

    The fact is that Fundamental Religion (of any variety) is even more sinister than ANY kind of porn.

    Puritanistic views actually create the attractiveness of pornography and sex crime as in "you want what you're not supposed to have" as well as helping to create the "Kinks" in people that porn vendors try to accomodate.

    So to all you Fundamentalists out there, quit trying to justify your lustful thought's for your 13 year old 1st cousin and stop trying to take away other peoples freedoms by imposing your sick version of religion on others. After all, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (and those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw them)

  82. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    @ AC 21:02

    You mean like my favorite site of arousing writings, http://xxx.lanl.gov/ ?

  83. EvilGav

    Why ?

    Any tech savvy person will be able to block the majority of porn sites from their kids seeing them, it's not exactly difficult (one of my colleagues at work has done just that, through a home firewall with filtering to specific IP's on the network).

    If they want a child friendly enviroment, install AOL and let them only use that. For the rest of the adult population, leave my bloody internets alone, for without goat pr0n, what are we ?

    As for the LDS folks tipping up and suggesting the comments are "hate filled", you should probably go and check up on exactly what "hate" means. Calling you a moron for believing in something you cant see would seem to be a fairly obvious comment. Hate would be if we suggested that you should all be shot/burned/maimed in some horrible way - which hasn't been said. Further-more, I consider all Abrahimic religious doctrine to be moronic, not just the LDS.

  84. John Angelico
    Joke

    @Steven Hunter

    [Quote] Jebus, kids can get off on the Sears catalog's brazier section.. [/Quote]

    Log Fires, heaters

    http://www.sears.com/shc/s/search_10153_12605?keyword=heaters&gobutton.x=0&gobutton.y=0&gobutton=find

    ... yes, there's a HOT topic!

    :-)

  85. John Angelico
    Boffin

    Dodgy statistical argument

    "according to a recent study has the highest consumption of internet pornography of any US state, boasting an average of 5.47 porn subscriptions per 1,000 broadband users"

    "A recent study" - which study specifically? When published? By whom?

    "porn subscriptions" - as another commented, do you have to subscribe? Who keeps count of these, then?

    Where is the raw data (yes, I know, a terrible pun)?

    How was the data collected? Over what period?

    Can the results be replicated?

    Do the results actually mean anything useful? Or are they just "shocking" enough to beat the Mormons or the residents of Utah, whilst avoiding the primary argument?

  86. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Best way to protect children from the horrors of the internet...

    ...is to ban them from it completely, or at least ensure their access to it is supervised and monitored.

    Why not create a second world-wide-web just for kids? Leave the main web alone and create a secondary one where all sites are approved prior to going live and where children can surf in relative safety?

    If you really wanted to go further, you could control access to the kiddyweb by only allowing children to have an upstream to it, and having the schools issue login details.

    The only adults allowed to upload to kiddyweb would be teachers, police officers, and other CRB-checked adults. All other adults would only be able to download material - no upload stream means no sending chat messages or webcams.

    Also, having school-issued login details would make any child on kiddyweb immediately traceable by the authorities should their behaviour cause concerns.

    Workable? Probably not. Worth a try though. Get the pesky little brats ff my webs!

  87. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    mormon extremists

    In this case it appears that the proposition has been made by fanatical and misguided mormons. I do not believe that all mormons are being blamed for this misguided proposition. I also think that most people in this discussion are perfectly capable to differentiate between those mormons who act as arrogant morons and those others who are more enlightened. After reading through the 80 plus comments I do not agree with the idea that this is thread represents a hate filled discussion against the church of the latter day saints. What the anger and frustration is focused upon is the complete disregard for other people and arrogance that is coming accross in the original proposition which is promoted by a group of mormons (extremists?). It is appropriate to include their mormon affiliation as they are using it themselves when they are promoting these ideas. If the mormon church does not like it it should distance itself from these actions in public - this has not happened. It is common practice that organised groups do this to avoid being confused with a specialist interest - see for example the Catholic church (which I do not find any interest in myself) which has publicly distanced itself from issues which some religious groups (especially in the us) have promoted in the name of christianity (see for example the question of intelligent design).

