Why ISPs' "Stand" Against Child Porn Is Actually Not a Stand Against Child Porn

TechDirt has an insightful article on the recent push for ISPs to turn off Usenet access under the guise of fighting child pornography. Unfortunately, the "stand against child porn" isn't actually a stand at all, it seems — more like ignoring the issue while trying to snag some headlines and good will. "Taking a stand against child porn wouldn't be overly aggressively blocking access to internet destinations that may or may not have porn (and there's no review over the list to make sure that they're actually objectionable). Taking a stand against child porn would be hunting down those responsible for the child porn and making sure that they're dealt with appropriately... Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review."

Comments

Copyright infringement, too

[Reality Master 201]

I'm sure no small part of the decision is also to either avoid legal problems form or to give a reacharound to the content producer industry. Lots of warez, mp3, and dvd rips get traded on usenet. Shutting off alt.* puts a dent in that. Temporarily, at least, till everyone moves elsewhere.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Lord Apathy]

I'm calling Bullshit! ISP shutting down usenet does nothing about anything. Hell, how are they shutting down usenet? Blocking port 119? That is bullshit too.

Shake the google tree for usenet access and see what falls out. You'll get at least half a dozen dedicated usenet providers alone. Most of the offering unlimited access and SSL connections for around 20 bucks a month. All most every one of them offers SSL connections and connections on ports other than 119 just to get around blocking 119. Hell, the one I use even has port 80 and 25 open for nntp. They use SSL connections just so some dumbasses can't see what your downloading.

No this is feel good bullshit that won't even put a dent in kiddy porn.

Thus is Bullshit, I say, Bullshit!

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Paracelcus]

Port 119 is not the only port used by premium usenet providers, many provide access via alternate ports.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[computational super]

Blocking port 119?

In the name of protecting the children? Just watch.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[MightyMartian]

I guess if they were really really really really really serious, they could do some packet inspection to weed out all these evil potentially-kiddie-porn-laden NNTP packets (you know what nests of pervs places like alt.fan.tolkien and alt.atheism are). The way I read it, it looks like the few remaining big-name ISPs still running news servers shutting them down while declaring "it's for the children", when in reality, it's probably more for the reason the ISP I worked at finally killed the feed, because only a very small fraction (in my case, about one in ninety or a hundred customers) actually using them.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Reality Master 201]

I never said it was actually intended to do something productive, just that it's also part of the calculation.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[LWATCDR]

Of course if the shut down usenet would anybody notice?
I so miss the days when usenet was useful.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Firehed]

They don't care about that so much as just not wanting to provide you with the bandwidth for which you paid. This is Cheap Bastards Syndrome, not Copyright Police.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Lord Apathy]

Yeah, I know. I just used it to get off a damn fine bullshit rant.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[blueg3]

It appears all they're doing is not hosting in their local NNTP cache the listed newsgroups. They're not blocking ports, blocking all Usenet access, or ceasing hosting of Usenet.

Of course this doesn't make it impossible to get CP. But it does reduce the avenues for accessing it. Claiming that is pointless because there's "another way to get it" is like saying there's no sense in locking your door. A sufficiently motivated thief will gain entry.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[fyngyrz]

C'mon mods. Parent put the finger right on it. Just because it's short doesn't mean it isn't 100% insightful, informative, *and* interesting.

You know no one with any power or position is going to take a stand against this; it is the ultimate leverage — and those who stoop low enough to use it know that perfectly well.

Welcome to the United States of For The Children.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

You can call bullshit all you want, but since you're a pirate, no one cares.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Reality Master 201]

Entirely understandable. I'd do the same if I didn't handle my stress with drinking.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Xest]

That was my understanding too and I thought I'd go see what these newsgroup providers take on it was.

Quick jump to Giganews and they're actually even taking advantage of it by offering deals to users of all the ISPs who are dropping alt.*

It's always nice to see sensible companies cashing in on the idiocy of others ;)

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[camperslo]

It appears all they're doing is not hosting in their local NNTP cache the listed newsgroups.

Is it just the specific kiddie-nasty groups or all of alt.* or alt.binaries.*?
Perhaps this is getting pushed by some with an agenda to suppress some other (video/music) content?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly...

But I think Usenet won't work if its just a couple of dedicated providers doing so. I doubt the critical mass is there to maintain alt's cornicopia of warez and crap if its just a smaller subset of people paying 20 a month.

