Pennsylvania Refuses to Disclose Banned Website List

koehn writes "In an interesting turn of events, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania has ordered all PA ISPs to block sites that have child porn. If that's not bad enough, they won't tell you which sites those are because - so the excuse goes - that could be construed as 'disseminating pornography.' So much for public review, huh?" See the previous story.

Comments

Bad for Who?

[Ken@WearableTech]

the Attorney General of Pennsylvania has ordered all PA ISPs to block sites that have child porn. If that's not bad enough...

Waa... Hunh... I had to read this a few times to realize it's not supposed be a joke.

Bad enough for who?

Re:Bad for Who?

[Carlos Laviola]

For everyone. ISPs are just carriers. They're not supposed to be filtering based on content. That's akin to the Attorney General ordering Fedex to block all packages that have $WHATEVER material, which is illegal.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Gortbusters.org]

Tis true, but on the other hand people can mistakenly surf to a domain name they think is good and end up at a horrible site. I think it's a little different than Fedex because Fedex has a one to one relationship. A sends B a package. Visitor C never sees that package.

Little Timmy surfing around doesn't want to mistakenly see little Sarah on some illegal site.

Re:Bad for Who?

[rf0]

Bad for the kiddy fiddlers. So good for everyone else.

Rus

Re:Bad for Who?

[nick this]

Several things that bother me about it:

1. It's a slippery slope. Once the goverment decides that its job is to censor web sites, where does it stop? All pornography? Terrorist sites? Legitimate news sites from "terrorist countries"? Legitimate news sites period? Bad precedent, in my opinion.

2. This is a job that should be done at the end-user location. Want to surf safely? Don't surf on machines that don't have content filtering programs on them. Want your child to surf safely? Don't let him/her surf on machines that don't have content filtering programs on them.

3. Lastly, what are we protecting people from? It's an evil world, and evil stuff exists out there. We can't ignore it. And hiding it doesn't make it go away. I'm not sure what this fundamentally accomplishes.

Re:Bad for Who?

[_bug_]

IANAL but there are U.S. laws governing what can and can't be sent through the mail.

Is that ONLY the USPS or would that include FedEx, UPS, ect...?

Certainly the various laws governing trafficing of illegal materials across state lines would include any postal service such as FedEx. So couldn't that apply to child porn as well? Meaning that regardless of what the codes relating to the postal service apply to, there are other laws that this could be legal under.

Again, IANAL. Perhaps /. needs to get it's own band of lawyers who can comment on the laws relating to various /. posts such as this.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Ken@WearableTech]

How is this Funny? Who MOD'ed that?

Re:Bad for Who?

[commodoresloat]

Who decides when a website contains "child porn"? Child porn is illegal under Federal law. The government enforces those laws, not ISPs. The courts interpret those laws, not ISPs. Now an ISP is required by law to enforce decisions made in secret by the government. And the government won't release the list of blocked sites -- so a webmaster has no idea if his website is considered "child porn" and no opportunity to defend it.

If the AG knows of child porn sites he should shut them down directly, by law. If they aren't in PA he can send the URLs to the federal government. But nothing in the Constitution can be construed to permit prior restraint of expression that has not been deemed illegal.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bad enough for who?"

Bad enough for the public. By going after the ISPs and not the pornographers, you're guaranteeing they will just spring up somewhere else and won't fear the law.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Tailhook]

How does the AG shut down foreign sites? Iraqi child porn sites are obviously in jeopardy, but beyond that I'm not sure the AG has much power...

Re:Bad for Who?

[Com2Kid]

• Little Timmy surfing around doesn't want to mistakenly see little Sarah on some illegal site.

No, of course not! Because Little Timmy should see big hootered hairy woman just like a Real Man(tm).

Can't start to early in exposing children to those stereotypes!

Re:Bad for Who?

[commodoresloat]

He doesn't; he reports it to the FBI and they decide what to do from there (such as contact the host country and get the ISP shut down). Someone is providing bandwidth if the site is up; they can be ordered to take the site down. International enforcement of child porn laws does exist.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Alsee]

Bad enough for who?

Ok, how about I start a list?

(1) A "site" can have ten thousand webpages from hundreds of different people/companies. This is bad for these innocent people/companies that share the "site".
(2) This is bad for the people who wish to access the perfectly valid and valuable mentioned above.
(3) If you read the article you'd see that this Pennsylvania censorship law is going to impact people outside Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has no right to censor people outside the state from accessing material that may be perfectly legal in that other state. (Note: If you find this point unpersuasive consider that my state could decide to sensor slashdot because it has goatse links. Does my state have any right to prevent YOU from reading slashdot?)
(4) This is bad for the ISP's. The police should be going after criminals. The ISP should not be policing thier customer's communications any more than the telephone company polices what you hear on the phone.
(5) Since the block list is secrect there is no way to know who else is hurt by this. They could be blocking controversial site on ANY topic.

But you would have known most of this already had you actually Read The Fine Article. That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's more.

Just because child abuse is a Bad Thing does not make this law a Good Thing. This censorship certianly isn't going to stop any child abuse. It's just plain censorship, and BADLY IMPLEMENTED CENSORSHIP at that.

-

Re:Bad for Who?

[Com2Kid]

• Bad for the kiddy fiddlers. So good for everyone else.

You are ASSUMING it is just child pornography that is being blocked.

How do you know? What if some site showing the current Governor of Pennsylvania's wife in a "compromising" position is also blocked?

Re:Bad for Who?

[a hollow voice]

I could be wrong, but I think the difference is if you send something illegal through the mail, you get charged with a crime, not the USPS, post office, or mail carriers involved. So applied to this situation, the ISP is innocent and the content providers are guilty.

If you can't get to the content providers to arrest them, that's not the ISP's fault.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Kpt Kill]

Had a similar debate on the kazaa lite boards and i was told i support kiddie porn and was a avid user when i tried to use some of these same reasons (albiet poorly worded)

Re:Bad for Who?

[plague3106]

Um, b/c maybe people want to verify there aren't other non-kiddie porn sites on the list. A very ligitimate fear, i would think.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Thomas M Hughes]

I think you misunderstand the purpose of blocking access to child pornography. There are two reasons why child pornography is considered absolutely horrific by people:

1) They think its gross that someone gets aroused looking at a child.

2) Making child pornography requires a child to be put into a sexual situation, before they are of the age to know that such a thing could possibly be wrong.

Now, legally and constitutionally, the government cannot play thought police. You're allowed to think of gross things all day, as long as you don't hurt anyone with them. So, if someone sits around jacking off to thoughts of children, its gross, but you can't stop it.

However, if you start taking pictures of it, and forcing real children into that position, you are hurting someone (the child in question). Because of that, the production of child pornography CAN be deemed completely illegal, outlawed, and censored. Its a matter of stopping children from being sexually abused.

But, simply stopping people from producing this pornography is not enough for most people. They fundamentally feel that anyone who would look at this stuff, even if they haven't produced it, is a sicko who deserves to be punished. Furthermore, they argue that by allowing existing child pornography to be obtained, even though it causes no further harm to the child, it encourages the phedophile to think about his problem even more, and ultimately, will result in more sexual child abuse. The link between viewing porn and increased chances of sexual abuse is not very well proven. Some studies say maybe. Some studies say no.

Thus, the rationale isn't to stop people from things they shouldn't be looking at. Its two fold. First, they want to stop children from being used in this abusive manner for the photo shoots. Killing the market, kills the abuse. Second, they argue that viewing child pornography makes you more likely to commit sexual child abuse, and on those grounds they try to block it, for the good of the children.

As a side note, the Supreme Court heard a case about the possibility of virtual child pornography, where you have a computer generated child being sexually depicted, without ever having a real child involved. I forget how the court ultimately ruled, but I believe they found the law to be overbroad, and struck it down.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Tom_Yardley]

But, content filtering programs don't work. And who but a slashdot loving techno nerd can out hack a teenaged boy hot on the trail of porn?

Re:Bad for Who?

[error0x100]

He didn't say its funny, you've misunderstood his post. Go read it again, carefully this time. Read it a few times if necessary.

Re:Bad for Who?

[TarPitt]

This is an excellent point. The blocking products I am aware of all block based on IP address. No way to selectively block URLs. In the process of blocking bad stuff you will always end up blocking stuff that is innocuous, that happens to be hosted at the same web site. This would hold doubly for an ISP. The only practical way for an ISP to block traffic is by IP address.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Dr. Evil]

Furthermore, they argue that by allowing existing child pornography to be obtained, even though it causes no further harm to the child, it encourages the phedophile to think about his problem even more, and ultimately, will result in more sexual child abuse.

I know you're just summarizing key points, but don't forget that those photos are of people who are still alive and/or have families. I think it could be easily argued that the act of distributing this stuff continues to victimize the survivor, even if no money changes hands, no other children are touched etc.

But your sentiment seems to be that this whole thing is a savage witch hunt... which I agree with.

If they really want to stop child pornography and child abuse, they should have a two-sided message. The other side being "if you have a problem..." But everyone seems to be more interested in projecting their hatred... It is socially encouraged to demand that pedophiles be dragged through the streets by their testicles, flayed to the bone, drawn, quartered then set on fire.

(Pause for cheers from the peanut gallery)

As it is now, the severe punishments and public shaming means that for a pedophile, it is in their best interest to beat or threaten a child into silence, or to kill them.

(Pause for morbid silence)

It's a sad and screwed up situation.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Lord Sauron]

>How does the AG shut down foreign sites? Iraqi child porn sites are obviously in jeopardy, but beyond that I'm not sure the AG has much power...

Why do you think the US are invading Iraq ?

Re:Bad for Who?

[arkanes]

Just as a heads up, you can be arrested and convicted for possessing fake kiddy porn as well - both computer generated drawings or textual fantasies. Ohio is one state I'm certain of, I'm not sure about others. The supreme court case was for a federal law.

As for you arguments, you summarize well, but I don't think anyone misunderstands them. I think alot of people understand them fine, and realize that they're hopelessly naive.

Re:Bad for Who?

[Reziac]

To demonstrate its absurdity, shift the same scenario to a library setting:

"Books on this list are banned."
"Why are they banned?"
"I dunno, we're not allowed to read them."

Re:Bad for Who?

[anthony_dipierro]

You are ASSUMING it is just child pornography that is being blocked.

Umm, because it is...

"the Attorney General of Pennsylvania has ordered all PA ISPs to block sites that have child porn."

How do you know? What if some site showing the current Governor of Pennsylvania's wife in a "compromising" position is also blocked?

Then the submission would have read "the Attorney General of Pennsylvania has ordered all PA ISPs to block sites that have the current Governor of Pennsylvania's wife in a 'compromising' position."

Re:Bad for Who?

[anthony_dipierro]

I could be wrong, but I think the difference is if you send something illegal through the mail, you get charged with a crime, not the USPS, post office, or mail carriers involved. So applied to this situation, the ISP is innocent and the content providers are guilty.

It depends. If the mail carrier knows that you are sending something illegal through the mail, then they are guilty too.

Re:Bad for Who?

[a hollow voice]

Good point. I think the ISPs generally use the same argument here that the USPS uses - that the amount of material they carry makes it logistically impossible to know what they're carrying.

The people who try to enforce blocking lists think that it solves this problem, since they tell you exactly what you're not supposed to carry, but they apparently don't realize that their list of inappropriate/illegal sites is out of date in a very short time, so it doesn't solve anything unless it's constantly verified and updated.

Re:Bad for Who?

[jasonditz]

In many American states the police have discretion to arrest someone for carrying a toothpick or seize that toothpick if they feel it is being carried with intent to use it as a weapon and in a concealed manner. Again, its not even about what you really intend to do, just what the cop figures you intend to do.

In other words, if you keep a toothpick in your pocket you'd damned well better have some corn nearby.

The slippery slope argument isn't legitimate in and of itself, but when you've got a system of government that will use any precident to take away any remotely similar rights, there's something to be said for it.

FWIW its already illegal to report about something the government considers harmful under the Patriot act, because if it intimidates someone to hear it then the reporting itself is a terrorist action.

Re:Bad for Who?

[vsprintf]

There should be a -1 Gullible moderation category.

Re:Bad for Who?

[anthony_dipierro]

Why... Are you saying that a judge and jury are going to agree to this?

Re:Bad for Who?

[nick this]

I think you misunderstand the purpose of blocking access to child pornography.

Perhaps I do. Your argument is that child pornography is bad. For several reasons, including that the mere viewing of it may (or may not) be a causal factor in child abuse. Perhaps this is an oversimlification of your argument, but that is what it essentially boils down to.

So stipulated. I understand the objections to child pornography, and I understand the though process that would produce this sort of legislation. In some sense, I agree with the objective of the measure.

Unfortunately, it's the case of the right thing for the wrong reason. If making child pornography is illegal, and people continue to break the law anyway, why would one imagine that *more* legislation can fix the problem? The problem is fundamentally a social problem. Social problems *cannot* be solved by legislation. They are ultimately doomed to failure.

Another problem is that while this sort of legislation might hide the underlying problem, it attacks only the symptoms, not the root of the problem. So not only will it ultimately fail, it won't even help make the problem go away. This is nothing more than eyewash. This kind of legislation does nothing but make some constituents happy without actually accomplishing much. And that at the expense of making the government a moral judge. Bad idea.

And third, let's just use some common sense. If you know where the child pornography web sites are, shut them down! Proceed with legal action against them. Don't just ignore them and hope they go away.

So what I see is a dangerous increase in the government's powers, without any kind of commensurate benefit. That's not good government. That's foolish.

Re:Bad for Who?

[geekee]

What's your point? I don't think it's legal for Fedex to knowingly ship illegal drug, weapons, etc. How's this any different?

Re:Bad for Who?

[Alsee]

If the host refuses to remove the content, then its sort of their choice.

(1) If the host is not in Pennsylvania then why should the host remove the content? For all I know Pennsylvania wants to block slashdot.
(2) I wasn't reffering the host, I was reffering to the people with perfectly acceptable webpages on that host. I guess you'll blame them for using a host that carries an "objectionable" page, but as I said the "site" can have tens of thousands of webpages. There's absolutely no way someone could look at them all before deciding to use the host.

Then again, a look at my analog reports showing most used search querys

I'm not quite sure what you're saying, are you pointing out that your "bland" site could wind up on the blocked list? And thereby also get everyone else on your host blocked?

-

Re:Bad for Who?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

"(1) If the host is not in Pennsylvania then why should the host remove the content? For all I know Pennsylvania wants to block slashdot.
"
Because they want visitors from pennsylvania. Its sort of like Germany asking yahoo to remove nazi content. They have no reason to, But by refusing theyre cutting off visitors.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying, are you pointing out that your "bland" site could wind up on the blocked list? And thereby also get everyone else on your host blocked?

