Slashdot Mirror
British Telecom Blocks Access to Child Porn Sites
An anonymous reader writes "British Telecom has taken the unprecedented step of blocking all illegal child pornography websites in a crackdown on abuse online. The decision by Britain's largest high-speed internet provider will lead to the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western democracy."
What worries me is this could be a foot in the door situation.. It is hard to justify the first ones but then easier for future blocks. P0rn, Warz, Hax all could be disappearing from a website near you!
No shit, it's a good idea.
Just because child pornographers will find other means of getting their porn (xeroxing it at 7-11 for one), it doesn't mean that we should give them MORE alternatives.
Shut the fuckers down. Have any IPs that hit child porn sites logged and investigated.
Child pornographers have forfeited their rights.
Sounds good enough to me. I can't think of any reason why this alone isn't a bad thing.
You anti-everything-censorship people shut up, just because it's information doesn't mean it shouldn't be promoted or blocked for that childs' protection. Think if you found out by a cop that your kid was abused and his/her pic was online for pedo-freaks to masterbate to?
Makes your stomach twist doesn't it?
It's a crime to block these services on the end user's side whilst leaving them at large on the internet; they should be taking them down at the source.
Good motives here, but are there controls in place to ensure ONLY kiddieporn is banned by this method?
My fear if this came here is that it would be used to block all manner of 'improper' political sites.
Slippery slope.
nude anime gallery
Blocking child pornography is considered good by most, but is this the best step? What happens next, they block hardcore porn?
Given that they have a list of sites to block, they should record every access to those sites, allow them to proceed and inform relevant authorities.Otherwise child pornography users will know that something is amiss and take measures to circumvent them. such as by using a proxy to access child porn.
Of course nothing stops them using a proxy to access child porn with my method, but seeing as the accessor would not be given any hints that anything is amiss, they would be unlikely to bother, after they have successfully accessed this material.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Before everyone does the kneejerk censorhip response, this seems no different than what goes on in real life. Access to child pornography is blocked in real life. Your local Kwik-E-Mart is not going to be carrying Russian Lolitas Monthly next to the Playboys and Penthouses. Nor should they.
The only issue to be concerned with is whether or not the list of blocked sites is accurate or not.
And of course, this will not stop the knowledgable pedophile, but if it can keep some companies from earning money via paid subscriptions, good for BT.
This is a good step on their behave, if it only blocks the child porn sites. But there is a lot of sites that say they do not allow child porn, that still have the occasional few get by. Will they be banned also or will they slip through because they say they don't allow it? I have seen sites with the errant post that just got by. And then again there are alot of sites that say no children, but in reality that is all there is on the site. I wish them luck, this sounds like a major headache to enforce.
Sig temporarily out of service.
The first step down the slippery slope. It's a tough one to fight-- no sane person would have any sympathy for these peddlers of child pornography. So it becomes acceptable to censor.
What comes next, terrorist websites? Better make those mirrors of www.gop.com straight away.
Tell me why this is bad by defending child pornography and leave the cries of censorship out of it. There are worse things than censorship.
Shouldn't that read "attempted by a large ISP"? Could this result in mass-migration to other services, or are no others viable? As an aside, are cable modems available in Britain?
I do think this is a slippery slope, especially since "pornography" is always hard to define... Are "innocent" shots of (semi)naked teens on Scandinavian beaches "porn", for instance? Who decides?
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
The door swings both ways.
________
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What happens when someone uploads it to geocities? Does all of geocities get blocked? What if it is shared hosting... do all of the accounts on that ip get blackholed?
I'm going to side with freedom of speech (and thereby child pornography on the internet.) I in no way approve of or condone child pornography. I think it's disgusting the way that some people get off by exploiting children too young to fully understand the consequences of their actions. However, censorship is a slippery slope. Once we allow the child pornographers to be blocked, what's stopping them from taking the next step and censoring all they deem obscene? What about outlawing anonymous forums because they facilitate obscenity? How long until you have to get your sites white-listed by ISPs to even be viewed in the UK or any other nation that follows this same path?
I'm not insane, just concerned. I say fight the problem of child pornography (etc..) from the other end. Arrest the people, not the websites and protocols.
for some pr0n sites to remove the 16,000 flashing banners saying "BARELY LEGAL!!" it would be now.
I am fine with bocking child porn but what next? Will the block anti gov speach?
A ruler wears a crown while the rest of us wear hats. But which would you rather have when it's raining?
...how about newsgroups? IRC? FTP? There are alot more distrbution methods available to those who traffic in this type of material, and believe me, the ones you should be worried about are not the ones who are "surfing the web" to get it either. -S-
The alterative is trusting a government body that you have real freedom of information rights. Say no more.
So I'm more that a little concerned the "solution" is to ban urls... wtf?
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
The decision by Britain's largest high-speed internet provider will lead to the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western democracy.
No, it is not the first case. Remember blocking child porn in pennsylvaia? Have a look here.
In North Rhine-Westfalia all providers have to block access to two Nazi websites: look here.
We can all sympathise with not wanting access to pedo sites, bomb-making instructions and anti-jewish hate sites. But there are, I think, several reasons why this is not at ALL a good thing.
a) Practical reasons. How on earth are they going to decide which sites are child porn sites? Do these sites announce themselves as such with a special logo? Or will the government employ 1,000 people who search google all day for new sites? Or will all sites that refer to "child" and "vagina" in the same sentence be blocked (I guess that includes nudist sites and anti-childporn sites as well)? For these practical reasons and many more, this idea will not be practical.
b) The slippery slope. OK, child porn is obviously bad. And so is antisemitism. And bomb making. So, the PLO site is soon to be banned too? All newsgroups that ever discuss bombs? Sites that sell radar detectors? Web sites taht discuss and encourage tax cheating? Anti-government sites? Exam cheat sites? When you accept that the government can decide what we are allowed to read online, this is a dangerous state of affairs.
c) Drawing attention bad. It will no doubt make it a challenge to get to the forbidden sites.
Censorship has never worked. My kids watch only shows that are rated "mature". While I sympathise with the intention here, the idea of a wise government that bans access to information is one that has never worked in the past and will not work now. It seems to me that enforcing existing laws against child porn (producers, viewers) would be a much better course of action; one more likely to lead to real results.
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
I'm using one right now. NTL is my provider. BT is being very AOLish in its advertising etc. at the moment, so I'm not sure if NTL will follow suit, but I wouldn't be surprised.
I'm sorry, but all these comments about a slippery slope are off track. They're not taking away rights - they're finally blocking content that you NEVER had a right to view in the first place. Outside of the internet, there is a clear division between kiddie porn and political speech/you name it - both moral and legal.
Some slashdoters seem to have a view that the internet is a realm where all information should be free and available. This is bullshit. If, for example, my personal medical records became avaiable there, I'd be pissed. This is yet another example of information that you have no right to have in the first place. There would be nothing wrong with shuting down a site that listed everyone's the medical history. Same case with the kiddie porn. I'm sorry, but anybody making an argument that filtering all content is illegal should have NO expectations of privacy. RIAA/cops/evil twin want your fingerprints? No problem, that resturant you ate at can put them online(hosted, of course, in a 3rd world country with at best lax law enforcement) - filtering content is, after all, illegal.
The only concern is that they have measures in place to unblock a site that is blocked in error, and that they make a best-effort attempt to minimize the number of errors.
Why doesn't British Telecom simply hand over the details of anyone accessing these child pornography sites to the police?
Censorship in this case might be with the best intentions, but the precedent and future problems it creates is immense.
What will they block next?
- How to build a bong.
- How build a petrol bomb.
- How to make your car street illegal.
- How to hack your ipod.
All these things were blocked in China when I lived there.
Do these companies have guys that sit around all day and look for this shit?
And if so, I wonder if they are pedophiles(sp?) themselves. Like, wouldn't that be a good job for one, cause he can say.. "uhh, but its my job to look for this stuff so we can block it!"
Just a thought O_o.
The sites are still there! Okay, so you can't see them. The out of site out of mind attitude is not going to help. Kids are still going to be abused. Find out who hosts the sites, shut them down, and arrest the owners!
In fact, people seem to be missing what the actual problem is here. It's not that people download it (not that that's a good thing). The main problem is that people create it in the first place. That is the part that does the most harm.
I totally agree with you. What we need to watch out for is that other, non-criminal websites are not blocked. It's okay to block websites that have *criminal* content, but I would have to draw the line at that. The UK has to protect their citizens, and if it means blocking access to child porn, that is fine by me. Imagine you have a teenage boy who fills up your PC with lolita images, and *you* get arrested.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
i dont think this is a very smart idea, not as much from the free speach perspective, but from a law enforcement point of view. the only thing that will happen is that this kind of material will be distributed in other less transparent ways.
Every major child-porn bust in both western europe and the US has linked the end users with the web sites via their credit card, this is a good way both to bust end-users and to get a good statistical overview of the problem.
Also if the sites are actually on the web it is also much easier for law enforcement to trace people / places where this kind of material originates.
I mean, it would become a nightmare scenario for law enforcement if every end-user of child porn actually took the step and started downloading / posting everything anonymously w/PGP encryption on usenet or other message boards, it would be close to impossible to monitor and no credit card to trace.
just my two cents
And what about the first legit child abuse support site they block? Do they get blocked and shut down too?
Or next month, when its another 'crime against society' they decide to block?
There goes free speech out the window. Don't get me wrong KP *IS* wrong, but you don't deal with it this way, by beginning the process of restricting speech, as once you start, its far to easy to add another item to the 'unapproved knowledge' list out of political pressure.
Ever hear of the Salem witch trials in America? This is similar to how that got started: People in power, imposing their twisted views of right and wrong on others.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
but removing this content is the right way. Every single state on this planet has laws against child pornography.
Most illegal pictures the Britons found were on webservers in the USA. You can find data here. In USA are laws against child porn. You can remove the content.
For fucks sake what is wrong with these people!? can they not just refuse to host these sites, inform other ISP's in other countries, arrest the pedophiles!? Censorship of anything whatsoever is just wrong period and now i have to go and boycott BT. If they dont want this stuff on the net then fine, take it down, but blocking it is a totally different thing and unfortunately i dont think the public understands this. I swear this country is not going to turn into fucking backwards china.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
It's called Freenet, which has already gone under fire because pedos have realized it also.
After a long wait, and a lot of luck, freenet *might* run for you, and take up all your CPU while it's at it. But at least it's a step toward stopping government censorship.
The dynamic nature of internet makes censorship absolutely useless ; today BT blocks 100 child porn site, tomorrow 200 more pop up somewhere else or some new technology/idea will make them harder to trace.
Not only is this attempt utterly useless, but it also supports the concept that censorship is the answer to internal security problems ; in other words , they're selling security by obscurity for the marketing purpose of showing they're "concerned". While people who are very concerned by child pornography may consider a good sane sex education as an alternative, far reaching solution to the issue.
There are lots of things that are banned in the physcial world - "Fire!" in a crowded theater, kiddie porn, etc. There is no reason that these actvities should not be blocked in the electronic world as well.