Besides, ISPs are also moving to the "Oh wow you just used 100G in a couple days on stuff we can't track so you must be abusing things and we're cutting you off" model of behavior at the same time.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[againjj]

The other funny thing is that while the summary cries "Usenet", TFA only mentions Usenet in passing, and the article to which it connects does not mention Usenet at all. That is basically a copy of the same article that was posted here a short while ago which didn't mention Usenet either.

From TFA:

All 18 cable companies have agreed to use NCMEC's list of active Web sites identified as containing child pornography, to ensure that no such site is hosted on servers owned or controlled by those companies.

(emphasis mine)

Why on earth are people screaming "They are turning of Usenet!"?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Michael O-P]

How can there be 80 posts already, and not one "Death of Usenet! Film at 11."

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[iminplaya]

It is nothing more than an act of appeasement, and any semi intelligent human can tell you what that will get you.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[dave562]

If all they are doing is refusing to cache the alt. hierarchy then how has that changed? I haven't been on Usenet in a couple of years because it was my experience that with my provider (Verizon), I could get complete feeds. There were always SOME parts of the download missing. When you're trying to get a 60+ part RAR file, even one missing chunk is enough to prevent a successful transfer. I subscribed to SuperNews for a little while, but now I just get everything with bitTorrent. Is Usenet still even useful for file transfers? It seems like with file sizes these days the limitations of NNTP make it about the most inefficient mechanism out there.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

its all about torrents now mostly anyway isnt it? I mean newsgroups are so 1996.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Shutting off alt.* puts a dent in that. Temporarily, at least, till everyone moves elsewhere.

There's also the issue of Do We Want To Store This Stuff, on the part of the ISP.

Looking at my ISP's usenet archives, which go back a fair way, there's severely underage porn sitting there, on their servers, in Melbourne Australia. By a quick look around, there's around two to three and a half gigabytes of it. A quick and almost certainly illegal in this country peek shows it's genuine.

It's sitting there on my ISP's servers, freely accessible. Hell, through a friend I know who used to work for them, I know the building the servers are stored in, and I know she could tell me the floor they're stored in.

If this was any other company storing child porn on their computers, they'd be ripped apart in seconds. Not only are they storing it, they're distributing and selling it; they provide access to every one of their paying customers.

But then... afaik they're protected as common carriers, so legally they're not distributing it, but the original poster is. Also, blocking all of alt.* is like burning down the block of flats that one pedophile lives in. Shotgun approach = fail.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[techno-vampire]

Is it just the specific kiddie-nasty groups or all of alt.* or alt.binaries.*?

I don't know about any other ISP, but Verizon dropped all but the "Big 8" without warning or explanation about three weeks ago.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll get at least half a dozen dedicated usenet providers alone. Most of the offering unlimited access and SSL connections for around 20 bucks a month. All most every one of them offers SSL connections and connections on ports other than 119 just to get around blocking 119. Hell, the one I use even has port 80 and 25 open for nntp. They use SSL connections just so some dumbasses can't see what your downloading.

Now that the ISPs (which aren't actually ISPs, they're "content delivery companies") are on board with killing USENET, I can see the spin doctors warming up the press releases even now.

RIAA, MPAA, and BSA (along with the Cable/Telephone content monopolists who make big bucks selling MPAA/RIAA content to their subscribers) file suit against all third-party USENET providers, charging them with contributory copyright infringement. They demand identifying information of subscribers who downloaded tracks from alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*, videos from alt.binaries.multimedia.*, and warez from alt.binaries.warez.*...

The press release accompanying the lawsuit suggests that if these "irresponsible" or "rogue" USENET providers didn't want to get sued/charged, they should have dropped alt.binaries.* when they had the chance, like the "responsible" cable/telcos did...

Of course, teh pr0n will be the headline-grabbing part of the story, but behind the scenes, it's all about MAFIAA.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Spy der Mann]

It is exactly as I had foreseen. The music/video industry is pairing with ISPs to supress content and freedom of speech.

The next step is to watch the users encrypt everything and not be able to do anything about it. And that's already happening - torrent trackers are allowing https access to them, and thepiratebay is working on an encrypted replacement for the IP protocol.

Let's see what happens in 5 years. Will governments completely ban end-to-end encryption? How much will human rights organizations do to defend privacy?

