Hi, something very orwellian has happened in the UK. An Cultural Secretary has been assigned a while ago, and instead of promoting culture, this guy has to restrict it. It's main focus is on the internet and the new thing to do is to 'internet-service providers should offer child-friendly web access.' I really wonder how he's gonna implement that without making us all clicking and filling in forms and letting the computer scan our ID card for every site. Or how is an ISP going to do that practically? (.. by banning certain websites?) (Isn't the point of the inet not to have any content restrictions?) Anyway, the best part of the article still has to come as he states that: "This isn't about turning back the clock. The internet has been empowering and democratising in many ways, but we haven't yet got the stakes in the ground to help people navigate their way safely around it [...] This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it, it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people." A wider interest then free speech? Is there a wider public interest then free speech on the inet? (the actual article is hard to find as it is published by the Daily Telegraph (you need a subscription for it), but there are plenty of sites which offer excerpts.) http://notnews.today.com/2008/12/27/culture-secretary-to-rate-all-websites/ -Kenny -- ================================================================== Kenny Billiau Web Developer Tel:+32 (0)9 331 36 95 fax:+32 (0)9 3313809 VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University Technologiepark 927, 9052 Gent, BELGIUM kenny.billiau@psb.ugent.be http://bioinformatics.psb.ugent.be ==================================================================