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Good post. In general, people do not go off because they have Internet; they go off and then they use the Internet.

I remember reading a flyer that said (in the name of some random “gedolim”) that if someone owns a computer, even if it has no Internet access and even if they only use it to type Chiddushei Torah, the Torah they type is not Toras Emes and they get no s’char.

Wondering if the same applies to any sefer typeset and printed in the last seventy or so years.

I think that you people have no clue what addiction looks like and how a shmutz addiction totally destroys someone’s life be it a man woman child… Read some real stories and then come back and post your naarishkiet.

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Just my hapence

Theres a very big yetzer hora called “it’s not so bad” or “what’s the big deal” that’s basically how the yetzer hora ruins people on the Internet. You look at this then you look at that and then you look at that and before you know it you are hooked and all you want to look at is that and all your thoughts are about that….

All filters are inherently problematic since the filters’ AI can’t tell whether the words in question are respectable or not. For example, if you target the word “naked” you block out halachic discussions about what one wears in a mikva, married women’s hair, and how much clothes you need to wear when davening.

The best solution is to remember that Ha-Shem is monitoring at all times (not to mention your boss, the NSA, perhaps the Mossad, and that any clever teenager can hack your computer to see what you’ve been looking at).

WIY, re: ‘shmutz” on the internet. Are you speaking from experience? You know, I’ve heard lots of horror stories about the evils of the internet, how it drives kids (and adults too) OTD, how it destroys marriages, ruins lives, etc., but I have never actually met anyone or knew anyone so affected. It’s always, ” heard it from a friend of a guy who knows someone…”. I’m sure that some folks, somewhere have a problem with Internet obsession (not “addiction”. See Just My hapence above) but I just don’t see it as a community crisis.

Re: Filters. If you install a really effective filter on you machine, don’t expect to be able to do useful work on it and do expect occasional lockups. The best filter is the one between your ears.

I agree with jbaldy22, I’ve seen that a lot myself.

The OTD phenomena existed a long time before the worldwide web was in existence.

Although, I’m not trying to minimize the dangers of the Internet.

I don’t believe that many of the kids who go off even know why they are off and how they ended up there. Usually the kid has to come back on to a certain degree before he gains the self awareness and honesty to really understand what happened and how he got there.

What I mean is usually the kid is unhappy he will then start making lifestyle changes and meet bad friends and one thing leads to the next. If you asked him why you are off the derech he wouldn’t say “because I met bad friends who introduced me to drugs and who knows what…” In most cases the kids will say that it was my Rebbe or parents or whatever. The Rebbe may have been what made him upset but without the Internet or without the bad friends he would never be off the derech. So with Internet what happens is that the person is usually unhappy with their life for whatever reason and become curious and start “looking for things” either out of boredom, unhappiness, or pain or whatever. Then unfortunately they learn about negative things online and they change their lifestyle and start going to the places they learned about online…

WIY you couldnt have said it better, there is no point in arguing these people will say whatever they think regardless of what you say if they havent had a firsthand experience (and i mean by firsthand having a close relationship whether friend or family who suffers from this)and you know what; god bless them, but unfortunately they are like kids who tell their parents “but my friend said that its not so bad” or “it looks so funny/weird”… may hashem bless them that they never have to understand why those ads are so crucial…it may sound over done bec we always hear old rabbis with long white beards talking about “shmutz” or the “terrors of the internet” and so that already gives it a

“yeshivish” look to the problem,but ask the people who were part of families that were torn apart by it if they think its a “jewishy problem”

ps. do they not think that a site like GYE has many many psychologists working with them and they would know by now what the best way to put up and ad would be ??? and the proof is…THIS THREAD LOL the fact that we are discussing this right now!

The biggest filter is your eyelashes!!!

If you want to look you will.

If you stop and prevent yourself from looking you won’t look.

Come on! What about self control?

Okay, I know it can be addictive and perverted people will continue watching whatever they want regardless of having filtered internet.

There are psychiatrists/psychologists who specialize with these specific addictions.

The majority of men(or women) will not need these filters.

lol r9913 …l-o-l

so sad how naive the world is in the darkest of times, good luck!

I would reread r9913’s post.