-"
yes, which is why I dont agree with them not showing what exactly theyre blocking.

Re:Bad for Who?

[vsprintf]

See the other reply to my comment. I can't top that, although I think he was a bit harsh. :)

Penn seems to be the leader in regulating ISPs

[Anonymous Coward]

Here
But what about this?

Oh BTW, Pajonet's Hot or Not News Site has been totally redone

Get 'em

[mnassri]

You'd think they could just publish the list on the net, so every s. kiddie could try to take it down with their mad skills...

Alternately, just publish the list on /. - I bet the sites would never be back up.

-Maher-

Re:Get 'em

[threephaseboy]

Alternately, just publish the list on /. - I bet the sites would never be back up.

What are you suggesting about slashdotters' habits??

Re:Get 'em

[shadowbearer]

and the cry goes out....

MELT THEIR SERVERS!

It'd serve them right......poetic justice.

Sigh. Censorship sucks. Why the hell! are so many politicians so clueless these days? After 10 years of the internet you would think they would be educated by now...but no....

SB

well...

[iosmart]

if they told residents, that'd just make people want to go to sites just so they could say "ha-ha-ha, look at me, i got around the law!!! w00t?". maybe by proxy or just traveling outside of the state...but by not telling the people, they can only find out what's blocked by actually looking for child pornography - how low is that? the majority of people would simply not bother with the whole thing and continue their lives.

Re:well...

[be-fan]

A major point of child pornography (and underage sex laws in general) to prevent the emotional damage that results from sex. Of course I'm being a little facetious in bring up Britney spears, Of course I realize the difference between her and a child, but I'd argue that at 15, when she was swept into the whole music biz, she wasn't emotionally developed enough to handle it.

Re:well...

[Anonymous Coward]

there is a vast and great difference between child porn, the majority of which feature children and pre-teens, and teenage girls.

Do you have some sort of reference for the suggestion that the "majority" of child porn features children and pre-teens? As the laws define it (at least in the US), porn involving anyone under 18 is child porn. A porno movie filmed the day before the "star" turned 18 is just as illegal as a porno filmed when the "star" is 6 years old, though I would imagine most people would find the former far less repugnant than the latter.

Makes no difference, though; the pornos depicting 17 year olds are counted among the numbers when the gov't is spreading hysteria about child porn. You see a report on TV every now and then about how so-and-so was arrested for child porn, and that the cops found "2,000 images" on his computer. What you never hear is how many of those 2,000 images were of 17 year olds, versus how many were of 6 year olds. Or even how many were child porn to start with! The GAO and Customs recently conducted a study of "child porn" on filesharing networks, and found that out of 1286 suspected child porn images, only 149 were actually illegal. But that doesn't stop people from being up in arms about "how much" child porn is all over those evil p2p networks.

biologically, teenage girls are sexually attractive.

And, biologically, children are sexually attractive to some people. I don't think biology is the answer, I think it's the problem. People are different, they have different wants, different needs, and different tastes. From a lawmaking point of view, that's an obstacle.

The parent brings up a good point, we as a society run around decrying child porn, and passing law after law supposedly trying to stop it, but typically only serving to pull the wool over peoples' eyes. The PA law is a great example of this, it doesn't do anything to combat child porn, it's as if the entire state is just supposed to pretend those sites don't exist. Yet we parade underage girls around on TV, magazine covers, movies, etc. in skimpy clothing all the time. I remember when I was in my teens Jennifer Love Hewitt was in bikinis all the time on episodes of "Byrds of Paradise" (it was a network TV show). She was probably 13 or 14 at the time, showing a ton of skin, the only reason they were doing that was to get ratings.

Both child porn and the latest teeny pop starlet's slutty wardrobe are made with prurient interest in mind - to turn on, arouse, and attract sales/viewers - yet one is illegal, the other is not only legal it's flaunted everywhere. It is indeed kind of weird when you think about it. A lot like the idea that sex is taboo yet violence is A-OK. Us Americans are a weird breed.

Re:well...

[arkanes]

Just to clear something up: Biologically speaking, it's normal for people to be attracted to sexually mature or maturing members of the opposite sex. Age is not a factor. It's sexual maturity (or, in some cases, the appearance of maturity, look at J-Lo's kid fashions some time), that makes the decision. The vast majority of sexually mature males will be titillated by your typically dressed high school girl of today. Socially adjusted males past a certain age will self-censor those feelings, but they'll still be there by reflex. Appealing to that desire is why the slutty teen diva is so popular.

Maybe they don't *have* a list?

[dspeyer]

I realize this is a hideously Orwellian (Heelerian?) Catch-22, but it could be pure incompitance. When the ruling first appeared, many here questioned how such a law might be enforced when surely any ISP discovering child porn should report it to police so the server can be taken down.

It seems likely to me that they simply don't have a list, and they want to make it the ISP's problems. The best law enforcement agencies in the country can't stop kiddy-porn rings, so let's see if overworked sysadmins can! If it fails, at least we'll be able to pass the blame...

I think ISPs should simply declare that, to the best of their knowledge, there is no kiddy porn on the web, and only block things if they get complaints (then report the complainant as having viewed kiddy-porn.)

Re:Maybe they don't *have* a list?

[lalas]

If I had mod points......

I think you're right on the money... this is a way to pass the buck to the ISPs

Re:Maybe they don't *have* a list?

[connsmythe96]

Report the complainant?? I think if someone reported it then they problem didn't go looking for it. If you punish people who report it then no one will ever report it and the sites won't get taken down (no one will know about them but the people who want them there). So why get them in trouble?

Re:Maybe they don't *have* a list?

[JJahn]

*sigh*, whether you like Bush or not does not mean you should just blame him for everything evil in the world. This is the STATE of Pennsylvania, not the US government. Although as mentioned the US gov. can shut down kiddie porn sites (and if you disagree with that you are a sick person)

Re:Maybe they don't *have* a list?

[Alsee]

Report the complainant?? I think if someone reported it then they problem didn't go looking for it. If you punish people who report it then no one will ever report it and the sites won't get taken down (no one will know about them but the people who want them there). So why get them in trouble?

LOL. I suggest you work on getting the law changed then. According to current law you are GUILTY if it's on your computer. Even if you weren't looking for it. Even if you delete it. Even if you report it. It would probably be illegal NOT to report you for reporting it.

The law has to be that way - we need to protect the children. Chuckle.

-

Re:Maybe they don't *have* a list?

[0x0d0a]

I believe the original poster was pointing out some of the flaws in our current underage porn laws.

Re:Maybe they don't *have* a list?

[Danse]

Although as mentioned the US gov. can shut down kiddie porn sites

Although, like he said, if they can shut them down, why do they need a list?

Re:Maybe they don't *have* a list?

[Galvatron]

There's certainly precedent. McCarthy did the same thing, he'd wave a blank piece of paper around, saying it had the names of 100 (or whatever) Communists working in the government.

Here's my question: if viewing child porn is illegal, how do they find these sites? How closely do they monitor those people to make sure they're not child porn addicts who have found a very clever way to circumvent the system?

why not shut em down?

[jest3r]

If all of these sites actually contain child porn why not focus all efforts on getting them shut down completely .. having a few ISP's block these websites accomplishes nothing ..

Re:why not shut em down?

[DeepRedux]

Most likely, these sites are not in Pennsylvania or even in the US. How would Pennsylvania shut down a site outside of the US?

Re:why not shut em down?

[v_1_r_u_5]

So here's how the game is played: someone notifies the authorities about a child porn site. Several days (weeks) go by before the claim is looked into. Several more days pass by until the site is eventually shut down.

In the mean time, ISP's can act on their own accord by blocking access to known child porn sites. This is a good thing (TM).

Re:why not shut em down?

[joejoejoejoe]

B/C PA needs an open ended way to attack anyone they feel like attacking.

in other words, yeah, exactly, if they had a target to pin the bulls-eye on, they would, so instead they blame the guys proiding access (can you say newsgroups?).

Kiddie porn is bad. If the government know where it is, it should be THEIR job to stop the spread of it, not some ISP.

What if the site is via a membership. Should every ISP join EVERY site that their members (who get only access to the Internet) join, so they can validate the legality of the site? And if they get it wrong, because they dont have the forensics to get it right, are they still responsible? and is this even a viable way to do it? NO IT IS NOT. Merely viewing child porn is a crime, even if you are trying to find it, to block it. It is the classic chicken and the egg (catch-22): To find it, you need to view it. To ban it you need to find it. To block it you need to find it. So to block it, you need to view it, which is against the law (UNLESS THE GOVT PROVIDES THE LIST, which the cannot???!!!...

joe (i am drunk)

Re:why not shut em down?

[sheddd]

Kiddie porn is bad

Define kiddie porn, please; beauty pageants for preteens give me a much ickier feeling than watching a 17 year old screw a guy. Who should be the judge of what's indecent? Or illegal?

Re:why not shut em down?

[connsmythe96]

That's exactly why this is wrong. If this is done for child-pornography, then eventually it will be extended to other things that the government might want to censor

Re:why not shut em down?

[linzeal]

We need to find the people that rape children with our supa-keen hacker prowess and kill them. That would solve more problems than prosecuting people peddling child porn, let's hunt down and liberate the children that are being exploited.

Re:why not shut em down?

[sheddd]

Agreed; self censoring is the best awnser IMO (though I cringe when I imagine what grandma sees when she's using the new pc I got her).

Re:why not shut em down?

[unitron]

By all means let's not bother with any of that due process of law or burden of proof or guilty beyond all reasonable doubt stuff.

All those in favor of mob rule, lynch the next guy I point to!

Re:why not shut em down?

[parliboy]

I disagree. In that context, blocking an illegal website in preparation for shutting it down is analogous to sending a letter to your neighborhood crack dealer saying, "You might want to find a new corner. We're thinking of raiding you." It just makes it harder to make an arrest.

Re:why not shut em down?

[error0x100]

beauty pageants for preteens give me a much ickier feeling

Urgh, yes. Was watching a TV show about one the other day, and some adults were talking about "how beautiful some of these girls are", "how important it is to be beautiful", and were saying things like that "that one has such beautiful legs" and "what a nice body that one has" etc. It was kind of creepy and kind of sad. These girls were no older than 10 or 11, and were trying so hard to behave grown-up. The adults 'dressing up the girls in pretty dresses' and cooing over them reminded me precisely of young girls dressing up dolls in 'pretty dresses'.

Re:why not shut em down?

[GigsVT]

And the same arguments apply. The arguments against underage porn generally go along the lines of "these kids are being put into situations that they are not capable of consenting to, and the resulting pictures/media could harm them later in life". Or someone might argue psychological consequences.

Someone who participates in these child beauty contests may regret it later in life, have serious psychological consequences, and the demeaning pictures of them will be floating around for years. How is that different?

Re:Blocking Child Porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the problem with an open society is having to deal with things you may not like. I can trust them to use this list honestly (I don't think they'd blacklist a site that doesn't qualify as child porn), but if we're pretending to be an open society, we ought to act like it.

Fact is, people who look at child porn already have their hookup, they don't need a list to figure out where to go. (ie, USENET)

Open up the damn list so the paranoid people can judge for themselves, and so we're not hypocritical when we pretend that we're better than police states like China in this regard.

Re:Goddamnit.

[braeden]

Ahh yes, sarcasm... how appropriate.

CDT Calls Penn Blocking Law Unconstitutional

[Anonymous Coward]

The CDT report - entitled "The Pennsylvania ISP Liability Law: An Unconstitutional Prior Restraint and a Threat to the Stability of the Internet" - analyzes a 2002 Pennsylvania law that forces ISPs to block access to any web site deemed "child pornography" without notice to the site's publisher and without any opportunity to challenge the determination. ISPs are required to block the sites even if they do not host the content and have no relationship whatsoever with the publishers of the content. The Pennsylvania Attorney General has since gone even further, bypassing the law's inadequate court procedures to simply demand by letter that sites be blocked.

CDT.org

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Re:CDT Calls Penn Blocking Law Unconstitutional

[Anonymous Coward]

Passed in early 2002, the Pennsylvania ISP Liability Law imposes potential liability on ISPs for child pornography available on the Internet, even if the ISPs are not hosting the offending content and have no relationship whatsoever with the publishers of the content. Essentially, the law makes any ISP doing business in Pennsylvania potentially liable for content anywhere on the Internet.

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Re:CDT Calls Penn Blocking Law Unconstitutional

[danoatvulaw]

They can argue prior restraint all they feel like, and in some cases, it may be true. However, they completely miss the fact that child pornography is entitled to exactly 0 Constitutional protection. None. Also, prior restraint necessarially implies that the government is trying to stop the speech before it happens - here the site is already up and running! danoatvulaw note that I have not read their report, but based on your summation, they dont have a leg to stand on.

How often is this list updated?

[joshlax]

To quote the article:

Fisher has so far instructed Internet providers with customers in the state to block subscribers from at least 423 Web sites around the world.

First, I find it hard to believe that there are only 423 web sites that offer kiddie porn, based soley on the amount of spam I get advertizing it. And in what way is this list updated? Porn sites move around constantly, and use any number of tricks to fool browsers (fake.site.com@real.site.com tricks, IP addresses instead of host names, etc.) so I think this list must be changing every few minutes. Do they reall y have someone sitting and watching as the porn sites get a new IP address?

I'm not saying anything for or against the block itself, I'm just saying this must be one hell of a headache to manange.

Re:How often is this list updated?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just saying this must be one hell of a headache to manange.

It probably won't be managed very actively. That is how it is possible.

Re:How often is this list updated?

[rmgrotkierii]

It's updated once Mike Fisher is finished with the said site(s). ;-)

Re:How often is this list updated?

[Agent Green]

The number of sites on that list is actually less than 423. At least for the ISP I work for, they have to supply the URL and the IP address...and we block by IP.

The unfortunate side effect is that blocking by IP permeates over the whole backbone, effectively shutting everyone out from our network and anyone else who uses us for transit...regardless if they live in PA or not.

Also, once each request is made, that's it...we don't keep tabs on it...especially since they don't pay us for that kind of service. In short, it's their responsiblity to provide us the information for continued enforcement.

Re:How often is this list updated?

[Pig Hogger]

The number of sites on that list is actually less than 423. At least for the ISP I work for, they have to supply the URL and the IP address...and we block by IP.

Why don't you e-mail me the list they gave you, and I'll post it on a website far from the reach of Pennsylvania law???

OK, to explain why it's a bad thing...

[clambake]

...if you don't get to look at the list, how do you know it's not being abused? How do you know that they are all child porn sites, and not, for example, pro-choice advocate sites, or whatever the reviewer decides is against his personal beliefs?

