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Pennsylvania Law Requires ISPs to Block Child Porn
feed_me_cereal writes: "Salon
has an article describing a new law in Pennsylvania which requires ISPs to prevent access to child pornography on the internet. Under this law, the government can give ISPs a list of websites to block. Failure to do so can result in fines from $5,000 to $30,000 + jailtime. While stopping child pornography sounds noble, it seems that these powers will do little to meet this goal and much to allow the government to decide what websites are suitable for public viewing." Reader lightspawn provided this link to the law itself as well as another story at freedomforum.org.
aka if a stat says you can't see this... and isps have to follow .. then everyone ealse who has a net connection provided for others must follow as well...
.. oh what a mess this will be..
now the question is what if somone in pensilvenia uses some sort of web proxy to view such pages.. hrmm makes the isp still liable? does that mean that the isp has to block all web proxies out there
Stop providing internet service in Pennsylvania.
No internet, no kiddie porn websites.
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First, this is obviously a kneejerk reaction to Candyman.
Secondly, who's to decide what's what? Is the ISP supposed to just carte blanche kill off anything that even resembles child porn? What happens to people trying to look at Anne Geddes images? Who do you appeal to if an improper decision is made, and how does it work?
This seems like too much idealism and not enough rational thought.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
While stopping child pornography sounds noble, it seems that these powers will do little to meet this goal and much to allow the government to decide what websites are suitable for public viewing.
The gov't has already decided that child porn is not suitable for public viewing. This is just one way of enforcing that decision.
While I'm as big a conspiracy theorist as anyone, I do think this could actually stop some child porn.
That I almost suspect its not supposed to be a real law, but rather something to make mothers feel better.
We have an extreme version of this at our school - originally put in place to block porn, it was later extended to terrorism (fair enough), but then also anything under the "fun" category, the "online sales" category, and finally the "personal" category - laughably this last one includes ANY address with a ~ in the url.
Needless to say, the potential for abuse here, as well as complex legal arguments, is HUGE
I am all for killing off kiddie porn and the purveyors of kiddie porn but I nevertheless find this a little bit disturbing as a precedent. Today it is kiddie porn, tomorrow adult content sites, then sites that provide birth control information, then...
If it can be absolutely restricted to ONLY blocking kiddie porn and NOTHING else, then OK, but once the toe is in the door, it is hard to stop the leg, then the shoulder...
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
"The law has the blessing of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Larry Frankel, the chapter's executive director, said someone whose material is cut off could seek a court hearing."
Isn't this contrary to the ACLU's positions on previous issues? I'd like to know the exact quote and the context.
As long as there's a decent oversight so they only block access to child porn I don't have a problem with this. If they start blocking other stuff, that would be bad. It would also be bad if they used some kind of automated system, because that can go wrong. A person must verify these sites before they get put on the ban list.
Of course the big problem with this.. There is now a nice and complete list of child porn sites.. and you have people looking at this stuff all day.
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I am a little unclear on the standards of child pornography. It seems to me that if you put such a broad block, you can lose a great deal of meaningful content. Example. You're doing research on rain jungle aboriginies and there are pictures of children unclothed as they frequently are. (Ever watch a National Geographic?)
I admit this is a weak argument, but this is part of a larger issue. No Internet content ought to be blocked. The only filter should be your own brain. If you find this image offensive, don't look at it! It's just that simple. I agree, child pornography is absolutely sick, and the government should take steps to eliminate it and prosecute those who produce it. They should not on the other hand, enforce tactics for trying to regulate the flow of information to clients. This is impossible.
Consider the choices: regulate content flow to a billion+ clinets, OR, eliminate a few thousand content sources. *sigh*
Why bother.
I used to take an extreme free-speech position as an argument against government sensorship of this sort. Personally, I'd rather not see certain sites but I'd prefer to choose which sites to ignore, on my own.
Having said that, it's important to recognize that the lawmakers who came up with this legislation are trying to do a noble thing, but their efforts are misguided and are doomed to failure, simple because of the mechanism through which they attempt to achieve their goal.
This is our fault. We need ot better educate our representitives with regard to technical issues, understanding of which is of great importance in drafting legislation in recent years. We need to teach our representitives about the technologies they wish to control through legislation or to legislate out of existance, before too many mis-steps are taken.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
This is a flagrant abuse of free speech rights. While we can all agree that child pornography should be stopped, this seems absolutely unreasonable. I mean, some effort should be made to minimize the intrusions of personal liberty while maximizing the effectiveness of stopping child porn (or at least significantly cutting it back).
This proposal, however, does neither.
1. An unnacceptable amount of government intrusion into people's affairs. I mean, the government could deem Arab web sites as harboring threats against the US and ban all the Arab servers they wanted. The government will always "err" on the side of deprivation of liberties.
2. Not stopping the problem. There are plenty of other ways to do this. Password-protected ftp sites, AIM/chat clients, Gnutella network to just name a few.
In conclusion, this law is probably the least effective way to do this: It threatens personal liberties much more than providing for the public good.
Bzzt! You (of course) didn't read the article. The law was passed a month ago. Candyman was just a coincidence.
OK Both wrong. The State is to give and update a list of sites for ISPs to block. However, the articles do not state just how that list is drawn up or kept up to date. Maybe they'll have a new beaurocrat in charge of surfing for kiddie pr0n?
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The law specifically says that a site has to be kiddie porn, as defined by their statutes. So:
Today it is kiddie porn, tomorrow...kiddie porn, then...kiddie porn!
Not only that, but a judge has to sign off on EACH AND EVERY SITE to EACH AND EVERY ISP. That's a pretty safe system.
Anyone got a link to the definitions referenced at the end of the law? That state website seems designed to prevent easy searches.
That's not really a good example, though, is it? Your sister's bathtub photo was probably taken by your parents, so either you're saying that Mom and Pop are child pornographers, or else you think that masturbation should be a crime.
Which is a good question, actually: although some child pornography is very harmful to the child, I imagine (not having investigated myself) that some of it is probably at that "kid in a tub" level. So is it really exploitative for Mom to have snapped that photo of me on a bearskin rug? Or does it become exploitative when it's on the Internet? Or am I only exploited when my photo arouses someone? What if nobody saw the photo until I was grown up - am I still exploited? What if Mom only gets out the photo at family gatherings and also to show my prospective girlfriends - is that when the exploitation occurs?
I'm not trying to minimize the harm that child pornography does to children, of course. I'm just pointing out that you could have found a better example to get all uppity about. And, also that the popular conception of "photos of children == evil" may not be so black and white as we would think. There's a lot of black, and there's some amount of grey.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Failure to do so can result in fines from $5,000 to $30,000 + jailtime.
:)
For what it's worth, I think all ISPs should be regulated just like any other type of public utility. I see no problem with this. If certain ISPs don't like it, there's a void that needs to be filled in the pshycic friend market.
Yes, I know, they could be giving out a list of sites like bushsucks.com and stuff like that, but I doubt it. Call me naive
Ultimately, in this case, this state government is attacking an earwig by drilling through the elephant's neck. I don't think this is an effective solution, but I don't think it's going to cause much damage on the ISP side either.
Under the law, signed last month, prosecutors would, after obtaining a court order, give ISPs a list of Web sites and other items to block.
Whilst it's well intended and it's not that much of a bother blocking out websites from a list (which will most likely be out of date), but I think they're pointing in the wrong direction. Shouldn't they be going after the places where these sites are hosted instead of just ISPs? It's a lot easier checking someone's webpage content than it is going through tons of a luser websurfing logs. I can understand blocking for places where there's no jurisdiction, but there's gotta be something done about the places that host child porn as well because that's the place that holds the content.