Frankly, I don't know, but the microwave just beeped - the popcorn's ready.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Cat Panic]

I think that there are groups for whom usenet is still useful and in use but for me Google killed newsgroups.
With apps like phpBB around nowadays dedicated forums are easy to setup but they require administration.
The beauty of usenet was that all it took to post was an e-mail address (IIRC). As a result usenet maintained the feel of a free and open forum.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Gerzel]

So... How many years have you been without internet sir?

Seriously usenet as the big "warez" clearing house?

Seriously?

You might wanna take a look around. Things have changed since the 90's.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[fo0bar]

Quoteth Lord Apathy:

I'm calling Bullshit! ISP shutting down usenet does nothing about anything. Hell, how are they shutting down usenet? Blocking port 119? That is bullshit too. [...] Thus is Bullshit, I say, Bullshit!

You apparently don't subscribe to your own nickname.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[cayenne8]

Well, it is pretty easy to host a news server. The only problem is disk space, why can't someone come up with some code, to basically spread USENET over spare harddrive space of people who will dedicate it? Kinda like SETI (sp?) for USENET....make USENET a distributed, P2P type thing...with the data broken up over all the distribution, so no one can know exactly what is where.

Kinda like freenet for usenet actually...but with out all the super encryption and slowness?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[QRDeNameland]

Is Usenet still even useful for file transfers? It seems like with file sizes these days the limitations of NNTP make it about the most inefficient mechanism out there.

Well, people are certainly still using it, there are even DVD image groups. It boggles the mind that people still use it in the age of BitTorrent, but there it is.

To me, the biggest inefficiency that got me away from Usenet is the header downloads. If you have a long retention provider like Giganews, some of the groups can have multiple millions of headers, so just in order to see what is available on the big binary groups can take more than hour even on broadband.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL but legally this could be a slippery slope for ISPs. They may be shooting themselves in the foot. Saying they have the "ability" to censor child porn, means that they have the ability to censor everything else that may be illegal or anything that may be infringing copyright.

Im not sure but years back a court tried to mandate this but the ISPs said they dont have the ability as it is nearly impossible. Would they be able to use that defense agian?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

No this is feel good bullshit that won't even put a dent in kiddy porn.

Thus is Bullshit, I say, Bullshit!

Sir, I would apply those very sentiments to your own post.

These ISPs are not claiming that their actions will end the casual trade of CP. They simply say that they do not want their servers to be used by others to purvey the stuff.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Tuoqui]

It *IS* pointless. It's like locking the door and leaving the window wide open. As much as Usenet is a useless piece of crap these days (god damn there's like epic levels of SPAM) the fact is that it wont even put a dent in the child porn problems, I bet 90% of them are accessed via http or maybe ftp. It is as someone pointed out merely the ISP's exercising a control mechanism. If today they are able to block usenet whats to stop them from blocking whatever they please. What if your ISP is run by a right wing religious nutjob and they block any and all porn not just child porn or by feminists who shut it down because its degrading to women?

It's a slippery slope, A slope that is already being traversed, now not only is actual child porn banned but now they're banning large portions of Anime/Hentai too because the characters look too child like.

The only way to really deter a thief from gaining entry would be fill your house with concrete. That may be exactly what the ISPs have us doing by the time they're done.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[ThomasLB]

First they came for the newsgroups,
- but I did not use newsgroups, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the chatrooms and bulletin boards,
- but I used neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the P2P users,
- but I did use P2P, so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Fweeky]

It boggles the mind that people still use it in the age of BitTorrent

I expect people use it because it's consistantly faster, doesn't require you to upload as much as you download to be nice to the swarm and doesn't broadcast your IP address for all to see.

To me, the biggest inefficiency that got me away from Usenet is the header downloads. If you have a long retention provider like Giganews, some of the groups can have multiple millions of headers, so just in order to see what is available on the big binary groups can take more than hour even on broadband.

Which is why we invented NZB's and run indexing sites.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[phorm]

Newgroups are still a great way for spreading (legal, though often disliked by various governments) information as well. That being said. one thing I've rather missed in linux is finding a good newgroup reader that has SSL capabilities. Anyone know of one?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Reality Master 201]

Oh, fuck you.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

2/10. Your trolling skills just aren't up to snuff here. Go back to GameFAQs and practice some more.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

How can there be 80 posts already, and not one "Death of Usenet! Film at 11."