I agree, The same goes with the Smoking thread.

It’s your life you make choices that you have to live with. I don’t think having a filter eliminates the problem. Practice self control.

Truthfully, If someone wants to watch whatever they will regardless. Those people need help.

@jbaldy22

No-one’s talking about the asifa booklet here, and in any event it barely if at all mentioned OTD rate, instead it goes on about the real risks to all of us. You can find it by searching for KinusBrochure.pdf – have a good read. I or you may not agree with all it actually says, but please don’t distort the argument. (Find a copy of the later Flatbush or European version if you want a more moderate view that still advocates filters as the only way to use the ‘net).

Some are trying to avoid the filter solution by exaggerating the argument and pretend it’s about reducing OTD rates – that’s a straw man, and appears to be an effort at hiding the true undeniable risks of full Internet exposure.

> I haven’t spoken to a single person who has had a happy experience with a filter.

You either have very few acquaintances, don’t speak much, have incredibly unlikely friends, or are lying. Either way, that’s patent nonsense, unless you have a very narrow definition of “happy”.

> if you are using a computer for business purposes waiting for tag or a competent technician to come fix things is not an option.

1. TAG or a competent technician can advise you how to set up and choose a filter in a business environment. Your typical “IT pro” may recommend K9 for a business environment, for instace which is usually a bad idea. As a example, OpenDNS can be configured on the router and the chances of it affecting anything are next to nill. (And don’t tell me it’s not an effective filter, unless you know how to set it up properly).

2. TAG, for instance offer an amazingly quick turnaround time (often within an hour) for their clients in unblocking miscategorised sites and addressing compatibility issues etc. – better than most paid technical support services. Your arguments remain nonsense.

My business and job relies on using the internet every minute of the day, accessing a massive array of sites and internet services. I have never had my filter interfere with my work, much less had to fix anything.

Filters aren’t a perfect solution and I won’t state they won’t ever limit you from legitimate business, nor will I say the will definitely never cause issues (that would be as false as saying “no-one’s had a happy experience with a filter”), but so do seat belts on a car, or any of the syog latorah.

3. Anyway, this all avoids the crux of the argument: if your business relies on viewing grossly unsuitable material, do you think there is a Rov in the world who would agree you should operate that business? If not, then is just a question of how big the risk it, and your awareness of that risk.

That access to the complete internet is a problem waiting to happen is self-evident, it doesn’t need me, or an asifa to convince a worldy person of that. If you have another solution besides filters let us know. If your only answer is “self control”, I have a cheap river-crossing to sell you.

@Ash

If you think that the arguments made in that booklet make sense to you than that explains the rest of what you said. There has been a lot of hyperbole used in regards to the internet and in my mind it is incredibly counterproductive. Again the asifa booklet is exhibit A.

You are making a lot of assumptions about my business and my views on the subject which are not true. In my mind its not a one size fits all solution – to me kids, teens, adults at home and adults at work all need different levels of filtration (or in the case of kids no internet at all). Also various families will have different needs – ie. someone in medical school (or in college in general) will have a very difficult time with a filter. Anyone who runs a business which is involved in developing/testing software will tell you that filters will not work for them for obvious reasons and it has nothing to do with viewing inappropriate sites.

No. dinner is normally twice a week (on a good week). But it would have come up or he’s doing a good job at hiding things…this whole idea leads to spying on your husband or visa versa…. Have you?

> If you think that the arguments made in that booklet make sense to you than that explains the rest of what you said.

Um, I said “I or you may not agree with all it actually says, but please don’t distort the argument.” We’re all on a non-essential web site right now, so no one here will be able to defend all its arguments – that would be hypocritical.

> Again the asifa booklet is exhibit A.

Again, I said: “No-one’s talking about the asifa booklet here”. It was you that claimed that the asifa booklet blamed the ‘net on OTD rates, and I merely challenged that and provided you a method of obtaining it, so you could read it and see that you were wrong and see the OTD debate is a strawman.

> You are making a lot of assumptions about my business and my views on the subject which are not true. In my mind its not a one size fits all solution – to me kids, teens, adults at home and adults at work all need different levels of filtration (or in the case of kids no internet at all).