It isn't like societies that profess "free speech" haven't been dealing with the question of where to draw the line for 200+ years. New media takes a bit of time to figure out where to draw the line. That doesn't mean that a line can't be draw somewhere. At some point I full expect to see a court decision or two that I disagree with. I also expect that a reasonable set of rules will eventually be established.
I'm sick of you 'slippery slope' assholes. The simple truth is that there is _no_ slippery slope. There never has been and there never will be. You clowns talk like it is a law of the universe.
If there is a 'slippery slope' then legislative democracy is an unworkable charade; it would be impossible to govern a third of a billion people. But America seems to have been doing just that for 250 years, thank you. We've even managed to roll back some bad laws-uphill on your asinine little slope.
The thought that, if a legislator votes for A he/she will inevitably _have_ to vote for Z is a fraud and an intellectual embarassment. They voted like that because they chose to; not because the fabric of the universe made it necessary. Any legislator who thinks, let alone acts, like that is treasonous, ignorant, or on the take. He/she is certainly unfit to serve in a country created by the likes of Jefferson, Paine and Adams.
Then again, most of us Americans are unfit to live in such a country.
A lot of people are screaming about how banning child pornography cannot possibly be twisted into A Bad Thing, but it is not child pornography that this debate really centres on.
The issue most people have is a large corporation having sway over what it's users can and can't view.
It's not just child porn, what happens if someone posts anti-BT comments or messages? I've seen enough companies censor their support forums by banning users and deleting posts that criticise their service, do we really want a company able to censor the entire internet? the 'net is one of the few havens of totally free speech availible, and if BT is given the power to block one sort of site, then they will use it as a 'test case' to gain the right to block other kinds of sites.
Next will go the anti-government sites. Websites that criticise the government, simply blocked from view thanks to BT. Then regular porn sites. Scream at me to say I've got my tinfoil hat on over this, but all I see is a large corporation taking it's first tentative steps towards 'sanitizing' the internet. Blocking child pornography is just the start - the company can block child porn and live safe in the knowledge that anyone who objects will be labelled a paedophile or a supporter of child pornography. Then they can start sliding other categories onto their block lists, safe in the knowledge that anyone who objects to it will get the full wrath of the following knee-jerk reaction:
"Oh so you don't like internet censorship, then, do you? what do you want, then, you want kiddie porn all over the place then? is that what you want!" - BT looks good by proxy of public hysteria.
First it's the big, bad child-porn sites. Then it will be the big, bad anti-government sites. Then it will be the whole porn sector, then whole swathes of the internet that do not agree with 'company policy'. Like I said, I might have my tinfoil hat on over this, but the world seems to get a little closer to something out of a cyberpunk novel everyday.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Ok here is my theory, before everyone starts sounding the panic alarms. Child porn is the "Universal EEW", warez and pr0n have their supporters, and I don't think many ISPs would survive without either. I do not think this is a slippery slope, our press is too free and the public is too vigilant for it to happen. The main reason is competition. However, if there is only one company to get your services from, they can do whatever they want.
I hate sigs.
BT apparently is doing this not as a wholesale provider, but at the ISP level. They're certainly not the first to do so. Especially in the UK there has been massive blocking of usenet groups for example, I don't remember the specifics, but Demon Internet was derided for being the only ISP *not* blocking newsgroups (or the other way around really, this was years ago).
In my own neck of the woods, even the widely held as enlightened, geek-run, freedom-of-information-positive provider xs4all blocks kiddy porn newsgroups on usenet. And there are multiple "Christian" themed providers that provide an internetfeed that is filtered beyond belief (usually using some sort of server-side implementation of wildly inaccurate blacklists like netnanny); most public primary/secondary schools also get filtered (if any) access.
It's a matter of consumer choice really. At least BT (and the aforementioned "Christian" themed/school ISPs) are upfront about it. And let's hope the "error message" people get does inform people how to get innocent sites delisted.
Now, if BT was doing this as a part of their wholesale operations, that would be A Bad Thing.
I know for a fact that BT subsidiaries like to restrict their internal networks a whole lot; even browsing to another ISP's webmail is blocked, on the theory you might receive or send some (*gasp*) non-work related e-mails. That's pretty evil (not to mention counter-productive).
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Which way will the blocking work? Will it block data coming from a KP site, or will it prevent BT users accessing those sites?
Because if it's the second, a whole lot of my spam won't work...
Cogito, ergo sig.
You mean to say these sites were widely known about, and the police had not yet taken action against the people running them? Nutty.
How long before they block freenet?
- PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.
Well seriously, Peer to Peer and Freenet kiddie p0rn sharing is not going to be abated any time soon.
If BT says they will shut down any hosted sites with objectionable content, that is their right IMHO. You always have other choices.
Riight. is this the best way to do this? What's to stop them adding political sites or anything else they don't like to this, either officially (management endorsed) or surreptitiously from someone inside BT, or someone inside taking money from someone outside with a vested interest.. i don't wear a tinfoil hat but it's not that unlikely. Shouldn't there be a standard page saying something like "this page has been blocked by BT for x reason. if you believe it has been blocked in error, contact...." etc.? it could be that the page won't just time out or look like it never existed and this is sloppy newspaper reporting.. anyone?
Another point/question, BT is the carrier for a large number of ADSL suppliers (like um, mine for instance), will they be effected? My first reaction to this story was "i don't care", then "good, stop the pedophiles" and then "wait a minute, how's this going to work, is it a publicity/goodwill stunt, could it have negative affects even"
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
the Patriot act is a terrible thing and why Bush needs to go. oh, wait... I guess the automated Slashdot reply doesn't work this time.
Is there any AC who is supporting the freedom of speech and thinks kiddie porn is OK?
Like children should have their own freedom to express their own sexuality
and it is not wrong to have it documented for everybody else.
obviously, some of the sites may be out of the UK, so they cannot shut them down.
The move taken would be similar to blocking imports of magazines with illegal content.
now i must insist that any list of sites they have are to be given to the child abuse unit at scotland yard, to begin closing down the sites at the source.
Where is the line between making criminal activity difficult and, well "and what?"
First They Came for the Jews
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
-- Pastor Martin Niemöller
I don't have a problem with blocking access to child porn sites, but it's a slippery slope when governments (or quasi-government organizations) begin censoring content. First it's child porn sites, then it's neo-Nazi sites, then North Korean sites, and pretty soon it's like surfing the Web with NetNanny or CyberPatrol installed. This is not going to stop anyone with any technical knowlege of anonymous proxy services from accessing this illegal content.
So why do people only take offense when it is applied to what they can obtain on the net? Would you be so willing to make this cry about your local laws the forbid child pornography?
Your application of censorship is no better than what you decry. It is illegal to have, obtain, or distribute. Why should this be any different on the net? In other words, if you do not want the net censored of this filth then start at home. Protest to your local government and such, or is the anonyminity of the net your escape?
Please don't see this as an attack on you. It merely points out the fallacy many here operate under. They are quick to cry "CENSORSHIP", but only when it comes to the net. Yet almost always what is the subject of that censorship is already illegal to distribute locally or heavily regulated.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Who exactly is the official who tracks down which sites to block, and how do they know? Shouldn't the ban be for that official also?
thehomeland(.org)
I hate to be the voice of protest against something like this but censorship is censorship and by starting with something nobody is going to raise a voice against will only lead to them censoring porn next, then maybe they'll decide to censor racist groups, then churches by now you should get the picture.
With all the censorship issues attached to such a campaign, how about making the filter optional to the end-user? That way, if there's an (obvious) false positive, you can still get to the site. I can't see many people complaining about that sort of thing, but I can see many opting into such a filter as long as they can get back out.
I'm thinking of a (transparent?) HTTP proxy server that blocks the addresses, but the DNS entries are still there on the DNS server, or a similar filtering construction.
Such a solution would completely eliminate the censorship worries, and yet give end-users the protection of such a scheme. I doubt the scheme is meant to actually prevent paedophiles from getting to the content. Surely, they'd just change ISP or use some kind of anonymous proxy, which they're probably using already to avoid being caught.
For those of you that think this is a slippery slope censorship issue, think again.
What you are trying to do is link the relationship between free speech and censorship to BT's actions.
What do you think free speech is? Your right to say whatever you want whenever you want wherever you want and make someone else pay to distribute it for you? If so, you have no idea what free speech is.
Free speech is your right to have an hold unpopular ideas and convey them (at your own trouble and expense) to others if you wish.
You cannot use this right to abrogate the rights of others. So you can't libel or extol the use of violence against your fellow citizens. You also can't steal from others by forcing them to pay for the distribution of your ideas.
BT has every right in the world to engage in these actions.
This article is not about the government suppressing ideas that it does not like. That's the only censorship that is truly dangerous.
This is a private company. They can block what ever they and their shareholders wish. They are in the marketplace of ideas and goods.
If it really bothers you, then compete with them.
But don't try to tar and feather them with the misuse of poorly held ideas.
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
I haven't done my research, so I don't know if British Telecom is a government operation or a private one. If it is private, its not censorship. censorship can only be performed by the government. those who enjoy child pornography could always buy different internet access from a different company.
oh, and to all those people saying that child pornography is fine to distribute but bad to make... that's bullshit. there is no way of making child pornography that doesn't victimize a child. if you make fat stacks of cash from selling drugs, the money is still dirty. if you make a child a victim by using them for sexual gratification, the pictures are still evil.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
I doubt they would but...
It would be interesting for the police to get a list of everyone who churns away within a few weeks of this happening and matches it up to a lsit of known or suspected paedophiles. I suspect there would be a statistically significant match...
Read reviews of shopping cart software
You think the ISP's are going to go back through and make sure the original sites they blocked are still being used for the same purpose? HAHAHAHA! Then you've never dealt with tech support on some of the bigger ISP's. Yesterday I couldn't spell ethernet, today I is a tech support pro-fessional.
This really doesn't have anything to do with kiddie porn. It's a question about who decides where we can go on the Internet and who makes the call about what constitutes objectionable content.
And, as usual, it's only going to stop the honest people. Anyone wanting to get to a site bad enough will figure out a way to proxy around the block.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
One the functions of governments is to crack down on illegal activities and generally enforce their laws. As long as it's illegal, this is what I'd expect.
Now you might argue that this material shouldn't be illegal. Go ahead and argue, but you're not going to get any sympathy from me.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Imho NO censorship of any form and amount, of any medium whatsoever is justified, should the information in question be discussion of the government, independent news or child pornography. Information should be absolutely free to circulate - it's just bits, 0 and 1.
we discovered a new way to think.
I'm not trolling here, but coming from Britain I can tell you that we are certainly not a western democracy.
We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major decisions.
Most people don't know this. We chose this system of government because we believe that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. At the end of the day we believe that supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses.
I hope that clears things up for you all.
I highly doubt that the sites they're are blocking
are hosting hardcore child pornography. You will
have quite a hard time finding this stuff on the
web (and if you do, it'll probably be gone a few days later), so it is rather unlikely they have a large
list of those sites. Perhaps they really mean those
"child model" or nudism sites, but then many of the arguments
about protecting victims of further abuse do not
apply.
