>This leads to bigger control problems.  For instance, let's
>suppose that your high school does not accept alt.sex.* as
>part of its Usenet newsfeed; if you offer your students a
>Gopher client, it doesn't matter, since they can simply con-
>nect to one of (at least) a dozen sites and read it anyway.
 
Funnily, no matter how I point the gopher, whether via menus or directly to
a specific site, I have *yet* to encounter an alt.sex that did not claim
the file was empty -- which I know to be untrue, because I have direct
access via a paid for account elsewhere.  Ergo, there is quite possibly a
way to filter this sort of thing ...  I haven't gotten around to asking my
systems people if this is really being done or whether it's a fluke.
 
>You can enforce age limits on your LISTSERV list, but can
>you limit access to your FILELISTs to 'subscribers only'?
 
You can limit access to the list and its logs, at least, to subscribers
only -- that's what we've done.  But how do you determine whether or not a
listmember is a minor?  Take his word for it?  Or demand that every
applicant send you proof of identity and age?  And how do you know that the
documents sent in are actually those of the applicant and not those of an
adult of his acquaintance?
 
>You can't effect control on this scale without invalidating
>the very tools we want our students to learn and use.  It's
>a Catch-22; darned if you do, and darned if you don't.
 
Which is something I address in a rather lengthy posting I sent in not five
minutes ago ...
 
>--Wes
 
Mario