ALERT!! LoofBot Launched

In article <6ip2p1$dwf@hubris.sevr.yhbt.edu>,
     Andrew Purella (a.purella@prime.yhbt.edu) wrote:
> Leech (leech@aol.com) wrote:
>:
>: I've been seeing: APPROVED BY LOOFBOT on the bottom of a
>: bunch of messages?  What the <HECK> is this supposed to
>: mean?  I don't ever recall noticing it until just a few
>    [chomp]
>
>Hey people!  Wake up and get the word out on this -- FAST!  Grab a crayon
>and write your Senator while you're at it.  (I hope you ninnies out there
>who voted republican are happy with yourselves!)
>
     [...snip,snip,snip...]

>     THE BALTIMORE CLARION-HERALD -- Friday, March 31st, 1995
>     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>     (UPA) An ad hoc Senate subcommittee on electronic communications
>has approved a plan to clean up profanity on the Information Superhighway.
>Spurred in part by debate on an ammendment to the General Telcom Reform
>Bill offered by Nebraska Senator J.James Exon (DEM.) and testimony from
>several prominent educational and religious groups, the plan directs
>the NSA (National Security Agency) to impliment a comprehensive filtering
>system of the popular Usenet discussion forums available on the Internet.
>     Enter LoofBot.
>     The LoofBot (Lexical Obscenity On-line Filter) is essentially a
>scripted computer program developed by technical specialists at the NSA.
>It taps into what is known as an NNTP feed, which carries these electronic
>messages between systems, and scans for abusive language.
>     When an obscene word (selected from an FCC profanity list) is
>encountered, the LoofBot takes appropriate action.  The word is deleted
>and replaced with a non-offensive word, more acceptable to Internet's
>growing adolescent readership.
>     "This is not censorship." insists Exon.  "The LoofBot doesn't distort
>the meaning of a message.  Only those smutty words.  We're just trying to
>bring electronic communications in line with laws covering television
>broadcasting.  We view these edits as the cyberspace equivilant of bleeps,
>like when that Madonna singer was on David Lettermen."
>     NSA spokesman, Nathan Fromage, anticipates that determined users
>will attempt to thwart the program, "probably by switching cases, leaving
>extra spaces or asterisks between the letters of an obscene word."
>A state-of-the-art fuzzy-logic module has be incorporated into the
>algorhythm to prevent this type of evasion.
>    Indeed, Fromage suspects that the cyber-community, long known for it's
>technical jargon, will ultimately develop it's own new list of profanities,
>either by using foreign curse words or creating them ex nihilo.
>    By then, of course, he'll be ready with LoofBot II.



     Yeah, I heard that <BLINK>ing rumor too.  Don't believe it!  It's a 
crock of <DOO-DOO>.  The guy who wrote that has his head up his
<FANNY>.  Have you *ever* seen a journalist who knew UseNet from a
Tennis Net?
     How the <HECK> do they plan to do it?  They'd have to swift through
every <BLINK>ing message in UseNet, parse out the profanity, insert 
inoffensive language, and then repost it.  Even if they *could*, there's gotta
be a million ways to <BLINK> it up.
     If those <GOSH-DANG> pinheads think they can dictate my language,
they can just kiss my <TUSH>!!

> and write your Senator while you're at it.  (I hope you ninnies out
> there who voted republican are happy with yourselves!)

     BTW, Exon is a *Democrat*, you <TUSH>hole!!

     Dave Furstenau  df@unlinfo.unl.edu

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Approved by: LOOFBOT (04/01/95)
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