Because this time, it looks like it might actually happen.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[doas777]

interesting idea. I like it, but I think bandwidth is going to be your problem there. uplink on consumer lines are pretty limited (at least around here). besides, since it would be fully decentralized and (i assume) redundant, we would probably just be recreating bittorrent.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[TopSpin]

It appears all they're doing is not hosting in their local NNTP cache the listed newsgroups

That's what I've gathered also. Cuomo's (D., NY State AG) people have lists of groups and sites they've identified according to some criteria and those groups and sites will be blocked and dehosted.

You have to click through link in this Slashdot story and the link in the first TechDirt story to another TechDirt story before you discover that specific usenet groups are being targetted. Characterizing this as "turn off Usenet access" is a lie and the referrers, including Slashdot, are lying.

The related story linked earlier today by Slashdot makes it clear that the websites being targetted (as opposed to newsgroups) are those actually hosted by the ISPs involved; no "firewall for the children". They are dehosting sites they host, not filtering. Right or wrong this is an enforcement of their existing "acceptable use policies", which Cuomo claims they have neglected.

The ISPs are being browbeat by a politician that is threatening fines. Don't like it? Vote the Fuck out of office. ISPs aren't at fault here.

Slashdot editors: I decline to assume the intended level of apoplexy based on your lies. Sorry to disappoint.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[sgbett]

I sincerely hope that's what people continue to think for a long time to come.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[NotBornYesterday]

Pan doesn't have built-in SSL support, but try using it with stunnel4.

Howto for Ubuntu is here.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[CodeBuster]

So they subpoena the records of all of the subscribers, block the well known servers of the service provider, and have the bank accounts of those providers that are unwilling or unable to cooperate frozen. I am not suggesting that this is what should be done, but rather what may be likely given the crusading nature of state attorney generals these days and particularly the Attorney General of New York, formally Spitzer (who got busted for using high priced hookers) and now Cumo. Indeed, they have been especially pushy and nosey in recent years, threatening anyone they don't like regardless of jurisdiction. These are the types of things that happen when you combine lazy and self serving politicians with an ignorant voting populace. No politician wants to be labeled as "soft on crime" so successive office holders compete to pass ever more draconian and intrusive laws and the voters are pleased as their freedoms, rights, and protections are gradually stripped away in the name of fighting cp and the terrorists.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Original Replica]

No this is feel good bullshit that won't even put a dent in kiddy porn.

If they actually took actions that put a stop to the majority of the production of kiddie porn, what would legislators use for their debate proof vehicle for over-reaching legislation? Terrorism seems to be loosing steam slowly, and the historic boogie men of homosexuality, communism, and drugs are all kinda trendy now. Without kiddie porn a whole new "evil that must be stopped at all costs" would need to be invented.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[SlowMovingTarget]

Right you are, but the only way you can tell that from TFA is to click the link in said TFA it to another FA, which has a link in it to the original story from some sort of "Newspaper."

How do they expect Slashdotters to figure out what's going on if it isn't mentioned in the summary?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[NotBornYesterday]

I think that's why they are being so heavy-handed about it. They aren't censoring content itself, which would imply they filter the content, let some through, and block "objectionable" content. That would be grievously expensive and impractical, and might threaten certain protections they now enjoy. They are choosing to no longer include newsgroup access in their bundle of internet access service to their customers, and although it's a shitty thing for them to do, I view as more of a consumer's rights affront than censorship per se. I'll bet that Verizon isn't handing out big fat rebates or lowing their rates to compensate customers.

The benefits to them? 1) - They get family-friendly PR from the censorphiles in power. 2) - They save the money they were paying for maintaining usenet infrastructure and bandwidth. 3) - By not exercising editorial control, I believe that they preserve legal protection from any "objectionable" content that does move across their network.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[KozmoKramer]

Save the Children...blah blah blah...

Where is f*ck George Carlin when you need him?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Attys Gnrl: You ISP's need to do something about child pornography

ISPs: It's an awfully big Internet out there...

Attys Gnrl: You ISP's make it too easy to get ahold of this stuff

ISPs: We're just common carriers...

Attys Gnrl: And you can start by shutting down those Usenet servers

ISPs: Oh... umm.. Anything to protect the children!!

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Oktober Sunset]

I feel I must make a joke about peados blocking up kids' ports...

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[jez9999]

Of course if the shut down usenet would anybody notice?
I so miss the days when usenet was useful.