    When it comes to individual mormons relationship to porn it can be rather complex. In my experience some mormons have argued that (adult) porn can be acceptable under certain condition. The church does not condone sex between people who are unmarried. However sex itself is not necessarily viewed as a bad thing. There have been quite a history in the church where the two sides (against sex and for) have been fighting it out. Those that are for sex have included arguments that love is essential in the life of a marriage. A significant aspect of love is intimacy, care for each other and this includes sex. Historically this is of huge importance to the church and was one of the reasons to why in the beginning of the history of the church some groups supported actively the idea of marriage where men could have more than one wife. In the mormon church the reason was for accepting this was due to the very large numbers of female members. A very pragmatic solution as otherwise a significant group of women would not have become married. Not being married would mean - not being allowed to have sex etc. To overcome the problem with having a surplus of women and creating a situation where these women could also engage in family life (sex) in an acceptable way the solution was to allow more than one wife.

    We also know that mormons had a very healthy sex life and appetite for sex. This can be seen when looking at the history of Kellog Cornflakes. Mr Kellog spent many, many years on inventing and perfecting the process of making cornflakes. The reason? It was believed that eating a lot of corn (maize) would have an inhibiting effect on young peoples sex drive. To limit "young peoples sex drive" was viewed as necessary because in the mormon society the young (married ofcourse) people where shagging "all the time" and "where ever they found an opportunity" to do so.

    Obviously today the mormon church does not support the idea of having more than one wife (some break out mormon groups do - but not the main church). The point is however that in the mormon church there is and always has been a lot of people with a very accomodative attitude towards sex - as long as it was between married individuals. So where does this leave porn? Well this is a difficult one, it is not necessarily always a problem - as some porn can be made by couples who are married for example. Especially as sex as such in its own right is not necessarily looked down upon by all and every member of the church. Which is probably why there in Utah is such a great interest for porn in the first place.

    I can imagine that the difficulty for many members in the current situation is to find a way to distance themselves from the proposition that has been made on their behalf. Unfortunately the leadership of the church has not helped in this case. I would not hold my breath in this issue. As it appears that courage is not always at close hand to those people in charge. It does require courage because there will always be people who will use the universal mob war cry "think of the children"...

  88. fluffels
    Paris Hilton

    They can all....

    ...bugger right off.

    I like my porn on Port 80.

  89. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The internet is for pr0n

    Need I remind you ?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWEjvCRPrCo

  90. mark l Silver badge
    Stop

    who is paying for all of this?

    What all the 'won't someone think of the children' lobbists seem to forget is that every proposal currently put forward requires a significant cost to the company's and webmasters that own the pron domains

    If .xxx was brought in and that was the only domain allowed to have pron on it then the pron companys would need to register millions of new domains at a huge cost. This might be fine for big companys like hustler and playboy that have deep pockets but for smaller companys this could add a considerable cost and they run the risk that someone else registers their .xxx domain before they get chance to. Plus who is actually going to be the one who checks every .com .net .co.uk etc domain registered to see if someone puts a porn site on there?

    The change of port is again another cost as although it wont require any new domains to be registered it will cost money in time for the webmaster to change port to use the new port. And do you think all the russians and eastern european sites are going to bother.

    So ulitmately both ideas are major fail

  91. Pyrrho Huxley

    Bad assumptions

    @ Anonymous coward who believes "that the proposed constituency would have a great impact on helping to make the Internet a safer environment for our children."

