Thursday, January 22, 2009

Bad Internet Bad

Yes once again out of a population of X million one 15-year old girl made contact with a 40+ year old man and the cry is heard "Something must be done". In a particularly clueless moment the new GMTV presenter asked a copper if computer manufacturers and ISPs should do more and he agreed (although he also said it's really down to the parents).

So what more could they do? Perhaps install parental controls into their software or provide guidance for parents - they already do.

From the talk of the copper about abuse buttons on sites he seems to be suggesting that ISPs should piggy-back traffic to insert such, or that perhaps browser writers should include them as default (presumably with every regional variant). Of course this will also have to apply to IM software, forums etc. To put it another way those discussing such measures have little idea what they're talking about.

So just out of curiosity exactly when did parents abdicate their responsibilities to their children? If a parent let their kid roam around in the streets, towns, and cities all night would their be a call that it should be the police doing something to prevent it... oh wait yes there was.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Day after day I find myself thinking that the government should be employing somebody like you. Because some of these people clearnly don't live in the Real World.

Imagine if somebody proposed that the Royal Mail should examine every letter and parcel sent, determine whether it is addressed to a child, and if so open it and inspect its contents to determine whether or not it is “safe”. If it is not, have it destroyed, otherwise reseal it and send it on its way.

Anybody know how many letters and parcels the Royal Mail handles per day? (I actually couldn't find this data anywhere.) I hypothesize it's a spine-tinglingly large number. The logistics of doing this would be absurd.

Even better yet, suppose a letter addressed to one child reads “I'll meet you at school on Saturday”. Now, if this is one of the child's relatives, this is presumably a completely harmless message. And if it's an Evil Stalker, this should be labeled CODE-RED.

Now, here's an interesting observation: how the **** is the Royal Mail going to know which scenario is the case?? Just sit and think about that for a moment.

So, to summarise: Having the Royal Mail censor all mail would be absurdly difficult logistically (I predict a 75× price hike), and wouldn't actually work anyway, because a message out of context can't be classified accurately.

Now, you want the ISPs to do the exact same thing for the Internet??

Um, anybody know how many emails are sent per second? I hypothesize that UK letters per day pales into insignifigance beside the number of emails sent per second. (And let's not forget, most of those emails are adverts for Viagra!) And you… want ISPs to check all this stuff???

Which planet are you from, again?

Perhaps these people actually believe that there is some magical button you can press on the computer that will make the problem just “go away”. Wouldn't that be so convinient? Yes, maybe some weirdo egghead boffin can come up with a magical formula that automatically blocks any bad stuff and keeps my children safe without me having to bother doing it myself?

Er, yeah, right. Any technological measure can be circumvented. Especially with this much motivation. The only way to keep your children safe is to… well, um, look after them! Sorry.

A crafty Bad Dude may be able to fool dumb software, and even trick small children, but parents aren't often fooled. (These abduction stories almost always involve the parents being unaware.)

If you can't be bothered to keep your children safe, who's fault is that, exactly?

“Oh, but we don't understand what's going on. This computer stuff is too clever for us.” Well then&hellis; turn off the computer? How hard is that?

OK, I'm ranting now. I should stop. But yeah, what is it with parents just letting their kids wander around on their own, doing whatever the hell they like? How is it surprising to them that Bad Things happen? Is it just me??

FlipC said...

"Day after day I find myself thinking that the government should be employing somebody like you. Because some of these people clearnly don't live in the Real World."

Trouble is if I were in government that would be the Real World to me, on a par with 'power corrupts'.

Yes the Post Office analogy is apt and one that has been brought up by many in that the PO is designated as simply a carrier of goods and ISPs have been classified the same way; however the powers that be have been trying to reclassify them as service providers and as such responsible for the services they provide.

It's completely stupid, but then they don't seem to have any form of technical advice available to them, at least any they seem to listen to. Just look at how long it took Parliament to get wired up and the amount of 'lost' data from various departments or consultants.

"If you can't be bothered to keep your children safe, who's fault is that, exactly?"

Someone else's. To an extent this is a trickle-down attitude from the present government dictating how healthy we should be, how much rubbish we can chuck out, how often we can drive etc. At every step there's someone peering over a shoulder to make sure we're doing things correctly/safely so they can look after the kids too.

"OK, I'm ranting now."

Heh feel free, right place for it.

"Is it just me??"

Oo multiple punctuation never a good sign :-) But no it's not just you.

Anonymous said...

“Who's fault is that, exactly?”
“Someone else's.”

This kind of attitude makes me sad.

I mean, sure, there are rules to keep people from putting other people in unecessary danger. (E.g., there are plenty of things I could potentially do that would create more danger than anybody could possibly avoid.) But at what point did people cease to be responsible for their own safety?

It's like… driving a car. If you're driving a car and some drunk moron jumps into the road in front of you, and you kill him, that's your fault! (WTF?) You spend the rest of your life in jail for that. Even though it is a provable fact that there is nothing in your power you could have done to prevent the crash.

