Dave Enjoys » pornography

Pornography Prevalence…

davemackey — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 17:01:24 +0000

Take a moment to visit Chris Matyszczyk’s blog and view a visual chart of internet pornography utilization. I’m not sure, but I ponder whether the .xxx TLD would not be a good idea (though I know most evangelicals seem to disagree). To me, it would provide a very simple way to corner porn companies into one area of the market and it would allow for criminal prosecution of individuals who pursue consumers outside of the .xxx designation. It would also make porn filtering (at least of “legal” sites) much simpler.

Google Gadgets Pornographic – Beware!

davemackey — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 00:33:02 +0000

Google Gadgets are “Gadgets powered by Google are miniature objects made by Google users like you that offer cool and dynamic content that can be placed on any page on the web.”(1) Common gadgets include todo lists, currency converters, calculators, and apps that pull in feeds from various sites.

These Gadgets can be used anywhere on the web, in Google Desktop, in Google Docs, and on one’s Google iTalk pages. There is a huge gallery of Google Gadgets here(2). I browsed over tonight looking for some functionality to add to a spreadsheet (didn’t find it). Imagine my surprise as browsing through the directory I selected New and was greeted by a score of pornographic images.

Had I accidentally clicked on another directory? Nope, it was New. Was it possible that someone had just spammed the first page? Nope, the second and third pages revealed similarly disturbing images.

Some may think I’m simply overreacting. I’ve seen a Sports Illustrated cover and am screaming bloody murder. This is not the case. I’ve become accustomed to flipping past trashy apps in Google Android Market(3)…this is much worse. I’m talking overtly sexually explicit imagery.

I’m sorry to Google for posting this as a blog post – but I know that the fastest way to get a reaction on this topic is in this manner. Google, “Do No Evil” – a company which has set high standards in many arenas – needs to step up in this one. I don’t understand how an oversight like this has occurred – but it must be stopped immediately. I know Google can do it – I believe in them. Join me in calling upon Google to act in this manner by sharing this information (or a link to this post) with friends.

Whatever your position on pornography, I hope you can support the need for guarding our children against exposure to explicit images. Google SafeSearch does a fairly good job protecting our children against accidentally stumbling across pornographic materials – why is Google Gadgets not undergoing the same sort of filtering? Is it not as readily available to children? In fact, one does not have to search for the wrong words to turn up explicit materials – simply click “New” and you’ll be overwhelmed with the images.

Struggling with Pornography?

I’m concerned that some who read this post may be struggling with pornography or other sexual addictions and that this post could serve as a stumbling block for them (or you). If this is the case, I want to point you towards a couple resources that may help:

XXXChurch – “XXXchurch is designed to bring awareness, openness and accountability to those affected by pornography. We are an online community that tours the world speaking at colleges, churches and community centers. XXXchurch.com exists to help those who are in over their heads with pornography, both consumers and those in the industry.”
Porn Again Christian – A free eBook on pornography and masturbation by Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church.

Continue to fight the good fight.

Footnotes:
(1)http://www.google.com/webmasters/gadgets/
(2)Working with teenagers I know that the compulsion to look at pornographic images is oftentimes irresistibly strong. Knowing that some teenagers might click through if a link was present, I have decided not to post the link. Anyone who knows how to perform a web search can easily get to the Google Gadgets page – I just don’t want to facilitate such action by those who are already struggling to resist temptation.
(3)Not that the apps in Google Android Market are acceptable either – especially b/c of their accessibility to young children.

OpenDNS – free and extremely useful.

davemackey — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:41:15 +0000

OpenDNS is one of those great services that is simply a no-brainer. It is a bit technical and for the lay-person may take 30 minutes to 1 hr. to understand what exactly the service does, why it is important, and how to get it setup on their home network…but trust me – its worth it.

So, first off, what is OpenDNS? To understand OpenDNS one has to have an understanding of how the internet works. When we want to make a phone call we need to know the phone number of the individual we are calling. If we don’t know this number, we use a phone book to look up their number. We don’t simply page through all the numbers until we find the right one – we have a way of ordering the numbers so we can quickly find the number associated with a specific person – namely, we have their last name, first name in alphabetical order.

Computers work on a similar system – what we call the Domain Name System (DNS). When you type in www.yahoo.com or www.google.com or any other website (www.daveenjoys.com) your computer sends a request out to a DNS server (think a yellowpages or 411) and says, “Hey, what is the number for www.yahoo.com?” The DNS server replies back with something like 69.147.76.15. This is called the “IP Address” of the computer. So, just as you can’t type into your phone “Dave Mackey” and have it dial my cell number – so you cannot type into a computer www.google.com and get that website – it has to find the number and use that to get to the website. Obviously, all of this happens transparently to us as end users – and in a split second.

When you sign up with an Internet Service Provider (AOL, Comcast, Verizon Fios, Earthlink, etc.) they give your computer IP addresses at which their DNS servers reside. Whenever your computer looks for a website – it uses these DNS servers to find out the site’s IP address.

Okay, I know, I know…that was long and boring…But we are almost done. If your ISP provides a DNS server and its free and you never have to even know its there…why would anyone ever want to use OpenDNS? I’m so glad you asked!

Speed – The DNS servers provided by ISPs are notoriously slow and this oftentimes results in slow website loading as your computer waits and waits to find out what the IP address of a server is from the DNS server…before it can even try loading the website. OpenDNS is renowned for their speed – and this has continued even with extensive usage by individuals, companies, and organizations throughout the world.
Reliability - ISP DNS servers sometimes go down. OpenDNS servers are up all the time. Okay, okay, nobody can be perfect – but they are as close as you can come.
Parental Controls – Don’t want your teenager surfing for porn? Worried grandma might get suckered in by one of those phishing scams? OpenDNS provides robust (and free) filtering controls that protect not only against adult materials (if you want) but also against phishing and other illegal and shady scams. There is a huge amount of granularity here as well – that is, you can choose by category exactly what sites can and can’t be visited and you can individually whitelist (allow) or blacklist (disallow) individual sites.
Statistics - Want to know how your internet is being utilized? OpenDNS allows you to perform advanced statistical analysis on how your internet is being used. Think your internet is slow? Maybe its because somebody won’t stop downloading massive files all day and night.
There’s more, go over and check out OpenDNS’ page on their services to learn about all the great features.

Seriously – OpenDNS is amazing…and its not just for your home – its for your business, your school, your church – and its always free. So what are you waiting for? It’ll be a 30 mins. – 1 hr. well spent!