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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."
If the sites are domestic why not shut them down rather than restrict constitutional rights? On another note, if they are not domestic, does the person posting them have the freedom to speech? doubt it.
While child pornography should be stopped, this isn't the way to do it. We read articles every day about creative ne censorship and DRM, and the worst thing about these things is that they open the door to a new world of restricted freedoms. A lot of these new restictions won't hurt our freedom in their current state, but it's when the get twisted into a new form that they will become dangerous.
Perhaps they should also shut down the phone lines to prevent people from dialing up to the internet at all. That would block "questionable sites" for a large portion of the state.
I hate kiddie porn as much as the next person, but imposing censorship over what an internet provider can deliver (only at the request of the user, keep in mind,) is a terrible thing in my view.
If this stands, it will open the door for many similar situations to arise.
Sharpies don't just sniff themselves.
'common carrier' status that any whatever-tiered ISP should have in theory, and in practice
I don't think ISP's like UUNET have ever been considered common carriers, nor do I think they want to be. They regularly engage in content based filtering of spam all the time.
Two wrongs never make a right. The people who should be punished are the people responsible, not the messanger. Why should UUNET pay the price for the child pornographer's wrongdoing?
Just because you use the word children doesn't make you right.
Using child pornography as an excuse for injustice is worce then just the child pornography alone. Prioritize.
Hell, I'm no fan of Microsoft or the RIAA, but that doesn't mean I think their sites should be blocked.
If you start blocking sites because you don't like what's in them (or because you think it will "offend" other people), where do you stop? Should you block sites that show dead iraqi children because it doesn't benefit the US's image? Should you block christian sites because they might offend some muslims?
Instead of blocking these sites, they should go after people who exploit and kill children. Hiding a problem won't make it go away, it'll only make people less aware of it land less likely to solve it. If children are being exploited I think people should see it with their own eyes, and get mad, and do something about it.
Websites don't appear magically in my browser. To find something, I have to deliberately look for it (unless it's penis enlargement, pills, of course). I definitely don't need - or want - the state to "protect" me.
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.
paintball
I fail to see the relevance of the courier in this case.
So a taxi company will take someone to the door of a place that is illegal for them to go to (say an underage brothel). What is the proper course of action?
a) Prevent taxi companies from taking people into those neighborhoods.
b) Do your best to close down the underage brothel and arrest the proprietors.
Failing b, (a) is not an acceptable substitute. It places the responsibility into the hands of people who it should not be the responsibility of, it interferes with the flow of business, and it is so easily circumvented by customers that it almost isn't worth considering.
Chill. There are better ways to handle this than to shoot the messengers. Knee-jerk reactions that sum to "THIS IS WRONG WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO STOP ANYONE FROM EVER LOOKING AT IT" don't help the matter and are what lead to the corrosion of our rights.
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What about the rights of these children? You know, the right not to be abused. The right not to be defiled.
Your argument is a false dichotomy. Or do you really think that Worldcom(tm) has the power to stop the sexual abuse of children? Because that's what you're saying. That if Worldcom(tm) blocks these sites, that that action will somehow restore the lost rights of these children. Which is simply not true at all. Forcing a backbone carrier to not route traffic to a certain block of IP addresses (which is the only way a backbone carrier can really effect such a policy) does nothing to prevent sexual abuse of children. Children were being abused before the Internet even existed, and they'll still be abused after Worldcom implements this decision.
Some things are worse than censorship. Prioritize.
Lot's of things are worse than censorship. Murder. Rape. Child abuse. Genocide. Kidnapping. But censorship doesn't actually prevent any of these things. If child porn is such an issue for you, why don't you try and find some way to actually prevent it, rather than sit around making weak aguments that censorship is OK as long as it's "for the children".
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.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Ridding our world of the evidence of kiddie porn does not get rid of kiddie porn.
I am not in favor of child pornography. I suspect the great majority of people aren't. It is a terrible very bad thing. And even if we all can't agree that it is a bad thing, it is illegal.
But . . . how do we know what they are blocking? Who decides if it is child pornography? What is to prevent the authorities from expanding this? What if someone posted a URL of a site alleged to be child pornography on slashdot, and so the authorities decided to block slashdot because it "contains links to child pornography".
And . . . how soon before the legislation is expanded to sites alleged to include music files or program files. And what about sites that traffic in encrypted data? We'd better block those, too, because who knows what is being hidden in that encryption? And what about sites that question the policies and actions of the government? After all, any site that attacks the government may well be abetting terrorism, and fighting terrorism is even more important than fighting child pornography.
Face it, people. Our "unalienable" rights are as fragile as tissue paper. It requires constant vigilence to see that they are not eroded. We need to find a different way to fight child porn.
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[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.]
/19. Let's further say that they got that /19 from their parent provider's /16.
/19 goes back to the Tier 3 provider.
/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...
