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What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

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Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#21

Post by livnev »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #15
davidiach wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most workplaces block certain websites anyway so I don't see why they could not do the same thing for inmates. Maybe they shouldn't be using Tor, but I don't see why Wikipedia is a problem.

It is ridiculous how some dangerous inmates manage to communicate with the outside world and continue to commit crimes through their network. By allowing them to use Wikipedia, they can leave coded messages as orders for fellow gang members. This happens with traditional mail and you can bet it'll be more wide spread with Internet access. I believe prisoners need the ability to learn and improve themselves while in p…

Rather than a dump on a prison server, it would be easier to get Wikipedia to block the prison IP range from editing. I believe that some schools (high schools/secondary schools, not universities) do this due to high rates of vandalism.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#22

Post by nnq »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #15
davidiach wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most workplaces block certain websites anyway so I don't see why they could not do the same thing for inmates. Maybe they shouldn't be using Tor, but I don't see why Wikipedia is a problem.

It is ridiculous how some dangerous inmates manage to communicate with the outside world and continue to commit crimes through their network. By allowing them to use Wikipedia, they can leave coded messages as orders for fellow gang members. This happens with traditional mail and you can bet it'll be more wide spread with Internet access. I believe prisoners need the ability to learn and improve themselves while in p…

How hard it would be to develop a patched browser (on a secured os, plus a firewall of course) that would only allow "read only web access" (not form submitting, no way to manually go to an url by entering it) to a limited number of domains? I guess the number of dangerous inmates with advanced tech skills or outside resources is very low, so you could separate these high risk guys from the rest of the pack. There's the possibility of high risk guys using the low-risk guys to communicate for them, but really, I don't think there are that many "criminal masterminds" out there... I mean the really dangerous ones are either in high security prisons, or they are too smart to get into prison anyhow.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#23

Post by piqufoh »

livnev wrote: post #21
MichaelApproved wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is ridiculous how some dangerous inmates manage to communicate with the outside world and continue to commit crimes through their network. By allowing them to use Wikipedia, they can leave coded messages as orders for fellow gang members. This happens with traditional mail and you can bet it'll be more wide spread with Internet access. I believe prisoners need the ability to learn and improve themselves while in p…

Rather than a dump on a prison server, it would be easier to get Wikipedia to block the prison IP range from editing. I believe that some schools (high schools/secondary schools, not universities) do this due to high rates of vandalism.

That wouldn't stop editing through a proxy.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#24

Post by D9u »

Arguably, the internet did exist in 1987, although not the same as the net we know today.

http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/ori...

Kudos to Mr Santos for his efforts at turning a new leaf in life, and I've also noticed that attention spans have decreased over the past few decades.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#25

Post by jacquesm »

piqufoh wrote: post #23
livnev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than a dump on a prison server, it would be easier to get Wikipedia to block the prison IP range from editing. I believe that some schools (high schools/secondary schools, not universities) do this due to high rates of vandalism.

That wouldn't stop editing through a proxy.

You'd have to have someone white-listing that proxy. And I don't see that happening.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#26

Post by D9u »

jbrooksuk wrote: post #14
dasil003 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine he did it the way we all did in the 70s and 80s: by digesting every shred of information from available print publications.

I guess there is that, it explains how he knew about Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn and also what an Apple iPhone + Safari is.

There are televisions in prison, and the net is all over broadcast TV programming.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#27

Post by MichaelApproved »

ffffruit wrote: post #16
MichaelApproved wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is ridiculous how some dangerous inmates manage to communicate with the outside world and continue to commit crimes through their network. By allowing them to use Wikipedia, they can leave coded messages as orders for fellow gang members. This happens with traditional mail and you can bet it'll be more wide spread with Internet access. I believe prisoners need the ability to learn and improve themselves while in p…

Give them access to a static, read-only dump of Wikipedia hosted on an internal prison server. Update said dump once every month.

You'd also want to limit it to the most vetted and monitored articles to prevent someone from the outside from leaving coded messages in articles. I figure the more popular articles could spot strange updates and eliminate them.

There's also nothing urgent about the access they get. Articles could be restricted to 1 or 2 years old to further prevent the transfer of timely information.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#28

Post by ffffruit »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #27
ffffruit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give them access to a static, read-only dump of Wikipedia hosted on an internal prison server. Update said dump once every month.

You'd also want to limit it to the most vetted and monitored articles to prevent someone from the outside from leaving coded messages in articles. I figure the more popular articles could spot strange updates and eliminate them. There's also nothing urgent about the access they get. Articles could be restricted to 1 or 2 years old to further prevent the transfer of timely information.

Sure, the process in my mind is the same as when they are given a TV. There is some level of filtering on what information they can obtain and a time delay of when they obtain it. Regardless there is so much information out there that even if you drop entire categories from a Wikipedia dump, it would still be left with a substantial ammount of knowledge for inmates to learn from.
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