Why? It just got replaced by the World Wide Web (or parts of it).

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[mattack2]

I'm not sure if trn supports it (I couldn't figure it out in a few minutes of searching), but it looks like alpine (http://www.washington.edu/alpine/) does have SSL capabilities for news.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[CptNerd]

Or we could go back to the old days when Usenet was a true "store and forward" application, with people forwarding posts instead of everyone acting like leaf nodes. Just use NNTP or some new protocol instead of UUCP.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[mattack2]

Because reading online forums in a web browser is SO much more tedious than reading it in a news reader (e.g. trn). Since I'm posting this, obviously I *do* use online web-based fora. But I wish much of it were available as Usenet instead. Heck, most of them can't even keep track of which messages you've read. (Yes, I did realize that there was a recent change here on slashdot that apparently now has that capability. That's only what, 25 years later than rn did it?)

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, what can they really do? absolutly nothing.

I got two problems

1. I got a daughter :)
2. allright i really only got one problem.
2.1 I sorta like my privacy too

But everytime i use TOR it leaves a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth, cause i know what kind of scumbags uses this technology as well. And to be honest, i want them fried. Does that mean that i have to give up my privacy? Maybe!

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but if the ISPs shut down their servers it means people have to pay somebody else for that access which a lot of more casual users won't do.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Free the Cowards]

The ISPs are being browbeat by a politician that is threatening fines. Don't like it? Vote the Fuck out of office. ISPs aren't at fault here.

They could stand up to the guy. If they aren't doing anything illegal then he shouldn't be able to get anything to stick to them. The only way to stop bullies is to stop bending over for them.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more like locking your front door, but leaving your garage open as well as leaving the door connecting your garage and main house unlocked.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[jkh2006]

Why on earth are people screaming "They are turning of Usenet!"?

Because they are: AT&T dropped alt.bin* and alt.bain* http://my.att.net/NewsGroup/s/s.dll?spage=cg/news/newsgroup004.htm&only=y&ck

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

The changes to Slashdot are pretty horrific though, and you have to use their javascript interface, which includes plenty of freezes and pauses on big discussions. Well, I guess you could use things like FF's support for fiddling with site layout and extensions like Grease Monkey to try an pull it into line....

As for the marking stuff as read, from using the bandwagon-esque discussion 2.0, it seems that Slashdot will assume you have read posts just when get more.... I dunno, to be honest I've tried to use it and its just painful. But if you turn off the D2 in your user prefs, you get the old problem of discussions spreading over lots of pages with the same comments on about the first 3 pages. I always browse at -1 BTW, so used to get this a lot.

But I have found 1 benefit with the D2 changes, and that is you can get all of a discussion on 1 page if your user prefs are set to use D2, but then you don't allow javascript in your browser. This also has the benefit of disabling the gash reply boxes that appear inline when you use /. with JS, and of course the floating thing. And at one point, that floating thing had a keyboard shortcut to move it about that was identical to the keyboard shortcut for find in firefox, the / key!

But the worst changes are in the user options..... forced to be through floating layer things.... yuck.

I simply don't like these AJAX sites because the browser doesn't give the feedback you expect, and you generally have to suffer how the website designer wants you to use the site. I used to use reddit.com frequently, but they had some revamp including full-on buzzword-tech applied to every feature on the site. I stopped visiting the site the day I saw the changes.

Slashdot, with the layout of articles and threaded discussions, would be prime for being available over NNTP though. How about it Neal?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

I like "content" as a euphemism. It fits, sounds about as neutral as "backups," and helps to stem the feelings of guilt that arise from doing something that is hurtful. All around an excellent name.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[The End Of Days]

You aren't a fan of people drawing comparisons between being denied free access to copyrighted material and human atrocity?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Without kiddie porn a whole new "evil that must be stopped at all costs" would need to be invented.

Don't worry, they are already preparing one - eating disorders. Everybody wants to stop the forums where people talk about bulemia because it makes girls kill themselves and of course being obese is huge drag on socialized medical services. So, jail the fat people and save the skinny ones.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Wiseleo]

Thanks for reinventing...Usenet. You just described how Usenet was originally designed to function. :)

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[dasmoo]

Under the guise of protecting children, they're finding great ways to filter copyright & non-conforming content. The plan is great as noone will stand up against the people filtering child porn so they can eventually filter everything else.