If I was in charge of the list, and I knew that it would never be seen by anyone but me and my cronies, then I've got a really big stick to wave around the heads of those people I don't agree with. Child porn is bad, but the potential to lose some bit of freedom is worse. Eventually those kids grow up and either adjust or they don't, but lost freedoms are usually gone forever and they affect everybody in the country. There is no bigger superpower than us that can come and bail us out if our govt becomes a totolitarian regime, so we have to defend our liberty at all cost while we have the chance.

Where do you draw the line?

[b3h]

I don't like the implications this will have for the future. If the government decides to censor some websites, what's to stop them from restricting access to others?

feel-good laws!

[justin_speers]

Why do laws like this, which are completely impossible to force and redundant (possession of child porn is ALREADY illegal, why force ISPs to filter it?) manage to get passed?

Because who the hell expects to get any votes after voting against a child-porn law?

They only get away with stupid laws like this because most people don't look past the title, so we get things like "The Patriot Act"...

Re:feel-good laws!

[stratjakt]

>(possession of child porn is ALREADY illegal, why force ISPs to filter it?)

Not only is posession illegal, it's illegal to knowingly facilitate the distribution of child porn. This absolves the local ISP of liability.

Here's some more terrible affronts to your liberties. US Customs siezes tons of this shit each and every day. It's destroyed, and they dont publish a list of who sent it.

Of course, they cant prove that the address it was being sent to actually ordered it (and even if they did, they knew what it was), so they cant just lock them up. But you better believe their name shows up the next time a traffic cop pulls them over and runs an NCIC check.

Operation Pipe Dreams

[justin_speers]

Uhm, they already have...

Re:Operation Pipe Dreams

[Redwing]

OMG! Thanks for that link! I love this quote:

"People selling drug paraphernalia are in essence no different than drug dealers," said John Brown, Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. "They are as much a part of drug trafficking, as silencers are a part of criminal homicide. "

If we could only get supporters of the DEA and the NRA together on this,... Oh wait- they're the same people!

Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

So how exactly does the state tell the ISPs which sites to block without such 'disseminiation'?

Re:Umm...

[Cl1mh4224rd]

They take over the ISPs...

Wha...?

[Erik Fish]

Sounds like he's just passing the buck. Last time I checked it was the legal system's job to enforce laws -- not some private company that provides internet access. Not that this exactly qualifies as law enforcement since the sites are still out there -- they're just kinda-sorta-maybe blocked in PA (motto: "Yet Another Hillbilly State").

Were all the internet child porn cases coming through his court cutting into his golf time? Did someone forget to give him the memo that would have clued him in to the fact that a lot of this shit is hosted by the russian mafia and isn't exactly a stationary target because (suprise!) even people on the internet hate kiddie porn?

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

You lived in the "capitol"? Funny, I thought they'd only have office space in that building...

There's a reason they don't...

[C0LDFusion]

...and it's not a good one. It's the same reason most school systems who do their own in-house filtering through stuff like BorderAlert and such. Given the percentage of the internet that is pornography, a large percentage of blocked sites are blocked for political reasons. At my old high school, they blocked socialistworker.org and other "seditious" websites.

It took some checking to see what sites were blocked, and much question asking and nosing around before they were unblocked. Apparently, some people in the school system decided on their own to block sites.

I think there could be something similar here. They may be wanting to prohibit access to non-porn political sites that don't support the war, or are Anti-Penn (I myself think that state sucks ass for a variety of reasons).

While I myself do not like sites like socialistworker.org (see my journal for explanation), I'd like to see the rights of others protected, and this is yet another excuse to hide government activity against freedom of speech.

Re:There's a reason they don't...

[stratjakt]

Ummm. no.

The reason they dont is they dont want to abet pedophiles indirectly. They dont want the perverts along the border signing up with a MD ISP and leeching their fancy new list of filth.

It's not a slippery slope, its not about politics or ideologies. What your high school does is outside of this legislation, and up to the local districts. If someone found themself blocked, they have a recourse. They can bitch, go public, whatever, start a big scene here on slashdot.

If nazi-kkk-hatesite.com was blocked by this, I'd go as far as to defend their right to say what they want. Because that isn't illegal. Child pornography is.

If you dont see the difference between socialistworker.org and a child pornography site, you need to give your head a shake. Some things really are black and white.

Myself, I think they should disclose the list, but not for any of the reasons slashbots do. We have Megans Law which forces information about sex offenders to be made public to the communities they're released into. By extension, I want the list to add to my own firewall.

Child pornography is not "protected speech" by any means. It's a felony.

Re:There's a reason they don't...

[C0LDFusion]

The thing someone has to learn is that when government does anything that is a bit unusual or secretive, no matter how small, it's usually a test. Parents with kids understand it. Kids test you to see how much shit you're willing to take. Similarly, government likes to see how much shit you're willing to take. Once they see most people are cool with keeping something secret as long as they attach child porn to it, they'll start doing other things.

Yeah, sure, you'll say again, no slippery slope. And of course, to make that position, you'll ignore all of U.S. History from the late 1700's to today.

Re:There's a reason they don't...

[joto]

If you dont see the difference between socialistworker.org and a child pornography site, you need to give your head a shake. Some things really are black and white.

No, they aren't. It would not be too terrible if socialistworker.org posted "and here are some pictures to clarify why we are against child-pornography...". Just like they could say "and here are some pictures to explain why we are against war in Iraq..." (and do). Of course, the former is illegal under current law, and they will not do it.

But if I posted a link to kiddyporn.com (assuming such a site existed, and contained child porn, which I suppose is not the case), then the state of PA could block slashdot. In that case, I am sure slashdot editors would be more than happy to filter my post, but that is not really the point, is it?

To further explain why things are not black and white. Please tell me, how you can simply look at a picture and tell me whether someone is under-age. Sure, there are ways of telling in the extreme case (Another example. I've downloaded a lot of porn from kazaa. Now, as it happens, a lot of that porn has filenames like xxx-lolita-10yo-groupfuck.jpg, or something similar (even though that wasn't what I searched for, but I rarely check the filename). Would it be illegal to watch that movie? No, of course not, it is a clip from a well-known porn movie, using actors in their thirties, not 10 year old children.

Should we block kazaa then, because it gives the impression of distributing child porn? Surely, I have never found anything that should be classified as child porn, although I must admit that once I stumbled upon something that easily could be confused with it.

But all this is getting away from the real point. The problem is not that we can't see the difference between child porn, and what not else. The problem is that we have to trust someone else, with their own (possibly hidden) agendas to do that for us. And no-one can check that decision. It doesn't really matter if I can see the difference, what matters is that it's illegal for me (or you) to check that the sensors are doing the right thing. And not just in PA, it would be illegal to check it from anywhere in the world!

Re: Goddamnit.

[Black Parrot]

> /me marks one more state to not move to.

Which ones are left on your list?

Re:They're right you know

[aoeuid]

That way if a legitimate site is blocked, everyone will know why and be able to appeal its inclusion on the list. Seems fine to me.

And who is going to stand up publicly and declare they are upset because they can't get to a site listed on the kiddie porn list?

Where is child porn legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am just curious. I keep hearing this argument made over and over-- the "what if the site is in a country where child porn is legal" argument, i mean. I can't think of any countries where such *IS* legal though.

Which countries do you refer to, anyway? Are there any, or is this just a straw man?

Re:Where is child porn legal?

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

I guess the problem would come from one country having a lower age of consent than another. So if the age of consent is 17 years in Country A, but the age of consent is 18 years in Country B, then a porno featuring Miss 17 yrs old would be legal in A, while being kiddie porn in B. This is pure speculation btw.

Re:Where is child porn legal?

[FunkSoulBrother]

i believe there are some countries in Europe where you can have a site full of naked 14 year olds legally. If so, then there you go.

14 is horrible horrible kiddy porn in America.

Furthermore, if the site is in some country where it is illegal, like Pakistan, what is the FBI to do if the Pakistani police force just doesn't have time for their crap due to more pressing problems?

Re:Where is child porn legal?

[Lord Sauron]

What if a 15 year old with a cam takes self pictures in Country A, hosts these pictures in country B, and downloads his/her very own pictures ?

Gee, that'd be a mess.

What if a 15 y-o stores self pics in the computer ? Is this a felony ?

Re:Where is child porn legal?

[Lord Sauron]

First of all, if a moderator reads this, mod parent (sepluv) up. It's currently scored as 0.

>I just hope that they do not extradite me to the USA over copying the copyright notice on the Constitution

Be careful, as the word "Constitution" is probably copyrighted.

---
Emperor George Bush gives a whole new meaning to "democracy"

Re:Where is child porn legal?

[bovinewasteproduct]

There was a case like this not too long ago, two girls (somewhere between 14 and 16 years of age) were taking pictures of each other (and themselves) and displaying them on the internet. They were both charged with distributing kiddie porn (including the pictures they did of themselves).

People, intelligence is NOT requirement to hold public office and create laws. For proof look at Kansas and Georgia (monkey trial anyone?).

BWP

Re:Where is child porn legal?

[sepluv]

Thanks! I got modded "over-rated". Maybe, I should be less forceful. If one sounds nice even if it is crap, I guess, one gets modded up. It was a bit off-topic I admit. This post will be even more so. ;-)

N.B.: I have read the constitution and actually like it (if only it was implemented) see <plug type="shameless">a post I just made to another related story</plug>

Be careful, as the word "Constitution" is probably copyrighted.

You can copyright single words now? Seriously, although I do not think you can do that, different forms of IP have now crossed over (especially in the USA) to make the seperate categories (TM's, copyright, plant rights, patents, &c) almost meaningless. IP needs a serious overhaul.

Also, due to international agreements, if one country (e.g.: US) considers something, say, patentable and it is applied for there, it becomes registered IP elsewhere.

This is a big problem now that the USPTO are now patenting discoveries (e.g.: lifeforms, laws of nature, mathematical algorithms and numbers), patenting information (as opposed to copyrighting it), trademarking generic terms (e.g.: "Windows"), &c

The point...

[hackwrench]

I think the point might be to keep it from people who want this stuff or who might be turned to this suff.

Re:The point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Child pornography has been going on LONG before the internet has been created. The internet is just another tool used by them. While I do believe that that action is horrible and the people who do it have serious mental problems, it does set a very bad precedent for lawers/legislatures in the future. What happens when a state decides that all sites with the word "sex" should be blocked? Also, what gives them the right to censor a private business?

Re:The point...

[nick this]

I think the point might be to keep it from people who want this stuff or who might be turned to this suff.

Here's a crazy idea... prosecute them under existing laws?

Re:The point...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point might be to keep it from people who want this stuff or who might be turned to this suff.

Yes, that's exactly the point (though misguided). The idea among law enforcement is that if you make child porn too difficult to get, too risky to get, or prevent it from being obtainable in the first place, the market will dry up and the producers will stop making it. Thus we are "protecting the children" by cutting the demand, which cuts the supply, which stops the stuff from ever being made in the first place.

The problem is, this viewpoint is flawed for two reasons.

1. Making something illegal, making it tough to get, making it risky to get, doesn't stop it. As long as there's demand, someone will be supplying, someone will be producing. Worse, because the supplying is done on the black market and thus prices can get steep, there isn't just 1 guy in his basement trying to be the supplier. The more money there is to be made, the more people you'll have trying to be the suppliers. Want an example? Try prohibition. Try the "war on drugs." Both failed miserably and one of them is still costing us billions of dollars a year. I'm not saying we should legalize child porn, I'm just saying that the continual "cracking down" is a futile effort because there will always be demand and thus there will always be supply.

2. From what I understand, child porn is not a purely profit driven enterprise. Not everyone who makes child porn does it to sell it. Some of them do it because, surprise surprise, they like diddling kids. These people are going to keep diddling kids whether they can profit off the pictures or not. In other words, even if by some blessing all child porn was eliminated from the world tomorrow, along with all cameras, camcorders, and any other device capable of making porn, the abuse would still be going on.

But your average law maker fails to think all of this through, instead opting for the lazy way out, "let's make more laws making it even more illegal than it already is!! That'll fix it!"

Re:The point...

[jhigh]

it does set a very bad precedent for lawers/legislatures in the future

How is enforcing the law bad precedent? I agree that it's scary to think that government may eventually decide to filter legitimate sites for political reasons, but that's not what this is about. It's illegal to look at or possess child porn, so PA is keeping people from possessing it. It's no different IMHO, than stopping drugs from coming across the border. I'm sure that LOTS of legitimate people get searched, and I'm sure there are people that don't (legally) make it into the country because of this or that law. But that doesn't mean we stop enforcing the law. Sure, we could all protest blocking drugs from getting into the country because it eventually may lead to not allowing foreigners in our country at all. But that sounds kind of dumb, doesn't it?

I live in Pennsylvania, and I think it's great that the normal guy who just likes to look at porn doesn't have to worry about accidentally stumbling upon something that gets you landed in jail and labeled as a sick pervert. It happens...it happened to someone I know.

Just my two cents.

Re:The point...

[crawling_chaos]

1. Making something illegal, making it tough to get, making it risky to get, doesn't stop it. As long as there's demand, someone will be supplying, someone will be producing. Worse, because the supplying is done on the black market and thus prices can get steep, there isn't just 1 guy in his basement trying to be the supplier. The more money there is to be made, the more people you'll have trying to be the suppliers. Want an example? Try prohibition. Try the "war on drugs." Both failed miserably and one of them is still costing us billions of dollars a year. I'm not saying we should legalize child porn, I'm just saying that the continual "cracking down" is a futile effort because there will always be demand and thus there will always be supply.

This is an argument for no laws whatsoever. Making murder illegal does absolutely nothing to stop murderers as well. Unless you are arguing that there is no point in making anything illegal, you are implictly accepting the fact that certain acts deserve sanction, despite the fact that those sanctions will not end all such acts. From then on, it's an argument about where to draw that line, and this reasoning is not applicable.

Re:The point...

[zackbar]

It's not quite enforcing the law. Enforcing the law would be putting down those sites rather than blocking the access to the sites.

The problem with this situation is that no one but the isp and the attorney general knows which sites are being blocked. There was a story in theregister.com a few weeks ago about a site that the city of Chesterfield wanted blocked by google. Seems that Chester the Molester was supposedly a child porn site. Google blocked them. The site had no idea they were being blocked.

Turns out that the site was actually a site with tasteless jokes. No child porn involved. But the city of Chesterfield didn't care or couldn't tell.

So what happens when PA decides that slashdot should be blocked? Or sites that critisize the PA attorney general? No one will know it because PA won't allow the list of sites be be known.

What happens when one of the sites being blocked goes out of business or gets a new IP? Some innocent site gets that IP, and no one in PA will know. Is the attorney general going to keep that list up to date? Is he going to let the ISP's know when to stop blocking address blocks? How can he? If the isp is blocked the address, he can never check that address again either, so he won't know it's clean.

