The Feds are said to be bringing in filtering software critics in a somewhat novel bid to help it defend the controversial anti-porn Child Online Protection Act. Published reports speculate the Justice Department thinking is, if Cyber Patrol, Surfwatch, and other filtering software is that flawed, well, then the COPA should be upheld and enforced a little more strongly. The filtering critics say the software often as not filters out Websites which aren't pornographic, even including mainstream newspapers. One such critic, University of Washington associate professor John Bowes, says the Feds want him for "a kind of technical assault" on filtering, "but the end result is that nothing can protect kids on the Web except some kind of blanket age restriction. I don't like filtering," he told Wired, "but I dislike age restrictions even more." The government has suggested Websites can follow COPA by just roping off erotic information and mandating credit card or adult identification numbers to guarantee adult-only access. A University of Pennsylvania doctoral candidate who's written critically of filtering because he doesn't want the software imposed upon libraries, Christopher Hunter, lamented that research such as his, aimed at restrictive mandates, "may now be used in support of even more restrictive age verification regimes." He turned the Feds request to join in the court case. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union, which has expressed somewhat limited support for filtering use by parents, yet joined in a suit or two against filtering software it agreed was inaccurately blocking non-porn sites, maintains filtering should convince judges of options other than COPA to take up.
LONDON - Not everyone is enthralled with the "dot-com society" - including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. George Carey, whose Easter sermon included a poke at "transitory, paltry things associated with our dot-com society." Carey said the dot-com society's seductiveness in terms of power, success, and financial gain should not deter people from spiritual guidance and the more important facets of life. "We are so often seduced into believing that all that matters are things like power, success, fame and money," the Archbishop said. "No; these are transitory, paltry things when compared to ultimate things of the Spirit. Our country and her children must be rooted in these truths of the Easter faith - in the love of God and His personal and passionate commitment for each one of us. If not, we shall mistake the temporal for the real world and suffer terribly as a result." He delivered his sermon at Canterbury Cathedral.
REDMOND, Wash. - Rumors abounding that the Justice Department was going to do to Microsoft what was once done to Ma Bell rang up jitters on the high-tech NASDAQ stock composite April 24. Not only did Microsoft shares drop 16 points in Monday morning trading, with a number of Wall Street analyst downgrading the software giant's stock, but the NASDAQ composite itself had fallen as far as 200 points in Monday's early trading. Press reports that morning were citing sources close to the Federal government as saying regulators favored splitting Microsoft up along product lines - for example, spinning off its Office suite of word processing, spreadsheet, publishing and presentation software from its Windows operating systems. Microsoft spokesmen said the Redmond-based software empire would need more time in its antitrust case if the government does propose a Microsoft breakup. Microsoft third quarter profits, the company said, hit $2.39 billion (43 cents a share) from $1.91 billion (35 cents a share) a year earlier. Sluggish PC market growth, a tech market downturn, and Microsoft's legal troubles, published reports said, contributed to the company's almost 50 percent share price fall since late December 1999.
SANFORD, Fla. - Former college professor Madjid Belkerdid's attorneys say the 47-year-old man was set up by a woman with a grudge against him, who posed as a teen and initiated an online conversation which got him arrested for using online services to seduce a child. The attorneys say 39-year-old Audrey Tilson used an America Online account registered to her friend's 12-year-old daughter when she spotted the former professor online three days before his arrest, telling him she was 13 years old and starting a conversation which became sexually explicit, prompting Tilson and the girl's mother to call the police. The girl in question rode her bicycle to a park to meet Belkerdid, signaled, and police arrested him. Florida law, however, says the age of the online chatter doesn't matter, but the age a suspect believes the chatter to be does.
--- Compiled by Humphrey Pennyworth