You anti-censorship types need your brains testing. We are talking about people getting turned on by and jacking off to abused children who will likely spend a lifetime dealing with what should never have happened to them.
I wouldn't let you abuse a kid in my local park (yes, the things you can do in my local park are censored) and you will not do it on the internet.
It's sick - if you download that stuff then make the decision to stop it *today*. Shift delete all that stuff from your PC and get your perks from something else that doesn't involve the involuntary suffering of children or adults.
I'm all for reining in the sick and harmful activities of paedophiles. But I don't see how explicitly blocking kiddy porn sites is anything other than completely ineffectual.
Joe Random would be happy to know he was kept out of a kiddy porn site when he's one-handed surfing the 'net. But paedophiles are not Joe Random. They use encrypted file sharing rings, freenet, steganography, anonymous remailers, open proxies, usenet. They are a million times ahead of "oh, my favourite kiddy porn site is blocked".
And even if there are technologically stupid paedophiles (like Pete Townshend... yeah right, "research"), surely it's better to intercept their access, raid the server owners, get the credit card signup list, prosecute the visitors, than it is to outright block them. If you were a paedophile and realised your ISP actively knew that when a big ACCESS DENIED banner appeared, surely you would scarper, and wouldn't be caught?
Finally, if BT is willing to block kiddy porn, surely anything else the government demonises will be blocked as BT, the private company, is eager to please them? Will the Red Cross's Sangatte website be blocked?
I didn't mean that the CP people are looking around on legit sites.
My point was that often legit sites pay the penalty due to mis-labeling.
Since we all know that the accuracy of filtering is shaking at best, many good things will be blocked too. Which has been shown to be the case too many times, when 'blocked lists' are accidentally made public.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"What's next? Blocking anti-government sites?
Yeah, right. Governments change. This year they lean to the right, next year they lean to the left. So what happens? Do the filters switch on election day, to block anything critical of the new rulers? Please...
There are enough people on all sides of the political spectrum to make this a non-issue.
Child porn is universally wrong. Show me an upside.
"Why censor? Why not just arrest the blighters?"
And we know that's not the next step how? Identify, notify, arrest, prosecute. But you have to identify first.
Pre internet, pedophiles were out there, but isolated. With the fre range internet, and easy access, interest boomed. "More, more!" How many pedophiles got their start in the last few years only because they could find this material easily? We'll probably never know, but I'd be willing to bet its grater than 1.
I wasn't referring to the viewpoint of CP blocking as being twisted ( if you noticed, i specifically stated CP was wrong ).
What I'm talking about is the next step, where people's individual viewpoints and political position will influence what is considered 'wrong' and therefore must be blocked.
THAT is the twisted view I'm speaking of.
For a quick specific example: the blocking of Nazi information in Germany. If they were to gain political power in the 'global cleansing of data', then they would control the blocking of this data from nations that don't feel its wrong. "Imposition of their twisted values on others"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I like your site just came across http://sharkfire.net/mat/mat/mat/mat/mat/dvd/ and found alot of nice DVDs there. I am glad there someone with a service like yours
PS That a hint to better set up your web server with some more security it is wide open I can browse anything on your drive
The definition of pornography is rather subjective. One person's pornography is another person's erotica. It's been a problem to define legally. Because of this, it's difficult for ordinary people to determine what is pornographic legally rather than by their own subjective judgement. If you start the precident that ISPs start filtering illegal porn, then a lot of people will start to presume that whatevery they find is legal and will not get them into trouble. If they do get into trouble, is the ISP partly responsible? It's not being a common carrier in this case so that should not be a defense.
If I go into a bookstore I can presume that pretty much anything I can buy there is legal (and legally protected) and cannot get me into trouble no matter how controversial (Ok, Patriot Act aside). To get stuff that would get me into trouble I would have to go through some pretty dubious channels, not legal bookstores, and the fact of that would be obvious. On the internet you don't have that distinction. Everything looks the same, it's just a hyperlink.
If things continue like this, we could just turn into a nation of timid sheep, too afraid to get involved with anything that looks remotely controversial. Which may suite a regime with authoritarian tendencies quite well.
That's just my opinion. Is it still legal to have opinions in this country?
Register article>
I can do alot to protect my daughter from perverts, but how do I protect her from people trying to micro-regulate the internet?
This is not government legislation. One would expect the free market to work just fine here. BT implement a more expensive (cost of filtering) service that at the same time gives a lower quality service (fewer available websites). What do we expect to happen? People move from BT to other ISPs. BT have lower profits, other ISPs have higher profits. The people at BT responsible for this get sacked.
I got no problem with this at all. It's akin to a newsagents not selling particular magazines. If he doesnt sell what I want, I use another newsagent.
I.E. Twisted views of right and wrong from people in power.
.. And still does today, to a lesser extent.
Its the same damned thing, if you were honest enough to admit it.
That's what religion is all about, if you haven't noticed. its "MY way or you are wrong, and must be punished" The 'way' and the 'punishment' vary from religion to religion, but its all the same exercise of control. And dont pretend they dont have a hell of a lot of power..
And how about we ban that next? Lets start banning particular religions due to their offensive nature.. Why just stop with banning CP and warez sites? How about anti government sites? How about self reliance information? Lets block everything that even remotely might be wrong to at least one person on the face of the earth.. Lets do it for the kids.. Oh, and don't forget to track all requests, so that if you happen to request something that is forbidden today, we come and imprison you due to 'intent'. Don't laugh and call me paranoid, this is how the world used to work before we became 'civilized'
It wont stop with CP people.. Sure that's a noble cause, but it will be leveraged, to expand on it.. ( and if you haven't noticed, this would be coming form the 'religious wing' of society.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've seen numerous comments lamenting this action as the beginning of a "slippery slope". I think this is a side effect of seeing the world as binary. Regardless of all the binary computers, the world is fuzzy. Too bad more people can't apply that. Defending kiddy porn because you don't like the idea of a secretive psycho-moralist witch-burning society is lame. I personally don't care whether the sites are blocked; I just want to kill the child molesters who set up these sites.
.25% murder. Our legal system has no sensible way to deal with these issues.
In some ways, it comes down to deciding on a lesser of n evils (or, in rare circumstances, n goods). I don't want any government or private agency or person to secretly search my house, library records, or financial records. I don't want to be thrown in jail with no charges, no lawyer, and no acknowledgement that I've been imprisoned. Nor do I want murderers to get out of jail before pot smokers; it usually comes down to making unclear choices. And what is a "kid"? 6-year old - kid. 17-year old, in a country where 16-year-olds are adults - different answer.
The abortion rant is similar; partial-birth abortion sounds to me like 99.9% murder (of an infant, no less), while a day-after contraceptive sounds like
So I suggest we assess each action as it happens, and stop forcing it into a binary view.
~, not ==/!=
This may be controversial, but good! The reason being, I, like may other people, sometimes enjoy surfing for the, shall we say, more prurient arts. And honestly, the last thing I want to inadvertantly stumble upon is child pornography. I'm not interested in it, don't want to see it, and it's not always clearly marked. I'd hate to be accused of viewing child pornography when it would never happen intentionally. So blocking those sites at an ISP level is something I'd welcome.
This doesn't seem to be anything but giving up on the problem and acting as if something has been done. Since the porn industry is inventive, it's likely that this will be routed around by some technology, making it harder to find these people and prosecute them.
Even if BT were able to block ALL kiddy pr0n sites globally for their users... who cares? Who would know? Who would complain?
Who from BT is going to go exploring for these sites on company time. Their own time? Wouldn't this be a violation of their employee ethics and somehow their AUP? If images were found on their work computer or their personal computer, wouldnb't they become outlaws? How would their customers feel about all of this if they knew some person was surfing for new sites like these and they were paying for it?
Seems an unlikely proposition and very political.
"I'm not ashamed I can't function in society like I'm supposed to." - Paul Westerberg
Mod the parent down. Hardcore pornography has been legal in the UK since 1st of January 2000, once the UK signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires protection of freedom of expression. That doesn't allow child pornography.
The old boner "law" was just a consequence of legal precedent: the odd stiffy slipped by in magazines without comment i.e. never became a test case.
If they know where these sites are... can't they be shut down?
"I'm not ashamed I can't function in society like I'm supposed to." - Paul Westerberg
Ah, but BT is not a private company in that sense - as the article says (I assume you read it), this is all being done in close cooperation with the Home Office (that's the government).
So this is a government initiative more than a BT shareholder initiative, and in that sense it is "about a government suppressing ideas it does not like". And yes, child porn is bad, but that is not the argument.
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
Only after posting did I realize that the subject line is an exercise in binary logic itself - a _versus_ b. Choose one of two. Do not pass Go, go directly to jail.
Oh, well.
Im sure its just some marketing plan designed to get them some media attention - "oh look at us, we're so good, we block child porn". I'd be far more impressed if they actually put some effort into shutting the websites down, not just blocking them for a small portion of the internets users.
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
Censorship applies to forms of speech or expression. Child porn qualifies as neither, therefore stopping it cannot be a form of censorship.
If this were true, then it should be illegal to put COPS on air. Tons of people watch COPS and surely this has caused a massive epidemic of crime which is neeeded to fuel the public's insatiable demand for crazy COPS footage.
"I'm a loner Dottie, a rebel."
- Pee Wee Herman
British Telecom announces they will block all illegal child pornography.
FBI announces they will arrest all murderers.
RIAA announces they will produce CDs that cannot be copied.
NASA announces they will have humans orbiting Alpha Centauri in 2005.
The price of freedom for information is protecting it all. i never saw what the big deal was about alleged "child pornography" except to facillitate witch hunts. it's so evil. omg rofl lol evil evil. lolz.
.22 and blowing away some classmates. It shouldn't, either. What it might cover is joe, the nice guy age 35 white male sales rep next door, abducting your kid for some sexual abuse purposes. Oh, and thanks to the lovely marvel of digital cameras, he takes pictures and posts on a usenet forum. If you ask me that's not "child pornography" it's just plain abuse. Like the abuse US soldiers displayed with similar digital photos - you might remember that in recent news? - yes. But! here is the draw, the asshole who borrowed your kid to feed some imbalanced sociopathic need, gets a maximum maximum of 5 years if i'm not mistaken and rarely any of those sentences are fully carried out. figure 3 mos - 2 years sentence. less if the prisons become over-crowded and room is needed to house the computer criminals, theifs, and situational murderers.
Notice my emphasis on sarcasm here
I'm with the parent post on the point that the abuse is done. what i disagree with is the little factoid and his idea of children being "rescued" (comparing apples and oranges). children aren't being rescued, there's merely less reported cases of fatal situations. my guess is that at some point the "missing persons" programs which did not effectively track young persons in the eighties, is simply more effective. people go missing, and that is that.
The following things are scary ideas, but i'm going to suggest them as alternatives:
- ISPs start accountability for their users. track users' traffic and what websites they go to. employ statistics against the habits of known criminal types to flag thier users as suspect.