Just my 2 scents.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
I deeply thank you, sir. After bitch.shutdown.com was (ironically) shut down, I was afraid I'd never hear from the bitch again.
[runs off in glee to see who she's pissed off in the meantime]
They are considering having the US mail/FedEx/UPS/etc
cease to deliver mail, unless they stop distributing parcels from a certain list of adresses?
See:
SmartFilter's Greatest Evils:e stevils.php
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/smartfilter/great
BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy & anonymity):
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/loophole.php
The Pre-Slipped Slope - censorware vs the Wayback Machine web archive
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/general/slip.php
All of them, and a few others on http://sethf.com/anticensorware/ , deal with this issue of the technical requirements for the control system.
The short version is that "disable access" arguably entails banning anonymizers/privacy sites, language translation sites, and more, since these all can act as a means of escape from the blinder-box.
Maybe access through these sites doesn't count as "accessible through its service". But I sure wouldn't want to be the ISP facing child-pornography charges over that argument ("You mean you allowed access to this anonymity service, which is used by CHILD MOLESTORS?!")
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Oh, but then the article goes on to say that the law was passed last month: And reading even further, we see that this has been in the works for years: Please, read the facts before starting your rant! Now on to the important issue..this does seem to be a dangerous opportunity to for the government to begin censoring/banning web sites at will. I'm all for getting rid of the child porn websites, but I would rather it be done in a way that does not remove the freedom of surfing the web.
Rather than ranting and raving about how bad this is, why don't we try to come up with an alternative solution.
-- Find the Truth...
On the one hand, disgusting piles of shit who look at little kids and do whatever it is they do absolutely disgusts me. I would prefer that they be locked away forever. Absolutely sickening topic.
On the other hand, once you start forcing ISPs to block access to sites, then the sheeple get used to it, and it becomes easier to do it again. And of course, it is almost always for a good reason, right? Mom and Dad in Middle America(TM) don't see past the "Oh, they want to block sickos from looking at naked children? Good." They don't realize what this can lead to.
Why is it that the minority always seems to be the most vocal, while the majority seem to sit back and just shake their head?
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If they know of a site that has child porn on it, why in the hell are they not going after the site instead of just blocking it?
I understand that its not as easy as it sounds, but there are other remidies that I would think would be much more effective such as having the DNS entries yanked, the ISP of the site hosting killing the site. Maybe even the FBI raiding the place (obviously not feasible if located outside the US).
But to require ALL ISP's to block sites seems like a band-aid approach to the problem.
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Damn, and I used to work at an ISP in Pennsylvania. That list could be worth money to lazy pedophiles that don't know how to use Google.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
First of all, ISPs are under common carrier status. I don't think they are liable for anything illegal. I'm also sure that's a federal law which will trump that state law. In any event, in the US free market system (well, just about a free market), corporations should not be held liable to enforce federal law. Not only does this cost the ISP more, but those costs get passed down to the consumer. The consumer is the one getting hosed here. Let's not become a police state. I have a solution: Just lock up the people that break the law. When you try to prevent it from happening, the citizens get hosed with more costs and the government starts becoming more of a thought police. I'm a Conservative, and even I disafree with the ramifications of this law. Hopefully someone takes this to the supreme court.
The way I see it, telling an ISP to block access to child porn sites is like telling Interstate 80 to prevent motorists from going to Texas.
I feel sorry for the ISPs who are going to be jerked around by a government who has no idea how to implement an unworkable law. This is just another case where uniformed legislation is going to raise price for the public and make life difficult for private business.
You have to realize, laws as ineffective as these (mainly because they do not go after the source of the problem, namely, the illegal content sources, and those are already illegal under existing law) are the product of the same state whose PUC once suggested long-distance fees be charged to ISP customers for their visits to websites.
Yes, I know it does not make any sense.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
This, unfortunately, could be the first step on a long stairway of censorship. No, I do not believe that blocking CP sites is censorship (if you think it is, you are indeed a fool), but this may just be an easy stepping stone for authorities to block other questionable materials. How about pushing education, stemming the tide of new materials and more active attempts to bust the actual child pornographers before throwing a blanket over the issue? These brush-it-under-the-rug tactics are so typical of existing government when dealing with this problem. There needs to be a worldwide agreement on the issue, which may never happen. We all need to take control of this problem, stop bitching and actually do something, rather than let government do it their way. Are they really so blind to the sub-culture out there? This is merely a stumbling block in the fight against CP, not a valid solution. Educate yourselves, take action, and fight what we all know to be wrong. Do it before the we are all punished for the actions of some twisted pukes. I encourage you all to take some responsibility.
_____ "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- Orwell
Ineternet Service Providers should be required to focus on effectively providing a link to the network and thats it. Routing and reliability is the job that I look to my ISP to perform. The governement threatening an ISP as a means to force their misunderstanding on the people is not something I welcome and I hope the message gets across soon.
If someone is hosting something that is illegal then go after the someone and not their ISP or even worse the ISP of someone else that just happens to be linking to the same internet. If you can't get to that someone then deal with it. The internet is much bigger than Pennsylvania and the narrow views of whatever government entity that gets to tell my ISP what I can see.
I for one will always be in favor of deciding what filtering needs to be done on my connection to the internet and think that the voters in Pennsylvania should let there representativers know that this heavy handed attempt is nothing short of an attempt to control something that can not be controlled in this manner.
Since the onus is on the state Office of the Attorney General to notify the ISP which sites to block, why don't they just shut the sites down in the first place? It seems easier to stop it at the source, especially if you know the source. This is just going to require more work for all involved and probably won't help the situation. This law will be struck down; it's only a matter of time.
They have a list of Child porn websites for the ISP to block. Why dont they just take down the damn Child porn sites?!!!
When comcast started briefly monitoring their customers' web site viewing habits i was unconcerned. Why? Because I don't look at many web sites. I just download gigs of files from Kazaa/Morpheus and Audiogalaxy. Cracking down on the more visible sites will just force kiddie porn viewers to use secure non-centralized distribution networks like Gnutella. Where it will be much much harder to find the identities of the users.
This isn't just ineffective. It will be counter productive: forcing the underground further underground and making secure peer to peer file sharing the standard way of sharing/trading/distributing this material.
Let's see, how is this going to play out:
1) Parent, nosy churchlady, or someone who couldn't pass the tests to become a postal inspector finds something on the web they don't like. They write a letter to the AG.
2) Nearly all the real kiddie porn will be gone within hours. So how is the AG going to collect evidence to go before the court and ask for an order to close it down?
3) Probably the AG has political ambitions, so he'll still try to find _something_ to block. Maybe purveyors of "barely legal" pictures. Maybe a URL that repeatedly gets complaints, even though there's nothing there when they look. Maybe Planned Parenthood sites; because these stay put, they'll probably log more complaints from the religious kooks than any actual porn site....
4) Compliant judge will sign the orders without actually looking at the "evidence".
5) Hundreds of lawsuits will be filed for violations of civil rights.
Folks, the 1st Amendment does not prohibit censorship by private parties of items passing through their servers. It does prohibit government censorship (with exceptions that I seem to be unable to find in the actual text)... By designating the sites to be blocked, the State of PA is putting itself right in the targets of every hungry lawyer that can find an innocent, or sleazy but legal, client on the block list.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
The objection I have to Internet porn is that it's all too easy to accidentally encounter it. (Witness the proliferation of a certain image/site by Slashdot trolls, for example.) Sure, people who want to see porn should have the right to see it. However, you also need to look out for the rights of those who want to be protected from it. There's no reason that both sides can't coexist.
