Amber alert must go

General Forums Off-topic Chat
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OFFICIALS SAID IT was the first prosecution in the nation under a provision of the new Amber Alert legislation that makes it a crime to use a misleading Web address to draw children to pornography. The provision calls for a prison sentence of up to four years.

   John Zuccarini, 53, was arrested at a motel in Hollywood, Fla., where authorities believe he had been living for months.
   Zuccarini registered thousands of Internet addresses and was earning up to $1 million per year off them — much of it from sex sites that paid him when he sent Web users their way, U.S. Attorney James Comey said. 	
	
   The trick: Zuccarini used real, popular Web addresses, but with omitted or transposed letters, officials say. Computer users who misspelled or mistyped a Web address often ended up in a porn site instead.
   Zuccarini used the technique to trap Web surfers trying to log on to sites for pop star Britney Spears, Disneyland and Teletubbies children’s characters, among others, according to court papers.
   Once there, Web users often encountered a maze of pop-up advertising called “mousetrapping,” which sends up even more ads when surfers click the “back” button on their browser or try to close the windows altogether.
   “Few of us could imagine there was someone out there in cyberspace, essentially reaching out by hand to take children to the seediest corners of the Internet,” Comey said.
   Zuccarini faced a bail hearing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. There was no immediate information on an attorney for Zuccarini. 	
	
   Last year Zuccarini was ordered to stop the scheme after the Federal Trade Commission sued him for registering misspelled variations of sites for the Backstreet Boys, Victoria’s Secret and The Wall Street Journal.
   And companies whose names were exploited have filed dozens of complaints with regulators and the oversight body that doles out Internet addresses. 	

	       The FTC said Zuccarini has lost 53 state and federal lawsuits and has had about 200 Web addresses taken from him.
   Federal agents were investigating Zuccarini as early as 1999.
   “I am not aware of others who have done it on the scale of Zuccarini,” said Marc M. Groman, an attorney in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
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It just goes to show how much politiction molest children to justify there evil polictical tyranny.

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I was going to write something serious in response to this thread, but it’s not worthy of it.

http://hotlink.reblended.com/dittohead/images/spam/agent.jpg

You never even described your opinion, you just ripped a news story and said something about “amber alert must go”… Congratulations, your crediblility just went through the floor.

4

Try the bill of rights.

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You must be one of those nutty ACLU cooks?

These forums need an ignore feature.

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No, I’m a conservitive not a one god for all “Republican” Yes, this forum does need an ignore option, it’s long over due.

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Al, just imagine if you had a child, or a niece or nephew who’s six or seven years old who wants to find out about his/her favorite Disney show online. He/she types in the wrong address and gets adult porn. Would the bill of rights matter that much to you then that the innocence of your child be damaged? If you think that the amber alert is just some scheme of devilish politicians, don’t talk twice to the people who it’s helped or saved.

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I’m more worried about the fact that congress is passing legislation based on the terrorist attacks that is full of odd little laws like that…what business does a pornography law have in there? I agree its wrong to lure children into garbage, but its also wrong to turn a kid loose on the internet without supervision. The internet is just like a book store or any city. There are places you’d NEVER let a kid go in either of those situations. Why is the internet any different? It’s just as easy, if not easier, to prevent a kid from going to the red light district or the adult section of a book store as it is to simply sit with a child while they use the internet. The net isn’t a toy, and its not a playground. Its a universe of uncensored information. You wouldn’t look at a 5-year-old and say, “Well Johnny this store is full of naughty things you shouldn’t see, but its also got some kids stuff. Have fun!” Yes the registering of web-addresses in that manner for that purpose is wrong, and disgusting. But so are the people who let their kids wander around somewhere they shouldn’t be.

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I’m more worried about my child future in a Authoritarian state that justify every corrupt, propaganda and inhuman treatment of an indivisial. There’s something you must know about parents, they are impair of there judgement because of the bond they have with there children, this is a very old pratice that is still use today, because of this pratice I don’t look at children as mindless property of an adult, I see them as indivisials. I don’t believe laws is a solution to the problem, I believe people are the solutions to the problem, service such as MSN8 and AOL provide the protection for parent who wish to limit there child privlig and believe parent view of internet is very foolish, the internet can be good but it also can be dangerous, It’s like fire that must be both fear and respected. If parent wish there child to be allow to view such stuff, that’s there culture and there belief, otherwise there are choices and plenty of them.

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hmmm, I’m confused :-?

could you please explain to us all how stopping children from going to adult sites counts as “molesting” them?

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hmmm, I’m confused :-?

could you please explain to us all how stopping children from going to adult sites counts as “molesting” them?[/quote]

The word molest means to use or take advantage of something and that’s what I believe is being done.

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“I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she’s too young to have logged on yet. Here’s what I worry about. I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say ‘Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?’”
–Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation

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Shame freenet cost so much in hard drive space that is.

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My parents and I don’t let my little sister, who is 8, surf the web without supervision. Yet I am so encredibly angry at jerks who try to lure kids in to these traps. Why am I so outspoken about this? Because as I was sitting next to her (she was 6 at the time), watching tv as she searched the web, I heard her say “Ewe, that’s gross.” As I was turning, she asked me, “Why do they have naked people on Disney?” As soon as I heard that and saw what it was, I hit the screen and took her upstairs.

