WorldCom Forced To Block Questionable Sites

Cutriss writes "Seen on Wired, this article briefly mentions how the Pennsylvania State Government is forcing UUNet to block access to five child pornography sites, under their new state law. No mention was made as to whether they were domestic or foreign. I'm certainly no fan of kiddie porn, but this ruling also serves as a blow to the 'common carrier' status that any whatever-tiered ISP should have in theory, and in practice. Also, this is a state law, not a federal one, but the end result is nationwide. This isn't a whole lot different from Yahoo! France being sued for making auctions of Nazi propaganda viewable by French citizens."

Comments

OutSide of the US

[The Turd Report]

Most of the sites are outside of the US. Two are is Spain and at least one is in Russia. WorldCom will just null0 the IPs, but, if they are multihomed...

There's a right way, and there's a wrong way.

[raehl]

The right way is a supeona the ISP asking for a list of customers who have downloaded kiddie porn from these websites. Prosecute under existing laws. The listed website could even be used as valuable tools (bait) in ferreting out criminals likely to cause harm to children.

The wrong way is for government to get in the business of blocking anything. I reserve the right to decide what I look at on the web, and accept in trade the resopnsibility for what I choose to look at on the web.

Judicial review is a wonderful thing.

Common Carrier?

[Anonymous Coward]

Common carrier laws (as I understand them) say that you can carry anything and not look at the content, but if someone calls attention to a specific communication as being illegal, you *must* now act on it. So since kiddie porn is illegal, and since UUNet has been told they're carrying it... No one is asking them to *look* for kiddie porn, they've been told *exactly* where it is. Sorry - that's not censorship, that's enforcement of the law.

VZ already does this for customers in PA.

[Agent Green]

Though I can't point out specific names, this is how it's done and has been coordinated with PA:

1.) State of PA submits a URL and IP address which is verified to be a kiddie-porn site. Note: The burden of proof and maintainence of the information is left to the state and they are responsible for providing all the information. This way, the ISP in question isn't stuck playing kiddie-port cop.

2.) The IP address of the offending URL is globally null-routed across the provider's backbone using two redundant null-route servers.

3.) The IP is recorded along with the URL in a flat file for reference and tracking.

4.) The null route stays in place as long as necessary, currently indefinitely.

I'd post the list for all the sick bastards that visit Slashdot, but I don't want to get fired. :)

Anyway, this is no big deal and can be implemented with very little overhead if negotiated properly. UUnet certainly has the resources to pull this off...since there are other providers that are doing the same thing.

What happens when...

[swb]

[I'll go out on a limb and presume some of the following, none of which may be true now but much of which may be true in the future.]

4.) The null route stays in place as long as necessary, currently indefinitely.

Indefinitely is a long time. Let's say that the IP is part of a Tier 4 providers CIDR /19. Let's further say that they got that /19 from their parent provider's /16.

The reason you could run a KP site on the original tier 4 provider's network is that they're damn near out of business and nobody cared about AUPs or about much of anything. The KP site kills the business, and the provider's /19 goes back to the Tier 3 provider.

They re-slice it into /24s or whatever. Now, I go to use my new /24 at my new provider and my router, running the blocked IP, can't talk to anything. Anyway, indefinitely is a long time -- is there any way to overcome it? Does anybody periodically check it? I'd hate to think that there's a bunch of null0 routes in some backbone router that nobody can remember why they're there...

Words can't hurt?

[El]

Words themselves never hurt, are never dangerous.

So if I call you up and tell you I'm coming to your house to kill you, when do you call the police? a) Immediately b) After I get to your house c) After I enter your house d) After I kill you

Fact is, words DO hurt, if the words constitute a credible threat of violence. That's why we have laws against phone harrasment. You say you were just excercising your free speech rights by repeatedly calling me up a 4AM??? I don't think so, and the law will put you in jail for doing so. You say you should be able to call up random women and talk dirty to them, you're just excercising your free speech rights? Again, the law disagrees with you, and you will go to jail. Sorry, but there is no such thing as an "absolute" right -- even your right to life is forfeited if you demonstrate you are enough of a danger to others.