I'm afraid, though, that any solution would be difficult to implement. Sure, a lot of people would be happy to use the .sex domain. But there are also a lot of folks who take a perverse delight in inflicting porn upon those who are offended by it. That's what I see as the real problem, and I think we're a long way from being able to effectively contain that sort of thing.
It may seem obvious but newsgroups seem to offer the relative anonymity that encourages distribution of this type of material.
Websites have to be hosted someplace. Content can be identified and prosecuted.
I'm still not sure why some newsgroups are carried by ISP's. What possible legal use could there be for alt.binaries.sex.children or similarly named groups?
This is not a flame or a troll but I think there's general concensus that certain material should be prosecuted and every effort made to eliminate its presence from the net. I'm not referring to all porn but pornography involving the exploitation of children.
Banning these websites may be a particularly ineffective way to achieve that goal but at a minimum something should be done about the newsgroups.
> What exactly is the problem here??
Several things actually:
1. This puts the burden of doing this on the ISPs, who will remain uncompensated. While AOL can amortize the cost of processing the blocking list across millions of subscribers, the little ISPs don't have that kind of user base. Penn. should pay the ISPs for their costs to do this.
2. How will an ISP block access to kiddie porn websites when people try to access them through, say, www.anonymizer.com? The ISPs would have to mount a man-in-the-middle attack and decrypt all such traffic.
3. The Attorney General is being given the power to simply declare something as being kiddie porn without a judge, jury, or trial. I can easily see them shutting down a web site that consisted of erotic photos of young looking, but legal age, adults. Worse still, I can see a born-again-Christian-zealot Attorney General defining kiddie porn to further their own agenda. It could include everything from Japanes anime sites to sites devoted to helping prevent the spread of STDs among teens.
ISPs should not become uncompensated censors for the government.
to answer your question, the article says who's to decide what's what: the state attorney's office.
i just can't believe how stupid the whole thing is. if the law enforcement officials KNOW a site is child porn then wouldn't they be much better off going after the site itself rather than alerting the site owners by putting them on a hunted list?
moreover, wouldn't it be more useful to LET people access a known child porn site? a swift enough equipment seisure could offer further leads in email, log files, and so on.
i got all huffy when the french decided to sue some american companies for not blocking access to nazi paraphanalia sales when the sites, themselves, didn't control the sales. i see this as the same thing, though the subject matter is an order of magnitude more detestible. still, i say pennsylvania's going after the wrong people.
"Mister Potato-head --MISTER POTATO-HEAD! Backdoors are not secrets!" (War Games, 1983)
The First Amendment protects offensive speech. It protects indecent speech. It does not protect obscene speech.
The PA law doesn't say "must install proxies". The law doesn't say "must redirect HTTP traffic". The law doesn't say PA users must install censorware. It merely says that if you're an ISP, and the government notifies you that Bad Stuff is on your system, that you nuke aforementioned Bad Stuff.
The government kicking the ass of an ISP that (knowingly) hosts Bad Stuff is no more a first amendment problem than private citizens kicking the ass of an ISP that (knowingly) hosts spammers.
That is -- neither the spammer's nor the pedophile's "speech" is protected by the First Amendment. The EFF desperately needs to go out and buy a clue.
i mean, sometimes it's easy: prepubescent is obviously kiddie porn. but what about 14 year olds that look 25? who decides? how do you tell if it's an 18 year old, or are they going after the really twisted child stuff only?
as for the comment about "someone has to look at all the porn to find it", well, maybe they can just hire the convicted felons to scan the archives and whatever turns them on is removed. partially sarcasm, partially serious.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
at least they are providing them with a list of sites to block instead of expecting the isps to just broadly block anything that might have to do with kiddie porn like those laws in germany that prevent the sale of nazi memorabelia(sp?)
PN isp's can just change their dns to point those websites at 127.0.0.1 or something.
To which part of the constitution are you referring?
1) If the AG goes to the trouble of getting a court order to ban a site, the AG apprently knows something about the site and therefore could/should just as easily go after the supplier, not the consumer [there are already laws for this]
2) Left up to the discretion of an AG, judge, angry mom, sites like pampers.com, johnsons & johnsons, and all other manner of sites that have infants in 'explict' nude or semi nude pictures would be blocked.
3) As others have stated, this opens the door to more restriction. The next to come will be other 'offensive' sites, such as:
- Information on strange fetishes
- Information on hate groups (race/orientation/etc)
These sites could be considered indefensible. Once we have those out of the way, then we go after:
- Information on abortion
- Information on contraception
- hardcore pornography
- Gay/Lesbian information
Then, of course, it's not a big stretch to include other things like political information, like anarchy, communism, etc.
This isn't something that happens overnight, and it isn't something that most people will realize is happening. It took a long time to get the rights we have here in the US, and it's taken a long time to pull back some of those rights.
It's unfortunate, but the legislators, law enforcement and judges don't have the foresight to see how a seemingly legitimate act can contribute to the downfall of a society over an extended period of time.
Step 1 - Buy web hosting services from someone. Set up web proxy that lets you view any URL.
Step 2 - View banned site through proxy. Demand that ISP be fined.
Step 3 - Repeat steps 1 & 2 until ISP is out of business (might take longer with Comcast, just keep trying).
Step 4 - Get new ISP and goto step 1.
When there is no internet in Pennsylvania, perhaps the voters wiill vote in somebody with common sense.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who's going to work at ISP's with the threat of jail time for not doing this impossible job correctly? Heck, many IT personnel are not up to handling many ordinary tasks... now PA is asking them to do this? This all sounds so INSANE.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
John D. Ashcroft, Attorney General, et al., v. The Free Speech Coalition, et al. will decide whether virtual child pornography can be treated as the real thing. It was argued in the Supreme Court last October, and they still have not issued an opinion.
If you can treat the virtual like the real, then it becomes much easier for the AG of Pennsylvania to do something. He doesn't have to care about the difference. Otherwise, sorting out whether it is virtual or real could pose difficulties.
Interesting that CANDYMAN happened while the Supreme Court was noodling over the issue. I wonder if they know.
You just know that someone will be wrongfully placed on that list, suffer some loses, get a landshark^WLawyer, then sue the pants outta PA.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
hows that work? naked little kids are illegal whether they are models or not.
No decent person likes to hear of, much less come accross, child porn on the internet.
The problem is not the commendability of trying to legislate the issue. Rather it is the problem of forcing upon an internet service purveyor the monumental task of filtering THE ENTIRE INTERNET: an at-best prohibitive task fraught with missfires and at worst a constraint that will severely hamper other very proper and honest internet usages.
Legislation of this type is a copout that makes internet connection providers responsible for monitoring content they not only have no control over; content that rightly is the domain of law enforcement agencies to investigate and control-- but, it's much cheaper to foist the problem onto the back of already financially weak ISPs than give more money to law-enforcement.
It is totally realistic that the punitive damages ordained by this legislation will drive most ISPs in that state out of business, leaving customers with few choices for access. This, while at the same time totally failing to solve a problem which is quite badly exagerated in my opinion. Exagerated and used as the riding horse of people who would like the internet to be generally censored against everything they dislike.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
I also have to make sure to get the best value for my salesforce dollar, so I will donate to a non-profit group of little old ladies who's only thought is to protect the children of PA from the evils of these horrible smutmongers. In gratitude I am sure they will return a list of non-complying ISP's to me...:)
I wonder who in PA is already set up like this? I also wonder if they had anything to do with the passage of this law?
