OT: obscene site

[Jim H]

I wasn't referring to obscenity so much in that part of my post, but any site that promotes illegal activities.  A site which promotes, say, circumventing copyprotection, or advocates non-violent resistance, is not obscene by any definition.  It's also not dangerous.  Hence my response.

I know about obscenity, which you might have noticed at the end of my post, quoted below

"One addendum: obscenity in US law is incredibly vaguely defined.

Here it is: "obscene applies to materials that appeal predominantly to a prurient interest in sexual conduct, depict or describe sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

This basically means any community can define obscene how it wants. You can't really do this on the internet, as it is far too broad and diverse of a community."



Post Edited (06-16-05 11:14)

[ulthar]

Jim H wrote:

>  A site
> which promotes, say, circumventing copyprotection, or advocates
> non-violent resistance, is not obscene by any definition.  It's
> also not dangerous.  Hence my response.
>

But a site that promotes rape IS dangerous.  Criminologists classify rape as a violent crime, not a sexual one.  The act of sex in sexual assault gives the attack a different 'flavor' than say beating someone over the head with a ball bat, but it is still considered battery.  Actually, in SC, the CSC laws specifically use the language "battery" in the statutes.  Other states may be similar.

You mentioned in your previous post that you would oppose regulation of a rape site (at least that's what I gathered from your post-if I'm wrong about that, please correct me). What would you say about a site that glorifies the murder  random citizens for the 'thrill' of it?  That is essentially what we have here.  They both would be fantasy, at least that would be the claim.

The bigger picture here, and the one the courts always have to juggle, is what serves the greater purpose to society at large.  The US Constitution does give the government the power to create and execute laws.  As I said before, not all speech is protected.  So, what serves the greater good?  Sites that promote (or at least endorses) violence against the innocent?  To a viewer of a 'rape site,' is it clear it is just fantasy?  Does the existance of such sites rationalize or minimalize the desires one might have to attack women?  We have to remember that these sites are PUBLICLY available.

We already know of one case (Susan) of someone with no interest in the rape site stumbling upon it accidentally.  It is not a 'free speech' issue at all, but one for which our communities should outright revolt at the thought of this sort of crap being freely available. I guess I'm saying that I am really, really saddened by the fact that there is a market for such a thing.

[By the way, if you've ever spoken a woman moments after she has been violently attacked and raped, you will know that no woman fantasizes about THAT.  I don't care if she is the world's biggest slut/porn wannabe, there is a BIG difference between having a knife to your throat for real and playing make believe.  That we trivialize it with 'fantasy' is, well, kinda disgusting.  It's kinda like a few years ago when the date-rape term caught on and there were people equating true violent attacks with garbage like "psychological rape" and chicks changing their minds AFTER the fact.  Truly mind boggling.]

[Jim H]

"By the way, if you've ever spoken a woman moments after she has been violently attacked and raped, you will know that no woman fantasizes about THAT. I don't care if she is the world's biggest slut/porn wannabe, there is a BIG difference between having a knife to your throat for real and playing make believe. That we trivialize it with 'fantasy' is, well, kinda disgusting"

I know what you mean.  

"Many women do read such sites, and some women have rape fantasies. It is important, of course, to note they don't actually WANT to be raped. It has more to do with fantasies of control manifested as rape."

I've known a couple women who had such fantasies.  I don't really have a lot else to say about the subject other than that.  I just thought it was something worth mentioning.  Perhaps I was wrong.  

"That we trivialize it with 'fantasy' is, well, kinda disgusting. It's kinda like a few years ago when the date-rape term caught on and there were people equating true violent attacks with garbage like "psychological rape" and chicks changing their minds AFTER the fact. Truly mind boggling.]"

Yeah.  So many people believe the whole "lying about being raped is common" story I find it amazing.  It has happened a few times, but it is *VERY* rare.  

"You mentioned in your previous post that you would oppose regulation of a rape site (at least that's what I gathered from your post-if I'm wrong about that, please correct me). What would you say about a site that glorifies the murder random citizens for the 'thrill' of it? That is essentially what we have here. They both would be fantasy, at least that would be the claim."

I'd be opposed to banning either type of site.  Really, there are few sites of any kind that I'd agree with them being eliminated.  I'm a bit of an extremist in such regards, generally on principle rather than real fear of a "slippery slope" type of thing.  It is possible that direct causal links between such sites and rates of rape and/or murder might change my opinion.

[Jim H]

You can try running a whois on the site.

http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml

[ulthar]

Jim H wrote:

> You can try running a whois on the site.
>

In the general case, that may just show information about the owner of the domain. It is always a starting point, however.  Especially look for the Technical Contact.

If the whois lookup only shows who owns the domain (and no real info on the host), you can also note the DNS servers in the whois lookup.  The DNS provider may or may not be the host, but either way, you could TRY to appeal to them to stop providing DNS service for that site.  This would be a minor inconvenience at best, as they would quickly find a DNS provider (or host their own DNS servers) that don't care.

Finally, you could dig a little deeper and find out who "owns" the network on which their host IP address resides.  Some infrastructure providers may not want that kind of thing on their network.  Most probably won't care, though, so long as it is technically legal.