That’s what I was hoping you meant, especially the “adults at work” bit – but you certainly didn’t say it initially. You were originally claiming that businesses simply couldn’t operate properly if they had filtered internet. That is nonsense. Filters work for just about everyone – it’s just a matter of getting good advice and setting the right level – and the level is typically far higher than most people believe possible.

> Also various families will have different needs – ie. someone in medical school (or in college in general) will have a very difficult time with a filter.

Not the medical student argument again! Please! Every time there’s a filter discussion someone mentions the poor medical students.

They are one of a very small minority who would have to have a very permissive filter, or one that’s easy to override, or a monitoring system instead.

By the way, on monitoring systems – it doesn’t (and usually shouldn’t) be a spouse that monitors. But if the concept shocks you because of the lack of trust that’s implied, then you won’t like learning hilchos yichud. (It is true that monitoring systems are far more difficult to use effectively than filters.)

Frankly, people in medicine spend their careers seeing stuff that for a normal yid would be totally ossur but their jobs saves lines and halachah permits this. It’s irrelevant to the discussion unless you like arguing in extremes (rosh yeshiva vs women’s doctor).

> Anyone who runs a business which is involved in developing/testing software will tell you that filters will not work for them for obvious reasons and it has nothing to do with viewing inappropriate sites.

I work in developing software and that’s not true.

I can view more sites in a day than many people see in a year.

My business relies on accessing countless websites and our internet traffic passing through multiple proxies, redirects, DNS systems and heterogeneous networks in one piece so I know about all the ways that filters can affect software businesses but it’s untrue that “filters will not work for them”.

There are filters (e.g. DNS-based) that will work even in the most extreme example, and sometimes multi-tier solutions are necessary. The state-of-the-art is improving every day and having a legitimate sites blocked is increasingly rare. Like email spam fighting, it will soon be a largely solved problem.

Rarely, a business may have to change some software if it absolutely conflicts with every filter that’s currently out there, but even in this <u>extreme</u> case I ask you the same answered question as above: “if your business relies on viewing grossly unsuitable material, do you think there is a Rov in the world who would agree you should operate that business? If not, then is just a question of how big the risk it, and your awareness of that risk.”.

Lawyers would recommend a filter too in a business environment because it protects from a particular class of legal problems that employees with internet access can cause.

If it’s important enough, we would save no expense to get the right advice & filter.

Some people baulk at spending the price of a esrog on a filter that will work with their business because it’s not free, so they leave it unfiltered because the free one makes the ‘net unusable. It’s simply because they don’t appreciate the problem – because they haven’t seen first hand the mess the ‘net can create – yet!

It’s fair enough to criticise “hyperbole”, but the flip side is that many people are naive to the multifaceted dangers of unadulterated internet access (often because they haven’t yet been affected), and believe “self-control” is a reasonable alternative. If they knew what rabbonim and the pros know, it wouldn’t be a debate.

In fact, even the secular world are waking up the problems that a generation of exposure to the unfiltered internet will cause. In the UK they are starting to mandate that every internet connection be provided with a filtering option. And that’s from the government of a bastion of the liberal free-speech western world! Yes, they mean kids, but us adult Jews should not want possible access to inappropriate material either.

@Ash

Here is a paragraph from the booklet “It begins with running late for davening; next the daily shiur is dropped. How many mothers

and wives learned only months later that the

all-important shiur was really a daily chavrusa

with Mr. Internet? Minchah falls to the wayside

Why bother dressing as a frum Jew when there

is nothing frum about the person anymore. “

Because no one is talking about it (the asifa booklet) I can’t bring it as a proof of how certain organizations have a nonsensical view in regards to the internet? That seems kind of silly to me. Additionally you did say “in any event it barely if at all mentioned OTD rate, instead it goes on about the real risks to all of us” which did imply that you had read it and agreed to at least most of its content. I encourage viewers of this forum to read it and see what I am referring to – I have quoted some pretty insane passages from the thing before on this forum. There was actually a lively discussion about the booklet on this forum a while ago.