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
IANAL, but isn't child porn illegal? If it is (if it isn't it should be) and they can identify the URL, hence the company, why not just prosecute them?
As soon as they start blocking one type of traffic, they're no doubt worried that pressure will be put on them to block other types of traffic. I'm not sure if they're considered common carriers (I somewhat doubt it), but they probably want that kind of indemnification against whatever passes through their servers. Kiddie porn is nasty stuff, but they'd see blocking it as making things much easier when someone else asks them to block certain other types of traffic.
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Actually, the google cache does store images... For example, here is everyone's hero, CmdrTaco...
-Jerdenn
It seems to me the best way to reduce the amount of pornography (which in itself is a worthy goal) is to regulate the hell out of the sex industry. Force the strip clubs to abide by stringent health regulations, enact privacy laws that force full disclosure and explicit consent to any photography or videotaping of persons (this could go for most non-sex related things as well), outlaw sexual activity as a work for hire thus forcing strippers, porn actors, etc. to be hired as employees with full income tax reporting, and put regulations on where porn shops and strip clubs may be located--much as current zoning regulations indicate residential and commercial levels. And how about making pornographic materials exempt from copyright protection. Porn exists largely because it's profitable. Remove the profit and away goes the porn. Sure, it'll still exist, but it'll be a lot less prevalent and obvious.
Freenet is almost entirely child pornography with a smidgen of other illegal files. However since freenet uses encryption and distributed data storage, no single computer can [so they say] be proved to contain any particular file.
Since a user of freenet is essentially an ISP for freenet, would this law apply to freenet users?
Surfing for this stuff makes these people vulnerable. Take this away, and you take away one more tool to catch the molesters, who will simply go back to their old (pre-internet) ways of distribution.
I'm sure no ISP in the world would have a problem assisting with this type of thing, especially if the agents have a warrent.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
So...if I am an ISP, and the government doesn't give me a list, I can fine the government and toss it in jail?!? COOL!
We've got a law that allows 'dangerous people' to be arrested and held indefinitely without being charged or brought to trial. If that doesn't sound like it has potential to be abuse, I don't know what does.
This latest one will be another with enormous potential for abuse. It'll censor unfairly many sites that don't have child pornography on them. It would also be possible for someone saying something that isn't liked to be put on it 'accidentally.'
But, I'm probably just paranoid, there's no reason not to trust the gov't. They are here to protect us.
(I live in PA, btw)
While you law enforcement types are busy searching for child porn websites, instead of adding it to the list, why don't you make a phone call or two and have the site shut down, the owner raided, and take care of the problem. Obviously pursuing child porn is not too much of a problem, if yesterday's worldwide operation is any indication.
:)
So shut them down as you find them, and you don't have to have anyone censor anything.
Unless of course, not everything getting censored is actually child porn. A picture of a naked baby would not hold up as child porn in almost any jurisdiction, but that wouldn't keep such a website as getting marked as child porn.
And besides, how naive is law enforcement anyways? I know that the clueless minions that walk the planet think that "the web" is equivalent to "the internet" but its just not the case. Its but a small subset of it. And to think that any significant amount of child porn gets traded over open, publically accessible websites is just moronic. There's usenet, peer to peer, ftp sites, irc. Is PA going to be responsible for censoring all of those mediums as well? How exactly are they going to do that?
And even if we ONLY look at websites, are they going to have to also censor anonymous proxies in other states or countries? Oh well. At least it SOUNDS like they're doing something. Even though they're probably creating more of a hassle than problems they'll solve.
I do like the comment about simply not offering ISP access in PA. Find out how long that law lasts if NOBODY can access the internet because of it.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I agree that child porn should be illegal (as it is) and sites with it should be taken down. However, the government should just take down the sites with it instead of passing it on to the ISPs. The ISPs have no power in this and with things like proxies constantly popping up, you can't regulate the vast amount of information on the Internet.
Also, one other BIG problem stopping technologically misinformed laws- the cause is noble- stopping child porn- even if the law hinders the technological sector. If you were a politician, would you rather be saying "I worked to stop child porn," or have your opponent smear you in an ad campaign saying "this politician voted AGAINST stopping child porn" ? Basically, the long story isn't heard in these things, so they will be oversimplified and politicians will thus vote for clueless measures, however noble the cause.
An ISP, when ordered to disable access to a URL on a web site that they do not control, has two options:
1) Block access to the entire host.
2) Attempt to block access to that specific URL.
The first is, in theory, easy. A router connection can have an "access list", which specifies what is and isn't allowed to pass through the router. However, access lists are avoided whenever possible because they cause massive performance hits on routers. How large will this access list be? The article says there are about 100,000 web sites which could be censored. So, taking this list for starters, every single packet transmitted by an ISP in Pennsylvania would have to be compared to a 100,000 entry blacklist, and that's just for starters. There is no provision in the law for entries to be removed from the blacklist, so the legally-required access filters will simply grow and grow, dragging down ISP router performance.
Speaking as someone who has programmed access lists, that's absolutely nuts. It's preposterous. The hardware won't do it. It won't work.
Here's an article describing how much of a performance hit can be expected if all internet traffic in Pennsylvania must be packet-filtered:Moving on to the second method:
2) Attempt to block access to that specific URL.
This is even worse, performance-wise, and probably impossible, given the current internet architecture. In order to block access to a specific URL, you would need to:
a) Collect all packets bound for that IP address. Remember that under TCP/IP, the text of a URL might be split into multiple IP packets, which might even pass through different routers, or out of order, or both, and take different paths to the target machine.
b) Reassemble the IP packets, that you magically collected, into TCP packets
c) See if that packet looks like an HTTP GET request
d) Compare the URL to the 100,000 entry blacklist
e) Assuming that the request is to a non-blacklisted URL, retransmit the packets.
Unfortunately, I don't think that there are any routers on the market that can do this, and I'm not even sure that it could be made to work anyhow. The only technical way to make it work might well be to proxy each and every web page request, which would both require insanely massive amounts of computing power, and the complete centralization of all IP traffic entering and exiting Pennsylvania.
As a result, ISPs won't use this method. The only tool that will be available to them is IP address blocking, which will cause a massive hit on the router infrastructure.
I haven't even gotten into the issues of server farms, where one hostname might correspond to two or more IP addresses. I'm sure that anyone with networking experience can come up with another dozen reasons why an ISP can't feasibly block access to URLs on machines that aren't under their control in a scalable way.
If this law stands, the only effect discernable to the day-to-day internet user is that internet performance in Pennsylvania will be significantly poorer than anywhere else in the country, or world.
Alternately, Pennsylvania internet users may see their charges skyrocket, as the ISPs are forced to purchase millions of dollars of new, ultra-high performance routers, just to implement the child-porn access lists.
A third scenario is that ISPs will simply stop doing business in Pennsylvania, due to the insane cost of doing business there.
If true, then an adult can certainly pretend to be a minor, since the adult (supposedly) has both the right and the capacity to make that choice.
Of course, this raises the issue of, say, CGI kiddie porn. The computer can't be psychologically scarred. Often the rationale then is, by providing this sanitized porn, one creates a market for real kiddie porn, and thus the simulation must be banned... a much weaker case, I believe. A trial involving these issues is, IIRC, wending its way through the courts.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
hey, i hear you can get lots of hot kiddie porn on #cooch/EFNet"
heh.
-- LINUS TORVALDS, (cnn): Because their operating systems (Windows) really suck.
