E-Media Tidbits

journal.davidbyrne.com This is what musician David Byrne got when he tried to access the popular blog Boing Boing from the Denver International Airport.

The story actually broke on the weblog of former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. On Feb. 3 he posted: "There's free wifi at the Denver airport, which is a nice, sensible touch. But to my surprise, one of my habitual surfing sites has been blocked. I'm not totally shocked that alleged nudity might be blocked (if there is nudity on the Boing Boing site it's pretty rare and likely to be arty or ironic)... [But] not all blogs and wikis are blocked, just those filtered by Secure Computing's Web censorware."

Denver Post reporter Michael Booth learned that Sports Illustrated, Vanity Fair, and certain other mainstream publications that are available for sale at DIA newsstands also are blocked by Webwasher, a Secure Computing product. "DIA blocks anything displaying partial nudity or even provocative underwear ads. That cancels everything from major magazines to non-prurient sex-education sites. It does not block Wikipedia's illustrated entries for 'pornography' or 'erotica.' It blocks the barely-clothed supermodels of Victoria's Secret, but not the aggressive profanity of a humor site like The Onion."

...Does your publication run the occasional scantily clad or partially nude ad, photo, or illustration? You might want to check your Web stats to see which domains disappear from your traffic when you do so. Or open your laptop the next time you're traveling through Denver. You may be in for a surprise.