Putting lipstick on the Internet porno-pig

If we can’t effectively define pornography in the real world, why would new laws for controlled Internet channels make things any better? No amount of lipstick can make this pig – CP80 – good-looking.

Before I begin this week’s tirade, allow me to point out that the Sony BMG fiasco keeps getting better. Sony has been accused of fraud, false advertising, trespass, violations of state and federal statutes prohibiting malware, and unauthorized computer tampering. Now it appears that the company also has violated software copyrights as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act!

Want more? Sony BMG knew way in advance of the snafu being made public that its digital rights management software was considered spyware! I couldn’t make this stuff up! See Gibbsblog for more details of things Sony-snafu-ish.

Finally, you can hear me opine about the Sony BMG fiasco on Ed Horrell’s “Talk About Service” show.

So, what other than Sony is on my mind this week? Well, the thing that has attracted my attention is the CP80 , which, let me say upfront, is the technological equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig.

CP80’s concern is pornography: They see the ‘Net as a veritable cyclone of perversity that threatens the very fabric of American society. The chaps pushing this initiative are from an outfit named ThinkAtomic, which is described as a “high-tech think tank” and is based in Orem, Utah.

The idea behind CP80 (which originally stood for Clean Port 80) is this: There are 65,536 possible ports (essentially communication endpoints for data exchanges using IP), and they should be treated as television channels.

In CP80’s alternate universe there would be a channel for clean general content – presumably Port 80 – and another for porn – Port 666, perhaps? There presumably would be yet more channels dedicated to content that other groups think should be controlled. (Gee, d’ya think that politics might get involved?)

The pitch is that defining what content is available on what channel – and having strict laws that punish those who use channels improperly – would make filtering easy.

CP80 expert Jill Manning, a marriage and family therapist in Orem, recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution. She discussed the “negative effects of Internet pornography on marriages and families” and called the CP80 proposal “a fresh, thinking-outside-the-box solution that we desperately need.”

Among those on board are Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah), as well as state Reps. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and Rob Bishop (R-Utah), all well-known technocrats and defenders of our constitutional rights. Also on board is, no surprise, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). That’s the same great philosophical thinker and upholder of rights who espoused the view that technology be developed to destroy the computers of people who illegally download music.

CP80 plays directly into the agendas of those whose political ambitions require the public to toe the line. CP80’s FAQ reads, “We expect their [sic] to be a government agency that is responsible for the upkeep of the standards and fighting any violators of the law.”

Upkeep of standards. Hum. Standards. What could possibly go wrong with that idea? Where in this brave new world would the text of Nabokov’s Lolita fit? How about the movie? Most important, who would decide?

If anything, the CP80 scheme is far less practical technically and legally than, for example, the Platform for Internet Content Selection, a far more sophisticated content-rating system that unfortunately didn’t get as much attention as it deserved.

In particular, the reliance on law to constrain content is a nightmarish prospect because, if we can’t effectively define pornography in the real world, why would new laws for controlled Internet channels make things any better?

No amount of lipstick can make this pig good-looking.

Write to backspin@gibbs.com on any channel. Or discuss in our porno-pig forum (yes, of course we have one).