First off, if they know the actual addresses of child porn sites why are they just blocking access to them and not removing them and attempting to track down the users? Second, I don't think many of them are running DS3 trunks to their houses and hosting the websites on a .com. Many of them such as "candyman" are hosted on yahoo groups and other free more "anonymous" services. Should they block access to all of yahoo groups? Since you can't filter a specific URL with router access lists how are you to implement the filter? The ONLY way to do this would be by making everyone in the entire state connect to the internet through a proxy server with the governments filter set in place. Maybe we should ask China for advice here eh?
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Even something as disgusting (note, my personal opinion, I can't speak for all) as child pornography.
What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you giving ANY credit to those sick perverts?
If you're talking about an issue that may offend someone and you want to be courteous or sensitive to their feelings, you say "this is only my opinion." You're essentially being sensitive to the pedophiles who might read your post: "No offense intended if you get off on naked children."
Have a little backbone. It's not your opinion, it's the truth. Child porn is DISGUSTING. The people who traffic in it are sick fucking perverts that should be locked up for life. If some pedophile finds these comments offense, TOUGH SHIT.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Here's what I sent to both the governor's office and to my representatives, both in email and in a printed letter:
1 /0 /HB1333.HTM8 /child_porn/i ndex.html
1 21 0
House Bill 1333.
Hello,
I recently came across these articles describing government mandated filtering by ISP's:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/ALL/200
http://salon.com/tech/wire/2002/03/1
While I applaud the government's efforts in attempting to stop those who spread child pornography, I believe that the proposed methods are ineffective, and have the potential to destroy some of the civil liberties this nation is founded upon.
Please read people's (including your constituents such as myself) views on this law at the following URL. It may help to illustrate some of the issues with this type of government mandated technology.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/19/184
Thank you for your time,
-- Greg
Ok, now I probably have your attention. "Does this guy WANT kiddie pr0n???", no I don't want it. But I want it to be found, by the authorities, so it can be dealt with. I want neo nazi's to speak up and be heard, and thus be forced into a dialogue with people who don't share their views on the world (I myself hope that they will stop for a second and think. I refuse to belive that all of them are evil, and anything that can make them rethink is good).
You obviously read slashdot (duh), and you obviously has some knowledge about computers and the net. What happens when someone tries to stop warez? Tries to stop mp3s? Stop VCDs/SVCDs etc? What about being anonymous on the net? Someone will react and make some software to do it anyway, without someone being able to see it. They will make free net, strong crypto, you name it. It's all about technology.
But what happens when a system made to people in oppressed countries express their fears and opinions is used by these people, those who want to share their awful acts with others? They will be even harder to find, even harder to flush out, even harder to control. The "demand" won't stop, so they supply will take new ways to reach their destination.
So in conclusion, don't help these people by making it more safe for them, find them, expose them and shut them down. Reporting them will be easier if someone sees them. Only if there are pages in other countries who refuses to remove them should some sort of ban be used.
I wish I knew a link to one of the organizations who work with flushing these people out, so I could give it to you and you could help. I wish google et al would put their search engines to good use to report these people somehow. I wish people would think then act...
I'm afraid, though, that any solution would be difficult to implement. Sure, a lot of people would be happy to use the .sex domain. But there are also a lot of folks who take a perverse delight in inflicting porn upon those who are offended by it.
.sex or .xxx domain. Period." Define "sexual material" explicitely and punish those that don't abide by the law.
.sex or .xxx domain by accident if their parents have clicked "block adult domains" in Windows.
That's why you mandate it with a law. "If you're going to distribute sexual material online, you MUST use a
I'm usually not into new laws, but this benefits everyone. The adult sites still get to distribute their material, their customers can find them with ease, and people who don't want their children/employees looking at that crap can block it easily. Plus, with porn blocking being simple and foolproof, you could do away with those AdultCheck systems. There's no way a child will stumble across a
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
These are *public* news servers, there is nothing OK about super news and the likes being aware that kidie porn is _on_their_own_servers_ and letting it reside.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
This is slowly becoming the end of the information highway. It is turning into the censorship highway. Of course someone will moderate this down as being overrated, and maybe it is a little bit, but I have been on the internet since 94 and it is not as free as it used to be. We now have more ads then ever before. There are now more spammers then there were and more people online. There are more sites and people using 'family safe software' that blocks 'bad content'. But who is defineing this bad content?
Well believe it or not much of this is being driven by religious conservatism and right or wrong how long will it be before a site that you visit that is NOT pornographic or bad is blacklisted because it is considered 'subversive' or a terrorist threat? in France they are demanding the blockage of the sale of all Nazi memorabilia (sp), asia they block some western ideas. Soon it will be up to those in power to determine what content they want you to read.
Fantasy, well most people are young here and will live to see if this is going to be more real than fantasy.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Will The Man give the ISPs a list of domains or IP blocks to block, or will there be specific sites (e.g. www.geoshitties.com/~username/naughtypics) on the list? If it was only the former, it would be relatively easy for the ISP to firewall all traffic going to and coming from the requested IP ranges. Unless vhosting was involved, anyway. But if more specific sites were on the list, the ISP would basically need to have a real-time Carnivoresque system running. It would have to sniff out all traffic to potential sites, figure out where specifically on the site the traffic is headed to, and make an accept/reject decision based on that. And it would have to do this almost in real time. While I dislike kid porn traders just as much as anybody else here, this isn't an effective way to stop them.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
(1) ISP's, nor the government, should not be in the business of banning certain websites, or blocking access to them. There's no difference between that and banning, or burning, books. Fucking nazis.
(2) In regards to "simulated child pornography", if its simulated, who does it harm? In such a case -- i.e., an 18+ woman who looks younger, or a computer-generated image -- no one's privacy is voilated, nor was anyone's rights violated in producing the image. Banning that is just christian bullshit where they want to control your mind. It's a victimless crime in that case.
(3) In regards to real pornography, which was actually derived from children, there are three classes: (a) Forced; (b) Exploitative; (c) Self-done. Here's my take on each of them:
a. Forced. If a child is forced (raped) into sexual poses/positions/whatever, and the image of that taken is distributed on the web, there's no reason the government shouldn't be able to take down that image from the website, in protection of the child. Every minute the image is up there is a VIOLATION of the child's rights to privacy, self-dignity, and her body.
b. Exploitative. When the child is not "forced" per se, but nevertheless is taken advantage of by an adult. The act itself should be illegal in most cases; I don't think we should be ardent about "exact" age limits. The legal age for consentual sex with older people is 18 most places; if a guy has sex with a girl a month away from being 18, so what? Of course, we need to have precise laws, so people know exactly what they can and cannot do. I suggest keeping the legal age at 18, but varying the punishment for statutory rape depending on the age-difference of the "victim" and of the adult. There's a big difference when a 60-year old man sleeps with a 16-year old girl, as opposed to a 19-year old man doing the same.
c. Self-done. When an underage person engages in sexual poses/sex, and photographs themselves; then they either post it online immediately, or wait until they're older (18) and publish it then. There's nothing wrong with this, though current laws prohibit it. If someone took pictures of themselves having sex at 16 and wants to post it on the web later on, that's their right: it is their body.
Even in case (a), where I feel the government does have the obligation to -- in protection of minor's rights -- stop the distribution of child-pornography, that doesn't justify any means. The government is free to do so via any means that are non-draconian. They are not permitted to, for example, take down an entire P2P network to stop some porn, nor to spy on what all of us put on the web.
I really think that child-molestation laws are unneeded. They are redundant with rape laws. The standard in rape law is, "could/did the person give informed consent". Obviously, a 6-year old child can't give informed consent, as that person doesn't even know what sex is. Obviously, a woman who says "no" can't give informed consent. Obviously, a woman passed out drunk can't give any kind of consent.