You would have thought that, surely, if somebody does something utterly stupid and obviously dangerous, that would be their fault. But, at least in this case, it isn't.

So anywhere you see a sign saying “pedestrians do not have right of way”, you can basically ignore it. In essence, predestrians have right of way everywhere.

But hey, what can two old guys like us actually do about this, realistically?

FlipC said...

Well to be precise the burden of proof does seem to rest on you as evinced by the language "the car hit the drunk" rather than "the drunk hit the car", but taking the main point I assume you haven't seen the fad in shared spaces where you remove all markings and pedestrians cross the 'road' by making eye contact with the motorist who is obliged to stop?

'Oh but it works so well in the Netherlands' once again for the umpteenth time - thing working well in one country does not equal thing working well in other country. To shut up these idiots I'll expand the 'quote' to 'Hey it works well in a country with a completely different social, economic, and geographical setup so it should work here too'; to put it one other specific way 'Why not have build all our houses with flat roofs and use them as an extra floor as they do in Mediterranean countries where it is hotter and dryer?' GAAAH!

Okay the problem is not what can we do about this realistic, it is quite possible to make our views known to councillors MPs and the wider public; the problem is nobody listening when we do.

Anonymous said...

Hahaha… the CAPTCHA is “hermit”. I just found that amusing! :-D

FlipC said...

I chuckle at the appropriate captcha's that pop-up on the Kidderminster Shuttle site at times. Standouts so far - fact-none and join-deep for an entry about faith, very-debt about how much power suppliers charge, and true-flow for an entry about wind-turbines.

Anonymous said...

To respond to your shared-space comment: saying that peds are expected to cross by making eye-contact is a heavy oversimplification. The shared-space guru (I forget his name) says that he tests the road after it is built by crossing the road blindfold, walking backwards, at rush hour. The idea of shared-space is that removing the road markings makes all road users think about what they're doing rather than working on autopilot. The desired effect is a little like a Tesco car park - peds vaguely stay near the buildings, but also mill about all over the tarmac to get where they're goinb. Motorists proceed slowly and with their eyes open.

That said, I've heard rumours that in areas of London where shared space has been tried, the accident rate plummeted as soon as the road was reopened, but after six months or so returned to near its previous rate.

But where I can sympathise with shared space is that it is a reaction to the overzealous deployment of traffic-aggravating measures like chicanes; speed tables, bumps, plateaux, cushions, &c.; and oversignage. All these measures tend to make roads more dangerous, not safer, especially for vulnerable road users like wheelchair users, cyclists, motorcyclists, and mothers with prams.

As for the Netherlands, their shared-space schemes are actually very controversial. They are very used to socially-favourable modes of transport like cycling and walking taking priority (where road space and city layouts are concerned) over socially-harmful modes like driving. They are used to having several pounds per person per year spent on a cycle network that doesn't stop when it comes to a tricky junction. For them, sharing space is a bit of a let-down; for us, it seems, it's the best we can aspire to.

FlipC said...

The "eye contact" was a quote from the council who set it up (unsurprisingly I can't find it now). My problem with shared-space is it hits on one of my defintions of a dangerous road that being "people don't know what they're doing or what other people are doing". I agree in a free-for-all drivers are going to drive slowly initially but my prediction would have been that once it had ceased to be a novelty that would stop; it seems the results you mention about accidents levels returning bares that out.

Your mention of a Tesco car-park brings a smile to my face because, as I'm sure you're aware, I've been complaining about the lack of structure of those for some time now.

Likewise this being a reaction to over-zealous traffic calming measures; true to form it seems we swing from one extreme to the other with nary a pause between the two.

I also see shared-space being a nudge in the direction of full pedestrianisation of an area, which in some cases I wouldn't object to; I just don't trust the politicos to get it right though.

Anonymous said...

I mentioned Tesco because I know you complain about it, and I with you. But that said, my experience of Tesco car parks is exactly that: the poor layout forces peds to wander around, and motorists are trained to expect this and drive accordingly. The 'zebra crossings' at my local Tesco are the only crossings I have ever used where you really can cross without looking for oncoming traffic, and are in stark contrast to the "we don't need a crossing here it's only the pedestrian route from several office blocks and a few hundred houses to the nearest Tesco across the main road into Milton" situation immediately outside.

I agree with your mistrust of political ability to make it work out, which would be my main fear if such a scheme were proposed anywhere near here, but one bad doctor doesn't invalidate medicine.

FlipC said...

Heh I don't expect anyone to actually remember the things I've said :-)

By coincidence if I'd treated a crossing at Sainsbury's today that way I'd have been run over in both directions. But yes some areas can happily become shared areas, though I'd think most of those are ones that most likely be pedestrianised anyway. My fear is, as Orphi put it, that in any situation it'll be deemed the responsibility of the driver to ensure everything is safe; and the number of irresponsible drivers on that appear to be on the road means an area pedestrians deem 'safe' really isn't.