But why the hell would you? The filthy fucking perverts deserve to have their sick material filtered. So we have a Kansas City Shuffle, with us all up in arms about child porn, while really we're letting them filter everything questionable on the Internet.

Can't we just bring in longer jail terms, say greater than 30 years, and leave the fucking internet alone. What's the bet that the RIAA and MPAA have their fingers in this pie and it will end in us not being able to chat over voip because there's a song playing on the radio in the background or something equally retarded.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[glenfahan]

Are you trolling? I use the heck out of newsgroups.

alt.crafts.blacksmithing
alt.guitar.beginner
rec.crafts.brewing
rec.crafts.metalworking
rec.motorcycles
rec.motorcycles.harley

All have had interesting things for me recently. IMO the biggest problem is spam.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Bloke down the pub]

And when they shut giganews down?

I'm assuming they aren't hosted in Khazakijistan or the Bongo Islands.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Hognoxious]

TFA only mentions Usenet in passing, and the article to which it connects does not mention Usenet at all.

The first rule of usenet is ...?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Hognoxious]

My ISP dropped all the mp3 groups at roundabout the same time they introduced a pay-per-download music service. What a coincidence!

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[heyfunny]

First of all If they think anyone trusts this doesn't have to do just as much with hopes of deterring digital piracy is deluded. They are silently hoping to hit two birds with one stone but I will mention a secret that they should already know,.. MOST people and I am sure the porn addicts and digital pirates out there already know there is a problem with most if not all of the ISP's News Group services provided by the ISP's themselves. If they are serious about either potentially illegal activities they wouldn't want to use the ISP's "Free" servers anyway,.. The retention alone is enough to discourage the casual downloader into a paid private service like mega news or something similar that provides access to all the groups with unlimited bandwidth if the right price is paid. And these kiddy porn junkies are already addicted enough to drop $20 - $60 per month for premium service so to be honest this change by the ISP's is definitely either a supposed "feel-good" publicity stunt and maybe in a sense a way to relieve some bandwidth usage without losing any money,.. "Less services with the same service prices" Anyone else feel the same way or am I outta line here?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Lord Flipper]

Re: USENET:

It boggles the mind that people still use it in the age of BitTorrent, but there it is.

I wouldn't trade Usenet access for BitTorrent in a thousand years.

With ten simultaneous feeds to a body of material that has been posted by recognized characters, and 'peer-reviewed' (a la "avoid this", etc) on the balance of big posts, and no worries that all the 'seeders' have the same 98% of the file, and we're gonna have to wait for some schmuck in the Ukraine to flip his box on to get the rest...

My Giganews account will saturate any number of feeds. No waiting for all the p2p horseshit. You can have BitTorrent. (and any other 'p2p' formats and apps out there, too).

I'm all for sharing, sure. That's what uploading to Usenet is for. But the 'sharing' aspect, and 'distributed' hosting aspect of BT (et al) sounds way better in theory than it works out in practice. Why? Because the p2p users can fuck up with anything, and there is no threaded commenting on posts, so bullshit can sit right along better versions of similar files. It's a crapshoot, and with the stupid prices and caps of shiity American bandwidth today, I can't afford to take big gambles on DVD-sized (38-CD sized, etc) downloads. The Usenet people know what to do with pnn files, so even in rare cases of partials mixed in with complete segments, it's all retrievable/reparable.

I DO like the idea of BitTorrent. Sharing is good. But the de facto situation with it, and adding in ISP (Comcast, etc) interference with packets, and for me it's a no-go deal. Do I think others should abandon BT because 'flipper' doesn't like it? Hell no. It's just not for me, that's all.

And I'm glad the ISPs are dropping their not-even-half-assed Usenet coverage. Hopefully we'll see fewer of the noobs with their "This post is incomplete on my server" (After which, glancing at the post 'details' we see it's from yet-Another verizon, comcast, whatever user).

So, hooray for getting Usenet off the ISPs, back in 'the dark' where the people who use it, understand it, and contribute, can do what we've always done: understand, use, contribute.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

hey numbnuts.. I believe it was referring to each isp no longer hosting their own newsgroup servers on their networks. A lot of isp's already have stopped providing usenet/newsgroups for their customers. and many havent stopped now depend on strict usenet companies to provide the service for them.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Because wide scale censoring is next on the list. Just wait.

Think: what is the actual damage caused to society by kiddy porn: nearly unmeasurable.