But there are some sticky situations where its a little vague. What about when the person is 16-18? When can they give informed consent? Obviously, some people make better sexual decisions at 16 than others do at 30. Well, maybe you can have a "sex license" sort of like a drivers license, which verifies that you know about basic sexual issues. Sounds kinda stupid, huh, a "license to have sex"? But its alot better than setting unmeaningful absolute standards which don't apply uniformly.
What about a case where a woman is drunk and is the sexual aggressor? Should the man be charged with rape if he has sex with her? I don't think so. Another consideration is, "who was the initiator"? Was it the man, the woman, or both? I think that if there is an "initiator" and the other person accepts the advances, it should never be considered rape (unless the other person was purposefully stoned to make them "easy"), except in cases where the person doesn't have their "sex license".
But even that has problems. For example, do we really want to say that a person mentally retarded can't have sex, except with other mentally retarded people?
It is clear to me that this society has not thought enough about sex; all of our answers the a complicated issue are black/white, clearly goaded on by Christian humbug.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Regardless of the effectiveness of such a measure, it's constitutionality is in doubt. I'm wondering how civil libertarians might make a case against this based on prior restraint?
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
If they know of a site that has child porn on it, why in the hell are they not going after the site instead of just blocking it?
Sure, if the site is in the US. Try to start shutting down Web sites that may be perfectly legal in other countries but that those of us in the United States find offensive, and you're opening an ugly can of worms.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
No, it's not. Read the law; it was prepared roughly two months ago, and it's just going into effect 'round now care of the 60-day delay.
And the state AG is the one that makes the blocking decisions; the law explicitly states that the ISPs are under no obligation to go searching on their own, to monitor content (to
decide what to block), or to otherwise search for affirmative evidence of wrong-doing.
Now, the proxy issue... the law says "disabling access", which could be interpreted as either accessing directly (which makes a certain degree of sense, as the law mentions that
banning requests should include URLs -- so ban the URL might be sufficient under that) or even banning indirect access (proxies, mirrors, and other foo).
I'd be inclined to think that the former was meant (ban direct accessing of the specific URL), but... you'd probably have to check the debate records to find out.
-- the silly student / he writes really bad haiku / readers all go mad
Blocking child pornography is essentially impossible. Blocking any sort of "content" or "IP" is an extremely difficult task. It's one thing to block port 25; unfortunately the IETF has yet to standardize on a port number for kiddie porn.
First, there's the problem of deciding what to block: Let's take the obvious example, of blocking a jpg. This means someone has to determine the age of the person in that jpg. I looked at about 1,000 jpgs last nite, and I pity the fool who has to monitor my drunken pr0n surf.
Perhaps it would be possible to use some VERY sophisticated pattern recognition algorithm, but, like spam filtering, you're never gonna block 100% of the bad stuff while letting 100% of the good stuff through. Nevermind the incredible resource hit of scanning each downloaded jpg, or the fact that your CRC-matching database of known jpgs ain't worth shit once I take the 640x480 jpg and save it as 644x483.
But that's not even the real problem. No, the real problem is THE DEFINITION OF PORNOGRAPHY. Basically it depends on things like "community standards" and such which don't really make sense on the Internet. With child pornography, the definition gets even more complicated; things that are otherwise acceptable become pornography when the subject is under 18, such as a picture which shows the outline of the vulva through clothing isn't porn if the girl is 23 but is porn if she's 9.
(In fact the entire laws about kiddie porn in this country are totally fucked. The gov't can offer to sell you kiddie porn, say from an ad in the back of a magazine, and then sell it to you, and then bust you for possession. This would normally be entrapment, but the Supreme Court decided that kiddie porn is such a scourge that normal constitutional protections are outweighed by the need to lock up pedophiles. Hmmm... "First they came for the pedophiles, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a pedophile. Then they came for the Arabs..." But I digress.)
To make matters worse, pornography doesn't even have to be a picture or movie. Text can be pornography. For instance,
I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't stop myself from licking 15-year old Timmy's perineum as he lay unconscious.
That could be construed as kiddie porn, believe it or not. Of course in this context I won't be going to jail (I hope) since my INTENT isn't prurient (but who can really tell my intent?). But if I logged on to some kiddy chat room and made that comment, I would be in big trouble, esp. if the moderator knows what a perineum is.
So not only do you have to filter the content, which is a subjective process in the first place, you have to ascertain the context of that content. In other words you have to Meta-Moderate, and we all know how much fun that is!
No, this will never work, and the "blacklist" that gets passed from the Penn. A.G. to the ISP's will have all the same problems as the anti-spam blacklists: How do you get off it, do you notify someone that they're on it, or would that just tell them it's time to get a new IP address, etc.
Here are some links to interesting legal stuff:
Supreme court def. of pornography (pdf, sorry)
has the famous "I know it when I see it" qoute from Justice Potter Stewart
Google HTML version
Guy in jail for selling videos of girls in their panties
Guy acquitted after gov't got him to order kiddie porn thru mail and then busted him. He was acquitted because the gov't hadn't proved intent, not because it was entrapment
I am not a lawyer, but I play on on Slashdot.
Seth,
/.
Reading the account of "What happened to the Censorware Project," you may be able to generate more traffic by organizing a Google bomb. Simply put, make setf.com (or censorware.net) come out above censorware.org. You can also use the "link:censorware.org -site:censorware.org" to find the links and contact webmasters.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled
Nathan
I am not a lawyer.
See subsection 8 specifically subsection 8B.
So I go look up 18 USC 2256(8)(B) and find the definition of kid porn to apply only to "visual depiction". This means kid porn is OK in novels. Also, the definition requires that that "such visual depiction is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct". It goes on to define a "minor" as "any person under the age of eighteen years". According to 1 USC 1, "persons" are "corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals". I don't see "cartoon character" included in the definition of a person (otherwise, copyright would be slavery, and 18 USC chapter 77 implements the Thirteenth Amendment which bans slavery); therefore, presenting hentai (animated kid porn) to adults remains lawful under Federal law.
I am not a lawyer.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If law enforcement has identified child porn servers, why don't they just confiscate the servers, rather than make isp's block access?
:-), and it was up to the cable companies to police the content. It need to be handled at the source, not at the infrastructure level.
It's like if Fox TV started broadcasting porn (it happened so gradually, nobody noticed
The only argument I can think of is for internation sites beyond the jurisdiction of the US government. I didn't see that mentioned in the article. And even if that were the point, attacking the local ISP's is a waste of time; there are a limited number of backbones going to other countries, which would be *far* easier to police. And companies like ATT and Sprint (or whoever has the links that hop overseas) would be better equipped resource-wise to do this type of thing. (And given the fact that international telecom already has a larger number of regulations that must be adhered to; this is a natural point to add this as an additional regulation requirement.)
To me, it seems like the law is well-intentioned, but missing the point by more than a bit.
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
This is not defending child porn as free speech. This is a position they took because of potential "false positives". Should a 19 year old who looks 15 be banned from having her nude photos on the web? Should we accept the risk that the government could expand this into legitmate but offensive speech?
Child porn is most definitely NOT protected under the first amendment. Even if a case could be made that it is, the Supreme Court would almost certainly make a "spirit of the constitution" ruling rather than "letter of the constitution" ruling in the matter. However, there is a significant risk that this law could prevent some women and men who are of legal age and desire to be nude models on the internet from putting their pics up and having them seen, and carries the risk of being expanded to other areas like communism, the KKK, neo nazis, gay bashers, etc....
Again, it isn't the child porn they are standing up for- but potential fals positives and extensions of this concept that they are standing against.