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
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
They re-slice it into
Got your attention, did I? Got your flamethrowers all fired up and ready? Good. (Call it a TROLL if you want, but not until you read the rest of it, eh?)
First of all, I'd like to see some proof that the alleged "kiddie porn" really involved minors. If it did, then those responsible should be thrown in jail and the keys should be lost. I have no wish to see anyone go though that kind of abusive hell.
The reason I say this is that the definition of child pornography is probably not the same as what most people think when they hear the term. I suspect the image that jumps to mind for MOST people is of very young (less than 10 years old) kids, but that's usually not what's being targeted. By definition, it is any act of a sexually explicit nature (including suggestive poses, but NOT simple nudity) involving a person under the legal age of majority (which is generally 18, but varies from place to place). Think about that. How many of you know people in their 20's who still get carded at the bar? How many 19 year-olds could pass for 14 or even younger if they have the right anatomy, makeup and lighting? For that matter, how many 14 year-olds are well-developed enough to pass for 17 or 18 at a glance?
Add to this the incredible advances in digital image processing, and you might realize that it's not THAT hard to make someone look far younger than they are. Even childlike. So, if the people in the images were not underage, or perhaps not even real (fully computer generated images are not impossible), whose rights have been violated?
Secondly, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, where will this end? Today, a bunch of people make laws to force ISP's and backbone providers to block horrible kiddie porn and keep everyone safe from the horror. Next year, a bunch of other people decide that it's important to block access to information regarding nuclear materials, explosives, or other terrorist paraphenalia, on the grounds that it allows and encourages Terrorist Activities and is a threat to National Security... and this censorship has a precedant, the blocking of kiddie porn.
A bit later, information about the principles of nuclear fission, operation of automatic weapons, the history of the middle east are censored or "adjusted" to make them safe for consumption by the public. This is done under the guise of further efforts in the War On Terrorism, and earlier rulings are used to show that these too are perfectly legal, as they are nearly identical to the prior bans.
In one generation, we could very easily lose the one thing that so many people in the last 200 years have fought and died for... freedom. If you let them take the little things now, you can be sure they'll take bigger things later, until you have nothing left.
Once upon a time, I could walk into a library anywhere in the country and sit down to research any topic I was curious about. I would have no fear of persecution (other than raised eyebrows from the library staff, perhaps), and would be content in the knowledge that even if someone tried to bury my work or hide the truth, at least the law protected my right to ask questions (even if the answers were classified).
Then came the DMCA. Now, asking the wrong questions might land you in the circumvention camp, and curiosity might earn you jail time. Next, an unfortunate terrorist attack allows the door to swing open on Homeland Security -- talking too loudly about the wrong things might land you in the conspiracy to commit acts of terror camp, in which case you might disappear for a long time. Now, I'm being "protected" from things that tend to distrub "most" people. If I happen to stumble across an image of a naked little girl running from a burning building, SOMEONE might decide that it's porn and so I can no longer see that historical print from a war that was fought before I knew what "war" meant.
Do we *REALLY* want to go back to the idea of Government Approved Information? Is it really more comforting to know that anything you read, see, or hear has been sanitized by Uncle Sam to be sure you don't see anything upsetting? Is everyone THAT thin-skinned, that we have to hide behind lawyers, lobbyists, and laws?
The distribution of kiddie porn is NOT the problem. The creation of it IS. Let's stop making laws that do a poor job of curing the symptom and try enforcing already existing laws that might cure the sickness. Go after the people MAKING the stuff!
Kelso Lundden commented in a fashion similar to a number of other posters:
Child pornography, of course, is a terrible,
terrible thing...
I agree with the general sentiment of Lundden's note, but I think the above needs to be questioned. It is not a simple thing to determine what it is that is "child pornography".
-MOST- of what is prosecuted as "child pornography" really IS NOT a terrible thing. Under US Federal law--and I am sure PA is no better--a 24 y.o. dressed in a "schoolgirl" outfit to "simulate" a minor makes for child porn. You might say that that's not "really" child porn... but on the LAW, you'd be plain wrong. Likewise, parent taking pictures of their small children bathing, swimming, or running around the lawn, have been prosecuted and imprisoned for producing "child pornography." Or even in the case that is -borderline- reasonable, a 16-17 y.o. who is of the age-of-consent to have sex in his/her state, becomes the "victim" of child pornographers if her/his partner (who might be 16-17 too) takes a picture of the act. I might say that this last case is maybe, slightly bad--but certainly also far short of "terrible." Or still more: someone who draws a picture--entirely from imagination--of kids having sex, produces child porn... and likewise even if those drawings are just "suggestive."
Moreover, even by the incredibly loose standard that images (and words) get classified as "child porn"... the PA action doesn't bother to demonstrate that the banned sites ACTUALLY meet the weak threshhold. They just order material banned... no hearing, no trial, no evidentiary trail. Just a lone declaration by an AG that "I know that's what it is."
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