What is the damage caused by free internet to the oligarchy in power: devastating.

What is the camel's nose under the tent issue that will stop this "problem": "SAVE THE CHILDREN!!!"

Have you figured it out yet?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud your rant, and I might add that this is bullshit, BULLSHIT BULLSHIT!!!

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[bhtooefr]

Those who give up liberty for security deserve neither?

Anyway, using it for legitimate purposes lessens the amount of illegitimate use.

And, an issue with your logic... those who view kiddie porn use computers. Therefore, should computers be banned?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[enrgeeman]

grave?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[KozmoKramer]

Dude I know he is dead. Sarcasm much?

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[Renraku]

All this does is keep honest people honest.

The police, FBI, etc..they've all said many, many times in the past..usually upon arrest of someone with a large cache of CP..that they do not get their goods from an open and obvious system like USEnet. Most of the CP trading in the world happens either via sneakernet or from knowing the 'right' people.

If they really wanted to do something about it, they'd leave the newsgroups on but send a partyvan around to everyone who even looks at the newsgroup. Imagine how much fear having a few people from your neighborhood hauled off and never seen again, on charges of being a child rapist? It'd go right up there with stories like, "The sun could explode at any time!" or "Your seven year old could be off snorting a line of drano right now!"

In short, they don't really want to fight CP. Its just a PR move designed to lower their costs AND make it look like they're 'giving back' to the community.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[camperslo]

It is exactly as I had foreseen. The music/video industry is pairing with ISPs to suppress content and freedom of speech.

This is another reason to push for changes in appointments/policy at the F.C.C.
We should, we must, let whoever we support for the next administration know how we feel.

The F.C.C. could being doing things to ensure healthy competition/diversity among ISPs giving consumers more ability to influence ISP behavior through feedback and voting with their wallets. There's more than better rates at stake.

It is essential to the proper functioning of Democracy to have open and diverse media from the local communities to the national level. Doing away with the current excessive consolidation of media ownership is another area for change if we want competition/diversity.

If current trends are not reversed, we may end up with our own Information Ministry.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[cmarkn]

Why would they want to stand up to the guy? He is giving them an excuse to do what they've been wanting to do for a long time, shut down Usenet. It costs them a lot of money, and gains very few new customers in return.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[LWATCDR]

No trolling. You are right spam is the biggest problem. It is terrible and the noise is just getting too much.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

Well the solution to the anorexia/obesity problem is simple: use liposuction to remove the fat from the fatties, and lipopropulsion to pump it into the skinnies. Voila! Instant average weight for everybody! I envisage a big circle of people arranged fat-thin-fat-thin, each connected with tubes and noisy gurgling pumps. The fat people face outward and are given food, the thin people face inwards and regurgitate into a kind of drain/sluice arrangement in the centre of the circle.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[xaositects]

pan only supports 4 connections though. here is a decent list of newreaders for linux.

Re:Copyright infringement, too

[cmarkn]

They can't take action to stop the production of kiddie porn because there just isn't very much of it. A few years ago, when the USPS was involved in their entrapment program, they couldn't find enough to support their program so they had to produce it themselves. The United States Postal Service was for a time the biggest producer of illegal porn in the US.

Well DUH

[Joe U]

It's a PR job, pretty much everyone reading this knows that already.

The good news is that it will all eventually backfire and we'll all get a class action check for $1.59.

Re:Well DUH

[bigstrat2003]

Exactly. Going after the predators would require real effort, and that shit is hard.

Re:Well DUH

[mitgib]

And let's not forget what ISP really means

ISP = I Seldom Pay

Re:Well DUH

[Joe U]

By the way, if you want to get a few bucks over the $1.59 here's the formula:

1. Create content - You singing an original song or some software, whatever.
2. Wait until someone distributes it illegally.
3. Demand that ISPs use their shiny new content filtering to remove it, since they have that ability to block CP, they can block this. (They won't, you're too small)
4. Sue.
5. Profit.
6. Repeat.

There are several variations you can use for this, all of which will generate a settlement check.

Re:Well DUH

[blueg3]

Going after the predators is something the police already do. It's difficult and it's expensive. They also get pretty good cooperation from ISPs (to find out, for example, who was associated with a given IP address at a particular time).

This may primarily be to restrict consumption of illicit material produced outside of US jurisdiction. Despite what the article says, I haven't seen any actual evidence that the "agreement" is to stop carrying Usenet newsgroups.