The whole thing is just a mess.

Re:The point...

[jhigh]

I agree that it's a mess, and there really is no easy answer. However, I'm not going to let unfounded paranoia about government censorship of legitimate web sites interfere with my judgement about an effort being made by my attorney general protect innocent children.

Re:The point...

[arkanes]

I spend alot of time on the internet. I even look at alot of porn. I have never, not even once, happened across a child pornography website, and I'm probably the most at risk for that sort of thing. I have come across kiddie porn on Kazaa and in newsgroups. I've seen alot of things I didn't want to see, but I'm a mature adult and was able to deal with that.

This is a moronic law, because it hides rather than addressing an issue. And the AG needs a beating with the dumbass stick for refusing to release the list, for which there is NO valid argument.

This has not one thing in common with immigration, so I'm not sure where you got that from.

This law, and support of it, belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what law is for. It's not the job of the state to protect you. If the state wants to stop kiddy porn, it has to seek out purveyors of it and arrest them. Blocking it at the ISP level won't do a damn thing.

Some other problems, which I'm sure the AG is aware of but doesn't care about:

a) No oversight. Since there's no way to confirm that a site is actually listed, there's no way to tell whether or not a site is listed incorrectly.
b) Related to a). No evaluation. If a site is listed incorrectly, or if the domain is bought by someone else (for example) and is no longer a porn site, there's no way to unlist it. There's not even any way to evaluate if it should be unlisted, since access to it from within PA is supposedly impossible and illegal.

c) Prevents law enforcement from prosecuting kiddy porn, for the same reason. Law enforcement officers can't access kiddy porn sites from within PA, and therefore can't investigate them.

This is exactly the sort of law that should be under immediate suspicion of abuse, because it fails to addess the problem it purpots to solve, it's overly broad and allows broad leway on behalf of legislature and law enforcement, and because there's no oversight. If it's not being abused right now, it certainly will be in the future.

Re:The point...

[zackbar]

unfounded paranoia?

Excuse me, but when the PA can censor websites without oversight, and without any public disclosure, it's not a matter of unfounded paranoia.

Throwing fearful phrases such as "protect innocent children" doesn't make it ok.

Frankly, the "government" doesn't have a great track record on protecting children either.

Let's lock up all white males over 30, because as we all know, pedophiles are often 35 year old white males. We have to do it to "protect innocent children"!

Re:The point...

[rsborg]

This is an argument for no laws whatsoever. Making murder illegal does absolutely nothing to stop murderers as well.

Actually, you're quite wrong. Murderers, you're right... will continue to murder, but often people view murder as a means to an end (removing an annoyance, or silencing an enemy, etc). Child porn, aside from the money to be made if it were on the black market, is NOT. Normal people can be pushed to commit murder but you will find it highly unlikely that a normal person will be pushed to child pornography. Im not talking about "teen" stuff either (real child pornography concerns itself with pre-pubescents). Normal people simply abhor the concept.

Once you make it illegal, those same normal people who might otherwise find it abhorrent now have an amoral motive: making money.

To sum it up, if you leave it alone, only the "uncurable" will still be at it. If you make it illegal, expect the immoral, uninterested money-making scum to join in (simply for the black market profits).

Re:The point...

[Istealmymusic]

Lemme guess, you?

Re:The point...

[Thing 1]

The problem with this situation is that no one but the isp and the attorney general knows which sites are being blocked.

It shouldn't be too hard to determine which sites are being blocked.

There are 255 x 255 x 255 x 255 possible sites, giving a grand total of 4,228,250,625 possible sites. Testing all of them, at the rate of once a second, would take 48938 days or 134 years. (Also note that many are invalid, like 0.0.0.0, 127.0.0.1, 10.x.x.x, etc.)

Now, a machine should be able to test far more than one a second, and given a distributed testing platform (something like distributed.net or folding@home), many PA computers could be used to determine which IP addresses were unreachable.

The test would be easier if the ISP gave a page saying "This web site has been blocked" instead of just making it unreachable. (But if it was unreachable, we could have computers outside of PA which test the unreachable sites to see if there is actually content there.)

There must already be tools available to test whether a website exists and is working properly. Searching Freshmeat.net, I found the NIST Web Metrics Testbed tool suite which might be a starting point.

Given a couple weeks work, we could make the list public ourselves.

Re:The point...

[crawling_chaos]

To sum it up, if you leave it alone, only the "uncurable" will still be at it. If you make it illegal, expect the immoral, uninterested money-making scum to join in (simply for the black market profits).

And the people who make money off the newly "legal" child pornography. There will still be demand, and someone with the morals of a guttersnake will still be trying to make money off of it. Many people find watching strippers to be morally objectionable, yet legal strip clubs still make money hand over fist.

I remain unconvinced.

Re:The point...

[zackbar]

Not a bad idea, although I would guess that unreachable sites inside of PA would have to be tested in PA multiple times, or at least by different routes, since all sites are down at least occassionally and so are some routers.

Sorry for the run-on sentence there. Too lazy to think of a better way to say that.

The problem also suggests that some isp's may have blocked different sites as well, since the attorney general may or may not have sent the same list to each. He will have, assuming his office is competent, but details often get lost or overlooked, and even isp's might not keep things current.

Ironic. The secrecy of the list may actually cause it to be more well-known than otherwise. Blocking the sites might actually help them. Same sort of thing happens to banned books. Some books have become far more popular merely because they were banned.

Re:The point...

[Matrix272]

It's simple supply and demand. If a portion of the public wants it (however sick those people are), someone out there will make it. If it's risky to make or sell, the price goes up. If the price goes up, more people will want to make it.

Look at cocaine. It's the perfect example of supply and demand. Lots of people use it, dispite the fact that it's illegal. Why? Because they want to, and they're willing to pay any price to get it. Does it really cost $400 per ounce to make? Not a chance. It might cost all of $4 per ounce to make... but then you have to pay the grower, the smuggler, the "conveniently-absent" law-enforcement agent, plus the cost for shipping it 1500 miles. What would happen if we legalized it, along with all the other drugs? The demand would stay the same, but since the drug lords could now make cocaine in the US, thus saving them money, they would do so. The price would decrease because the supply would increase. Hopefully, all the cocaine addicts would still spend all their money on cocaine and overdose, thereby eliminating most of the demand. If the demand is gone, the supply will disappear. This is all basic economics that people better start thinking about.

Now, relate it to child pornography. It's extremely risky to make, extremely risky to sell, and extremely risky to have. I'm certainly not advocating it, but try to apply the same logic (without any emotion). Increase the supply, and decrease the demand. People that sexually abuse the children for the profit involved won't be getting nearly as much profit and might move on to more profitable things (like cocaine). Child pornography will still happen because we live in a very sick world, but at least people won't be making money at it.

To realistically address the problem at hand, repeal this ridiculous law. It helps nobody and it will solve nothing. The only purpose for it is to make the legislators feel like they do something worthwhile. Keep the laws that make it illegal to sexually abuse children, sell such material, and own such material. I really didn't think this was such a major issue... I never knew anybody to get excited over naked children. That's just plain nasty.

don't make me laugh

[dsanfte]

They're not supposed to be filtering based on content.

Says who? A bunch of libertarians? Come on. The ISP is in the perfect position to filter content on a regional basis. Yes, this means state- or province-wide.

If it is efficient to block child porn at the ISP level then so be it. I don't care if information wants to be free, that stuff SHOULD be censored, and the people who make it should never see the light of day again.

Re:don't make me laugh

[be-fan]

Like those crazy-ass commie Founding Fathers. There is a place for censorship. That's just common sense. The government is not that place. That's senseless.

Re:don't make me laugh

[plague3106]

So that fact that you really don't know for sure what exactly is being filtered doesn't bother you?

Re:don't make me laugh

[sketerpot]

Three things, in combination, really bother me about this. The first one if that the spesifics of the blocking are kept secret for stupid reasons ("disseminating pornography", indeed. I'll disseminate pornography!). The second reason is that the secret blocked sites are being chosen by the state government, which I wouldn't trust at all, especially if you think of all the underhanded things people have done to get elected. Finally, I'm just against censoring the internet for anybody other than yourself.

Am I missing something?

[insecuritiez]

Child porn is illegal everywhere I am aware of. Why block the websites when they can be taken down like they should be? That's like when your mother told you to clean your room and so you just shoved it all under the bed, didn't make your room clean and this wont make the internet better. A band-aid won't stop the bleeding.

Re:Am I missing something?

[a hollow voice]

Well, one idea (and maybe I'm just being a conspiracy theorist here) could be that according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's web site, he ran for Governor in 2002 and is apparently up for re-election soon. Now, with that in mind, he doesn't have the power to take down child porn sites that are almost certainly overseas and way out of his jurisdiction, but he does have the power to enact something like this, so when he tries to get re-elected or takes another stab at Governor, he can be The Man Who Kicked Internet Child Pornography Out of Pennsylvania.

And a substantial number of voters will probably buy it.

Re:Am I missing something?

[CausticWindow]

The point you're missing, is that other parts of the world aren't necessarily so religiously uptight as the US.

Where I live, pornography with sixteen year old lesbians are perfectly acceptable by legal standards. In Holland, thirteen is the limit, if I recall correctly.

Re:Am I missing something?

[anthony_dipierro]

Child porn is illegal everywhere I am aware of. Why block the websites when they can be taken down like they should be?

Because some countries, like France, let child pornographers and rapists go free.

Re:Am I missing something?

[anthony_dipierro]

Polanski pled guilty.

Re: Goddamnit.

[The_Unforgiven]

/me looks over his list.

Canada. /me awaits the onslaught of people that take his posts way too seriously.

that dosn't make any sense

[autopr0n]

if they don't tell you what sites are on it, how can they block them? Are they going to make everyone in the state use their DNS servers or something?

Re:that dosn't make any sense

[gl4ss]

well, they would tell the biggest isp's or something. but like dozens of posts above, it's just stupid extra burden since it's already illeagal.

it's like that jewish kids mommy in southpark, "we gotta do something!" and then goes promoting something that should not be promoted but nobody can say 'shut the fuck up' because they would seem bad persons if they did, if this is pulled through then next are sites that endorse taking drugs, terrorist sites, toilet humour, sites that help getting abortion, sites that tell that genesis didn't happen exactly word to word like described, pi is 3.000, earth is not flat, bush is another word for cunt, dilbert, _ANY_ site that they might not like.

luckily, we have freenet now and really, we had the theoretical possiblity to build such thing (crypted p2p designed to act so that it can't be easily distorted nor you can tell what is one node doing or where the information is coming exactly) from the beginning, making any blocking attemps futile in the long run. attempting to block internet is like attempting to block rumours, you can't keep them from spreadig but you can insert false information fairly easily.

Re:Actually Troll,

[Anonymous Coward]

I think PA is a great state. I live in MD (Annapolis) now, lived in Toronto, Ontario before. I've had the chance to drive through PA a half dozen times, and drive up to Allentown every once in awhile (both for business, and sometimes to go to the marketpro comp. show)

Its a great state (well, Philly doesnt float my boat, but you cant win 'em all) and my wife and I have considered moving there.

BTW, grandparent was a troll. I doubt he lived in Harrisburg if he cant spell it correctly.

Re:Figures

[dopaz]

I live in Mechanicsburg. While PA certainly has some bad points, it could be much worse. The entire Harrisburg area is growing. New houses are being built constantly, and property values just keep rising.

Did you honestly live here or are you trolling? You never learned to spell the name of the capital, nor the word capital itself?

Doesn't matter

[afidel]

If they fail to make the list open then some cracker will crack one of the covered ISP's and make the list public. Information wants to be free, and any information this widely distributed is bound to make it into the wild. Now I personally believe that hidden government is bad in general, but I put up with the CIA and NSA because they provide a service that is necessary and requires secrecy. Whether blocking sites alleged to contain kiddie porn is a compelling enough argument to put up with hidden government is debatable, but for me it is not.

Dumb question.

[ggroth]

If Penn. won't give the ISPs a list of sites to block because of illegal dissemination, isn't it just as illegal for the ISPs to go searching for this stuff to determine what to block?

Re: Goddamnit.

[Moloch666]

Wanna make a /. convoy, eh?

Why I see this as bad

[mewyn]

Ok, I find child porn disgusting and wrong as most people. It takes advantage of a child while their are most vournable and can scar them for life. But covering the public's eyes is not a way to stop the problem! Just because people who don't want to see it can't get to it doesn't mean it's not happening. Those who want to, will just find away around it. I think PA should invest the money that they are spending on this list and its enforcement on actually stoping the perpitrators of this crime.

The Gingerbread Man alone....

[Sevn]

would be a great reason to live in Mechanicsburg.
It has to be one of my favorite bars in the world.
The G-man in Carlisle isn't too bad either.

Re:The Gingerbread Man alone....

[davisshaver]

Hey Sevn, Just some news you might be interested in- the GMan in Hershey is terrible right now. The new places in this area are Tratola Fratali(sp), and also some other place that escapes my mind. Where in PA did you live? I live in Lebanon right now, and would be really interested in talking to another /.er from the area.

Unconscionable law

[mattr]

First, I am totally against child porn, totally. However Pennsylvania's action is completely hideous and could create more problems than it solves. Consider:

• Blocking sites make it impossible for Pennsylvania enforcement officers to find child porn traders in their own state, pushing them farther underground!
• Misuse of secret web censorship lists is well documented. It is possible to disclose information about where these sites are without making an open advertisement. Their argument is illogical.
• Their action may be unconsitutional and certainly may be moot should a Freedom Of Information Act request be made by someone with the list published anywhere on the net
• It is not possible for people to use the net to identify Pennsylvania's definition of child porn should the medium itself be censored.
• There is no information about whether they are making efforts to identify whether underage models are actually being used.
• I am thinking about the comics sold in every convenience store in Japan that have drawings which could be construed as child porn, and use of the term "Lolita" for young-looking models. I don't want to see these myself, however what happens to people who have gotten used to this kind of titillation and when the virtual source of imagery dries up will they not be led to look for actual child porn and exploitative venues in the real world?
• Likewise would this cover sites which distribute dirty stories? There must be at least one nasty child porn fantasy in there. An easy way to ban these sites, just have some fundamentalist submit a bunch of illegal stories and sue them?
• Many fibers undoubtedly run through Pennsylvania, are they going to be censoring all packets at all switches? This is a neat way to start killing the Internet, let's drop every spamming country off the net.. not.
• There is no information (I presume) about how to find out if your site is banned in Pennsylvania, say what if a hacker started serving child porn from your 0wned box, and there is no information about how to reinstate an IP address.
• Since the point is in fact removing dangerous and illegal information from the net, in particular the underlying reason should be to protect children from dangerous exploitation, it is in society's best interest to openly maintain a database of sites accused of child pornography, which states and municipalities may use to implement censorship should they so choose.
• This database would set a huge precedent and it is scary to me, but it would at least remove the idea of secret blocking lists and enable accused sites to fight back. It is possible that many people may not even know their provider is hosting these things, and they can also bring pressure on the hosting companies to police themselves.
• Unless a site has been wrongly accused of hosting child pornography, or is in fact a honeypot being used for a big sting operation by the government, it is really very unlikely that publically available sites are going to be hosting this stuff, at least in the U.S. (Of course there could indeed be a list of overseas sites which have not been taken down due to different local ordinances). Therefore, it is VERY likely that Pennsylvania's secret list is not only UNLAWFUL but also FALSE in that they do not in fact have a list of child pornography websites to ban. The real threat of secret lists of unlawfully censored information sources is anathema to our society. Either something is illegal in a given territory, or it is not. They can't get away with promoting vague notions of propriety with scare tactics and secrecy. It is not even likely that they will succeed at reducing the flow of child pornography in their state.
• Pennsylvania's action is also a restraint on interstate commerce in that a secret list will enable law enforcement to search any digital medium including hd,cd,dvd, cable, and wireless networks, for potentially incriminating evidence without explaining exactly what is illegal. In particular it seems likely that web caches operated by universities and companies may unwittingly hold such information, and this action opens the doors to a broad range of abuses including but not limited to corruption of interstate telecommunications.
• It's also a dumb idea. 'Nuff said.