- Continue siding with the war on terror and the witch hunt for child pornography. This lets you be friends with the big bad Bush administration, which likes to go ape shit and abuse indiscriminately, and it involves a grand ruckus of flag-waving.
- Enforce penalties for actual crimes. I'm not talking about crime as in "sasser" or such, but it is well documented that "computer criminals" serve longer and tougher sentences than child molesters, serial rapists, and some other pretty wacky baddies that disrupt a workable society. Maybe there should be a forced sentence related to the difference in age of the defendant and the accused? This won't cover a (US education) 4th-grader picking up daddy's
And some fucking telecom wants to censor your internet access!?!?!
Okay okay we should then censor all church related material. yes. down with god. after all, it has been widely rumored and accepted that the church is facillitating the abuse of children by its members. wait... no child pornography there.
Hmm, alright! i've got it. we'll jail all the people in the telecom who decide what to block. they MUST have seen some evil child pornography. burn them! make them pay for looking at such evil.
I'm convinced that some bullshit idea like "child pornography" is pretty much a symptom of societies full of marginally stupid people. hate crime, abductor/abusers, rapists, murderers, we see photos of this kind of deviation *all the time*
It's like this wartime situation in the US, you have the (bush) administration justifying it and proclaiming its evilness at the same time. soldiers, thinking they were god justified, and abusing prisoners. isn't that awful? lol lol lol omfg rofl gmwas!
We should jail anyone who visits tubgirl.com, goatse.cx, rotten.com, consumptionjunction.com, put them in jail for looking at such evil dot-matrix representations of the colours green red and blue... we should replace green with white because green is unpatriotic (as the United States manages to make everything a "global" issue).
It's not even criminal behavior, though... you could argue with me on whether that's a real problem of society, i'd b
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
Christian doctrine of "innocence."?
Your a fucking moron dude.
It isn't just christians that are against child porn. Jews, Muslims, Hindu's and just about every other major religion belives that children are
"innocent." When the jews, muslims and christans have the same belief, that should tell you somthing.
If you want to bash Christanity go ahead, but your not bashing christanity with your ignorant statements, your just showing how little you know about everything.
A child who is 7 has no fucking idea what rape is, probably much less sex. (They might know about conception, but not orgams, foreplay etc.)
Being abused that young fucks the child up for the rest of their life. The 42 understand what rape is etc. and can deal with it alot better.
I don't even know why I'm writing this. Your probably just trolling, but please don't have any kids, you need to remove your genes out of society if you truly think this way.
Oh and in many crimes, abusing a sexually or mentally retarded person does have much harder sentences because of manditory minimums that happen when the victim is handicapped.
Not to mention that the Judge or Jury takes the fact in consideration that the victim was handicapped and thus sentences the person harder.
Now if you want to talk about hate crimes, I might agree with your whole "everyone is people" thing.
Because if so, I've never read anywhere in the constituion that committing certain crimes makes you forfeit all rights. In fact, if I kill somebody and leave their rotting corpse in my basement, and they come into my house without a search warrant, they can't touch me or that rotting corpse in a court of law in the US.
I see that as a similar situation, we love our rights (and I personally wish we had more guaranteed considering who's in power now), and for these rights we make certain sacrifices (giving criminals those same rights), but nonetheless, if we take them from the criminals it is immediately difficult to distinguish who is a criminal and who is an innocent. Isn't the POINT of those rights to guarantee we don't get lumped into the group of criminals when we are an innocent? Those rights protect us from that, and saying "we can sort out criminals and innocents before applying rights" is really removing the entire point of having rights!
If you're not from the US, sorry, I don't know a lot about the system set up to guarantee rights in other countries, but I'd hope that it was a similar system.
If I start up a web-site that abuses some company's trademarks, I'll be shut down within hours, and in court within days...
If I abuse children, or support and encourage the abuse of children by running a kiddie porn website, then they can't seem to find me? How convenient.
Hmmm... Is it just my "conspiracy senses" tingling, or is it just a incidence that the same politicians and law-makers that support a 14 year old "age of consent" (in Canada), just can't be bothered to enforce the existing child porn laws?
I think that the first 100 kiddie-porn website owners thrown in jail for 25 years as "Dangerous Offenders" (no chance of parole) would serve as a significant discouragement to the remainder.
-- -pjk Perry Kundert perry@kundert.ca http://kundert.2y.net
And just what can you do to protect your daughter from a lot of perverts? Sadly, there's only so much you can do... think about it; hidden cameras in locker rooms and bathrooms, people taking pictures at beaches and water parks. Kids get abducted all the time. These people who do these things need to be shot, but I don't know what you can do to prevent these things from happening, short of keeping your child locked in the basement. Remember Polly Klaas? Stolen right from her home. As a father of two, it's very frustrating. Even those GPS watches will only get you so far... maybe help you find the body (or maybe just help you find a hand). Sorry to be so graphic, but I'm afraid there's just not a whole lot you can do, and when you get draconian you can hurt your children in other ways.
On the other hand, you can switch IPs rather easily, and you can also write letters to politicians and vote out the ones that don't listen to what the people want. You can also use anonymous relay services.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Half of me says "get these perverts off the internet", because kiddie porn is wrong (in my mind anyway, anything not consensual is wrong, and kiddie porn == end result of child abuse == not consensual), half of me says "be cautious".
:) then they'd have one less customer. But on the whole, aside from the slippery slope aspects, I can't see the problem.
I don't use BT, I use NTL (who suck large, distended penis btw) and if they started censoring places which have criticisms of them (e.g now slashdot
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Freedom of Speech is a very nice cocept. I agree on that, but isn't that freedom limited? Shouldn't Freedom of Speech end where discrimination, racism, hate and torture start?
We are talking about children here. Kids, forced to have sex with adults. Scarred for life!
Stop bullshitting about censorship. This is something totally different.We are not talking about anti-government opinions. I would be one of the first to protest about such a censorship since I do it on my website (here).
We are talking about breaking the Human Rights here. If this 'censorship' leads to a massive decrease of child pornography on the web: hell yeah! if not: hell yeah! Every country should be doing this!!
If it's up to me, go get every discriminating, racism-spreading no good website such as www.stormfront.org and take them down!
42 + 1 = 42
I doubt this will put an end to child porn. It will most likely push the related material further down in the underground, where only selected people will have access, and that is if all ISP's decide to comply with the ban.
However, most likely the people who want to access 'banned' content will still be able to - through proxies or p2p methods.
Maybe if more people started reading /. then they will have less time to spend looking at porn, let alone trying to find child porn.
Beta Sucks
Illegal behavior is "censored". Fines, jail & shoot-to-kill censor the perps of murder, rape and theft. For which or how-many bright bulbs is censorship a novelty ??
The difference is that the first two were targeted judicial actions brought on by a "vindictive" accuser. The "third", as you put it, is not a witch trial in any sense of the Salem trials or McCarthey trials. Noone's work has been blacklisted, no opinion made illegal, no person unduely arrested, much less executed as in Salem.
... I mean, hell, it's the anniversary of D-Day, when a whole lot more people died in one battle on one day than the most recent war in 4 months across a nation... perspective.
The Dixie Chicks still hold concerts. Half of the Senate are vocal opponents of the administration's policies on terrorism. Michael Moore still got his movie out, and he's won a few awards I hear. Speaking out against authority today is nothing like how it was in ages past.
It's one thing to learn from history, but it's another to realize what portion of history is fact and what is propaganda. It's best that we all learn perspective from the past, instead of blindly believing what we are told today
I wouldn't be surprised if pig fuckers (and dog fuckers, and cat fuckers) are the next group of people to have their websites blocked.
Actually the Salem witch trials started because a couple of adolescent brat girls wanted to pull a prank. They managed to supply the enough evidence (witnesses, being possessed in public, etc.) that the court had to either discover a conspiracy or listen. They weren't extremely suspicious of a few little girls so they took the second option. At no point did the sweeping hand of government drop down upon the uninterested public.
Some German ISP's went as far as blocking access to *all* .nl sites.
Not long ago someone reported there are *still* internet cafes in Germany having xs4all in their host file.
Yet it only took a few days at the most to have redirects (no not just mirrors) in place all over the net.
Of course this particular item was *really* about free spreech, there was no abuse of helpless minors involved but it showed the (in)ineffectness of this type of blocking.
The kiddie porn scumbags are pretty good at finding the niches of the net and I believe that the list of banned sites is going to be a prime commodity for them!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
...the chiiiiildren? Isn't anyone thinking about the chiiiiiiiildren?
Anyone who thinks this is a stupid idea has to get behind bars... Abusing small children is the worst thing you can do! And so what if a few 'normal' webpages goes down with the real child-porn sites? I definately say its worth it!
This may just be me here. But if I wanted to look at anything illegal (I'm not saying I do, I'm against child abuse but still). I wouldn't be going to a site. I'd use IRC, Kazaa, WinMX, Bit torrent and Winny.
You name is you can find it with that little collection of proggies does blocking 1-2 sites really do anything but make us all bitch about freedom of speech?
I WANT TO POINT OUT I DO NOT SUPPORT ABUSE OF CHILDREN IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM AND HAVE NEVER ATTEMPTED TO FIND ANY IMAGES OF THAT SORT USING THE ABOVE PROGRAMS OR IMPLYING THEM CONTAIN THEM.
sorry legal disclaimer JUST incase...
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
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Alot means the things you can controll, keeping them out of bad circumstances and making them educated about when and where they can be in vulnerable positions, teaching them how find and hang arround nice people and to love freedom and liberty (corrupt and unfree places, lead to corrupt and harmfull choices). And just watching them without hovering.
Some things you can never stop, but you can't stop them from happening to you either. Maybe oneday you'll just be walking into a store and someone takes a baseball bat to your head? The fact is, as long as people have free choice, they will have the ability to cause harm to you or your loved ones. The question is do we deal with it by taking away peoples choices, or do we deal with it punishing people who make bad choices. The answer is the later. Sure someone can make bad choices, but so can we make good choices. At least with the later, we have the choice.
BT provides Internet access to their customers. The customer types in the URL of a porn site, which is passed through BT till it finds the site, at which time the sending server packets it all up and sends it back, through BT to the user.
BT in effect is rebroadcasting the offending material, and it is their right and responsibility to ensure they are not transmitting or resending child porn. I see this as BT not so much blocking a site, but preventing illegal materials to be transmitted through their facilities.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Consider that some Internet services allow arbitrary posting of content. This includes websites that allow content uploads, collaborative weblogs, filesharing networks, anonymous FTP services, Wikis, -- heck, even Slashdot. Could I post some child pornography in order to justify blocking access to such services? You bet. This argument could be used to justify generally outlawing services that allow anonymous upload of information. And I don't think that this is where we want to go.
Of course it is. In cases such as this, fuck your "freedom of speech", and fuck your "rights".
You don't have the right to watch children being abused, and peddlers don't have the right to publish their filth.
Deal.
Super Awesome Broadband
Readers are welcome to visit my legitimate site: www.madbadorsad.org In regards to this issue: ... forum here:
www.madbadorsad.org/sadbbs ... and on-topic thread, here:
http://madbadorsad.org/sadbbs/viewtopic.php?t=2980 &postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
Thank you for all your thoughts, here at Slashdot.
