TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Utah Proposes Requiring Wireless Passwords

Re: Utah Proposes Requiring Wireless Passwords

Sam Spade (sam@coldmail.com)
Fri, 20 Apr 2007 07:00:04 -0700

Brock Vergakis wrote:
> By BROCK VERGAKIS

> SALT LAKE CITY --In an effort to keep teenagers with laptop computers
> from driving around neighborhoods in search of a wireless Internet
> connection to look at pornography, state lawmakers are considering a
> proposal that would force homeowners to limit access to their wireless
> networks with a password.

> The proposed legislation comes from Cheryl Preston, an Internet law
> professor at the Mormon church's Brigham Young University. She's
> developed several proposals designed to keep children from seeing
> pornography on the Web.

> Legislators began considering them Wednesday.

> "If you choose to have wireless, and allow anyone within a geographic
> area (to access it), then you ought to be responsible for that and you
> need to take reasonable efforts to prevent access by minors to your
> service," Preston said.

> Under Preston's proposal, anyone who unintentionally failed to block
> access to their network would be fined. Intentionally leaving a
> wireless network open to minors would be considered the same as
> publishing pornography.

> The proposal also says that anyone who wants to leave a wireless
> network open could do so if they used a filtering program that blocks
> pornography.

> Preston has another proposal under which Utah's Internet service
> providers could be rewarded for filtering out pornography before it
> ever reaches homes, businesses, schools or telephones in this state.

> Under the proposal, Utah-based Internet service providers would be
> designated as "community conscious" by state government if they
> require that its Internet users don't publish obscene material, take
> down obscene material and comply with court orders to remove any
> prohibited content. She said tax incentives could also be offered to
> companies that participate in the program.

> "If you're a Utah provider we'll give you a designation that you can
> use in your advertising that you're an ISP that's chosen to (be)
> helpful in eliminating pornography. If you choose not to do that,
> great. But the citizens in Utah will be made aware," she said.

Are the Mormons being silly or dangerous with this one?

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Sam Spade: "Re: BlackBerry Back Up, Questions Linger"
Go to Previous message: hg.offshore@gmail.com: "Question About VOIP Telephony"
May be in reply to: Brock Vergakis, Reuters: "Utah Proposes Requiring Wireless Passwords"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page