21 Jul 2006
Congress targets deceptive 'sex' sites

Could somebody explain to me what possible motivation a porn site operator could have in "luring" underage viewers? I mean, generally speaking, kids don't have credit cards to pay for the material, so where's the economic motive?

And if it's perverts setting up sites to "groom" future victims, I doubt that they'd put hard core porn anywhere it could be accessed by a "casual visitor" anyway. And such activities (stalking, trolling for victims, etc.) are already illegal. Why do we need another law for this?

The bill also includes a ban on the sale of "date rape" drugs over the Internet, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, except that these drugs are almost all prescription only anyway, so it's already illegal to sell them without a script. Again, why another law? Just so they can say they're "doing something"?

Furthermore, this bill shows the absolute lack of technical understanding in the Congress. It says:

Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a Web site with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years...

The term 'source code' means the combination of text and other characters comprising the content, both viewable and nonviewable, of a Web page, including any Web site publishing language, programming language, protocol or functional content, as well as any successor languages or protocols.

For those unfamiliar with the habits of coders, especially maintanence coders, it's common practice to use expletives in comments - such as "I don't know what the f**k this variable really does, but it must be init'd here...". So if this thing becomes law, and I embed a comment with an obscenity in the HTML for this page, I'm potentially a Federal felon!

Sometimes I think the politicians won't rest until everyone is a Federal felon.

Senators vote for crackdown on "harmful to minor" Web sites, Net drug sales and sex offenders. Bush is expected to sign bill next week.

(link) [CNET News.com]

14:31 /Politics | 2 comments | permanent link