WM
MBS?
Isnt such a bad idea really.
I dont call obliterating freedom of speech ( CP discussion not withstanding ) reasonable.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Are they blocking those too?
If not, that's legality discrimination! CONTACT THE ACLU!
Except...they're in Great Britain......
DOH!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I think it's a sad and telling statement about our society that every poster in this thread who criticized this decision also felt compelled to include a disclaimer, "I do not support child pornography."
That fact is what makes actions like this insidious. You begin by pushing an issue that is so black-&-white, it's nearly indefensible. You begin by condemning something that absolutely no one wants to support. And you gain momentum.
crib
Please don't read my journal
Because if you can't see it, it goes away...Right?
-R
Good thing there aren't about 100 billion free and open proxies out there on the internet that pedos can use instead.
This is treating the symptom, not the problem. I don't buy all this 'cutting access is cutting demand' crap either.
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
"The premise of censorship is that offensive content contaminates the hearts and minds of people. But you can only have censorship if someone can judge content without himself being contaminated. This contradicts the premise of censorship, which alleges that these contaminating powers exist inherently in the offensive material. On the other hand, if a censor can censor without being contaminated, that implies that offensive content does not automatically contaminate the mind or heart of a person. In that case, you would be admitting that censorship is unnecessary. That is the contradiction of censorship."
I don't know the original author of that quote (post here if you do), but it is very appropriate to this discussion and your point in particular.
If it is illegal to view child pornography, then why does Internet Watch (or whoever) have an exemption? Does BT have workers who check to see if a site is "illegal"?
Mabel - "So Fred, what do you do at BT?"
Fred - "Oh, I look up kiddie pron all day to keep you safe from it."
Mabel - "You MONSTER!! You're sick!"
Hence the censorship paradox. How do you know that child porn is a problem unless you can see the evidence for yourself? To give you another dangerous parallel, look at the secrecy surrounding the "terrorists" at Guantanamo - all information is censored from the public, so you effectively get the situation where you must trust your government to tell you that they are in fact terrorists as opposed to poor schmucks caught up in the US dragnet as it swept through Afghanistan.
Child pron is the first refuge of people who want to restrict your rights, because it is the easiest target (although in the US terrorists are catching up fast). As most people here have already pointed out, those who want it already know where to get it. Those who don't want it, don't look in the first place so never know whether it exists in anywhere near the amount government is always crowing about, and can't or won't verify the info because of the illegality clause (convenient huh?). Thus it becomes the bogeyman under the bed that the government will "protect" you from, by taking away your rights, and if you speak out against it, you're labelled as one of the bad guys.
The only way to prevent this slippery slope is to stand against ALL censorship, regardless of how distasteful some parts of society seem to you personally.
Visceral Psyche Films
It seems everyone is missing the interesting bit here. Note: IANAL, and I am not a British citizen, so I really don't know jack and I'm talking out of my lower orifice. However, by actively working to censor all child porn coming in to their customers, are they not liable when the censoring fails? That's how "common carrier" legal distinctions work in the United States, anyway. And I would expect .uk's laws to be more strict, not less.
Take off your tinfoil hats for a second and actually use that gray matter between your ears...
/.? If censoring kiddie porn in hasn't led to other restrictions on free speech in Real Life, why would you think the end result would be any different in cyberspace?
The slippery slope argument boils down to one statement - "today they block kiddie porn, tomorrow they block everything else they disagree with". But is this a valid argument?
To get the answer, ask yourself one simple question - has the censorship of kiddie porn in Real Life led to the dire restrictions on other free speech rights being predicted by the doom and gloom crowd here at
I built and manage a Usenet binaries site (one of the original ones, but now sadly in need of an update and, since Cidera bit it, not terribly complete). A lot of pure Usenet servers (no binaries decoding) make all newsgroups available under the hope that common carrier law will apply if (when) the shit hits the fan, but we suspected early on that common carrier law wouldn't apply as we were decoding and thumbnailing images. Thus, one of the first things I did when I wrote the code was to create an MD5 checksum database to block images. Anything that appeared in a known KP group would be be checksummed and added to the database, and anything anywhere else with a checksum in the database would be blocked (a good idea, since pedophiles change newsgroups frequently, and commonly take over abandoned groups in alt.*). New or newly active newsgroups were quarantined, no image decoding but with the subject lines presented in a report for our review. We could tell fairly quickly whether a newsgroup should go into the blocklist just based on the subject lines and content filenames.
A few years ago I had occasion to speak to law enforcement (police and FBI) who were investigating someone for KP possession, and he had a subscription to our site. They decided we weren't the source (biggest sigh of relief in my life) but were interested in our blacklist system and wanted a copy of our blacklist database. I spoke with one guy (FBI if I recall correctly) for an hour or so and I got to hear more than I ever wanted to know about KP on the net. Here's what he told me. He seemed to know what he was talking about (and seemed to be rather discouraged by the whole mess) but for all I know it could be bullshit.
There are three major sources of KP on the net. The first, present in Usenet but not on the web, is scans from magazines and such that were, at one time, legal to possess, but were criminalized during the Reagan administration (I think). As you might imagine the sickos who had stacks of "lolita" magazines weren't exactly rushing to turn them in to the cops. Once scanners became available, people started scanning in images and distributing them. Now, the original scanners' series are passed back and forth endlessly on Usenet and probably will be until the end of time. Fortunately, they're pretty easy to block by name and checksum.
The second and by far largest major category of KP on the net is softcore websites (nudity and sexually suggestive poses, but no penetration or sex acts), and reposts of same on Usenet. I'd always assumed this meant casual nudity (like nudist camp photos) but the guy I spoke with corrected me and said a lot of them are highly sexual poses and attire, with genital closeups. There are only a handful of major companies involved, each one runs multiple websites, and they tend to use the same limited number of "models" (i.e., exploited kids).
And "exploited" is the right word. Regardless of the fact that there's no penetration involved, these are poor kids making very little money for themselves and a shitload for the websites, and IMO it's similar to (tho not as bad as) parents selling their kids into prostitution. But in the areas where this occurs (largely but not exclusively former Soviet republics), it's legal, or in some cases just ignored because the cops are bribed or have bigger concerns to worry about (like actual child prostitution, organized crime, etc.)
The third category, appearing on Usenet and P2P networks but not the web, is hardcore material produced by the same evil fucks who are raping the kids. There's no money involved, but most of it is privately traded (or posted encrypted on Usenet with keys exchanged privately) and to be admitted to trading circles you either have to find rare content or produce your own stuff. So this *definitely*
As child pornography has been battled for years on the internet with little effect I'm all for them being shut down. Free speech? Since when are crimes legal just because someone yells "free speech"? Maybe those who value free speech over the wellbeing and sexual exploitation of children should spend some time with those children or the parents of abducted children.
Do not pass Go, go directly to jail.
Do/Don't/May Pass Go, Do/Don't/Might Go Indirectly/Directly to Freedom/Jail.
So when child porn is all computer generated, and not real, are those sites going to be blocked too? This sounds a lot more like legislating morality than protecting victims.
And I don't like the NRA.
:-)
Anyone ever see them NHRA bumper stickers and think:
Wow! National Hockey Rifle Association...now that sounds like a COOL sport!
I consider myself a hebephile - defined by Wiki as a "lover of adolescents":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia
I'd wager that most adult males are the same (whether they can admit it to themselves or not), and the answer is in the title of this post - most of us went through our sexual awakening in high school. We became interested in the opposite sex (or same sex, doesn't matter), and for a lot of us, that image has become the very definition of sexy. Look at the popularity of "teen" porn as numerical justification for my theory.
Others no doubt got aroused even earlier, and some of them will have formed those images as their definition of sexuality. Regardless of what society tells them, that is what truly arouses them, even if they keep those feelings bottled up (which isn't considered a healthy thing to do by psychologists).
As with any society, most grow to accept and understand their sexual interests and don't take them to extremes, and thus fly "under the radar" as it were, and harm no one. Of course, a few cannot control themselves enough and become sexual predators (this isn't specific to underage sex by the way, just look at the amount of documented adult to adult rape cases which would most likely be in roughly the same proportion as the proportion of adults who love adults sexually, to those adults who love children sexually). These are the people that need the help of society to prevent them harming others in their own pursuit of happiness. The automatic derision heaped upon them by society at large is what prevents a lot of these people from coming forward and seeking help, for to do so is to imperil themselves with no reasonable hope of a fair trial.
The answer is to accept that everyone has their own definition of sexy, and sometimes we won't agree with that ideal. Just as I think that fake breasted, dark tanned blonde bombshells are really quite sick, you may think that my ideal of teenage, small breasted girls is sick. I don't get turned on by girls who haven't reached puberty yet, but I am positive that some do. Same goes for same sex stuff - just because I am turned off in a big way by homosexuality, doesn't mean that I think they are sick in any way. They ARE turned on by it, and that to me is what really matters. If they like it, then I am happy for them and will support them completely, because I too understand that you really can't help what you find sexually attractive.
It's the repression of your natural feelings that leads to problems, not the encouragement, understanding and support of them.
Posted anonymously because not everyone is as tolerant as I am, sadly.
I am seeing arguments for blocking Internet kiddie porn based on supply and demand--that is, if paedophiles can no longer download kiddie porn, there's less of a 'market' for it, and thus less child abuse to generate the pictures. But on the other hand, if the average paedophile can no longer satisfy his urges by downloading porn, will he be more inclined to actually go out and molest some children? Just something to think about.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
As ever as soon as any hint of censorship comes up, the phrase "freedom of speech" becomes repetative.
This is not a "freedom of speech" issue. The concern is not people talking about it.
Further, your "freedom" and "right" to anything goes out the window when it impinges upon the rights of others. You are free to voice your views, but cannot kidnap someone to make them listen.
My only concern is they may extend the policy to other illegal or perceived immoral activities. There is a role for censorship, but there must be a careful balance about how far you can go to prevent people from doing either legal or moral wrongs.
These fools have stepped in it now. In the US, ISPs have faught to not be responsible for blocking illegal material. The completely stupid ISPs that have volunteered to block will now be expected to block all sites, or be potentially liable for anything they miss.
/deserve what they get
Child porn websites being blocked might work, but that wont stop people using file sharing programs to access the same material.
Likewise, any censorship any authority attempts to add is pointless as the more systems they put in place on network "chokepoints" where huge amounts of traffic passes the more interest there will be in building peer to peer applications, MANs using wireless with high gain antennas and might possibly even end up with true peer to peer protocols being developed.
Either way, whenever BT take a step forward the rug underneath them gets pulled two setps back.
This last is a major issue. It's similar to the "hate speech" issue on college campuses. It would be a great excuse for, say, blocking Aljazeera. (They have cool anti-American cartoons, in Flash. Some of them are anti-white-people.)
this means some sick bastard is checking these child porn sites - what a nice job for a paedo.
would the people in the job be suspected?