What do I tell her? “It’s nothing, just forget it?” “Those people were doing a grownup thing?” “They were having sex?” This isn’t to mention how embarresing it was going to be to tell my parents. I wasn’t young, I was 17 at the time. Before, I had felt secure, and even confident, because I was right there with her to see what she saw. But in one instant everything changed. I felt like I had completely let my sister and my parents down. I blamed myself, my parents blamed me, at first. But after a while I started thinking, what could I have done. Type in the web address for her? Who’s to say I wouldn’t have accidently mistyped the same letter?

Making porn this available and this accecible to children on the internet is like putting playboys in school libraries. Some could argue that it is a violation of freedom of speech to not allow porn to be free to be put wherever they want, but then what’s to stop me from handing out playboys to every kid that walks by a street corner after school? Is that illegal? Why are playboys packaged in plastic and put on the top shelf? So they are not as accecible to children. An adult has no problem reaching up and grabbing it. They can pay the money for it and take it with them to do whatever they want to do with it. It’s accesible to adults, and that’s the way porn should be on the internet.

At one point, I had an addiction to porn. We didn’t have the internet at my house when it started. I looked at it at school, in the 6th grade. Why? Because it was accecible. We had filtering systems there, but there is so much that is misadvertised and misnamed, such as these sites talked about above, that I couldn’t help but stumble on to it once. And then I wanted more and more. I got caught my sophomore year in highschool, and I swear I have not purposefully looked at porn since. The times I stumble accross it I close the site immediatly. I’ve delt with my problem, but now I have to wonder, does my little sister want to see more? Porn on the internet needs to be like porn on the magazine rack, on the top shelf and out of reach of children.

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Forgive me Al, but I don’t see how putting scam-bags like Zuccarini out of “circulation” has to do with “molesting children” and “removing freedom of the press off the Internet”… If “amber-alert” was missused to “silence” some voice of truth and democracy, I would most probably be in the position to agree with you, but the article you provided us shows that law, being used in order to put some “criminal” out of business…

I agree though, that the “protection” of the children should not be considered as a “matter of the state” or law, but as a responsibility on behalf of the parents…

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Sorry Al, but I have to disagree with just about everything you posted. I have 2 6-year olds, they have their own computer, and I’ve got that thing locked up so that they can’t surf anywhere without having me or their mom look at the site first and decide if it’s OK. In other words, we take the responsibility to try and keep out children away from things they shouldn’t be seeing.

However, I am a computer-savvy dad and now where and how to do all of this. If my wife had to do it, she wouldn’t know where to even begin. This follows for a large portion of homes with computers in them; the users do not know where to look for these controls or how to use them, or are even necessarily cognizant that they exist.

My wife has gotten mousetrapped several times on porn sites while surfing for other things (like fabric for my son’s bedroom). In this case, the link was for NASCAR (she wanted a checkerboard winners flag pattern). Once there she had to come and find me to get rid of the site. Nor was this just the entrance page to a site (usually R-rated). This was hard-cord stuff. My wife doesn’t have any interest in seeing that stuff at all.

When someone registers a mis-spelling for a company with the purpose of generating revenue by taking advantage of a typing error, this is a form of fraud. Most businesses have legitimate complaint against someone mis-using their name, even a mis-spelling of it, to take away their custom.

In the case of an adult site using names that are similar to popular children’s sites, this is especially heinous. For example, while my kids can’t use their computer to get to such a site, my wife often goes to the kids sites with the kids looking over her shoulder. What’s to prevent her from hitting the typo and flashing X-rated pictures in front of out children? Even though I think she’d hit the monitor power button at warp speed, the damage would be done.

Also consider the case where slightly older children may be using a system at school or at the library. Many of the X-rated sites do NOT rate themselves and are accessible from the publicly available kiosks and computer stations.

Now, I’m not a prude in any way, shape or form. I am the #1 proponent of free speech and individual freedoms. The problem is that people out there are not being contentious of others. They are trying to take advantage of them, and do not care that they may be introducing adult materials to children. The case that you highlighted shows that system working as it was meant to. Noone in that case had their rights abused or molested in any way.

If this was a case of the government trying to shut down an X-rated site who was trying for legitimate business from legitimate sources, that would be a completely different matter. But this is not the case.

There’s a fine line between providing proper oversight and being “big-brother”, and it’s our job to see to it that government behaves properly. This was not such a case.

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There’s no sense in explaining why his ideas are stupid, everyone else knows and he’s not going to change his mind because some people have a cloud of illogic around their heads that never quite leaves… and in this case it’s a pretty thick cloud.

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There’s KOL service you know, which is a kids service provided by AOL, if you feel strongly about protecting children, then take matters into your hands and do it. This works far more better then some stupid law and you are getting paid at the same time, what could be more enjoyable ? I don’t care what children see, if the parents don’t want to find the right service and don’t care what they see, hey, fine with me, it’s there children.

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Bottom line is that KIDS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PUT UP WITHT THE THREAT OF PORN IF IT IS NOT THEIR CHOICE Who ever is redirecting this crap THEY ARE BLEEPIN’ PERVERTED AND THEY WILL EXPOSE THEIR OBSESSION AT WHATEVER COST, EVEN IF IT MEANS TO EXPOSE IT TO CHILDREN

doing this is ridiculus. end of discussion.

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It’s mostly profit, but hey people should do this. You have any idea what these amber freeks are doing ? They are trying to prevent them from reading bibles and looking at art, no really, they are, just a bunch of Nazi using children to justify such crap. What’s more sicking then that ? Oh yes, the SS loves the children compare to the SA %| %| %| That’s what they want you to think.