Last Updated on: 24th October 2019, 03:31 pm
Here’s the sequel to the whole filtering out sites that seem to have obscene words in them saga. Now, some numbnut was ordered to go through the Tampa fire station computers looking for evidence that firefighters were looking at porn. How were they doing this? They were looking for files that contained the words “gay,” “sex” and “fun” among others. Then, without doing any sort of screening, they cross-referenced those files with what user was signed in and blamed said user for the files. Not only that, they made the list public. Anybody see any problems?
I see three huge ones. Lots of people got nailed, har har, for looking at the Babcock furniture store and searching for news about sprinter Tyson Gay among other innocent things. Second, just because a said user is logged on doesn’t mean he was using the computer at the time when files were downloaded, but the poor guy has no way to prove he wasnt’ on the computer at the time. It’s beginning to look a lot like a witch-hunt. Third, what were they smoking publishing the list? Since the methodology was so unbelievably flawed, and no court was used to convict these guys, what right do they have needlessly destroying their reputations? Once the public hears that Joe smith was looking at porn, they have this way of believing it to be true, regardless of what Joe Smith says. And the more Joe Smith protests, the more they are likely to believe he did look at porn.
What morons. I hope their computer usage gets analyzed and they get accused of looking at porn when reading about assuming, or the constitution, or the functions of good methodology and proper screening. And don’t even get me started on the need for good statistical analysis.