Return-path: Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 15:17:31 -0600 From: mchelton@cadvantage.com (marykchelton) Subject: Internet Names and Filtering Software Sender: owner-alaoif@ala1.ala.org X-Sender: mchelton@cadvantage.com (Unverified) To: ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom List Reply-to: mchelton@cadvantage.com X-To: "ASIS-L: American Society for Information Science" , Dan Robinson /Indexing Services , ALAOIF@ALA.ORG X-Listprocessor-version: 7.2 -- ListProcessor by CREN A former student sent me this recent, true anecdote which seemed worth sharing here: Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 14:38:42 -0600 Hi Mary Kay - I've been sending this note out to a couple of people, and thought you'd be interested in hearing this story - I know you're attuned to net censorship issues. Here at the Medical Center, my unit recently installed an Internet kiosk in the hospital, which is basically a computer in a big cabinet with an Internet connection. It's been locked down (after the first hour someone bookmarking the Playboy web site) to where you can't get off the KUMC web site. For further precautions, they installed a copy of SurfWatch, which I'm sure you know to be a website blocking software that runs down a master list of words and excludes sites in which these words are mentioned. Well, shortly after installing the software, the entire KUMC library's web site was blocked by SurfWatch. For several days, people tried to figure out what was causing it. Finally this morning everyone hit on it: the name of the library itself. It's the Archie R. Dykes Medical Library. Think about it. After several frantic calls to SurfWatch, and a few panicked sales & marketing reps intermixed with their technical staff flying on and off the phone, they finally admitted that their software excluded the use of 'dyke.' They're issuing an update filter immediately to all of their customers and an apology. You might hear about this on some of the anti-censorship lists. Funny... Mary K. Chelton Assistant Professor School of Library and Information Management Emporia State University 1200 Commercial Emporia, KS 66801 (316) 341-5071 work (316)342-9277 home fax: (316) 342-6391 home e-mail: mchelton@cadvantage.com (home) cheltonm@esumail.emporia.edu (work)