    This is the problem: many Christians believe that sex is so evil that the only way to keep our children safe is to deprive them of all knowledge of it. I appreciate that the Chistians believe that sex is evil because they think that it's the mechanism by which "original sin" is transmitted. But many of us simply don't belive that there's any such thing as original sin. And we don't believe that this is a "fallen" Earth or universe. Instead we believe this: Sex is not evil. Our children have every right to know about it. Our teenagers have every right to experiment sexually and to find out what suits them and what doesn't. In all these respects the Internet is a great resource. There is evil out there, including evil related to sex, but the best way of helping our children defend themselves from it is to arm them with correct and truthful knowledge - not the Christians' ignorance, fear and loathing.

  92. This post has been deleted by its author

  93. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    RE AC - 10:34 GMT

    Thank you for introducing Mr. Kellog into this discussion.

    I now have to try and get the thought of "pornflakes" out of my mind.

  94. Stef
    Flame

    Just firewall Utah?

    Just firebomb Utah - and let God sort it out.

  95. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    never underestimate nutjobs

    I only point out to you the newgroup withdrawals by major ISPs due to the illegal, immoral browbeating and legal threats of the wanker new york AG. Most of them just gave up rather than fight against a charge of providing access to kiddie pr0nz, even though there was virtually none in any newsgroup as it was...

    people who are intent on forcing their narrow view on the world exist all over the world. I, for one, have no intention of "protecting" my kidz from the interwebs and what they find there. they have to grow up some time and i would rather they learn what they need to learn about how, what, where, and who while I am there to teach them instead of just falling off the back of the wagon.

  96. Alan Fisher

    @ J. Max Wilson

    J. Max....it is exactly contained in your message why people jump to those conclusions....LDS like to try and insert religious bias into the legislature and carry on all High and Mighty about 'morality' on subjects which recieve but a passing mention in the bible of any faith.

    Religious laws affect their practitioners but not people who do not follow your religion, these 'laws' do no apply. Thus what offends people of your faith may well not offend people who follow not that faith.

    Thusly, your ministers can concentrate on assuring their congregations conform to your moral codes and do with with impunity and no reproach. However it is when they try to tell non-mormons how we should live our lives.....that tends to annoy folks you see?

    Live and let live I believe was Jesus' general attitude; I believe you should follow it and leave non-mormons alone.

    Thank you

  97. Alan Fisher

    title edit...

    "Mormons require ICANN plugs for face butt hole"

  98. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Saving the children from the interweb

    should be done in the same way we save children from other similar things they need saving from:

    cars are bad, mmmkay. So we don't let them drive. Or when we do it is in little bumper car type things in entirely controlled environments.

    smoking is bad, mmmkay. So we don't let them smoke until they are a certain age.

    drinking is bad, mmmkay. So we don't allow them to buy booze or drink in the streets. If the parents want to allow them to drink in controlled environments then that is OK but they aren't in the pub with us getting ratted until they are at least 14 or 15.

    Same for the internet. It will be impossible to get smut / bad language / other non-child friendly stuff off the internet so surely the easiest way is to allow parents to control what the kiddies see (whitelists, walled gardens etc.) and then put the burden of parenting back on parents.

    And as for adults finding rudeness, just don't browse for it and if you see anything you don't like just close the window (or use the back button) and move on.

    Look, I don't want to see gay porn, or granny porn or shemales or animal porn, or Paris Hilton porn, or even the weirder BDSM stuff so I don't search for it. If I do accidentally find something like that (and it is very rare) then I deeply consider how it has harmed or damaged me and when I inevitably come to the answer of "not at all" I go back to looking for what I really want to see.

    Time for parents to parent and third party do-gooders to get back under their rocks.

  99. Steven Hunter
    Joke

    @Lee

    "I don't want to see [...] or even the weirder BDSM stuff..."

    But the normal BDSM stuff is right up your alley, eh? :P

  100. Jacob Reid
    Stop

    How about...

    the mor(m)ons just don't use the internet if that offends them.

    their outdated superstition offends me, so I just don't subscribe to it.