Well... It's illegal. So whats the big deal about blocking it? Not like you're inhibiting the rights of another human being, after all, the very nature of the subject in hand makes the makers the ones at fault for violating rights in the first place.
Has it occured to anyone else that England isn't a democracy? And that it proabably doesn't have the anti-censorship law that the US does (and ignores, incidentally), so this is probably not as illegal as some of us would like to think?
"My heart is in the work." - Andrew Carnegie
I believe child porn should be blocked. I am one of those guys that believe nothing should be censored. But I also live by the rule that you should be able to do whatever you want as long as it doesn't negatively affect someone. By visiting child porn sites you are creating a demand for it and coincidently harming children because of this demand. As long as they go site to site searching for it and block each site individually then it is a good thing. But if they put up some kind of filter, then no, that is bad.
why not have the root DNS servers block pornographic sites, and redirect them to a "dirty bastard, we've logged your IP - expect a visit from mr pig" website - it could propagate to the whole internet within 48 hours. i know we are talking individual sites/virtual serverts, so block the entire site if they host kiddie porn. if its tripod or whatever, just tip them off to remove the sites or they'l get blocked too.
obv people could use IP addresses, but people could go through a web proxy using this method. i bet most paedo's wouldn't even know what an IP is anyway.
(by the way, i used caps lock to type IP)
I still think its appalling, but keep in mind we are imposing our morals on others. It is about free speech.
In some countries CP is acceptable practice.. But then again, so is cannibalism....
In others eating Beef is immoral, shall we impose that on the rest of us too? I personally think Beef is good.
Just something to consider, its all relative....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The ironic thing about these arguments that warn of this so-called "slippery slope" is that they themselves are slippery slope arguments--there is no evidence provided in any of them that A leads to B which leads to C which leads to Total Censorship. To people with such arguments: your argument is not self-validating--just because you speculate that this may happen does not make this a valid argument against censoring child porn.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the site www.peacefire.org It covers many web censorship issues throughout the world(think NetNanny and The great Firewall of China).
Interestingly enough, one of the first things seen on the site, is a method to circumvent all these filter programs, and firewalls. This attempt to block sites by BT, is pointless. If pedophiles want to look at kiddie porn, they can just set up a proxy in a different country. These people already goto great lengths to look at the sites, and this isn't going to stop them.
As others have pointed out, it's only a matter of time before people start advocating that other sites be banned, and eventually, these other sites will be. Unfortunately, the choice of what shoudl be blocked and what shouldn't be is ultimately subjective. I have no issues with BT blocking kiddie porn because it's pretty disgusting. But what's the point? So everyone can feel better about themselves, cause we're stopping children from being exploited? That's laughable. This is a short-sighted, and fairly ineffective solution to a serious problem. The kids will still have been exploited; just that we won't see it. See no evil, Speak no evil.
Meanwhile, it may also lead to other sites being blocked that certain people find offensive. In America there are alot of sites I could see being blocked, just cause people don't agree with them. Besides breast-cancer sites(which have already been blocked), gun sites have been blocked. I don't like guns, but I do like free speech. What if ISP's started blocking marijuana cultivation sites, or sites that gave tutorials for hacking your tivo or xbox? All these actions are technically illegal to perform, but the info is still covered under free speech. It's a subjective choice, that I don't trust anyone to make.
- fozz
This does sound like it would make sence, we all hate kiddy porn right? But wait we hate kiddy porn because it is wrong, right? Well then if we can block 1 wrong thing then why not block other "wrong" sites, or sites they can prove someone thinks is wrong. For this type of thing I am leaning more and more towards a public consensus. If evreyone had an obligation to respong to an email with a simple yes or no answer to see how it would effect thier customer base then if warez or other is deemed that the majority do not want it then so be it. They should be able to vote and change thier minds at anytime. When ever the consensus reaches a predetermined point the policies change.
Now don't get me wrong some things just aren't voted on like cost to access the service billing methods supported by the provider, things like that if you dont like go to the "other guys" but for access I feel that you should be able come to a conclusion amongst your peers who are all using the same connection. Or is that a bad thing?
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
looking up child porn is a right now? hey quit blockin out child porn sites, if we want to look at beaten, raped and possibly killed children, that is our right! Sir i understand where you are coming from, though i do not agree with what you say i will fight to the death your right to say it!
I believe Dimitri Sklyarov (and a whole host of others) would beg to differ...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Israel has more in common with South Africa in 1950 than it does with any western democracy today. Go Jews! Down with Israel!
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Seriously, is this stuff really coming from websites? I mean, way back in the old days of like 1996 you could find websites with (non-legal) mp3s on them for downloading, and we see how well crack down on that has eliminated the problem of music piracy, right? I'm sure the people distributing and collecting this kind of material have long since realized the world of peer to peer apps and that shutting down websites will be no real deterrent to them.
This is a useless effort that sets a dangerous precident. It does nothing to help the children who are victimized this, because it's already been done. If you want to stop this, you need to find the people who take the original pictures, otherwise you're just covering eyes and pretending the problem goes away without actually solving it. There's also the question of who's standards do you apply? The age of consent isn't uniform, it's not even uniform state to state in the US let alone in every country in the world. Then there's various laws about specific acts etc. It's quite easy to bring in censorship at a low level for the least popular elements and then start creeping up the ladder. Ok child pornography is illegal. Next beastiality is also illegal. Next watersports/scat are illegal. Next BDSM is illegal. Next homosexuality is illegal. Next anal sex is illegal. Next penetration and oral sex are illegal. Next any nudity is illegal. If you think this kind of progression can't happen, think again. And once it works in the porn area it's not as hard a jump to start censoring something else and when people protest say "Well we censor for porn because it's bad, and everyone agreed on that right?" People still freak out in the US over a pair of fully mature breasts being shown in an act unrelated to sex at all, it's not hard to drum up support to start censoring things and the amount of support you need decreases with the amount of censorship successfully in place.
Even the general concept that looking at something, no matter how horrific an act it depicts, is a crime, is ludicrous. You might as well arrest everyone who's seen the Iraqi prisoner abuse photos or the beheading video because they're obviously going to become violent murderers and abusers right? The argument that anyone who consumes a specific type of information is therefor a specific type of person is flawed, there will always be accidental cases on both the user side and server side. There's also the issue that exposure does not equal thoughts, and thoughts do not equal action, and thoughts are unknowable. We can only punish for actions. Trying to regulate thoughts by regulating exposure (and believe me that's what it is, put a tinfoil hat on me if you want) is wrong.
Targeting the consumers is not solving the problem, because you can't know the consumers' intentions and it does not solve the problem of the crime being comitted to begin with. You must find the producers of this content who commit the actual crime on the actual child and deal with them. Only then will you have justice and protection of children. Censorship is just another wrong added to the problem, and believe me it will not make a right.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
I do believe that BT receives public funds ( i.e. taxes ) therefore they are NOT a private company.
They may act as one, but once tax dollars go to their bank account, then they are also a public utility ( that's why its called a public utility ).
A 100% private company i agree.. they don't have to follow the law of the land on this issue. ( however I think that should change )
Doesn't hold water you say? So you would consider it reasonable to have beef banned because it offends some of your UN neighbors, and is illegal in THEIR country? CP may offend me, but its not MY right to tell them what they can and cant do in a country where its legally permissible. Its my duty not to promote them.
You may not consider beef eating to be as fundamental of an issue as CP, but to a person that believes the cow you just ate for lunch is their reincarnated grandmother, it does. Like I said, its all relative.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
An acronym for what? Kiddy Porn? I just know that the phrase can set off some filters, so by abbreviating ( not creating an acronym ) might help prevent what i have said from being eaten.
Not much different then anti spam companies being forced to use the phrase sp@m, just to just to get their own emails past their own filters..
Don't read too much in to it, not everything is a conspiracy..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And while i dont necessarily agree (apart from the bit about taking down the israeli government) this is an example of free speech and i'd be pretty pissed off if it was censored.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
My mother has pictures of me as a young child taking a bath in her wash tub. She also has many pictures of my brothers and sisters and I swimming in the local watering hole. We're all starkers. They're all in her old photo albums - she even used some of them as part of a collage at my HS grauation party as part of a "roast the grad" display. Is my mother a child pornographer? What if one of the guests looked at it a little too long? Obviously that makes them a pedophile and they should be locked away.
My brother just e-mailed me a picture of my niece playing in her wading pool - topless! What about pictures of my wife on the beach (in her bathing suit) with someone else's topless child in the background? Is that kiddy porn? My local hospital has a large full-color poster of about a dozen toddlers, lined up "cheek-to-cheek", with some sort of cute saying on it? KP? Why not? Are the toddlers too young?
What about a picture of a 12 year old girl in her underwear? That can't ever be right! Except in the Sears catalog. But only pedophiles read that section right? Is Sears contributing to the lust of pedophiles? Boycot them!
What about that Discovery Channel show about growing up and aging where they line up 100 people from infant to 100 years old, one for every age, all naked?
The argument for pornography, and by extension, kiddy porn, is "I'll know it when I see it". The problem with that argument is that what is one person's porn is another person's art (or research, or marketing, or memories, etc). Another problem with "kiddy porn" is that the subject is SO taboo and SO reprehensible that there is an instant knee-jerk reaction to it without any rational thought.
Even my questioning the "status-quo" like this will invariably brand me as a pedophile. This makes about as much sense as my being branded a terrorist because I question the effectiveness of "security measures" that substantially inconvenience me and terribly embarrased my 14 year old daughter who was "caught" wearing an underwire bra on our trip to Europe and had to be "felt-up" by "the lady", in front of everyone.
The cry is: "It's for security!"or "It's for the Children!". Well, security is good - if not taken to mindless extremes, and protecting children is also good. But are we really about protecting the children? If so, why is is so easy for people to find KP online but so hard for the police to find it and shut it down? And, as another poster pointed out, what about totaly computer generated or hand-drawn material? What happens when "no children were harmed in the making of this film?".
Yeah, I know, "the material will fuel the lusts of the demented pedophile" and he will therefore be forced to hunt down neighborhood kids. Just like my neighbor downloading pictures from alt.sex.bdsm.* will force him to become a sadistice rapist, or like playing GTA will force the my son to steal cars and run down pedestrians or, God forbid, the next time I see a cross-post of bestiality, I'm going to just have to take out after my poor dog.
OK, I'll admit that I'm stretching the connections a bit. But it seems to me that trying to censor the end-user is not the solution. While it MAY help those who use Internet Exploder from being "accidentally" exposed to KP when their computer get hijacked and bombarded with pop-ups, shouldn't the effort be focussed on finding the people who are actually exploiting these poor children? And don't tell me that viewing a cross-post on Usenet is "contributing to the exploitation". I didn't ask for it, I didn't pay for it, and I'm sure as hell not gonna act on it.
