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US ISPs Announce Anti-Child-Porn Agreement
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that ISPs have gathered together with 45 attorney generals and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to form an agreement to crush child pornography. What does that mean? Probably the same as it meant for RoadRunner, Sprint, AT&T and Verizon customers — the end of the newsgroups." Here's the back-patting press-release from the various parties who signed on (the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the National Association of Attorneys General), though the actual text of the agreement does not seem to have been made public.
"I hate to say it, but the web has outlived it's usefulness anyway. Any idiot can create a website, Any idiot can post anonymously and any idiot can freely distribute kiddie porn as a result. Let's face it, the web is an outdated system that is primarily abused. Anything accomplished on the web can be done elsewhere faster, cheaper and better. Sure, the pedo crowd can still find ways to trade, but the web makes it too easy to hook up. Killing the web won't kill kiddie porn, but it makes it more difficult. Does anyone really give a crap if the web disappears? Seriously?"
Just replace "usenet", "the web", with just about any networking technology and your statement still has the same meaning. Where does it end?
We had one of our ISPs cave to something similar. So I wrote this letter to the marketing director: (pardon the asterisks)
Dear Steve Jackson
I'm writing to express my concern over ******'s introduction of website filtering. I believe this sets a disturbing precedent for the continuing provision of internet services by *****.
An ISP's role is not to regulate what I can use my internet connection for. An ISP's role is to provide me with an internet connection, which **** has been excellent at doing.
The aim of 'stopping objectionable practices' is a noble one. However, problems soon become apparent when one considers that my interpretation of objectionable behaviour is undoubtedly different from *****'s interpretation. The logical conclusion to this line of reasoning, is that at some point in the future when I want to use my internet connection for something, **** will decide that it knows best, and stop me from so doing.
This quote from David Lane (Director of Society For Promotion Of Community Standards Inc.) is particularly disturbing: "... [The society] wants the filtering extended beyond child porn content to include the blocking of all hard core pornographty sites and those promoting "objectionable" content defined in secion 3(2)(a-f) of the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993 (sexual violence, bestiality, etc).".
It illustrates the problem rather well. I have used the internet for pornography, and I don't expect to be blocked from doing so in the future. If I look at pornography more hardcore than the limits imposed on free-to-air television, this doesn't make my behaviour 'wrong', and I certainly don't expect **** to impose its standards on my behaviour. If I do something illegal, then that's relevant for the Police, not a coporation.
Additionally, the concept that a list maintained by the Internal Affairs Office will be capable of cataloguing all objectionable sites on the internet is flawed if not outright hilarious.
There are various software packages available which attempt to keep the internet 'safe' for younger users. I am sure that, combined with actual parenting, these tools are far better suited to keeping children from accessing inappropriate content.
I should take this moment to clarify that my primary concern is not that I may soon be unable to access pornography with my **** account. Instead, I believe that once this form of filtering has been introduced for one honourable reason, it will only be a matter of time before the practice of filtering is extended to other aspects of the internet.
It is widely publicized (although not necessarily accurate) that 'peer to peer' (p2p) services consume a disproportionate amount of bandwidth accross the internet as a whole. I extend from this assumption that some time in the future **** may be in favour of blocking p2p services in order to extract more customers from the same amount of bandwidth. This would have a real and noticeable affect on my internet behaviour.
There are other scenarios in which **** might decide to filter my internet use. For example, I'm sure **** wants to retain their customers, and so logically it would be a sensible idea to block all competing ISP's websites. Or, if there is a damning report about ***** on a news website, it would be very easy to block any user from accessing that website.
I'm not suggesting that **** does or would do any of these measures, but the only way I can be certain of this is for **** not to regulate my internet behaviour in any way.
The knee-jerk reaction to this news would be for me to cancel my **** account. Instead I'm going to post this letter on a few popular **** forums, and raise general public awareness of ****'s actions. I will continue to closely monitor ****'s actions, and may switch ISPs if it continues with this course of action.
Yours Sincerely
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
Yes, it was an election year.
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