  101. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    "pornflakes"

    "Thank you for introducing Mr. Kellog into this discussion. I now have to try and get the thought of "pornflakes" out of my mind."

    I sincerely apologize for mentioning the conflake connection. However you do not have to worry about the assumed effect of cornflakes on your sexdrive - IT DOES NOT HAVE ANY EFFECT!

    There might ofcourse be other reasons for not eating Cornflakes such as:

    1. You might not appreciate to buy a product from a company whos profit goes to people you do not agree with.

    2. You might not appreciate to buy a product if it is not organically produced. Also if it uses corn which have been genetically manipulated you might wish to know why they were manipulated in the first place (so farmers could use more and stronger chemical pesticides on their crops).

    3. You might wish to avoid cornflakes and processed serials overall as they cost many - MANY! - times more than plain organically produced oats.

    I must thank you for "pornflakes" I completely missed that association and now I rather like it and I have no wish to get it out of my head at all... Pornflakes forever I say! You know a healthy lifestyle when you see one. Pornflakes in the morning and a little bit of sexercise a day would be the best way to keep fit - and the doctor away - I can see the new generation TV advertisement coming up...

  102. Maty

    alternatively

    Instead of banning porn, can't we just ban children? (And Mormons where applicable.)

  103. Ander
    Jobs Horns

    Let's ban evil

    First we start with intolerant religions

    Then continue with warmongering crusaders

    ...

  104. David Phillips
    Unhappy

    Why is this about Mormons?

    I'm a parent, and a UK Mormon - I would love to find a foolproof way to filter internet content that's damaging to young minds, but let's face it, it's never going to happen. The only real defence it to use filters where possible and educate your kids to deal with the rest.

    The nature of the porn industry is that they want to get youngsters hooked as early on as possible, just like big tobacco - so there's a lot of stuff out there that gets viewed by kids looking for a disney image or just doing some research for a school project. That's what's really objectionable to me, and the thing I'd like to see stopped.

    Ultimately everyone has their own choice, everyone can believe whatever they want to and do whatever they want (within the law of course). Doesn't mean their choices will always be good for them or their families, but that's what life's about - freedom to choose. That's a basic tenet of the the LDS church so it doesn't support censorship - of the internet or anything else. However, we do all have a right to protect our families, so you will see some protectionist comment sometimes.

    El Reg loves a headline - "Mormons demand ICANN plugs net smut hole" is somewhat misleading, as are many sideswipes at Mormons in the article.

    For the record: Mormons are not against technology, they embrace it as much as anyone - do a bit of googling and you'll see. Just one example of many wildy inaccurate impressions of Mormons in the UK.

  105. Michael

    Statistics versus Truth

    Two themes -- one is an anti-Mormon thread that surfaces from time to time regardless of the topic at hand. I had supposed El Reg readers (or at least respondents) were more mature than many seem to be.

    The other is a discussion of the metrics. One claim is that Utah is 58 percent Mormon. That may be so; but you certainly won't see 58 percent of the population in church on Sunday. Another claim is that 1/2 of one percent of broadband subscribers are subscribing to pornography. While no express claim is being made as to an association, it is clear that the author assumes that the 1/2 percent porn subscribers are the 1/2 of the population that is Mormon.

    More probably the 1/2 percent are found in the counter-culture. Many Latter-day Saints refused to have the internet whatsoever, and this shifts the statistics toward the counter-culture. Any time you have a dominant culture you are going to find one or more well-established counter-cultures -- as you can see right here with large numbers of almost boiler-plate anti-Mormon rants. Maybe they're coming from a 'bot.

    I expect a great many of the most vitriolic anti-Mormon comments to be coming from Mormons or ex-Mormons who have a bone to pick. I hope that most El Reg readers really don't care what one group or another is doing in their backyard.

    By Steven Hunter Posted Wednesday 18th March 2009 20:23 GMT Flame " What the hell is wrong with these people?"