I'd be surprised if the average legislator even knows what a web proxy is.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
It seems to me that we should block not just
child porn sites but also things that can be
construed as enabling child porn. Let's
start with the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights.
No matter what you do, some sick, twisted perverts are going to get to Texas somehow.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
from what I hear, the problem in Pennsylvania isn't guys with pictures of little kids, it's guys with pictures of their sisters The war on child pornography, much like the war on terrorism, can only be a good thing. Remember when we had that war on drugs, and now there are no more drugs? This will be just like that...
do not read this line twice.
I can't agree more. Why do I have to denounce child pornography every time an issue concerning it surfaces.
Well, with the really lousy service we have here (Verio, Epix) that'd probably be a step up...
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
While this is an obvious knee-jerk reaction to the Candyman fallout - it's also been tried before. Check out PSINet, Inc. v. Chapman, 108 F.Supp.2d 611 (W.D. Va. 2000) (enjoining application of law imposing criminal liability for the commercial display of sexually explicit materials harmful to juveniles).
Oh, but this is narrowly tailored, you say? Whatever. Wait until they start slugging out what gets blocked and what doesn't, then come talk to me. This is just more posturing for the constituents.
STATE REP:"Dum da dum! I will protect your children from pedophiles, voters! Let me just unplug this twisted pair here..."
[GZZOK! Pennsylvania goes black.]
STATE REP: "Oops."
I'm betting on an ISP-obtained injunction by the end of the week. Anyone care to start a pool?
It may be cold, but at least it's clear.
While I agree with the intent, I have a couple of questions...
Are the ISPs to be reimbursed by the government for whatever additional resources they require in order to comply with this law? Seems hardly fair if not...
Also, how are organizations like UPS, USPS, etc regulated in this respect? For one, it doesn't seem that the statres have the authority to do that, and that such regulations would have to be federal. And to my knowledge, shipping companies aren't required to break open every box to see if they are shipping illegal material, nor are they given a blacklist of postal address that are not allowed to send or receive mail. So, if a forum of child pron freaks organized it such that all materials were transfered through parcel post, would it then be ok?
The way I see it, if they have the addresses, it is the responsibility of the government to shut these sites down, not any private organization. Now there comes a problem with sites hosted in other countries providing material to the US, and I suppose this is where this law is intended to come into play. With this, I ask what are the regulations on international shipping? Can someone in another country just seal up a box of child porn and send it on over? If so, I'm afraid the same has to be possible through the internet.
The problem is due to its convenience, the internet keeps being considered a special case with regards to everything. I think similar standards as applied to shipping companies should be applied to internet providers. If there are restrictions on international shipping with regards to all this, then, sadly, a national firewall would be the only fair way to do it. It sounds atrocious, but if done *Really* carefully with a large review process to ensure only what the public agrees to is kept out, it might work. From my experience with international shipping, however, they aren't that restrictive on what you could send.
In the end, I suppose it makes sense for the rule that if the site is on US soil, shut it down, otherwise, report the site to the country with jurisdiction. If they choose not to pursue it, well, it's not 'our' children to protect at that point.. It would certainly be worth putting pressure on that nation to be better about laws, but ultimately it isn't our responsibility to prtect their children..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
i think the point is that the customer base will leave such that it's not profitable to be an internet business in PA. if you double your price to account for the increase in cost and expected decrease in customer base, well, more and more customers will start to disapear, to where you have to increase again, then again. finally the numbers will be gone.
i think it's all ok since i read on the internet that 1/8th of the child porn originates in PA, and that 9/10ths of all numbers on the internet are made up.
look, proxy, no proxy, encryption, no encryption. it _really_ doesn't matter. if people in PA want kiddy porn, they'll find a way to get it. the legislature is all about making crazy feel good laws and then having to put a burocracy around it. are the laws against marijuana doing any good? are they effective? is there a point other than making some people feel better about the society they live in?
Censorship is bad in all its forms, and for us to be hypocrites and get mad about China censoring the net then do it ourselves, its pathetic.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
<Drum riff>
Yeah, right.
There are technical means that ISPs could use to implement Pennsylvania's orders - they could install proxy servers on all of their connections leaving Pennsylvania, either forcing users to explicitly proxy their browsers, or using transparent proxy servers. Some ISPs do this, to take advantage of caching and reduce their overall bandwidth needs, but except for local ISPs that happen to be entirely within Pennsylvania, most of them didn't build their network to easily keep track of state lines so they can enforce the "Banned in Boston" rules in Boston, "Banned in Philadelphia" rules in Philly, and "Banned in Pittsburgh" rules in Pittsburgh.
Does anybody know if any national ISPs were consulted on the implementation issues? I suspect most of them are perfectly willing to comply with orders to take down web pages, but would have lots more trouble with the blocking requirements - it's much cleaner to implement on the edges of the network, in the user's browser where there's enough information to decide.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
A fiber carrier or Frame or ATM carrier probably isn't an ISP - if they're not routing the IP packets themselves, just hauling bits or frames or cells, they probably don't match PA's law, except that most carriers providing those services also run ISP businesses.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The law doesn't make it illegal to send encrypted traffic, so you can still use PGP or IPSEC or use SSL web forms to send in your credit card number. If the encrypted data you're sending is Officially Banned Data, then you're committing a crime regardless of whether it's encrypted. If an ISP can detect that you're transmitting Officially Banned Data and doesn't block it, they're Guilty, but if you're sending your requests encrypted they're probably off the hook. probably.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The war on spam is necessary. My Earthlink email account was overrun by spam before I gave out or used my email address anywhere. Only my ISP (Earthlink) knew it.
How'd that happen? I have my suspicions...
Anyway, not only stopping spam, but DoS attacks, evil "hackers", etc has led to implementation of firewalls, router blackhole lists and the like.
The war on spam is not 100% responsible.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
If the ISPs are going to be given the responsibilities of common carriers then they need to be given the rights of common carriers (such as protection from lawsuits, etc) too.
That's only fair.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
There are constitutional problems with it, and it is regulating interstate commerce, and it's arguable that the requirement for interstate businesses to pay for blocking mechanisms without reimbursement is unconstitutional. Even the Australians, whose pro-censorship folks are as rabidly pro-censorship as anybody in the US, only require that ISPs provide censorware to customers who want it, rather than requiring them to implement it themselves, plus of course requiring web hosting providers to take down any material they don't approve of (which is a rather wider set, since they lack the equivalent of the US First Amendment.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
im interested in how you see those few players surviving very long with expensive internet access? who's going to be paying 60$ a month for a 56k dial up connection? wouldn't a worser case be that eventually there's no internet in PA. sure it might not come to that once those lawyers sort it all out.
as another twist, how about satalite connections? if i'm living in PA, i could run across to VA or OH, or NY and get me one of them there sat-a-lite internet dishes go home and i'm all set.
the analogy of kiddy porn to pot is to show that there are dumb ass laws being put on the books which have no business there. these laws are put there for feel good measures to get a few votes next time around. maybe i should take it to a arguably more socially accepted level? are the insurance companies lobbying for anti-cell phone laws? most of the current anti-cell phone while driving laws are at the local level (cities, towns, villages,etc). if it were a real problem for vehicle accidents, the insurance companies would be harassing the hell out of those slimy congress folks in D.C.
now, back to the main point. this law is down right basackwards and unnessarry. there's laws against making kiddie porn. laws agains distributing it. probably laws agains posessing it. now there's a law that an ISP has to police its networks for the stuff and keep it out? i'll have to go back to my pot analogy on this one. it's illegal to make pot. illetal to sell pot. probably illegal to posess it to some extent. should the right prudent folks of the commonwealth of PA force their phone companies to monitor all phone conversations (gotta include the cell folks) for possible pot deals? how is this really any different? sure kiddie porn is bad stuff, but you can go around making insaine laws and just blow it off saying "well, that kiddie porn is bad stuff and we're doing our part to keep it out of PA"
This will work perfectly guys! Why? Because, all child porn comes from a few computers with IP addresses that NEVER CHANGE! It's true!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
It was not mentioned in the article, but somebody needs to decide what exactly is considered child pornography. In other words, after sifting through thousands and thousands of pornographic images, you may not find ANY child pornography. How do you really know if a person in a photo is 18 or even 17? It could potentially take weeks of endless staring at a computer screen to find ANY illegal porn. For the record, I am totally against child pornography, but if our government needs me to stare at porn all day long, I'll do my best to serve my country well.
