_
                                  | \
                                  |  \
                                  | | \
                           __     | |\ \             __
     _____________       _/_/     | | \ \          _/_/     _____________
    |  ___________     _/_/       | |  \ \       _/_/       ___________  |
    | |              _/_/_____    | |   > >    _/_/_____               | |
    | |             /________/    | |  / /    /________/               | |
    | |                           | | / /                              | |
    | |                           | |/ /                               | |
    | |                           | | /                                | |
    | |                           |  /                                 | |
    | |                           |_/                                  | |
    | |                                                                | |
    | |      c   o   m   m   u   n   i   c   a   t   i   o   n   s     | |
    | |________________________________________________________________| |
    |____________________________________________________________________|

 ...presents...                  CYBERsitter
                                                        by Peacefire
                                                        01/01/1997-#323

             __//////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\__
   Est. 1984   \\\\\\/    xXx   BOW to the COW   xXx    \//////   Est. 1984

    __    _   _    __     _   _    __       _   _      __    _   _      __
   |__heal_the_sick__raise_the_dead__cleanse_the_lepers__cast_out_demons__|

     CYBERsitter, a World Wide Web blocking program from Solid Oak Software,
is advertised as an Internet safety tool that filters "offensive" content.
Demo copies are given away at the company web site, and the product is also
marketed by Focus on the Family, a long-standing backer of the Communications
Decency Act.

               CYBERsitter: Where do we not want you to go today?

     Among other places:

  * The National Organization for Women home page.
  * Yahoo web search for "gay rights."
  * All GNN member home pages.
  * The Peacefire web site, www.Peacefire.org.

     If CYBERsitter had been activated on your computer, you would not have
been able to see any of the pages listed above.

     A close look at CYBERsitter reveals an agenda that infringes on the
rights of children, parents and teachers wherever the program is used.
Despite the hype over "parental control" as an alternative to government
censorship, it is Solid Oak Software that takes control when CYBERsitter is
running on your computer.

                                 The Process

     CYBERsitter scans web pages, newsgroup messages, and Internet Relay Chat
(IRC) channels for words and phrases on its list of banned character strings.
These characters are replaced with blank space, and the program makes an
entry in a secret log every time a page is downloaded containing a forbidden
word.  The word "gay" is allowed, but not "gay rights," "gay community" or
"lesbian."  Likewise, "sex" by itself is OK, but not "sexual," "safe sex" or
"have sex."  Also banned are words like "naughty," "violence" and "fairy."

                          World Wide Web Censorship

     The National Organization for Women page and Peacefire's page are two of
the many sites - as opposed to words and phrases - that are wiped out by
CYBERsitter.  Solid Oak Software typically does not ban individual web pages
but rather entire domains.  All GNN member home pages are blocked.  Community
ConneXion, makers of the Anonymizer, and online communities such as WELL and
ECHO are banned.  The mega-ISP CRIS.com, owned by Concentric, is off limits.

     CYBERsitter's definition of "offensive" conten