    I knew a Mormon by the name of Steven Hunter. Shall I assume that this writer is he? You are making too many assumptions here, gentle people. What are "these people"? I have been discussing Mormonism for a great many years, and I believe that I have never found two Mormons with exactly the same beliefs despite a great effort to standardize everything or at least just the core beliefs.

  106. Michael
    IT Angle

    Kinda like the Race Card

    In the eastern United States, particularly around Washington DC at the time I lived there, pretty much every news story included the race of the person whose story was being published. It seemed to serve no purpose, but it is what their readers and viewers seemed to demand.

    This writer for "The Register" seems to think that you want to know the religion of the CEO of SCO and his followers but only if it can be said, guessed, inferred or imputed that he is a Mormon. All it takes to be a Mormon is to have lived in Utah, or visited there once, or seen it on Google Earth.

    Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is quite a bit more difficult. It takes a bit of work and study.

    As you review the official commandments, link to which is below, perhaps you'll notice that none of them tell members to inflict their religion on their neighbors through political action groups and things like that. Members are encouraged to be engaged in worthy causes of their own free will and, obviously, if you have a majority it will manifest in the democratic process, just as Catholicism works its way into Baltimore's politics and Irish politics are heavily influenced by Catholic versus Protestant ethics.

    Since the topic pertains to pornography on the internet, I advise the official church policy is to "avoid" it, but there is no specific, simple rule as to what it is. I find no church rule specifying that we deny others; however, the State of Utah does have a bit of law on the subject. It would be better, therefore, to complain to the State of Utah rather than to Mormons.

    I regret that no simple answer exists. Mormon president Spencer W. Kimball wrote: "The very words used to clear up the thinking of one young man can put ideas into the head of another." This was referencing a Bishop who had asked a number of "have you ever..." questions to a young man who didn't even know such things existed, and it "preyed upon his mind" and he went and tried some of these things.

    http://www.mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/basic-beliefs/the-commandments/the-commandments

  107. Mike
    Go

    Hate Mormons?

    Nahhhhh.... we just think they are stupid.

    They're like clowns at the circus, but instead of big floppy feet and a flower that squirts water they have a book which they interpret in their own quaint way (but know beyond doubt that their version is the only true version).

    Objects of ridicule aren't hated, they just hate being ridiculed.

  108. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Michael

    Dearoh, dearoh, dear......

    <article>

    But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints knows whereof it speaks. Utah is 58 per cent Mormon, and according to a recent study has the highest consumption of internet pornography of any US state, boasting an average of 5.47 porn subscriptions per 1,000 broadband users.

    </article>

    So you say "it is clear that the author assumes that the 1/2 percent porn subscribers are the 1/2 of the population that is Mormon." Really? that's "clear" is it?

    But you go on to say "More probably the 1/2 percent are found in the counter-culture.", and what do you base this on? ("Many Latter-day Saints refused to have the internet whatsoever" perhaps? where do you get this information? how valid is this statement? is it a representitive study? or perhaps you once knew someone who told you one mormon who refused to install it once? or just something you'd like to believe? perhaps you just made it up?)

    So instead of taking the statistics at face value, you want to believe that the remaining 42% of Utah non mormons are doing ALL the porn? blimy mate, that's a hell of an assumption (hell.... geddit?)

    I think you are playing the "victim" card, in my (admitidly limited) experience of talking to mormons, I don't know of a single mormon that hasn't taken the opportunity to tell me how repressed and abused they have been.

    Take away everything you have said about being a victim (while calling many reg readers immature), saying that mormons don't try and inflict their religion (but bang on about it and add links, asking people to to visit your site) and really you are saying nothing......

    Finally, you say "I hope that most El Reg readers really don't care what one group or another is doing in their backyard." really? maybe if a group was buying up huge swaithes of UK farmland (they have more than the crown now I believe, is there any force more powerful than food?) or using block voting to exercise political force then maybe they should care.....

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