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

dailydot.com

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

#41

Post by jtheory »

Nux wrote: post #33
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Presumably the reason why inmates don't have unfettered access to the internet is to make sure they're not running some empire from behind bars but at the same time in this day and age this sounds like exceptionally cruel punishment. If there is one thing that would help an ex-convict to re-integrate into society it would be to be able to read about what is going on in the outside world and to be able to self-educate…

ZOMG! We should totally make a petition to allow inmates to use the internet. How they manage without Facebook & Twitter is beyond me!

Have you never tried teaching yourself a new skill using online resources?

Assuming you have (hasn't everyone, nowadays? Even just looking up recipes counts...) -- now think about how you'd pick up the same info, without the internet. While in prison.

Obviously there are technical hurdles, but damn -- I really want motivated, supervised prisoners to be able to learn new skills while they're behind bars.

Because I really want them to be able to earn a living & lead a normal life when they get out.

If they can't, what happens then?

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

#42

Post by EliRivers »

mattsfrey wrote: post #12
adaml_623 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably this is a more appropriate article as it hasn't just stolen someone's content. http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/santos-getting-online-after-... His name is Michael Santos and he did 25 years for running drugs.

That's tragic, I assumed to get 25 years he must have killed somebody

You can get 25 years for stealing a pair of socks in parts of the US.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-...

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

#43

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#44

Post by raldi »

Why did you post a link to a site which stole the content, stripped the author's name, mangled the text by repeating some of it twice, and omitted an extremely interesting video?

Moderators, please update the link so it points to the original source:

http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/santos-getting-online-after-...

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

#45

Post by salgernon »

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.

Give them a book. Paper.

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

#46

Post by vijayr »

jacquesm wrote: post #6

Presumably the reason why inmates don't have unfettered access to the internet is to make sure they're not running some empire from behind bars but at the same time in this day and age this sounds like exceptionally cruel punishment. If there is one thing that would help an ex-convict to re-integrate into society it would be to be able to read about what is going on in the outside world and to be able to self-educate…

I recently had the opportunity to talk to a few ex-prisoners about basics of websites, digital marketing etc (they are starting businesses). While their digital knowledge is not much, their street smartness and "real" world knowledge is unbelievable - I'd never ever have a tenth of their smartness.

It would be nice if they had internet access (perhaps in some restricted way)

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

#47

Post by legitsource »

jbrooksuk wrote: post #4

I've read about this guy before and what continues to puzzle me is how well versed his Internet terminology is. Things like "amazed me to see how the search engine indexed so much" just doesn't make sense, this guy was already aware of what indexing is and yet never used a computer inside prison? It also seems that he built up an entire online presence before he'd stepped out of prison, the way it reads.

That phrasing makes me think someone explained internet search engines like a card catalog at a library.

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

#49

Post by salgernon »

jtheory wrote: post #41
Nux wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZOMG! We should totally make a petition to allow inmates to use the internet. How they manage without Facebook & Twitter is beyond me!

Have you never tried teaching yourself a new skill using online resources? Assuming you have (hasn't everyone, nowadays? Even just looking up recipes counts...) -- now think about how you'd pick up the same info, without the internet. While in prison. Obviously there are technical hurdles, but damn -- I really want motivated, supervised prisoners to be able to learn new skills while they're behind bars. Because I rea…

Books. They are not backlit, and they get great battery life. Often, they have been localised.

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

#50

Post by jrochkind1 »

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.

The "prison IP range"? What's that? There are literally thousands of prisons in the US (4500. We've got more than any other country in the world, go us.)

Wikipedia certainly is not interested in the task of trying to track the IP addresses of each of these prisons.

(Also, I can guarantee you that the vast majority of these prisons are served by under-resourced barely-competent IT departments.)

(Also, it may not even be possible to distinguish between 'inmate' IP addresses, and IP addresses used by staff, or even staff working for the department of corrections not even physically at the prison. Why? Because there's no such thing as an 'inmate IP address', because right now inmates aren't allowed to use the internet at all. So you're asking under-resourced barely competent IT departments to set up a new IP address allocation regime. At 4500 different prisons.)

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