About the adults at work I meant that many can not use a filter. I don’t know what kind of standards qa has at your office but in most normal companies you aren’t allowed to install anything extra on a clean system. Having a filter defeats the whole purpose of running the tests. Talk to people who are in college and you will find out how frustrating it is for them to get by with a filter. And yes there are a substantial amount of medical students and women who need to access womens health related sites which have things a filter will find objectionable.

I have adblock on my computer which seems to do a pretty good job knocking off every popup and ad that I can throw at it. Also how do you propose to lock said filter in a way I can’t get around it in about 3 seconds? For adults the best you can really do is make sure you don’t come across the stuff if you aren’t interested. What kind of person or situation are you proposing that a filter will protect from (again we are referring to adults here) assuming that the person has at least a minimal amount of proficiency. Trust me I have helped plenty of friends struggling with filters they do block things they need all of the time and they are also for the most part ridiculously easy to circumvent.

I know plenty of developers and not a single one with a filter despite the fact that these people are highly educated about the technology out there and the dangers of the internet and they all feel the same way I do.

In regards to monitoring systems considering that you claim to be developer you gotta be kidding me. I have no interest in someone being able to reconstruct my ideas and actions from a browsing history – that could completely kill my business and I am sure that it would do the same to many others. Besides for the fact that again since I like many developers out there make a lot of use of virtual machines would make one completely useless.

You basically are asserting that since filters work for you they should work for everyone. To me that doesn’t seem like a very valid assertion.

@jbaldy22

Warning: this is a very long post (the page-down key may help!) but I do hope it’s useful to many who have the same questions or concerns as jbaldy22 ]

> Here is a paragraph from the booklet …

As I said “it barely if at all mentioned OTD rate, instead it goes on about the real risks to all of us.”. You quoted one paragraph which I read, but that is not the thrust of the asifa booklet if you read it with a bit of objectivity – it mainly talks about addiction and the harm viewing inappropriate material can cause.

You and I may find the language hyperbolic, but you can’t say their argument was about OTD rates, it you read the whole thing (and it does go on a bit, I only got to about 10000 words with only one reference to OTD before I gave up).

> Because no one is talking about it (the asifa booklet) I can’t bring it as a proof of how certain organizations have a nonsensical view in regards to the internet?

Sure you can, it will just be besides the point.

> I don’t know what kind of standards qa has at your office but in most normal companies you aren’t allowed to install anything extra on a clean system.

This is besides the point, and does demonstrate that you don’t know the filtering software industry. That’s no detriment on your behalf, as many experienced techies don’t know the variety of filters in this large field of technology.

Filtering software does not have to be installed on the machine. DNS-based software (which I mentioned twice) is installed on the network link (typically the WAN/ISP gateway router) and is transparent to all the computers within the network – and that’s just the simplest form of network filtering!

There are many other router-based filters that work with actual content examination.

Most large corporations already filter against inappropriate material to some degree (yes, even website development businesses or itnernet companies) because it protects them from legal problems caused when employees access these sites – and that’s in the secular world protecting themselves from being sued rather than caring deeply about their employee’s neshomas.

Even for those that don’t: you may not realise it, but almost every single professional office network is already filtered – just not necessarily against inappropriate material. Any modern enterprise router has some form content-aware (packet-sniffing) firewall and typically some sort of anti-bot and anti-malware filtering, often using a central registry or blacklist which prevents certain sites from accessing or being accessed, and often content-aware.

This largely the same technology that enterprise filters use too!

Use Google Chrome, and you’ve roughly got the same technology built into its browser, as yet it’s the most popular browser among geeks. Why? Because it protects you from bad sites (malware) and you trust the source (Google’s categorisation). Does it ruin the ‘net? No. Do software developers and office workers curse it? No. Why? Cause it works. So do enterprise-grade filters and soon they will every as effecitive and transparent as Google’s malware filter.

By the way, if you’re talking about software engineers, we normally need admin/root access to our own computers due to the range of software that coding requires.

> Having a filter defeats the whole purpose of running the tests.

Please explain what you mean by this?

In my business, having our software and sites work even with a filter means it is far more likely to work on unfiltered systems!

Also, if you’re building a website and it does get flagged as inappropiate that would be a real problem for you as many people have filters (Jews and Gentiles alike) and you’re excluding them as your customers.

> Talk to people who are in college and you will find out how frustrating it is for them to get by with a filter.

