12:00 p.m. 12.Feb.99.PST How does a 20-year-old college student turn software code into a protest against censorship? By using it to break other code. Brian Ristuccia, a student at the University of Massachusetts, turned a few simple software instructions into a mini-application he calls a "fix" which overrides -- or "fixes" -- an Internet Explorer option that screens Web content from view.

Once enabled, Explorer's Platform for Internet Content Selection, or PICS, prompts the user for a password before granting access to sites with content considered inappropriate for children. Ristuccia calls that censorship.

"This fix is important because everyone should be allowed unfettered access to the Internet," he said. "People should not be restricted to a diluted subset of the Internet when they attempt to surf from a public library or at school.

"For some that can not afford a computer or Internet account, this is the only opportunity they have to use the Internet."

This is the second time that Ristuccia has taken a stand against what he feels is Net censorship. He posted similar code last August on his Web site that derailed a similar feature in Netscape Communicator.

Microsoft spokeswoman Debbie Watson confirmed that Ristuccia's workaround is identical to that offered to parents by the company's technical support when the parents forget their password.

The workaround entails editing a few keys in the Windows registry file to change the unknown password to a new one. That known password can then be used to turn off the feature, called Content Advisor. Ristuccia's workaround does the same thing, and "zeroes" the browser's violence, nudity, sex, and language content restrictions.

"What Brian has [done] is what tech support would tell a parent," Watson said. "It's something that was [intended] by design." The company, of course, would rather not have those instructions widely available. If Ristuccia's workaround upsets parents and administrators using the Content Advisor feature, Watson said Microsoft might create its own new workaround. But a new solution would probably make life harder for forgetful parents who lose their passwords.

James Tyre, an attorney who founded the Censorware Project, declined to comment on Ristuccia's workaround because he is unfamiliar with it.

Tyre wants to publicize the futility of content-blocking software and its threat to freedom of speech. The Censorware Project aims to "demonstrate the problem with censorware, particularly as applied within public institutions," he said.

"[Such software] works to chill free-speech rights with taxpayer dollars."

No matter how well-intended the software may be, Tyre said, it is terminally flawed.

"A lot of times, biases do in fact occur. Every product we've ever looked at, for example, shows a bias against gay sites.... They simply cannot accurately block things which arguably should be blocked without also roping in a vast amount of constitutionally protected speech."

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