In my personal opinion, people who get sexually excited by looking at pre-pubescent children have a phlychological problem, just like people who look at a pony and get that "special feeling". But, and I'm going out on a limb here, I'd be willing to bet that, of those who don't just view ALL pornography as wrong, a vast majority prefer to look at younger,
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
if china is going to build anonymizers that will allow western civilization to have access to such sites?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You force your opponents to take an unpopular stance. Just as "Give Sen.Corruptus Money And Power In Order To Save The Children" is becoming tired and cliched, "Give Sen.Corruptus Money And Power To Save Us From Nukulor Terrism" is on the wane, but "Give Sen.Corruptus Money And Power To Save Us From The Pedophile Menace" is a fresh and new scam. You won't give Sen.Corruptus money and power? How dare you support pedophillia!
Forget that most sexually molested kids are interfered with by their relatives or even their parents, the thing that people fear the most is evil strangers, hiding in the bushes in children's playgrounds, "grooming" children on the internet, jerking off to strangers' baby photos. The press have whipped the public into an absolute hysteria over the Evil Pedophile Menace, and it's fertile political capital for anything you want to do.
The first thing any opponent of yours has to do is concede that Pedophiles Are Evil Agents Of Satan, which is basically agreeing with 99% of whatever you propose to do. If he doesn't, then He Is Siding With Those Evil Monsters. His hands are completely tied. All he can propose is something even stronger and accept your position even more than you do. Of course, your proposal will do fuck all to save anyone, let alone the children, from the pedophiles. It's all a ruse to get money and power. But if anyone dares suggest that, They Are In League With The Sick Pedo Beasts.
There must be a better way of stopping child porn than this.
What better way is there than outright blocking it?
Can you go down to the store and buy child porn mags beside the Playboys and Hustlers? Are you going to picket outside and cry censorship because you can't?
People misuse the word censorship.
If Thomas Paine wrote "Common Sense" today it would most likely be banned and he would be a guest at Hotel Gitmo.
Oh, give me a break. Shouldn't you be off praising Micheal Moore docufictions somewhere?
I don't see what the big deal is over blocking child porn. It seems only extreme leftist thinkers get into a tizzy every time someone actually attempts to block something bad. "But simply blocking this one bad thing magically means you're taking away our rights to everything!" Trendy counterthinkers who believe they're enlightened simply because they go against the grain are intellectually braindead.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Everyone on this forum complaining that this is infringing on their freedom should also go and complain that they should be allowed to impot DVDs of Child Porn because banning these imports is also a foot in the door, and they may start banning more stuff.
Heck, I feel a little joy when I see something that is BAD being banned, because lets face it, we don't ban thigs any more in this world. Actually we now ban really innocent activities and allow stuff like child porn to go unchecked.
I think the internet needs some serious registration protocol. ISPs should be allowed to ban sites which do not submit to a voluntary registration detailing their activities. I am sure porn sites would be allowed to register and all, but when you become dodgy, they refuse, and all sites without a tag can be blocked. They do not have to be blocked, but if you are truy legit, just register and you will be automatically unblocked.
As well what is the definition of 'kiddy porn'. Is simple naked children, i.e. nudist web pages, kiddy porn? In many places that *is* becoming the standard: take a picture of your children bathing and you goto jail.
Is this painting the next to be blocked? This one or perhaps this?
Perhaps spamming such art around would desensitize people to the hysteria that has developed over the past 20 years surrounding this topic.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
at least, not in the English language
Your censorship system is based upon authenticating websites as either "pedophile or non-pedophile". This elicits the following response:
This is an idea for an authentication system or system containing an
authentication system. Your idea will not work. This is because it:
[ ] Fails to establish a trustable connection to its end-user.
[ ] Fails to establish a trustable connection from the end-user
interface to a system with knowledge to do the authentication.
[ ] Fails to contain a system that may be trusted.
[X] Is not finely-grained enough to distinguish between some entities
that should pass authentication and some that shouldn't.
[ ] Exposes data that should not be exposed.
[X] May be easily DoSed.
[ ] Will not be accepted by government.
[ ] Will not be accepted by end users.
[X] Has an unacceptable degree of false positives.
[X] Has an unacceptable degree of false negatives.
[ ] Prevents operation of necessary functionality.
[ ] Has the potential to fail catastrophically.
[ ] Is too hard to implement.
Specifically, your suggestion fails to account for:
[ ] Providing a *trustable* store for the system's authentication data.
[ ] Brute-force attacks.
[ ] The fact that IP packet source addresses may be trivially forged.
[ ] The fact that everyone within the population must use this system
properly to keep it working properly.
[ ] The fact that it requires end-users to go through more effort than
they will be willing to undertake to use it.
[ ] Security breeches may not be easily repaired.
[ ] CPU power available to attack your solution.
[ ] Laws prohibiting implementation of your solution.
[ ] Asshats.
[ ] Limited human memory.
[ ] Small/portable devices.
[ ] Willingness of the entity being authenticated to to ignore
authentication failures.
[ ] Windows.
[X] Willingness of users to bypass authentication systems.
[X] Ability of technically skilled hackers to distribute easy-to-use
attacks on the system.
[ ] User resistance to social change.
[ ] Allowing entities other than the authenticating entity to
determine associations between multiple identities that should be
unassociated.
[ ] Your blacklists do not scale to the necessary size.
[ ] The need for implementation to be phased in.
[X] Tainted authentication databases.
[X] Unclear criteria involved.
[X] Inexpensive creation of new identities.
And the following philosophical objections may also apply:
[ ] Attempts to establish an artificial monopoly.
[X] Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have
ever been shown practical.
[X] Any system that allows complete government monitoring of behavior is
unacceptable.
[X] Any system that allows complete corporate monitoring of behavior is
unacceptable.
[ ] Authentication systems should use technical solutions rather than
legislative solutions.
[ ] Biometrics suck.
[X] Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
[ ] Incompatibility with open source or open source licenses.
[X] Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem.
[X] I don't want people monitoring me.
[X] Censorship sucks, and there are better things you could be doing
with your time.
[X] I don't need to break your system, because there are easier ways
around it.
[X] This system may be abused horribly by those operating it.
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
[ ] Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
[X] This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting
it.
[ ] If you had bothered to ask anyone with any security knowledge
first, your idea would have been immediately shot down.
May we never see th
A QUARTER of a million British men may have used their credit cards to access internet child porn, it was claimed last night. ( http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?obj
That is a lot of people: 250,000. It used to be that you needed to go to a back ally to get these materials, but now it seems that since it is so easy to get people are downloading them now that would have not bothered in the past.
Is there any studies that look at the # of people that 1) Have sexual interest in children / adults and 2) Have exclusive sexual interest in children? I doubt if there are many studies on this topic, the scientific community runs away from this issue only slightly slower then the public at large. Very sad really, child sexuality being such an important issue.
" forcibly rape you "
Can a child never say yes to a sexual experience with another person (any other person i.e. child or adult)?
It is fairly easy to see if a child does NOT want to do something (i.e. eat their broccoli, get a shot, take a bath) usually with ear piercing complaining.
Until an arguement is made or it is shown that children never can be sexual or can have pleasure from sexual experiences, i think the analogy of child sexual activity (with anyone) compared to the rape of an adult is false.
"Yeah, I know it was child pornography, but BT was supposed to keep me from accessing it."
This is not the answer.
http://cassettefetish.com
Yes you are very insightful.
Messing with the supply won't affect the *demand*. Just like if you were to cut the supply of illegal drugs by 80%, the demand doesnt drop: the price simply goes though the roof.
The Reincarnation of UUCP and Fidonet is now not far away.
Im tired of this thread, call me in 10 years when this proves to be just a start of the encrochment.
Until then its just hotair from both sides anyway.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What kind of a pervert do they hire for that job? They can't exactly go put an ad in the classifieds. "We're looking for a few good pedophiles."
Peter: [Riding a circus elephant] Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change.
Bob Novak called and said he wants what's left of his brain back.
Thanks you.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
Maybe you should have your head examined, because it seems you can't grasp simple concepts like this.
BT need to think carefully about the legal ramifications of this. ISP's and the like have enjoyed "common-carrier" status in the past. This has granted them various immunities from lawmakers on the grounds that selective blocking is technically infeasible. Now that BT are selectively blocking web sites, it destroys the argument of technical infeasibility, and thus makes it more difficult for all ISP's to maintain common-carrier immunity. I expect the RIAA and MPAA to start lobbying for changes to the DMCA soon.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Really? They have a list of all the kiddie porn sites? I know "British Telecom decides to block illegal child pornography websites" might not sound as catchy, but it's also a tad less untrue. Before you know it BT will take the very rational and agreeable step of blocking all spam.
English is easier said than done.
I wonder how they are blocking sites, by IP or address?
If kp'ers are anything like warez/etc sites, it may be a moving target. Not to mention the issue of sites on "free" hosts (geocities, etc) that sneak up for awhile before being knocked down.
So what happens if somebody pops up a KP site on an IP that is cohosted with other sites. I'm sure it won't last long, but it could be long enough to get that (and other sites) blocked off. It could be that blocking KP comes down to the same issues with blacklisting spammers...
I get depressed sometimes watching the US be seduced into fascism, and thinking of the dead in my family in that generation that fought the great war against fascism.
But, I must say, it makes me feel better to know that Britain at least will accompany us into fascism. I wonder if we can save money if we share gulags with Britain?
If the isp is going to attempt to block these sites then it will also have a ton of information availiable to law enforcement. Does knowing what sites to block also give a realtive location of the blocked sites? I would hope the information gathered would be turned over to the appropriate law enforcement agency world wide. I'm sure if the info of the perpertrators were put online their communities would take care of the pervs.
It would go something like this -
Determine site, determine relative location, determine appropriate isp, determine appropriate ip address, verify accuracy of ip address, after determining ip address, determine physical address, contact appropriate law enforcement, prosecute. Make availiable the names and locations of criminals internationally. Let the neighborhoods take care of the criminals. Sort of like an international Megan's Law.
hy-e-nas n. pl. Any of several carnivorous mammals of the family Hyaenidae of Africa and Asia.
"I think we can agree to that"
Good thing this cannot/should-not happen in the US - this would bring a ground swelling of lawsuits against any ISP that tried. If an ISP edited, or censored, any website, or online document, it could be considered that any illegal content found after that point is allowed and/or published by the ISP. If a subscriber to that ISP found some illegal content and the authorities busted the subscriber for downloading/storing said illegal content then the subscribers lawyer could point that the ISP is the party to blame since the ISP is filtering/editing/censoring content and allowed/permitted the illegal content to be available. The lawyer cound argue that the subscriber accidentally accessed the site and did not know about the browser cache, and futhermore since the ISP is filtering content the ISP must be considered a publisher-by-association and be held as accountable as the site operator(s)/proprieter(s)...
: I hate child porn and other illegal content as much as most normal people, but this method is the wrong way of tackling the problem. The sites with illegal content should be shutdown and the site proprieter(s) arrested.
Disclaimer
"Where on earth is child porn legal"
In the United States. You can have pictures of children engaged in sexual activity all you want. The stipulation though is they must be drawn / computer generated.
That is the problem with this discussion, people are flinging around the term 'child pornography' and are not bothering to define what they mean. Is nudism photos in the pile? Stories about children having sex? Paintings? Define what you mean, or people will cast such a big net around the world 'child porn', famous paintings or plays like Romeo and Juliet will be censored as well.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
Fact is we are not talking about blocking warez or porn or music sites, we are talking about blocking blocking child explotation sites.
