Microsoft CopBot ‘listens for word fragments’
p2pnet news view | Freedom:- If you don’t want people to think you’re censoring something or spying on them, you say you’re simply doing a bit of harmless monitoring.
With that in mind, “Microsoft has just been awarded a patent for technology designed to automatically detect and remove ‘undesired words or phrases’ from all manner of digital communications, ranging from YouTube broadcasts to internet chat and songs,” says Times Online.
The MS CopBot listens for word fragments and if it, “thinks it hears a forbidden phrase, the software either fades out the offending syllables or simply replaces the rude word with a similar-sounding but clean alternative lifted from earlier speech without a second’s delay,” says the story, going on:
“With Microsoft’s software put in place by parents, children could listen to the most explicit rap music and hear nothing stronger than ‘gosh darn mother flippers’. Theoretically, the software could monitor thousands of digital TV broadcasts, radio stations and web chats simultaneously.”
But, asks Mark Harris, who wrote the piece, “Who’s to say that an overzealous Microsoft employee might not accidentally on purpose blacklist the names of rivals such as Apple and Linux?”
Who indeed?
Worse, he adds, “there are governments around the world that would probably go further still, suppressing dissent not with guns and clubs but by preventing people from even discussing concepts such as ‘protest’ or ‘freedom’.
“And that, I’m sure you’ll agree, is a freaking scary idea.”
Times Online – Microsoft patents web moderator robots, October 26, 2008
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It`s really easy!Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:44 am
haha and then kids go elsewhere then where MS is , then ms tries to only have them GO where they want and then THEN
we GET HACKING galore
the dangerous kinda that will breach large scale systems
enjoy.
you drive it under more n more and the hackers become better and better.
October 30th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Humans are nothing if not predictable, that’s for sure. Someone is always going out of their way to make a mountain out of every tiny mole hill they find. Personally I’ve never really understood the big deal about so called swear words. For starters, words only have meaning if we chose to give them such. More importantly, any word in any language can be a swear. Even completely made up words can be swears. The actual word being written/spoken is not nearly so important as the intent behind it, probably why we see new swear words and phrases on a frequent basis. The most recent one I heard was “douche nozzle”. Funny when you read it, but try saying it angrily at someone who is ticked off at you next time your out in public and see what kind of reaction you get from them. Conversely, call someone a swear word in a language they don’t understand and laugh at the blank look they return you. Swearing, like so much else in life, is all relative.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:38 am
This software is nothing short of evil.