From: dale@mkseast.uucp (Dale Gass)
Subject: Re: Porn?
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems, Atlantic Canada Branch
Distribution: can
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 01:48:50 GMT

bdb@becker.GTS.ORG (Bruce Becker) writes:
>Here's a news article from the Thursday May 28
>Toronto Globe & Mail:
>		PORN CLEANED OUT OF COMPUTER

Here's one from the Friday, July 24th Halifax Chronicle Herald:

		ONLINE PORN REACHES ACADEMIA
	
		By James Latter, Staff reporter

Online pornography has reached the halls of higher learning.

Nova Scotians can obtain pornographic photos and stories through an
international computer network used by most of the province's
universities for the exchange of research, computing and educational
material.

"Some of it is extremely degrading to women," said Daniel MacKay, an
operations manager for Internet, on a day when a brief search of its
system revealed a story entitled How to Make Ordinary Furniture Into
Bondage Tools.

Internet, the world's largest computer network, connections millions
of users around the globe, providing and invaluable resource for
academics, scientists and increasingly, businesses.

But sources agree it has also become a way to transmit material that
is violent and degrading to women, including pictures and stories
about bestiality, sexual torture, and rape.

Two years ago, a pornographic fantasy story called Cindy's Torment,
which described a secretary's sexual brutalization by her employer,
was among the sexually oriented material removed from Dalhousie
University's computer system following complaints from both sexes.

"It turned my stomach," said Peter Jones, Dalhousie's executive
director or computing services.  He said the institution has since
developed a policy allowing prompt removal of anything "that may be
illegal" or that contravenes university policies on sexual harassment
or racism.

Such material forms only a tiny percentage of information that appears
on the system, said Mr. MacKay, who works for the Nova Scotia
Technology Network.  The network is a private corporation which manages
the local Internet branch from Halifax.

The network does not solicit or promote the material, he said.

However, any subscriber can place or access such material through an
electronic bulletin board, said Mr. MacKay.

The same type of material can be sent from one subscriber to another
by electronic mail.  But electronic mail is private, and is not
monitored by the company.

Information placed in the system can be traced back to a subscriber
and contracts with the subscribers clearly state "the network is not
to be used for illegal purposes," said Internet general manager
Michael Martineau.  "We can shut a person's connection down."

Jennifer Bankier, a law professor who chairs Dalhousie's senate
committee on computing and information technology, feels that most of
the Internet material "is totally innocent."

But Ms. Bankier said Cindy's Torment was "a relatively clear case of
criminally obscene material."

There is "a very strong argument" that the university should remove
this type of information to avoid potential criminal liability, she
said.

Even so, she said, Dalhousie is trying to define a computing policy
that does not infringe legitimate free speech.

"I'm certainly not a great defender of some of the stuff that comes
across the network," said David Trueman, a computer systems
administrator at Dalhousie.

"But it's very easy to get carried away with censorship," warned Mr.
Trueman.  "One person's idea of offensive material is another's idea
of creative erotic literature."

Provincial and federal RCMP spokesmen said there have been no
complaints about the material.

"In our opinion, it's not against the law, although some of it is
pretty nasty," said Paul Teeple, a civilian computer security officer
with the RCMP in Ottawa.

"If you were distributing it to minors, there might be a (criminal)
charge," but to obtain the material, you must actively search it out,
he said.

"It's not like a (computer) virus that spreads throughout the system,"
he said, and it doesn't originate from Internet.
-- 
 Dale Gass, Mortice Kern Systems, Atlantic Canada Branch
Business: dale@east.mks.com, Pleasure: dale@mkseast.uucp