What Do Court-Ordered Internet Bans Really Mean?

tcd004 writes "Chris Lamprecht, a.k.a. Minor Threat, was the first person to be banned from the internet back in 1995. Since then, the practice has gained popularity worldwide. In the last year, courts in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States have all banned people from the Internet. A British court recently banned a convicted pedophile specifically from entering chatrooms for 10 years. But how effective are the bans? Minor Threat contends that the rules governing his internet ban use were toothless. How much harder is it to keep people off the internet in an age when everything--from parking meters to refrigerators--comes with an IP address." (Note: the Globe and Mail story requires registration.)

Comments

I'm banned

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure how well it works for others, but I'm banned from the internet....

Internet Ban

[OneArmedMan]

Better not let em near touch tone phones either, just in case they want to launch a Nuclear strike! ...

Banned from the Internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy just use the Internet2.

Re:Banned from the Internet?

[Phroggy]

Or one of the other Internets GW Bush mentioned.

Re:Banned from the Internet?

[Kenshin]

Or, alternately:

"It's not the internet... it's AOL!"

AOL

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if someone is banned from the Internet for hacking they should be forced to use AOL, dial-up, version 1.5.

Re:AOL

[chaffed]

I think that qualifies as Cruel and Unsual Punishment

The "unusual" provision, at least, is clear: providing that persons will not be subjected to arbitrary, humiliating, or carpricious punishment outside the normal course of the law

Re:AOL

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

Heh... When I first went of to university last year with my shiny new DIY computer, one of the first thoughts that came into my mind was "gee, here I am with a 2 Ghz processor, half-gig of ram and 24 Mbit connection to the internet.... let's see what Windows 3.11 can do with it". Suprisingly, there's software out there for all the tasks I normallu use my desktop for... web browsing, IM, watching DIVX encoded movies... should've had an older video card with a fully compatible driver though. Pr0n just isn't the same in 16-color VGA.

Tantamount

[KillerDeathRobot]

A ban from the internet for me would be tantamount to a death sentence.

This is easy to fix

[anon*127.0.0.1]

1) Have every website to require registration.
2) Give the websites a list of the people who have been banned.
3) If a banned person signs up for a website, shoot them!

I'll be solving world hunger next week.

Alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just use one of the other internets?

banned from communicating with anybody?

[infolation]

So, once I'm banned from the internet, presumably I can't conduct any of my antiquated-but-still-effective social engineering password 'recovery' methods either?

Or write sql-injection instructions longhand using my daffy-duck pencil to be carried out on the internet by others?

Or read paper hard-copy versions of web pages?

I can still use SMS though, right?

Re:what I think it means is

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Oh shit, thanks captain slappy!

Are you being a smart ass or are you really that stupid?

Re:I'm not really sure...

[Jim_Callahan]

Actually, banning people from the electrical grid would be a highly effective punishment if it could be enforced. We should go for it.