Re:Unconscionable law

[0x0d0a]

I'd like to start out by saying that I also find this block disgusting and awful as well. But just to get things absolutely straight:

Blocking sites make it impossible for Pennsylvania enforcement officers to find child porn traders in their own state, pushing them farther underground!

Meh. There's a long tradition of trying to attack social behavior deemed unacceptable by direclty supressing the behavior. You'd have to change a *lot* of things if you didn't want to take this approach.

Misuse of secret web censorship lists is well documented. It is possible to disclose information about where these sites are without making an open advertisement. Their argument is illogical.

Yeah, though it's pretty easy to just hand this to the few Penn backbone ISPs.

Their action may be unconsitutional and certainly may be moot should a Freedom Of Information Act request be made by someone with the list published anywhere on the net

Does FOIA apply to state as well as federal documents? (I don't have any idea)

It is not possible for people to use the net to identify Pennsylvania's definition of child porn should the medium itself be censored.

The textual definition would not be censored.

There is no information about whether they are making efforts to identify whether underage models are actually being used.

Good point.

I am thinking about the comics sold in every convenience store in Japan that have drawings which could be construed as child porn, and use of the term "Lolita" for young-looking models. I don't want to see these myself, however what happens to people who have gotten used to this kind of titillation and when the virtual source of imagery dries up will they not be led to look for actual child porn and exploitative venues in the real world?

Mmm...I dunno if your conclusion is that likely, but I agree that this kind of ruling is definitely going to impact a lot of people.

Likewise would this cover sites which distribute dirty stories? There must be at least one nasty child porn fantasy in there. An easy way to ban these sites, just have some fundamentalist submit a bunch of illegal stories and sue them?

Again, good point.

Many fibers undoubtedly run through Pennsylvania, are they going to be censoring all packets at all switches? This is a neat way to start killing the Internet, let's drop every spamming country off the net.. not.

I don't see why. It'd be pretty easy to just filter stuff entering Penn ISPs.

There is no information (I presume) about how to find out if your site is banned in Pennsylvania, say what if a hacker started serving child porn from your 0wned box, and there is no information about how to reinstate an IP address.

Very good point.

Since the point is in fact removing dangerous and illegal information from the net, in particular the underlying reason should be to protect children from dangerous exploitation, it is in society's best interest to openly maintain a database of sites accused of child pornography, which states and municipalities may use to implement censorship should they so choose.

Again, I agree. This censorship is voluntary, by *Pennsylvania*. Presumably, anything on the list blocked. Except for savvy users using proxies to bounce around the blocks, the only people this list will help find underage porn are people in other states.

(Of course there could indeed be a list of overseas sites which have not been taken down due to different local ordinances)

I'm sure that's what's being talked about.

Pennsylvania's action is also a restraint on interstate commerce

Wow. Excellent. Wouldn't have thought of that.

Re:Unconscionable law

[Phroggy]

Will filtering be based on A) IP address? B) specific URL? C) domain name?

A) if the server is using name-based virtual hosting, legitimate web sites with different names hosted on the same IP will be blocked, and nobody will have the slightest idea why.

B) AFAIK the only way an ISP can block access to a URL is by redirecting port 80 to a transparent proxy server, which will take the request from the client, check the URL, and if the URL is not on the list, make a query to the web server, and return the response back to the client. This can cause some problems, especially if the proxy server caches its content, but it's a common enough practice these days that maybe it wouldn't be a problem.

Any web site not using port 80 could not be blocked in this way, unless they redirected that port as well. What about something like http://www.kiddiepr0n.net:110/? You can't just redirect port 110 (normally for POP3 e-mail) without users going nuts, so you'd have to just firewall the IP for anything like this. Not likely to have name-based virtual hosts on strange ports though, so I suppose that's OK.

C) Adding a bogus zone file with no A records would effectively block domains from users who use your nameservers. Plenty of people use other nameservers, though, for various reasons. And, if the domain is also used for legitimate purposes, innocent bystanders get blocked again.

Re:Unconscionable law

[Jay Cornwall]

Any web site not using port 80 could not be blocked in this way, unless they redirected that port as well.

I can set up a proxy on a box somewhere running on any port but 80, and connect through that to *any* website on *any* port (including port 80). They can't filter every single port for proxy traffic (and if it were encrypted through an SSH tunnel you wouldn't be able to find it anyway).

This is just one of those laws intended to discourage the general public from trying to access child pornography, but would do nothing to stop the determined individual. In fact, it's next to impossible to stop people from accessing this stuff.

The solution (if there is a solution, my guess is that you could only push this further underground) is to combat the source of the problem. Find the people and providers hosting child pornography and stop them at the source; if they refuse, or are in one of those hard to control countries, then just cut off their link to your network.

Then you have P2P, another whole kettle of fish...

Re:Unconscionable law

[mattr]

I would just like to mention that Dr. David Farber of U Penn is one of the foremost promoters of privacy issues on the Internet, is a scientist, has been a presidential advisor, and is well known for mentioning the bit about how photons don't care about passports.

Anyone with some pull in Pennsylvania should give him a call. You could mention Matt Rosin sent you though it won't matter, he'll give you an honest listen and may have some good ideas about what to do.

stupidity

[ebuite37]

So if she weighs more than a duck...she's a witch, burn her!!!

Re:Figures

[LogicX]

I'm quite sure PA is desperate to keep people there: Stay, Invent PA I'm from the Reading area; and yes -- PA is nothing to brag about. Lots of Amish, farmers, people who are clueless about technology, hicks, and those who graduate HS and work at gas stations for the rest of their lives.

Child Porn Isn't Stopped By Stupid Legislation

[jaywhy]

Child pornography is a major problem, but the problem isn't solved by stupid legislation. Why do we needs laws punishing ISP's and not the child pornographers themselves?

Why don't we instead of making new dumb laws? Why don't we just trace the money these child pornography companies make and catch the real criminals?

Pushing the work over to the private sector so the government doesn't have to actually do detective work. Just seems stupid.

Re:Child Porn Isn't Stopped By Stupid Legislation

[be-fan]

I figured out why people make dumb laws.

When a major news story goes up on TV, what's a poor politican to do? Ideally, he'd realize that the existing body of law already overs this, and announce to the world that they'd work harder to enforce them. Of course, what kind of press release would that make. "We're going to try harder not to fuck up in the future!" The public outcry demands...something "new." Something "innovative." You have to throw all sorts of "reforms" and "initiatives" at the problem. Once you run out of good new policies, you just get the rehashed drivel we're seeing today.

I just thought of something (OT)

[be-fan]

The public seems to have something of a love-hate relationship with child porn. On one hand, child porn in the classical sense is bad. On the other hand, child porn in the form of Britney and Christina is just fine? I remember reading an article on Britney before the music industry pimped her out. Cute kid. I just say LeAnn Rimes the other day on a Blender cover, topless. Even country music has gotten into it. Sigh... Maybe just another reason to hate the RIAA?

Re:I just thought of something (OT)

[VanillaCoke420]

Britney, Christina and LeAnn are under the age of 18?

This is bad for everyone.

[twitter]

The AG hands out an unverifiable list to "major" ISPs and expects them blocked. How are non "mojor" ISPs supposed to know? They can't and that will be used against them. How do the "major" ISPs know that the site they block is not simply something that embarases the AG? They can't either. Why? Because looking at kiddie porn is a Federal Offense and you go to jail for having it stored on your computer's cahche directory. So you block the content, sight unseen because the State tells you to. That's real censorship and a clear violation of the first amendment protection of free press.

Even if the program were honest and verifiable, it would still be a bad idea. This essentially closes off sites that alow user posts, such as Slashdot. All you have to do to kill Slashdot in Pensylvania now is persistenlty place kiddie porn links into your posts. But it is not honest and it is not verifiable so the state could just block Slashdot as it pleases. If people noticed and complained that they can't find Slashdot anymore, the State can claim it was an honest mistake. The damage would have been done as the people would have been kept from knowledge in a timely manner. Other sites that few no about can be blocked with impunity.

Re:This is bad for everyone.

[stewby18]

How do the "major" ISPs know that the site they block is not simply something that embarases the AG? They can't either. Why? Because looking at kiddie porn is a Federal Offense

One word: lynx

Re:This is bad for everyone.

[ndnet]

This is very bad. When I was in school, my site (NDNet - http://ndnet.hypermart.net) was doing well and I worked on it often. Some jerk decides to spread rumors that it's porn (this is middle school, so there are too many idiots to find the culprit from) and it gets blocked by the school. Nothing I could do could get the sysadmin to unblock it.

At least it told me that it was blocked and who blocked it. This will probably just appear to be a 404 or a downed server - if an ISP were to say "in accordance with PA law, this site is forfeit", it could be construed as releasing the list. You break the law to find out that a site is blocked, but if you own a site that could reasonably deserve being blocked you *aren't* breaking the law (well, at least not the PA state law.)

As a Pennsylvanian, my 'net is now compromised, and only now am I of voting age. DAMN!!!

Re:This is bad for everyone.

[Istealmymusic]

At my school, WebSense blocked our high school web site; where we are able to retreive are assignments and check our grades. Scary indeed.

Re:/me marks

[be-fan]

The state where it's illegal to have sex in any position other than missionary, with the lights off? Don't get me wrong, I love VA. I'm proud of its heritage as one of the leading states in the early union. But these days, outside of northern virginia, it's just another farmer-conservative* southern state.

* No offense to conservatives (for once :) Merely to distinguish it from more intellectual forms of conservatism.

Re:Two-edged sword

[commodoresloat]

you need to read dailyrotten.com. Frequently.

Interstate vs. Intrastate commerce?

[rainmanjag]

It seems like this law tries to regulate interstate commerce. If the child porn site is in Nevada (nothing against Nevada, mind you) and Pennsylvania wants to block its citizens from accessing it, the transaction has to occur across state lines. Interstate commerce is the domain of Congress, not Pennsylvania. It would seem to me the only Constitutionally valid law Pennsylvania could pass would bar Pennsylvania citizens from accessing Pennsylvania child porn.

-jag

Re:Interstate vs. Intrastate commerce?

[ndnet]

Perhaps that explains why he's only nailed 423 sites.

On a side note, I'm a Pennsylvanian, so my internet is compromised. And NOW I'm of voting age. DAMN!

Uneducated lawmakers - Or why this law is wrong

[jroysdon]

The problem with this law is that an ISP cannot search web content for a given filename or even URL and block it based on that. ISPs don't look at anything beyond IP Layer 3. All they care about is routing IP packets. What happens if a large over-seas company hosts thousands of customers with a single IP address (or pool of addresses in the case of a webserver farm)? All it would take is one bad apple at that hosting ISP and Penn. would force Penn. ISP's to block all other content from that hosting ISP's webserver.

Should that ISP be hosting child porn? Of course not. Should all the other sites hosted at that ISP be blacklisted? No.

These lawmakers are either uneducated about how the internet works, or simply do not care and feel that blocking child porn is more important than the free speech of the other legit websites that may be hosted on an ISP's shared webserver farm.

Penn should enforce the law where they can: If the webservers are outside the arm of the US law, go after what isn't: those who download and view this content. They can start with their own state employees at work, which would violate no privacy laws. Folks seriously addicted to kiddie porn known no bounds. I've know of a case where a local county employee spent 2-3 hours a day at work surfing this stuff.

All this law is going to do is drive kiddie porn sites futher underground and make those in Penn be more sneaky. As someone else posted, Penn. law enforcement won't even be able to access these sites to verify if it has kiddie porn (say if they had a download history on a PC but no actual photos.)

Re:PA ISPs to block sites that have child porn.

[0x0d0a]

If someone is showing porn involving a minor, he'll be prosecuted. Failing that, he'll be blocked. And you dont need a list of URLs. It doesnt matter. You dont get a list of addresses where the sick pedophiles snail mail it from either.

It's a crime to make, possess, or facilitate it. And it should be.

Interesting to see that you feel that the morality of pornography changes completely upon the subject's eighteenth birthday.

why?

[pyrote]

If they know the addresses to all these domains, why don't they just forward all the domains to a goverment controlled server? last time I checked, the DNS servers call the shots.

Kiddie porn is illegal so they can find just cause. I know it's drastic, but damn, individual ISP's shouldn't be forced to filter access. Most ISP's are struggling just to keep afloat as is. people in PA will just get the nation-wide Long distance and dialup to NY or California for that matter.

Re:PA ISPs to block sites that have child porn.

[ewhac]

If someone is showing porn involving a minor, he'll be prosecuted. Failing that, he'll be blocked.

"Failing that?" Either they're disseminating unlawful material, or they're not. If the AG has enough evidence to arrest and prosecute, then they should arrest and prosecute, or provide their evidence to the agency that can arrest and prosecute. There is no provision for "failing that" anywhere in the process. Pawning this responsibility off onto private ISPs smacks of an inexcusable level of laziness.

Child pornographers should be given no quarter, but there are certain rules that are to be observed, no matter how personally repugnant we may find the alleged offender(s). Yes, child pornographers should be smacked down hard -- but prove it first.