Why? Why are college students different than the general Jewish population?

> And yes there are a substantial amount of medical students and women who need to access womens health related sites which have things a filter will find objectionable.

Fine, as I said let them have a permissive filter, or no filter, but that’s an extreme case. On that, we can mostly agree. Now, back to 99.9% of the world …

> I have adblock on my computer which seems to do a pretty good job knocking off every popup and ad that I can throw at it.

Sorry, I’m not sure what that has to do with filtering?

Ad-blocks are quite dumb systems that typically work purely on the type of window that’s launched, not the content therein (as far as I know – I haven’t looked into it).

A good comparison is email-spam filtering software where the state of the art is excellent and we’re basically untroubled by spam when 10 years ago it almost made email unable. Filters are becoming this way with ever fewer false positives.

The arguments you make about software filters are years out of date.

> Also how do you propose to lock said filter in a way I can’t get around it in about 3 seconds?

You’re apparently a techie – and most people aren’t and can’t get around them quite so easily, especially if set up right but your question remains very valid in many situations.

I should point out that that an enterprise filter for a corporate network is actually quite hard to get around, even for a techie. Ever tried to break through a firewall? Not easy!

An even better question you should be asking is that even if you couldn’t get around it, you could just buy a new unfiltered system that your work/family don’t know about!

These are good questions, so thank you raising this valid point we can discuss:

The answer to both your and my question is that for both you have to take a positive step to get around it, and that moment of workaround will hopefully give you time for the “ruach shtus” (see sotah 3a) to pass or to “histakel besholoshoh devorim” (pirkei ovos).

The goal, as I understand it, is to ensure that the psak halochoh is clear that every Jew on the net must have a filter. Some filter, one that works but doesn’t allow you access to anything inappropiate – each on their own level (like hechsherim or meat kashrus) like you said but this applies to basically everyone in all situations, unlike what you originally said.

(Ok, ok, not the medical students)

It’s like hilchos yichud. Who says you need a shomer? And if you do have e.g. 3 men at night who says I still can’t commit an aveirah?

The answer is that the rabbonim know the risks and define the safeguards. No-one’s stopping you bypassing it but at least you know you are outside what’s permissible just by not having a filter.

As soon as you bypass the filter, you are unfiltered. Unshomered. Not kosher.

I beleive in year’s to come, not having a filter will be like not having a hechsher on a butcher. There’s nothing to say it’s not 100% glatt and you can trust everyone involved but everyone will react in shock if you buy there and won’t eat at your house. It’s just as seemingly illogical (The butcher can bypass a mashgiach! What’s the point!) but just as effective if you understand human psyche as well as gedolim do, and as deeply as the Torah (that demanded rabbonim make syogim – protections) does.

Arguments such as your’s meant that we blindly entered the first 15 year’s of the ‘net without any safeguards and awful risks that went unchecked. Just because filters aren’t perfect doesn’t mean they are useless and shouldn’t be used by everyone (on some level).

> For adults the best you can really do is make sure you don’t come across the stuff if you aren’t interested.

I really don’t understand this attitude. You seem to know the internet. How likely is it that with the amount of surfing you probably do each day that you’ll be able to ensure you never stumble across something terrible? If you haven’t yet, I’m afraid it’s almost inevitable.

As to: “if you aren’t interested”, we know “ein aputropus larayos”. Enough said on a forum that’s read by young readers.

> What kind of person or situation are you proposing that a filter will protect from (again we are referring to adults here) assuming that the person has at least a minimal amount of proficiency.

> Trust me I have helped plenty of friends struggling with filters they do block things they need all of the time

Well then, they haven’t been set up correctly, or they don’t understand why it’s been blocked. Some apparently innocent and popular internet tools are but a millisecond away from the most terrible soul-destroying content imaginable.

I’m afraid I can’t give examples as this itself may be a michshal and this is a public forum, but if the mods allow (mods? you can contact me personally and I’ll elaborate.

> and they are also for the most part ridiculously easy to circumvent.

Not if they’ve been set up correctly. There are “filters” and then there are filters!

> I know plenty of developers and not a single one with a filter despite the fact that these people are highly educated about the technology out there and the dangers of the internet and they all feel the same way I do.