Uhm, nope, the fact is we are talking about blocking sites that, as determined by the law contain child exploitation content.
Another fact is, this also means we are talking about supression of speach.
There are many reasons why this is wrong.
The goal of preventing child exploitation is to prevent a "child" from having sexual encounters until the child knows what sex is and is mature enough to make decisions that will effect his/her life.
Many would consider a child/person that reaches this maturity level to be an adult.
The law would consider this person to in fact be a child. And reality has a person that is a natural adult that is legally a child.
Usually the major factor in determining child exploitation is age.
Children learn about sex at different ages. Children also mature mentally as a function of their biology and their surroundings, etc...
So now we wonder, should the law be based on natural maturity which can not be measured or a predetermined age? Well, since you cant measure maturity and exploitation can not be tolerated and most certainly would still exist and be exploited if the law were to be based on maturity, the obvious choice is age.
We have been looking at the law on the childrens side, but child exploitation has to have a child and an adult involved. So lets look at it from the adults perspective a little...
No law in the world is going to be able to stop a natural-adult/legal-child from accidentaly flirting with someone that is a legal adult.
Also, where should the law stand when a legal child lies about their age to an adult? Many would think thats not the fault of the adult. But the law generally will not punish the child and the adult will go to jail.
Should the law be allowed to basically enforce "no sexual/erotic encounters until positive identification is insured"?
Should the law allow suppression of speach as long as its for the children?
So when you ask yourself "do I think this is ok?" you must ask yourself if you think its ok for supression of speach to be merged with laws that are so grey even if it is for the children. If it is allowed then suprression of speach will be legally grey, even though most people would consider it to be black. This is obviously not a good scenario.
Since supression of speach for this reason will not eliminate the exploitation and has many chances of incriminating (what many would think to be) innocent people, I believe the law should find another way.
And I'll finish up with something other slashdoters and the Bush administration has made clear...
Ya give an inch, they take a mile.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. --E.C. Stanton
The spam emails I got just awhile ago (obfuscated to hell, but still readable) advertising a kiddy pr0n site would indicate to me that yes there is probably a market. Now do most of us see it? Probably not, but that's because we're not looking for it. I don't know what kind of site would have popped up had I clicked the link, but I have a strong feeling that it probably would have been something distasteful, most likely illegal, and quite possibly a paysite.
The point is, only those accessing such sites - and perhaps those actively crusading against - know exactly what goes on.
What I wonder is how they collect. Paypal won't allow such sites, and I'd imaging that VISA wouldn't knowingly do so either (or are profits triumphing that much over morals). Money order... who would make a money order out to "Uncle Dan's kiddy fiddlers" and expect not to get caught.
Still, I'm sure there's money in it. Possibly even from those who don't have a sexual interest in children themselves, but would have a strong interest in a supply-vs-demand profit.
Humans go though puberty at about 11-13, yet we are not suppose to be attracted to people in this age group since 500,000 years of evolution is simply wrong, very wrong, and evil.
So if two 15 year olds manage to get together outside of adults' knowledge and experiment, fine, not illegal either so far as I know.
You can't throw everyone in a large group though. A 40-year-old and a 15-year-old is a huge gap in maturity in most cases. Most cannot argue that at 15 there were as ready for such things as you are now.
Puberty is a stage of evolution yes. It's a stage of change, and growing. At that age, they are coming into a knowledge of sex and desire, but they do not necessarily fully understand it.
Forcing a young person into sexual acts at that age is destroying his/her ability to grow. Moreover, it will often destroy a young person's ability to enjoy sexual experience later in life. How many abused children are seriously f***ed up about the opposive sex later in life?
Puberty is not the age of readiness, it's an age of change. Evolution isn't saying "hey, come get me," it's saying "I might be ready to learn more sometime soon."
Jesus, man, there aren't enough mod points in Slashdotdom for that post.
Fact is: Since pictures of abused childs are aviable on the web, the number of childs killed in abuses has dropped remarkably in Germany. From 40 per year in the Eighties down to six last year. That's 34 children rescued.
Although it can be difficult to isolate all the separate trends that can influence the outcome of such statistics, the conclusion that the availibility of child porn on the internet actually reduced the number of child sexual homicides is believable.
In the US, we banned alcohol and violent crime doubled. We cracked down on illegal drugs and violent crime increased again. Studies in many countries have shown no increase in rape after removing censorship, including Denmark, Sweden, and West Germany. In the US (where censorship is still a grey area), rape has increased over the last 40 years but said increases track the increases in non-sexual violent crimes very accurately.
Advocates of the link between pornography and violence usually cite the highly biased Meese Commision report which conflicted with the results of the 1970 commission which had funded eighty independant studies of porn.
If people do not have healthy outlets for their sexuality and keep it pent up until they lose control, socially harmful behavior is the likely result. Often when we hear about people actually sexually abusing children it is the most repressed people (who contribute to other's repression) like televangelists or catholic priests, people incapable of moderation.
"Fantasies have no morality; Actions do."
People have all kinds of sexual interests and for any given sexual interest there seem to be many people who are able to fulfil their interest in a healthy way and there are a few bad apples that may harm other people. Some people who fantasize about blondes may harm blondes. Some people who fantasize about women with big breasts may harm people with big breasts. This does not mean that all people who fantasize about blonds or big breasted women are criminals or that there is anything inherently wrong with those fantasies. Lots of people fantasize about killing their bosses, that doesn't make them murderers.
I don't care if people fantasize about sex with children as long as the actions are merely autoerotic or involve only consenting adults (i.e. age players). There are safe outlets for virtually any fantasy. I am not in favor of paid distribution of pornographic materials produced by exploiting actual children. But in 1996, the US banned "synthetic" child porn - i.e. images which no child was harmed to produce. It occurs to me that the availibilty of child porn on the net may actually serve to undercut the market for new pornography created by exploiting children.
People have an incredibly wide range of sexual fantasies and there is almost always a way to excercise them without harm, even those activities that are quite disturbing to people who lack open minds. When kids play, their play often includes superficial resemblences to harmful activities (think of "cops and robbers" and "cowboys and indians"). When consenting adults play, their play also can have superficial resemblances to harmful activities (rape, slavery, abuse, assault, pirates, etc.). These forms of play do not condone or encourage these harmful activities and may even be a form of cathartic refuge from the many forms of harm which trouble us.
Since I don't share their interest and no-one has admitted an inter
the police will still be able to access the sites. They'd have to in order to block it in the first place.
More over, I don't see any other alternative than to drive it underground. When you're dealing with something so vile, how could it exist anywhere else? Drugs, Prostitution and Alcohol all have apoligists and supporters (some quite legitimate BTW, don't take that comment the wrong way). There's not many people who think paedophilia is anything other than appalling.
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Uhm, nope, the fact is we are talking about blocking sites that, as determined by the law contain child exploitation content.
A frequent problem with such blocking is failure to deliver what is "says on the tin". Especially if BT were to outsource this to some non UK based company...
The goal of preventing child exploitation is to prevent a "child" from having sexual encounters until the child knows what sex is and is mature enough to make decisions that will effect his/her life.
Ages of consent are more or less arbitary. Some of them include discriminatory elements most frequently against non heterosexuals or those who want partners older than themselves.
No law in the world is going to be able to stop a natural-adult/legal-child from accidentaly flirting with someone that is a legal adult.
Assuming it is accidental...
Also, where should the law stand when a legal child lies about their age to an adult? Many would think thats not the fault of the adult. But the law generally will not punish the child and the adult will go to jail.
To the "child" the law is obstructing, rather than protecting them. The law is also likely to be uninterested in who was the initiator, it's assumed to be the adult...
The "age of consent" is also often separate from the issue of "legal majority". With a process of legal emancipation possibly leaving someone with the status of "underage adult".
From the article:
"A list of illegal sites compiled by the Internet Watch Foundation, the industry's watchdog, has been available for some time, but until now there has been no way to prevent people accessing them because most are based outside the UK."
So it isnt BT that decides which sites to block, its an independant watchdog. This isnt nearly as bad, but still needs to be watched carefully. The slope isnt quite as slippery as some think.
There are simply no such thing as child porn sites. Plain and simple - they do not exist. Distribution of child porn is impossible for half a decade already. Any ISP would take down a child porn site in hours or even minutes - certainly it won't be online long enough to end up in filters. And there are simply no countries and no ISPs that would knowingly host child pornography. Any site that is public enough to be known by "child charities" (my hands twitch as I want to strangle those fuckers - each and every one of them) can be (and is) taken down in 15 minutes by an e-mail to abuse@example.com
I dare BT to open the filter to the public. I bet there won't be a single porn site there, only legal child erotica sites, discussion forums and paedophilia advocacy sites. Blocking these is not fighting child porn, blocking these is fucking censorship.
As a part of a crusade on censorship, please consider the following instructions on finding child porn on the Internet. Fire up your favourite P2P client and search for "r@ygold", "pthc", "Hussyfan" "Lolitaguy". Enjoy!
P.S. I am not defending child porn, I am opposing the use of it as a scarecrow to censor Internet access. Remember, first they came for the child pornographers... If you do not defend child pornographers, nobody will be there when THEY come after you.
OPPOSE NAZI BRITISH TELECOM!
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
This is unfortunately a sop to make people feel better without actually tackling the main problem, that of children being abused. Seriously how many children is this going to help? Also these sites are one of the best weapons that the police have because they collect credit card numbers and link them up to the owners and arrest them. This is just an example of a company doing something highly visible as opposed to something effective, at the end of the day it is something to make BT bosses etc feel better about themselves and quieten a bunch of reactionaries. So thanks to BT and some busybodies the Police in the UK have lost a way of identifying who uses these sites.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
My original point was long since lost in the muddy waters .. ( partially my fault.. must stop following unrelated threads of thought )
All i was trying to say was that censorship by the government, any censorship, is bad. Period.
And that part of the reason is because censorship is based often on morals, and morals are relative and ever changing, depending on whom is in power at the time.
Anything else i said was far removed from the core points above.
The '10 year thing' was only to point out that that more discussion is pointless, and in 10 years, or so, we will see the outcome of this road of 'public supported' censorship that is being taken.. Nothing more.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I must have missed all the history classes where they talked about muslims being in Vietnam.
Wtf are you talking about?
is gonna be pissed!
WARNING: MOVIE SPOILER
There is a scene where Mathilda tries to persuade Léon into having sex with her, being as erotic as she can be (she dresses up and IIRC even puts on lipstick). Certainly lots of "postures with sexual emphasis" here. Léon declines since she is still a child - breaking her heart and causing her to threaten to commit suicide.
So there is nothing in this movie to indicate child pornography, but still it would have to be banned if the new EU legislation is enacted.
As already mentioned, you may have seen the censored US version where this (central) scene was already cut out. Until now, it is still legal to display and possess the full movie in most of Europe. I'm not sure whether it is still legal in Germany, though.
Who needs Bin Laden if we can destroy our freedom and democracy ourselves?
I love C++