Schwab

A better analogy

[twitter]

The article says,

Lawyers for the civil liberties group said the technique undermines the Internet's global connectivity by regularly blocking Web surfers visiting harmless sites that may be located on the same server computers as sites with child pornography. They have compared the tactic to disrupting mail delivery to an entire apartment complex over one tenant's illegal actions.

I've heard that analogy before, but it seems lacking. Few people would care much about a "disruption" of snail mail. It's missing the first amemdment free press ring that it should have. Good analogies are hard to find.

This is more like confiscating printing machines or jamming the airwaves. Suppose someone decided to broadcast kiddie porn from some kind of pirate TV station. Would you block the legitimate station to get rid of the horrible one? No, you would find the person responsible for the broadcasts and shut them down. Suppose someone in a city started publishing kiddie porn on dead trees. Would you shut down the newspaper over it? No, you go after the publisher. Yet in Pennsylvania, any website that takes content from the public is subject to blocking.

Re:A better analogy

[unitron]

"Few people would care much about a "disruption" of snail mail."

Unless of course they were waiting on their paycheck, or retirement benefits, or payments from customers, or something that they had ordered, or mail to or from a family member over where people are getting shot at, or the newspaper from their hometown across the country, or...(the list is almost endless)

In Other News...

[Sunlighter]

It's going to be interesting when they try to prosecute somebody.

Prosecutor: This guy looked at child porn.

Defendant: It isn't child porn!

Judge: OK, let's show the jury this alleged porn.

Prosecutor: No, we can't do that! It's illegal for the jurors to look at child porn!

Judge: Well, then let me look at it.

Prosecutor: But, Your Honor, it's illegal for you to look at child porn, too!

Judge: Well, dammit, what if it's not porn?

Prosecutor: Well, then you could look at it. But you realize that if you deem it porn, we can charge you with having viewed it.

Judge: Well, then, I don't want to risk it. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you're just going to have to take his word for it.

[Jury deliberates.]

Jury: Not guilty due to lack of evidence.

Re:In Other News...

[aallan]

Jury: Not guilty due to lack of evidence.

They're far more likely to call for a lynching, these days, for some crimes, the presumption of innocense isn't exactly to be taken as read...

Al.

Re:In Other News...

[cybercuzco]

Jury: Guilty, because child porn is bad.

Re:In Other News...

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

Prosecutor: This guy looked at child porn.

Defendant: It isn't child porn!

Judge: OK, let's show the jury this alleged porn.

Prosecutor: No, we can't do that! It's illegal for the jurors to look at child porn!

Judge: Well, then let me look at it.

Prosecutor: But, Your Honor, it's illegal for you to look at child porn, too!

Judge: Well, dammit, what if it's not porn?

Prosecutor: Well, then you could look at it. But you realize that if you deem it porn, we can charge you with having viewed it.

Judge: Well, Mr. Prosecutor, how do you know that it's child porn?

It will only be secret so long...

[kramer2718]

Some one working at an ISP will leak the list and sooner or later you'll be able to download the list on Bearshare.

Aint that a bitch Mr. Attorney General.

Looks like PA is throwing out a test case

[Pettifogger]

The AG over there ought to know very well that this is going to be challenged, appealed and will probably make it all the way to the US Supreme Court.

No one here seems to realize that this could turn out to be a very good thing. As far as I know, there hasn't been a test case about whether a state can force an ISP to block content. If, as I suspect, this one goes all the way to the Supreme Court, it'll give every ISP (and state, for that matter) in the country a roadmap on how to handle these sorts of situations.

This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Re:Looks like PA is throwing out a test case

[Skapare]

It might be a bad thing, depending on the end result. If the USSC ends up ruling that states can force ISPs, even in other states, to do the filtering, and not have to release the list, then everyone is screwed. We can hope for the best, but there is no assurance it will happen.

Re:Looks like PA is throwing out a test case

[unitron]

"The AG over there ought to know very well that this is going to be challenged, appealed and will probably make it all the way to the US Supreme Court."

By which time he will have gotten lots and lots of political mileage out of "protecting the children" and moved up the ladder an elective office or two.

"What's that. The web site of my opponent in the election is on that list? Gee, I wonder how an innocent little ol' mistake like that could have happened. 'Course it's a secret list so you can't tell any of the newspapers about this. Come to think of it, I think we'll just have to stick you in the pokey for knowing what's on the list. Say, if you know what's on the list you must be one of them there terrorist hackers. I reckon we'll just have to revoke your citizenship and tuck you away in a cell in Gitmo without telling anybody."

Exactly the same thing happening in Australia

[lpontiac]

Electronic Frontiers Australia have been trying to get a list of sites from the authorities over here. While there isn't an all-encompassing list of sites that ISPs must block, there is a list of sites that have been reported to the authorities. If these sites are deemed sufficiently offensive by the same governmental body that issues classifications for movies, and the site falls under Australian jurisdiction, it will be issued a takedown notice.

So far the government has managed to weasel it's way out of complying with EFA's Freedom of Information requests, due to exemptions in the law. Whether the exemptions should protect the government in this case isn't an open and shut case though - in fact, the government is worried enough that they're currently pushing legislation that would explicitly put such information outside of the scope of the FOI Act.

The problem with keeping this information from the public is that there is no ability to properly review the process. Many in Australia are of the opinion that our content regulation regime is a farce.

More information at EFA

I was able to read it this time...

[jlleblanc]

The last article was blocked by my school's filter!

How the hell are ISPs supposed to be able ....

[Skapare]

How the hell are ISPs supposed to be able to implement and deploy this blocking according to the official list if they are not given a copy of the list? And doesn't that law at least claim it applies to any ISP, even out of state, as long as it serves customers in Pennsylvania ... at least for the Pennsylvania customers? I'd like to know if the list consists of IP addresses, domain names, or complete URLs (or some mix of these).

If the list has IP addresses only, then it would be theoretically possible to deploy this in a router access list. But many routers don't scale well with large lists because of sequential implementation. And what if the web site in question changes IP address periodically? Does the IP address list get updated equally as often?

If the list has domain names, perhaps those can be remapped to IP addresses regularly, and put in the access list.

In either case, using IP addresses has "collateral damage" effects on other web sites sharing the same server, and maybe even other services if not deployed to specific ports (e.g. other connections like SMTP won't work). I'm sure that Mike Fisher, who is so full of himself that he tries to make people think he is the only attorney general around by registering attorneygeneral.com and attorneygeneral.gov, won't care (using the same theory spam fighters use that if the ISP hosts bad customers, then everyone should suffer until the ISP stops hosting them or goes out of business).

Or perhaps the list consists of URLs, including path names to specific site areas or user pages. The problem is most routers can't deal with that at all. You need a web proxy. That means ISPs now have to pay out more money to run web proxies, with all their associated problems, such as DNS lookup failures for users accessing web sites in different DNS realms (e.g. DNS name spaces NOT rooted at the normal ICANN root servers) or with add-on TLDs (e.g. pseudo-realms that take normal TLDs and combine with special TLDs like ... uh ... the ".xxx" and ".sex" TLDs). And what about accessing HTTPS sites via the proxy? The certificates won't match up unless the browser is configured to "trust" the proxy (e.g. accept the proxy's certificate for that half the end-to-end path, or just connect to the proxy unencrypted and ask for an HTTPS URL). If the ISPs don't filter on HTTPS, then the porn sites that are intended to be blocked can just make HTTPS work. OTOH, if the ISPs force proxying HTTPS, that becomes a major privacy violation.

So one way or the other, porn sites can evade the blocking. If blocked by IP address, they just move around ... maybe as often as every 5 minutes with very dynamic DNS or other very highly distributed methods. And if blocked by URL, they can use HTTPS to bypass proxies or force the ISPs to invade secure web privacy. And if blocked by domain name in the DNS server (using local authoritative zones) users can get around that by not using the ISP DNS servers, running their own DNS servers, or the porn site can register more domain names (they're cheap for porn operators).

And with tens of thousands of open proxies around the world (check today's load of spam for more addresses), there's going to be plenty of ways for perverts to get their fix once they learn these methods. Is the PA AG going to track all the open proxies out there, too?

But in either of these cases, there isn't much the ISP can do without the list. And I didn't see anything in the text of the law that says the list has to be held in strict confidence by the ISP (as if that would apply to an out of state ISP anyway).

Re:Goddamnit.

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

"" /me marks one more state to not move to.""

although I understand what to many of you this means and your general complaint/fear. Do relize bitching about this does make you look like a petaphile (sp?). I think people should be clear if they are complaining about people getting blocked from sites or complaining you can't get kiddy porn. If your in the later I think you should have life blocked from you, not just the kiddy porn

ISP's use publc lines

[b17bmbr]

they are using facilities in the public domain. although, IANAL, and don't pretend to be one, this would be similar to using the phone lines to organize criminal activity. or, better, it is similar to radio or television broadcast frequencies.

if an isp laid (no pun intended) its own lines, and ran its own vpn or whatever, and had its own backbone, etc., than the issue is different. but, unless i am wrong, and that possibility does exist, most isp's are leasing lines and connect over a public backbone. thus, there is clearly a compelling interest that those lines not be used to disseminate child porn.

as for the slippery slope, this is pure nonsense. remove the word porn. just deal with the age factor. we are talking about sexually explicit photography of children UNDER 18. if you can't tell the difference between that and naked baby photos my wife takes of my kids, then i feel sorry for you.

Re:ISP's use publc lines

[unitron]

"...if you can't tell the difference between that and naked baby photos my wife takes of my kids..."

...then you're already most of the way to being qualified to serve as a U.S. Postal Inspector.

I'm not making that up.

Common Carrier

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the general model for the internet should be more like the phone system. The phone company cannot be held responsible for anything you say over the phone or whom you call. I expect my ISP to be much the same. I give them packets, and they deliver them to the destination. It's not their job to know what's in the packets or where they're going.

This idea of forcing ISP's to block certain sites is just ridiculous. Somehow, it's just the wrong layer in the network stack. If you don't want people to look at porn, you either shut down the porn servers or install filters on the client. It should not be the ISP's job to watch what their clients are doing, much like it's not the phone company's job to keep track of what you say over the phone, so long as you pay the bill.

And they're forgetting one small thing with their secret list: They have to at least give it to the ISP's, and I'm sure that there are a number of ISP's in Pennsylvania who would be more than happy to share this list with the rest of the world.

Re:Common Carrier

[anthony_dipierro]

But the internet isn't like the phone system. Most people's web servers aren't at their houses, and aren't owned by the people, they're owned by the ISPs. The internet allows you to connect to anyone in the world for a flat rate. Much of it is anonymous.

If the internet were a truly peer to peer system with the ISPs having name and address information for every customer and international connections were cost prohibitive, then we'd have a much different regulation scheme in place.

PA ISPs?

[Phroggy]

Does this law affect only those ISPs which are based in Pennsylvania, or ISPs that operate in Pennsylvania, or that have a Point Of Presence in Pennsylvania?

What about a national DSL ISP that doesn't have a POP in Pennsylvania, but instead backhauls all their Pennsylvania customers over the phone company's ATM cloud to a POP in a neighboring state? It could be argued that the customer is not technically connected to the Internet in Pennsylvania.

In order to block specific URLs (rather than IP addresses), PA ISPs would be required to redirect port 80 through a transparent proxy server. This can potentially cause problems (although it's not a problem for most people). If the law does not apply to ISPs that are not based in Pennsylvania, could non-local ISPs to advertise that they don't redirect, block or monitor traffic, possibly giving them a competitive advantage over local PA ISPs?

Of course I'm all for getting rid of child porn, but this doesn't sound like the way to do it.

Re:PA ISPs?

[krinsh]

I'm certainly not against blocking child pornography; but I still disagree that anything for public ISP users should be blocked by an ISP unless it is hostile traffic such as malicious code/viruses, etc. And I'm very offended that they will make a list of sites to ban and not give the owners of any of those sites any chance to make sure they aren't on that list because of a 'keyword' or some other mistake. And in the case of cable and DSL providers I guess they'll have to ban a significant majority of their own users, eh? I'm in West Virginia and Adelphia's internet provisioning is in PA. I wonder how this affects me; especially if they ban anything legitimate? Could the ISPs themselves share the 'banned list'?

Who maintains the list?

[Phroggy]

Who exactly maintains the list? Can a site be removed from the list if it stops hosting the objectionable content? How would the PA Attorney General's office be able to check the site to verify this, if every ISP in the state blocks access to it?

Re:Goddamnit.

[cymen]

Yeah, because we all know all protestors for a cause only protest because they are guilty of something and want to be free. Come on already. Open up your brain cavity and insert a friggin clue.

A better example

[CrazyJim0]

Does anyone have a link of a site banned by PA, that is non deserving?

Re:A better example

[unitron]

"Does anyone have a link of a site banned by PA, that is non deserving?"

It's a secret list, so there's no way to know for sure if it's banned or not.

It should be time limited at least

[nich37ways]

Laws like this in a way can be very useful. If the gov/law enforcement agency of your choice discovers a new "kiddie porn" site then they can immediatly have its access shutdown. Removing a site especially one that is not located in America must take time and cutting off access for the 2-3 weeks that it takes to have the site taken down is fair.

However when a site has already been removed from the internet then its details should be made public. This would allow some review of what the government is doing. However if the site cannot be removed as it only breaks American Laws then there is not justifiable reason for keeping the blocking information secret.

nich

Depends where in Phili

[Sevn]

South Phili has a *cough* charm all it's own. But
you have areas like king of prussia and shwenksville
and especially mana yunk sp? that absolutely rock.

On a side note, a lot of people would be amazed if
they knew how many movies are filmed each year in
Harrisburg. They thought they were looking at
detroit or chicago or DC, but they weren't. A lot
of movies that require maasive trainyard shots, or
D.C. looking architecture are filmed there. Kinda
sucks for traffic in the summer though.

No need to keep the list secret

[pussyco]

The ISPs are obliged to block the sites, so no-one can view them, even if they had the list. Mind you, seeing www.ashcroftsucks.org on the list might raise suspicions

Re:Goddamnit.

[eyeye]

look kid, why don't you curl up with a dictionary for a bit, or maybe go out and get some sunlight, then come back when you can post something more coherent!

Possession

[Merk]

Or maybe the music industry is selling what people want but are ashamed to admit they want. Heck, it wouldn't be the first time.

I think people over-react to child porn. Just look at the replies in this topic. Everybody seems to have to put "I don't like kiddie-porn but..." in every message. It's almost like "I'm not a communist but..." Does anybody really think that someone who doesn't include that disclaimer goes out and rapes kids?

Exploitation of anybody, including children is bad. No question. I fully support going after anybody who makes, sells or buys child porn, but I'm not 100% sold on going after people who possess it. If it is simply found "in their possession", which could possibly even mean that it showed up in their browser cache. Should you be in trouble because you mistype a URL and get one of the many porn typo sites?