;-)
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Is the definition of 'child porn' in terms of the age of consent?
Even this was the rule both ages of consent and ages of majority vary widely between different parts of the world. They have also changed over time. An obvious example is the question of if "Romeo and Juliet" is "child porn". Let alone what standards should apply when you get something like the Ocampa in Star Trek Voyager. (Probably Paramount is big enough to get any rules bent/ignored.)
Are you sure that's what the question really is? Are you sure there is a question here?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
This still fails to consider the impracticality of deploying blocks for most likely forms of site identification. Is the ISP supposed to make absolutely certain there is no way for any customer to access the site by any means whatsoever? Or is it adequate that they only block the site in a way that ordinary non-technical people would be effected by? Is it enough to substitute the DNS entry for the domain name, despite the fact that people can get around that easily (if they know how), and despite the fact that it may be affecting an entire ISP hosting customer personal pages (and entirely legally at that location)? And what if the location is an IP address only? There are practical limits to how many of these may be configured into a router access list.
This sounds like a clueless PACLU lawyer working with cluless legislators and a clueless attorney general, none of whom apparently know the details involved in actually getting a site blocked. The very fact they speak of URLs in the text of the law tells me they are unaware of how a huge amount of the shadier porn (of which the child porn market would undoubtedly be a part of) is actually made available. I'd bet I could easily find an ISP in Pennsylvania that was not involved in the process. And it's unclear if the law would extend beyond the Pennsylvania state line.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I guess I should turn my parents in for taking those snapshots of me running around in the backyard with no pants on when I was 2.
It isn't exactly unknown for this kind of thing to happen already. Especially in such things as a messy divorce.
What it every /.-er sets up a small ISP business in Pennsylvania, or one that can at least in theory be used by Pennsylvanians. And what if they all let the Pennsylvanian AG office know of their existance and their agent's address? Will the AG have to send out over half a million copies of the court order?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
No, I believe it's illegal to have adult actors pretend to be children having sex.
This might be the case if the subject matter is actually called a "porn film". But a "mainstream film" such as "The Fly II" dosn't appear covered by any such law.
This would be odd. The legal theory that allows child pornography to be banned (while adult pornography cannot) is
The reason that "simulated child pornography", which includes adult actors pretending to be children, cartoons and CGI, is considered to be just as illegal as actual "child pornography". Is that the PTB feel it would be too difficult to actually prosecute cases where this was a possible defence.
UK law is a little fuzzy on exact ages (I personally think this is a good thing as it allows some interpretation depending on the exact circumstances), however the generally accepted rule is that in the UK 16 is the limit for topless (provided parental consent is given) and 18 for nude. I'd be surprised if The Sun in particular published under 18's, but I think they could. For a better example, there's a model who is now quite famous called Lindsey Dawn McKenzie - her first (topless) photos were published in a UK paper called The Sunday Sport on the day after her 16th birthday. For weeks beforehand they had pics of her in bikinis, with a "Countdown to 16" promotion. The idea was the pics were taken on the saturday (her birthday) and printed the next day. Of course, they could have taken them weeks before and no one would have known.
In other european countries it varies again, I've seen magazines in scandanavia (and these are news stand publications in a similar vein to TV Guide not porn) with nude photos of girls labelled as 15 years old.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Because many ISPs block them already, or the groups are getting spammed/bombed to death, but the people just move to some less explicitly named groups, wreaking havoc on those actually looking for normal or artistic or nudist pictures by mixing it with hardcore stuff. It's been done, and it doesn"t work...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
CG tries to look like a human. (See also Final Fantasy VII.) Cel animated cartoons don't. Perhaps I was unclear in referring to cel animation rather than photorealistic animation.
CGI can attempt to be photo realistic, but it can just as well look similar to any animation technique. It's simply a tool, which an artist can use any way he or she sees fit.
I'm not sure if you realize this, but all "child porn", or the sexual explotation of children, is illegal in almost ever nation on the planet.
However the exact definition of "child porn" differs between countries (even possibly within federal republics such as the US.)
Even the definition of "child" and "age of majority" differs widely between different places.
But what I would like to have is a complete independant party to verify that the blocking is legit.
Where would you find such an individual or corporate entity? Who would have to be "uncoruptable" both from viewing all this nasty material and from any lobbying groups. Then even if you could find such an entity would they actually want the job...
This discussion reminds me something.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
Will a bill like this hold up to "The Constitution"? Do we not have freedom of press rights granted us via the "Bill of Rights"? Or, does the "Bill of Rights" somehow exemplify child pornography? Or is PA somehow exempt from the "Bill of Rights"? I don't agree with child pornography, I'm just wondering how this will bounce back from a "higher" level?
...that here in the uk, if a 16 year old schoolgirl wants to have sex with me, she can, but if I video the event (even with her permission, and for my own use only) then I am breaking the law as I own child porn.
Or look at it this way. If I had a large collection of child porn which consisted of 16 year old girls, this would be against the law, but if that collection encouraged me to go out and have sex with 16 year old girls then (as long as it was with their consent), I wouldn't be breaking the law.
In my opinion it is wrong to have a different age for consent and for what constitutes child pornography. Essentially what the law is saying (since in the UK you become an adult at 18) is that:
To own pornography of 16 year old children is illegal.
To actually have sex with 16 year old children is legal.
I know I have stated the same thing 3 times, but it is worth repeating so that the senselessness of it is driven home.
graspee
I can give you a different spin on this.
A long time ago (95-96) I worked at idir.net, an ISP in the midwest. Even back then there were a few a.b.p.e groups we didn't carry, for a time. We had users call and write to complain about us carrying illegal stuff, or not carrying "all the groups." (With no more specificity. We did have a few laughs over those creeps.)
Eventually we consulted our legal counsel, who advised us we had two options. A. meticulously filter our newsgroups and monitor them to make sure illegal things weren't happening, or B. act as a common carrier, and take everything from the mci feed we could subscribe to.
We took the B route, skating around the letter of the law and taking all newsgroups "we knew about" and any others "by written request."
Anyway, what's left of the ISP is now Slurp News. All they do is provide news, w/ a 5TB server and a couple of OC3 pipes.
The problem with searching out all the links to censorware.org is that there are a bunch which are in print, in mail messages which are on web-archives, in sites which have webmasters who don't update old material, and so on. So it's a huge job, and can't ever be fully changed. Some of the top linking-sites have been changed, but there's still a big problem from the sources above. Michael Sims has recently become absolutely shameless that he's hijacking those links for his ranting. Sigh. I'll say it again, though I'll certainly guarantee myself a slam down to 'Troll' status if I am in fact being revenge-moderated: It boggles my mind that he can pull such sleaze and still retain a decent public reputation. It's the power of journalism.