Anecdotes are not statistics. And again, you really need to get out more because the world Jewish of Jewish software professionals is replete with pros who have very strong filters.

And again, your you’re statistic of 1, I counter with mine. I am a software engineer and business owner, and I can use a filter without issue because it’s been set up right.

I repeat, the most experienced software engineer or technologist in the world can still know next to nothing about filters. The world of technology is vast and a seasoned Java expert, for instance, can know nothing about DMA disk caches, or FPGA chips, or filters even if they think they know all the technology out there!

> In regards to monitoring systems … I have no interest in someone being able to reconstruct my ideas and actions from a browsing history – that could completely kill my business and I am sure that it would do the same to many others.

First of all, as I said, monitoring systems are tricky to get right – far trickier than filters and in businesses often will interfere. I suggested that for the extreme case, like a medical student who cannot have a filter, they may be the only protection of some sort that works.

Just to clarify as there seems to be some confusion on your part: effective monitoring systems don’t record your every keystroke, nor do they let anyone expect one specific third party access the logs or get alerts, and the monitoree would chose the monitor. They also don’t log anything – know one can be bothered to monitor everything you; good monitoring software only flags concerns and ignores the rest.

If you were in need of a monitoring system, could you not find one person that you trust enough to monitor you? In fact, even worse, is everyone you know unethical enough to steal your business if they could reconstruct your ideas?

By the way, if you’re in the software world then you should know that if a third party could re-implement your business idea from scratch just by seeing your idea, and despite you having a head start, then your business plan needs a rewrite.

> Besides for the fact that again since I like many developers out there make a lot of use of virtual machines would make one completely useless.

No, not if you have enterprise network filtering (ISP-based, router-based or both).

Anyway, virtual machine’s use the host connection so it’s often at the mercy of the same filter as the host. Almost all of your arguments are against software-based filters like K9 which are simply not a good match for many business environments anyway and most likely the sort of filter that your acquaintances had such trouble with.

> You basically are asserting that since filters work for you they should work for everyone. To me that doesn’t seem like a very valid assertion.

You basically are asserting that since filters don’t work for those you know, they don’t work for anyone. To me that doesn’t seem like a very valid assertion.

But to answer your problem: no, I have helped many, many people set up proper filters – far more than you have heard grumble about them I’ll bet. And they come back to me if it all doesn’t work well first time, so I know precisely about how well they work.

FOR ALL THOSE WHO ARGUE STILL AGAINST FLTERS, just to bring the point home … make sure you read the last 2 sentences again and again and again

“As Rabbi Yosef Viener from Agudas Yisrael Monsey said in a recent talk on

Family Security:

a problem in Chinuch Habanim or Banos, or a very fine Bochur who will call

affected, or a family member, or a neighbor, or the chaver sitting next to them

in shul, or the chavrusah sitting across from them in yeshiva. If you

that there is no single problem facing the yechidim in klal Yisrael and

communities at large, there is no bigger problem than this. Nothing

lightly. Keep in mind, the people who come to me are so frum and so upset

there are thousands of people who would never even speak to their Rav. I

than then 90% chance that people have already been Nichshal in your house.

a problem in Chinuch Habanim or Banos, or a very fine Bochur who will call

begging for help.

Meh. Correlation does not equal causation. You’re assuming that the internet is causing the problem, instead of that the problem is causing their wanting to do those things on the internet. ????

lol wow dont you see how you are lying to yourself !?! WAKE UP! of course there were outlets before the internet but that isnt the point, the point ist that now someone who is INNOCENT AND PURE can stumnble and hit the lowest lows! you sound like crazy people taking every word that is said and showing

“And yes there are a substantial amount of medical students and women who need to access womens health related sites which have things a filter will find objectionable.

Fine, as I said let them have a permissive filter, or no filter, but that’s an extreme case. On that, we can mostly agree. Now, back to 99.9% of the world …”

Hmm, I didn’t realize that women who are interested in their own health comprise less than 0.01% of the world. That’s interesting. #sarcasm

WIY, why not sell it to a goy and donate the money to tzedakah? No need for bal tashchis in the process of removing the michshol.