Maybe intentionally seeking out child porn online should be illegal, but the penalty should reflect the crime. Someone who doesn't buy, sell, or make kiddie porn hasn't hurt any kids. Now the the argument is of course that viewing child porn leads to other crimes against kids. But isn't that the kind of thing that Slashdotters hate when it comes to other things? Just because someone loves playing violent video games and perhaps even makes a level that reflects their school or office doesn't necessarily mean they're going to go shooting up their school or office. Perhaps the punishment for seeking out child porn should be giving up all their privacy in case they can't control their urges.

This isn't intended to be flamebait. I'm sure there's many a libertarian who would agree with me that any action that doesn't actually hurt somebody else shouldn't be illegal. If you're going to moderate it down because you don't like what I'm saying, consider posting a reply instead. And it's not offtopic, the topic is child-porn and law, isn't it?

Re:Possession

[shepd]

You're right, and here's why:

By using a definition that says anything representing any sort of sexual act of anyone "underage" we get into situations that make this illegal (yes, I'm in Canada, and I'm technically going to break the old version of our laws):

It is reccomended that anyone under the age of 18 use a condom during sex to prevent the possibility of conceiving a child. A condom is worn by simply removing it from its wrapper and then rolling it down one's penis.

Because I mentioned sex, and a sexual act between minors I have broken the law. Does anyone else here think that's silly? Insane, perhaps?

Don't believe me? Click here.

That's why child porn laws should be used to protect children from abusers, and not from information such as the above which they have a right to know. But an incensed public just doesn't seem to understand the difference, unfortunately, and only listens to police who clamour for such broad-scope laws that let *them* decide who gets raided and who doesn't, rather than you.

Remember, you can tell someone's true support for free speech by seeing if they're willing to support those they detest who harm no-one. And I detest pedophiles, but if they aren't abusing children, it's hard for me to find a reason they need to go to jail for. Really hard. Mental hospital, sure, but jail...

I think this site puts it better than I ever could have.

For those wondering what goes through the mind of a pedophile, read this. I'm surprised I even found it.

Re:Possession

[Merk]

Thanks for backing me up. I was afraid that I was only going to get flamed for what I wrote. The one thing that gives me pause in what you said is the mental hospital idea. The same logic used to be used to try to cure homosexuals. Looking back, most people see that as barbaric. These days homosexuality is accepted as just another sexual preference, as are people who like wearing diapers, people who like being tortured, or like torturing others, etc. Now I actually can't imagine a world where pedophelia is considered just another sexual preference, but the similarity bothers me. If pedophiles are put in a mental hospital, I would hope that it isn't to cure them, but rather to help them understand where their desires come from, why acting out on their fantasies would be harmful to a child, and how to make sure they never lose control. If instead the hospital tries to "cure" them so they think that only women who look like Barbie are good looking, then that just frightens me.

Re:Possession

[shepd]

>The one thing that gives me pause in what you said is the mental hospital idea. The same logic used to be used to try to cure homosexuals.

I think the big difference here is that homosexual activity isn't abusive, as both partners are willing, whereas it's pretty much impossible to make that argument about pedophilia.

Therefore, IMHO, it's in the best interest of society if people with pedophiliac urges get themselves some help before they actually decide to carry through on them.

>These days homosexuality is accepted as just another sexual preference, as are people who like wearing diapers, people who like being tortured, or like torturing others, etc. Now I actually can't imagine a world where pedophelia is considered just another sexual preference, but the similarity bothers me.

Oh, I can imagine it. Heck, it already _is_ a sexual preference if it involves sex. Like I said earlier, though, there's positive sexual preferences that either have a neutral, or overall, beneficial impact on society (the ones you mentioned fit in here), and there's negative sexual preferences, where the impact on society means that the world is a less safe, less pleasurable place to live in. I don't advocate just pedophiles to get help, I would ask anyone with any sort of sexual preference that requires them to abuse others against their will to get help.

>If instead the hospital tries to "cure" them so they think that only women who look like Barbie are good looking, then that just frightens me.

I agree -- the hospital's job should be to help the patient stop their urge to abuse minors, not change whatever their non-abusive sexual preference would be. If it turns out they're homo S&M artists, fine with me. As long as they don't want to go about abusing others, I couldn't care less.

Just my 2 cents.

Re:Possession

[Merk]

You're making a few assumptions that I'm not sure are valid. The first one is that a pedophile will necessarily abuse children. That's the basis of all the laws on the books, but is there any proof? I'm sure they're more likely to abuse children, but you're basically saying that people have no willpower, that every person who has a preference will follow it. Stop for a second and replace "children" with "supermodels".

If Joe has a preference for supermodels, does that necessarily mean he'll ever have sex with one? Does it even mean he'll try? Realistically there's no reason a supermodel would ever be interested in him, so the only option he'd have to have sex with one would be rape. While Joe is no megagenius, he's also no idiot. He realizes that if he gets caught raping a supermodel that his whole life will be ruined. Nobody will respect him, he'll go to jail, etc. So Joe shrugs and says "well maybe I'll just try to find me a Sears catalogue model". Someone with pedophile tendancies might shrug and say, I'll just find me a young-looking mate, and that might be enough to satisfy them.

Is pedophelia something that makes people insane? Is there an extreme lack of judgement and/or willpower that automatically goes with having an attraction to kids? I doubt it. It is probably a preference just like any other, just taken to an extreme. Some like big breasts, some like curly hair, and most like younger rather than older, but for most people it's a preference rather than an obsession. The media goes so completely psycho over every case that it just seems like the slightest preference for youth over age means that someone is a psychopath.

The other assumption is the much more controversial one. Is any sexual contact between an adult and a child necessarily damaging? Throughout history many cultures have thought that it was natural. In situations where the adult uses his/her power over the child to force him/her to do something sexual of course it would be damaging, but what about other cases? I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the damage caused to kids is from the reactions of those around them.

I've seen situations where a kid was almost hit by a car, but didn't notice or particularly care. A mother comes running up, screaming because she was so scared that the kid would be hit, and that fear gets translated to the kid who starts bawling. If everybody around you acts as if something is awful it is bound to shape how you feel about it, especially if you're a child.

At the same time, I would guess that nearly all cases of pedophiles getting sexually involved with kids in the current world are harmful to the child. The only ones who would act on their desires are the insane. They know how serious the risks are, and how their lives will be ruined if they're caught, but they do it anyway. Can anybody in that situation not act in a way that's harmful to the child?

I just wish a little science would replace the hysteria over pedophelia. I remember reading a book that talked about some of the recently discovered (50 years ago) tribes in New Guinea, and how many different types of relationships these tribes had. In some, males and females never lived together at all, and in one I think there was some sort of adult-child sexual contact. I think it would really be helpful to study groups that haven't been "polluted" by our morals and cultural norms. They could be studied to see if children in these situations really are damaged by the very act of sexual contact with an adult, or if the damage depends on the situation.

whitelist

[trb]

If that's not bad enough, they won't tell you which sites those are because - so the excuse goes - that could be construed as 'disseminating pornography.'

If they are concerned about disseminating pr0n, they should just disclose their list of unblocked sites instead.

Why would you!

[Manip]

Why would you want to look at sites with child porn on. I is a block list what else you need to know. Anyway if it was public info someone would connect to some proxy and surf it anyway so you might havewell keep it a secret :)

Re:Why would you!

[t_allardyce]

If no-one wants to look at child porn, why block it in the first place? Trying to block _anything_ on the Internet is against the spirit of free speech. The 'free speech' of child pornography isn't the problem - the problem is the fact the people take the pictures and abuse the children, stop that at its source and thats the end of the problem. If the government thinks that allowing people access to the sites will make them want to abuse children themselves (which actually sounds like a reasonable theory to me) then surely that proves that freedom of speech is inherently flawed and thus the basis of American belief - that natural law/capitalism is the best is flawed. Is it? or am i completely wrong here, i don't live in America so im not too sure.

oh yeah and to answer your question - its so people can make sure that legal websites have not been added to the list in 'error' or in bribes

Two forked issue

[Rooked_One]

before you go off on voicing your opinion for either way, realize that for every positive there is a negative to keep checks and balances in effect. Go on and try to prove relativity wrong - I dare you. =p

Don't worry . . .

[werdna]

. . . there are extensive mechanisms to protect against abuses here.

1) Despite child pornography being outside the protected classes of speech, any mechanism capable of being arbitrarily extended beyond that scope will be subject to strict scrutiny under the First Amendment. It is a dead lock certainty that Pennsylvania's program would be shut down upon the first hint of abuse, and the first guy to get shut down therefor who isn't actually stepping over the line to criminal conduct will have a hell of a lawsuit.

2) This is what public records requests are for. It is probably impossible for him to withhold it -- and the newspapers have probably already made their formal demands. This is an area where the fourth estate has still been vigilant -- and this is the type of case that newspapers love to press in court.

Why the ISP?

[Chanc_Gorkon]

That is what I don't get. If they want to get rid of Kiddie Porn, why are they just trying to block it? It seems to me that you should prosecute the dispicable freaks that put up this kind of crap. That would get more done than this will. I know that would be difficult too, but that ain't my problem. The law enforcement types all need to get a little more knowledge of how this technology works and then when some senator (state or federal) proposes a silly law, the law enforcement folks who know can tell them it's stupid and won't accomplish anything. I mean a lot law enforcement officers I have met have all been barely capable of punching the pin number into a credit card machine at the local Dunkin Donuts.

Here is what disturbs me

[Gryftir]

I have a erotic picture of myself when I was 15. I took this picture with a webcam for a girl I liked, it involves only me. That picture is technically child porn (though I'm unclear if it was illegal for me to view it then, and it is illegal for me to possess it now. That blows my mind.

My parents have a picture of me naked that clearly shows my genitals. Technically that could be child porn. I'm embarrased by the picture yes, but it should not be child porn.

even if you are totally against the possession (as opposed to creation) of child porn, shouldn't those pictured have a right to I don't know, sanction their own pictures?

Statutory rape bugs me for similar reasons. I'm sorry, but if they were abused, then prosecute them. But why is it illegal to have sex with a willing partner? Coercion is handled by sexual abuse and rape laws, so why criminalize a victimless crime?

It's then hypocrisy to say that two minors having sex aren't commiting a crime? Is one of the hidden powers of being an adult, along with voting and such, the ability to turn normal sex (between minors) to rape? Basically I'm against victimless crimes. If something wrong happened, like coercion or abuse, then it's a crime already. Maybe I'll join that Free State Project>. I'm sick and tired of being told things that don't harm anybody should be criminal.

Gryftir

Easy fix

[heikkile]

The problem has been explained here well enough already. Here is my proposed fix. It requires that a few PA ISPs get together and agree that

1) Since they are required to block an unspecified list if sites, the only thing they can do is to block all access to the net.

2) Since this is such a big move, they will have to implement it stpe by step. The first step is to block the access for all sites related to PA state administration, and home lines of the people involved.

It might be sufficient just to announce this policy, but if the silly law isn't retracted, they may have to step in and actually block the lawmakers first...

Re:Easy fix

[Loosewire]

I agreee that would be a great solution - however someone on the side of the PA admin will say "Oh so you support Child pornography do you" - damned media war with everything thease days :-(

Re:Actually Troll,

[ihatewinXP]

So I threw an 'h' on Harrisburg. And of course I lived there, how else could I possibly know of the thriving metropolis that is Mechaicsville?

And yes, Excellent Karma is a license to occasionally troll..... But PA is still a shithole.

Re:Goddamnit.

[schmink182]

...Or it makes you look like a freedom-of-speech activist, who is willing to take the good with the bad as long as it keeps everyone free to do as they wish.

ISP's As Carriers Notion Is Bogus

[reallocate]

>> ISPs are just carriers. They're not supposed to be filtering...

Says who? Seems to me it makes as much sense to compel ISP's to block child porn as it does to go after wholesalers and distributors that knowingly disseminate the stuff.

Communities have long prevented the illegal sale of child porn by blocking retailers from displaying and marketing the stuff. I.e., we don't allow them to carry it. The only effective way to prevent the display and marrketing of child porn via the web is to block access to known sites.

This isn't a free speech issue; it's about stopping criminals. Ordering an ISP to block child porn in no way diminishes that ISP's freedom to engage in legal activity.

Re:ISP's As Carriers Notion Is Bogus

[sjames]

The significant difference is that by the nature of retail, a retailer will see the merchandise and know what it is befor it goes on sale.

An ISP cannot possibly apply enough manhours to look at every single requested webpage and approve it before transmitting it to the user. Furthermore, if they COULD, they would run afoul of the laws since their employess would inevitably view illegal materials from time to time in the process of deciding to allow or deny the access.

So, we end up with a list of sites that are declared offlimits. The act of verifying that the site SHOULD be offlimits is intrinsically illegal (public oversight of government MUST be legal in a democracy, even a democratic republic). The act of actually telling anyone what sites are claimed to be illegal is illegal as well.

History has shown thet wherever public officials are allowed to act without oversight, sooner or later the authority is abused. It's not 'will this lead to abuse' so much as 'when will this lead to abuse, and how severe will it be'.

Re:ISP's As Carriers Notion Is Bogus

[reallocate]

>> An ISP cannot possibly apply enough manhours to look at every single requested webpage and approve it...

Pennsylvania is providing a list of URLs. No one is requiring ISPs to review every requested webpage, just as no one requires retailers to examine every page of every magazine.

...we end up with a list of sites that are declared offlimits.

We end up with a list of content providers who are illegally disseminating illegal material. The nature of the medium these content providers use to distribute this illegal material is aboslutely irrelevant. Child porn distributed via hard copy magazines remains illegal when someone scans the photos and posts them on a web site. It would remain just as illegal if the scans were printed and tied to carrier pigeons.

The act of verifying that the site SHOULD be offlimits is intrinsically illegal (public oversight of government MUST be legal in a democracy, even a democratic republic). The act of actually telling anyone what sites are claimed to be illegal is illegal as well.

This statement borders on incoherent, but seems to be asserting that prohibtions on child porn are themselves illegal because enforcing the law entails viewing the illegal material. The absurdity of this notion is readily apparent.

Finally, this isn't about putting sites "offlimits". It is about preventing the illegal distribution of illegal material. A rational ISP ought to be glad to comply with the Pennsylvania action. Any ISP brought up on criminal or civil charges for disseminating child porn would be hard pressed to convincingly demonstrate that they had no reason to suspect that child porn was transiting their network.

Re:ISP's As Carriers Notion Is Bogus

[sjames]

This statement borders on incoherent, but seems to be asserting that prohibtions on child porn are themselves illegal because enforcing the law entails viewing the illegal material. The absurdity of this notion is readily apparent.

