The Hindu 30.12.2010
Objectionable material found written on Corporation web site
S. Sundar
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Junk messages galore among postings
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MADURAI: The official web site of Madurai Corporation contains
messages promoting web sites that contain objectionable, including
pornographic, material.
Though junk messages galore among the hundred and odd postings in the
guest book of the web site, the number of messages intended to provide
addresses of pornographic websites are, of late, on the increase.
The poor security system of the Corporation web site has spared the
abusers of any painstaking effort to hack it. What has made the posting
of all kinds of junk is that the visitors need not log in for the
purpose.
They can simply type their name and write on the page at their will.
It seems that the authors of various messages, which are not at all
related to the functioning of the civic body and those about the porn
sites, have given dubious identity or nicknames.
The maintenance of the web site also lacks any official mechanism to
monitor the content of the messages as none of the junk messages has
been removed from the site. An abusive message put up on the page as
early as October 1, 2010, is yet to be erased.
Never visited
A casual glance at the messages posted on the guest book proves that seldom have the officials visited the pages.
For, none of the doubts raised by the visitors on the functioning of
the Corporation posted on the guest book has been clarified by the
officials.
Besides, the requests put forth by visitors to set right technical
faults that hinder online utilities of the website too have not been
heeded to. The very first message on the page posted on August 14, 2009,
asks the Corporation Commissioner to update the website “properly” to
avoid ruining the reputation of the local body.
The timings of all the hundred and odd messages, posted right from
August 2009 till December 27, 2010, show that they were posted sharp 12
a.m.
This speaks about the technical fault.
When contacted, the Corporation Commissioner, S. Sebastine, said that
he was unaware of such things and promised to take immediate action to
erase the abusive postings. The messages would be watched every day and
grievances expressed by the people on the site addressed immediately, he
said.
