Cyber Patrol blocks access to Yahoo...

[Shirl Kennedy]

Did not snip out explanation deliberately.  Snipped out explanation to avoid
posting entire article to list.

My point being...this technology is still dicey.  It's too easy for a
"mistake" like this to happen.  Naturally, hoards of folks will notice if a
site like Yahoo is blocked, even temporarily.  But what about other, less
mainstream/popular sites that get cut out of the loop by one of these
filtering products..."accidentally."

-----Original Message-----
From: Filtering Facts <David_Burt at filteringfacts.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Monday, November 17, 1997 11:03 PM
Subject: Re: Cyber Patrol blocks access to Yahoo...


>At 07:36 PM 11/17/97 -0800, you wrote:
>>Read it and weep...
>>
>>Cyber Patrol deflects Yahoo rumor
>>By Courtney Macavinta
>>NEWS.COM
>>November 17, 1997, 2:05 p.m. PT
>>URL: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,16471,00.html
>>
>
>Unfortunately, your posting snipped out CyberPatrol's very plausible
>explanation:
>
>                "Yahoo was listed in the "CyberNOT" search engine
>                by mistake as a result of a separate project Cyber
>                Patrol was commissioned to do for Prodigy. Cyber
>                Patrol created a category called "search engines"
>                specifically for the online service's own use. For
>                example, Prodigy could allow its customers to
>                block access to all or some search engines. But
>                during the process of creating the category, Yahoo
>                was accidentally listed in the CyberNOT search
>                engine, which all Net users can access, making it
>                appear that Cyber Patrol itself was shielding its
>                users from Yahoo by default."
>
>Whether or not CP recently blocked Yahoo can easily be tested: ask anyone
>who has a version of CP that hasn't been updated in the last few days to
>turn on
>all the categories and try to access yahoo.
>
>This was in fact, partly verified by people who attempted to get a "blocked
>by CyberPatrol" message when accessing Yahoo, with their versions of CP,
and
>failed.  These folks included not only pro-filterers like me, but the rabid
>"anti-censorware" crowd on the Fight-Censorship newsgroup.
>
>
>
>
>***************************************************************************
**
>David Burt, Filtering Facts, HTTP://WWW.FILTERINGFACTS.ORG
>David_Burt at filteringfacts.org
>