Re-read it carefully! I'm saying that having a secret list of illegal sites that must be blocked, and at the same time claiming that turning that list over to the press (or other members of the press) is contrary to our system of checks and balances.

It's fine that the material is illegal. It's fine to have a list of URLs with illegal content.

What is not fine is requiring ISPs to install expensive hardware to make implementing the blacklist feasible. The other thing that is not fine is refusing to allow the press to look at the list in order to confirm or deny for themselves the allegations that at least some of the URLs on the list do NOT contain childporn or any other illegal material.

Consider this: Nobody can see the list but the ISP. The ISP can not legally share the list with others. The ISP cannot check the sites for itself. SO, The state AG sees a site that is politically embarrasing but perfectly legal. He illegally censors political discourse by putting it on the child porn list. Nobody can legally find out about his misdeed. The act of alleging his crime becomes an admission of breaking the law.

Keep in mind that this came up because Worldcom alleges that there ARE sites on the child pron list that have nothing to do with child porn. The AP requested a copy of the list so that they could check their facts. They were denied access. The AG claimed that he may not legally provide them with the list. Meanwhile another Pennsylvania law REQUIRES that he provide the list.

The logic IS contorted and barely comprehensible. The source of the contortion is the Pennsylvania Attourney General.

On another note, you've never delt with a large network before, have you? While I'm certain that any decent ISP would be happy to not carrry any child porn through it's net, that's harder than it sounds. To do it properly, they will have to use a layer 4 firewall in order to distinguish between virtual hosts. On a big pipe, that's astronomically expensive. Worse, they could be charged for a simple error in entering the list. Actively seeking to stop crime is the job of paid officers of the law.

The magazine analogy is weak. In order to make it fit, imagine a 'news stand' that sells over 1 million distinct magazines a day, each custom ordered by their customers. They come in by the semi truckload in a continuous stream. Now, try to avoid selling a list of 400.

If the objective is to eliminate child porn (a fine objective I might add), I would think the proper method would be to enforce the law against the site owners and producers. Be very public about it.

Re:ISP's As Carriers Notion Is Bogus

[reallocate]

Agree that the law ought to be enforced against the site owners and content providers.

Prepared to withhold judgment on whether or not the Pennsylvania AG should publicize the URLs on that list. Active investigations may be (ought to be) in progress.

Don't really care about the costs and burdens blocking sites places on ISPs. Blocking child porn is more important than the ISP revenue.

Re:ISP's As Carriers Notion Is Bogus

[vsprintf]

Don't really care about the costs and burdens blocking sites places on ISPs. Blocking child porn is more important than the ISP revenue.

I love that attitude: I don't care what it costs - as long as someone else is paying for it.

It's an unfunded mandate by the government, but someone has to pay for the hardware and labor. That someone is us in the form of higher fees to the ISPs. And when the kiddie pr0n is taken care of (like they could really ban a moving target), we'll also need to ban the sites with "hate speech" and other bad stuff, which will require even more money.

The conduit is not the problem. Although cars on highways are the chosen method for distribution of illegal drugs in the U.S., neither highway departments nor auto companies have been required to ban such use. It is a problem for law enforcement, not the legislature. The dealers need to be shut down - not the highway.

Re:ISP's As Carriers Notion Is Bogus

[reallocate]

Hurting child porn vesus hurting ISP revenue? Hmmm...now that's a tough one.

Customers will end up paying for it, just as customers pay for every other piece of health, safety and security legislation related to the goods and services we buy.

The "conduit" is not the problem, but it's part of the problem. If the Pennsylvania AG has a list of sites known to traffic in child porn, and presents it to ISPs, the ISPs can't claim that the gov't is asking them to look at every page before it's served. All they have to do is block traffic to and from specific addresses. If they disagree about the inclusion of some of the sites on the list, they can find lawyers and go to court.

Noise from ISPs that they're trying to protect free speech rights -- especially considering their assertion that they're "carriers" and not content providers -- is just that: self serving revenue-driven noise.

Re:ISP's As Carriers Notion Is Bogus

[sjames]

A few questions come to mind. Is Pennsylvania also requiring the long distance companies to block phone calls from Pennsylvania to the phone numbers associated with those sites?

True the list does mean that they need not examine every page before serving, but they are being required to have their equipment 'look' at every request before it goes out. Given the layered nature of net protocols, that tremendously incerases the difficulty of serving up packets. If Pennsylvania REALLY thinks it's a worthwhile pursuit, shouldn't IT provide the hardware?

Truthfully, an ISP is more of a common carrier than the phone company itself. In normal operation, an ISP simply accepts PPP packets from customer's machines, and routes them based on the destination address in the IP header. It also accepts incoming packets and routes them to customers based on the destination address in the IP header. At most, a typical ISP's router looks at the TCP or UDP port (firewall), but often, they don't. Unlike the phone company which has to set up an end to end virtual circuit, the ISP just has to shove the packets into a pipe. Many ISPs outsource the packet routing to a dialup provider, and just host radius, web, and mail services. In those cases, there's not even a place for them to add the layer 4 firewall.

Meanwhile, the AG claims that if an ISP shares their configuration with others, they are guilty of disseminating child porn. The problem here is an issue of free speech. He claims that if I say 'www.example.com is child porn and should be shut down' then I am guilty of disseminating child porn (unless, of course, it turns out to be a page saying the site doesn't really exist).

It's just another example of a government wanting unlimited power, zero public oversight, and pay for it with a hidden tax.

Tom Ridge the missing link?

[ShaggyZet]

Yes, and this foolishness started when Governor Tom Ridge was still in Pennsylvania. Recognize the name? He's Directory of Homeland Security Tom Ridge now. Whether Bush is directly involved, this is the kind of thing that his administration supports.

Reminds me of the "Index librorum prohibitorum"

[Proudrooster]

This is far from an original idea. The Pope and Roman Inquisition did the same thing back in the 1700's and 1800's. The Church published the "Index librorum prohibitorum" or "List of Prohibited Books".

Once the list got out, nearly every book on it became a best seller and eventually the list itself was put on the "Index librorum prohibitorum". So the Catholics arrived at the same point. The Catholics maintained a secret list of prohibited books but wouldn't disclose what was on the list for fear of promoting that which was prohibited.

Either this guy knows his history or it's a clear case of "There is nothing new under the Sun." I wonder if he also knows that in 1966 the Index was abolished. I suspect the list was abolished because the Catholics could no longer keep up with the volume of books being released and they had probably had their fill of p0rn too. So, if history does repeat itself, this list will fade away too. I just hope he doesn't start making claims that "heavy bodies fall faster than lighter bodies."

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Yada, Yada. So what are you going to do about it?

[SmegTheLight]

Well ?

You have seen.
You have decided.

Now.. What are YOU going to do about it ?

Can't Believe Nobody's Leaked the List

[serutan]

Surely somebody who has seen this list is of a mind to post it somewhere anonymously... a programmer at Worldcom or one of the other ISPs, or someone in the AG's office?

George Carlin

[CrudPuppy]

George Carlin needs a new routine to complement his "7 words you cannot say on TV and Radio" act.

Its bad because its not verifiable

[nurb432]

Where does the filtering stop? And how will you know it has been extended into 'questionable' territory.

True child porn is illegal and wrong, but if you cant at least review the site names, who is to stop them from blocking political sites too. You cant review the list so you will never know who was just squelched.

My assumption would be this...

[Kjella]

a) Some sites are illegal under Pennsylvanian law, because they contain kiddie pr0n by their definition.
b) Where those sites exist, they are either not kiddie pr0n or the local law enforcement couldn't really give a rats ass. Remember this doesn't have to be in Pennsylvania or the USA, which means they can't issue a takedown notice.
c) To keep Pennsylvanian residents from being able to view said material, they force ISPs to block these sites instead.

This has been a problem ever since the Internet was formed. Should Internet be a unified "cyberspace" or should there be "cyberboarders" with "cybercustoms" on every state line and national border, and only what is legal within that region may pass? Personally I feel they have the right to try, just as much as they have the right to try to stop people bringing physical kiddie pr0n tapes into the state. While the ISPs are the ones enforcing the block, the government is ultimately responsible for what is and is not blocked. I don't think you can go down to your local police station and see through their kiddie pr0n archive to verify that all the tapes they have confiscated, really is kiddie pr0n either...

Kjella

And they thought I was paranoid

[GiMP]

I live in Pennsylvania and I've been using an international proxy server for a while because I don't trust either my state or my federal government.

Often, but not always, I use proxy servers to mask my location and avoid the possible censorship; especially while looking for information regarding the Iraq invasion. Aljezerra for one has blocked the USA at times from fully accessing their site. I would not doubt if my ISP or government has been censoring or monitoring the activities of their customers/citizens.

Don't trust anyone.

I live in PA

[CrazyJim0]

I can't access fark.com now.

Fark.com is a political site, not a child pornography site.

Maybe its not blocked, maybe its just down today.

Maybe they should allow you to query

[CrazyJim0]

If you query if a site is blocked, it should return a yes or no.

In this way, they're not spreading porn.

this is a good thing

[dfj225]

If the system isn't abused, and only sites containing child pornogrophy are blocked, then I think that this is an excellent idea. Only good can come frome blocking these types of sites, which contain images that are already illegal.

Why did not one of the ISP's

[Archfeld]

turn over the list ? If they were served, it is a public record and they are in no way bound to remain silent. I'd say there was some back room politics involved here...

But

[anthony_dipierro]

Replace "sites that have child porn" with "e-mail accounts that send spam" and all of a suddon it's something that most Slashdotters are gung-ho in supporting.

What's wrong with this picture?

[blair1q]

Instead of block the sites, how about we

enforce the goddamned law and shutting them down

Re:Two things

[davisshaver]

I live in Lebanon, and I know exactly what he is talking about. The girls in the summer are very nice, down by lakes and stuff. Hershey is a big part of the area, from business to the Herhsye Bears. The rivers and strams and that are exactly as he understands. If whoever wrote this gets this, please email me at canyougrokme@hotmail.com

Law enforcement

[terrymr]

There was an article on CNN, a few months back in the wake of the Pete Townsend arrest, which cited an unnamed FBI source as saying that 99% of all child porn being offered (online or otherwise) is being offered by law enforcement to catch people who seek it out. Will these sites be blocked by PA too ?

Let's be done with it and blind everyone...

[mpthompson]

Like everyone else, I'm absolutely against child pornography. However, I am also against laws that are unenforceable or even worse, where an individual or business cannot reasonably avoid breaking the law.

This law makes about as much sense as taking a law that says it is "illegal to walk on the grass" to the extreme that it is also "illegal to look at the grass". The only possible way to enforce such a law is to blind everyone.

Likewise, the only way to ensure compliance with this law is to simply shut down all ISPs in Pennsylvania. After all, ISPs have no control over the actions of those at either end of a web transaction and monitoring all potential transactions for violations of the law is virtually impossible.

I'm no lawyer and not familiar with the current status of ISPs, but I thought that it has generally been established that ISPs are to be regarded as "common carriers" and thus offered immunity from laws such as this. Obviously, Pennsylvania doesn't think so. Otherwise they would hold their regional phone companies to the same standard as the ISPs they connect to. It seems logical that a phone company would be just as culpable as an ISP in that the very same digitized bits of child pornography that traverse the ISP also traverses the phone companies DSL and phone lines? Sure, it would be horrendously expensive and inconvenient for the phone companies to monitor and stop the "bad bits", but it is technically possible.

In related news

[Istealmymusic]

Owner of the Girls Gone Wild empire was arrested for reasons related to this article. A Good Thing, if you ask me.

Don't worry

[Overly Critical Guy]

Don't worry, it's just michael being knee-jerk about absolutely anything and posting whatever gobbledygook gets submitted.

Pennsylvania could be banning child porn sites and michael would still be up in arms! Oh...damn. I have a question. Why would you trust policeman and the government to normally enforce the illegality of child porn and child abuse, yet not trust them to block child porn websites? In either case, you're trusting them to make the judgement call about what makes up child porn.

But because its websites, we get nice and knee-jerk about it. "How dare they decide what is child porn and block websites without telling me! Oh--so they've been busting child porn rings and arresting offenders for years, and I've trusted them with doing that. But that's okay, because it doesn't involve some idealistic Slashdot movement to make absolutely everything available on the internet! How dare they block child porn websites, and even worse, not tell me what they are! Down with all child porn laws because I don't trust them to make the judgement call! Viva child porn!"

Kind of disgusting in my view. But, hey. I'll probably get modded into oblivion, or some wannabe free speech lawyer will reply and start lecturing me about how "this sets a dangerous precedent" that "allows the government to decide what we can and cannot view." I'm sorry, but I don't want to view child porn! If you don't trust the government to decide what is child porn, why do you let them when it comes to standard child porn and abuse laws? Should civilians be enforcing all laws now because they don't trust whether or not the government can correctly judge what is illegal? Better not have faith in any policemen, detectives, or anyone else.

But what do I know? I'm going against the mentality of michael and his minions here. I guess I'll head over to michael's RIAA piracy article and attempt to inject a little sanity over there now instead of "OMG!!1 RIAA IS SUING OVER ILLEGAL PIRACY! HOW DARE THEY!!1"

From crackhead moderators who mod you down when they disagree with you, to vindictive editors who hound you into oblivion, it can be hard having a dissenting opinion on Slashdot!

Child Pornography + PATRIOT ACT + Carnivore = Jail

[Matrix272]

So if I read this article and some of this discussion, and I e-mail it to a friend who has kids, the FBI could find the term "Child Pornography", call me a terrorist and put me in jail? Ouch...

Censorship

[Alphtoo]

In my view, there is nothing more obscene than censorship. Back in the late '60s or early '70s, the President of the US established a Congressional committee to study the issue. They could find no link between pornography and crime. This study and its findings were published in the Congressional Record. The President quickly swept it under the rug, as best he could, but the publishers of Zap Comics (popular underground comic books) got hold of it and published an illustrated version. It contained photographs to illustrate just about everything mentioned in the Congressional Record, along with the text, and yes, some of it was damn disgusting, but it made a point: the Committee viewed this same sort of stuff, and though they may have found it disgusting, they saw no harm in it. These dumbass politicians need to look for REAL problems to solve and quit sweating the small stuff. And parents need to keep a closer eye on their kids.

is Pennsylvania...

[ohzero]

part of China now? or am I missing something? The one thing the story doesn't cover is exactly -who- in the office gets to decide what the kiddy porn sites are.

Anybody work at a PA ISP?

[clonebarkins]

So, if somebody who reads slashdot is privy to this list, why not send it to cryptome.org or 2600? They'll publish it. If not, just post it anonymously to USENET or something. In fact, email the PA governor, PA legislators, and even your congresscritters with it so that they will be in violation of the law. Or post it to slashdot!