Re:Well DUH

[betterunixthanunix]

"Despite what the article says, I haven't seen any actual evidence that the "agreement" is to stop carrying Usenet newsgroups."

How about the fact that a 6 weeks ago, Roadrunner stopped serving Usenet altogether?

Re:Well DUH

[jeiler]

I don't know if you'd accept this as evidence, but Time Warner/RoadRunner recently stopped carrying ANY Usenet content. They claimed this was due to "low subscriber usage," but it came out almost immediately after Cuomo's armtwisting.

Re:Well DUH

[blueg3]

I had actually forgotten about that. It's certainly possible the two are related. Time Warner could be telling the truth about their reasons. They could also be using the "suggestion" to stop hosting some Usenet as an excuse / opportunity to stop hosting all of it. I don't know, but I'll freely admit it's a possibility.

I guess I should have been more clear -- it doesn't appear that the "request" was to stop hosting Usenet altogether, but to stop hosting some particular newsgroups.

Unless they want to try to effectively kill off Usenet altogether, I don't see encouraging ISPs to stop hosting it as a smart move, as it could boost the popularity of non-ISP Usenet hosts.

Re:Well DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

The good news is that it will all eventually backfire and we'll all get a class action check for $1.59.

And I'm OK with that, as long as the CEO of TimeWarner has to write one million of them out by hand like Steve Martin had to do in The Jerk.

Re:Well DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what she said. Before she called the cops on me...

Re:Well DUH

[AnomaliesAndrew]

Sure they shut down access to the whole damn tree when all they would have had to do is add a new group:

alt.chris.hanson

"Oh no, Chris Hanson!?"

Re:Well DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Going after the predators would require real effort, and that shit is hard.

Don't tell me you used alt.sex.fetish.constipation too? It used to get pretty lonely in there.

Re:Well DUH

[jeiler]

I had actually forgotten about that. It's certainly possible the two are related. Time Warner could be telling the truth about their reasons. They could also be using the "suggestion" to stop hosting some Usenet as an excuse / opportunity to stop hosting all of it.

I'll admit to enough cynicism at this point to highly suspect it was the arm-twisting ... but I also have to confess to enough cynicism that I may be allowing my prejudices to run away with me. Either way, I wish ISPs had been granted Common Carrier status--I could switch to another ISP, despite the "last mile" monopoly.

Re:Well DUH

[MikeUW]

I don't see encouraging ISPs to stop hosting it as a smart move, as it could boost the popularity of non-ISP Usenet hosts

What's not smart about it? The ISP reduces costs by dropping Usenet, but keeps billing the same amount to its customers. ISP gets more profit, while third-party Usenet hosts get...more profit. The only party in this scenario that loses is the customer.

Re:Well DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

How about that Verizon now blocks the entire alt.* hierachy?

Captain obvious saves the day!

[pwnies]

Is this really a surprise to any of us? I honestly don't see how this is even news. It's like saying "Airport security actually doesn't provide much more security at all! It's all just a publicity stunt!". We all already know the real reasons they are doing it, and we all know that it is retarded.

But because we seem fascinated with moot headlines/news, I've decided to post a few more.
"Things get wet when you put them in water! More at 11!"
"Myspace is full of angsty teens!"
"Santa isn't real kiddos! It's just a way for parents to keep you in good behavior!"
"Pro Wrestling is all faked! Oh noes!"

etc... etc...

Re:Captain obvious saves the day!

[bigstrat2003]

Santa isn't real!

Hey man, spoiler warning! Now my entire world is shattered!

Re:Captain obvious saves the day!

[Oktober Sunset]

If santa isn't real, where does all the kiddie porn come from?

Ob

[Bloke down the pub]

They are "making a stand" against CP? CP gives them an erection? By the powers vested in me by badly-dressed dole-scroungers waving ungrammatical placards I find them guilty of being paedOphiles.

in soviet USA

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing more than a MAFIAA sponsored ploy to reduce free trade of their IP. Child porn is the tack they have taken this time. But this assault on personal freedom and privacy is just another underhanded strike by the billionaires that wish to control us all as sheep, milking our dollars as we simper and dribble while sucking down their provisions like the drug-addled fools that we are.

Re:in soviet USA

[denis-The-menace]

IOW: This is the beginning of the "Great Firewall of America".

Re:in soviet USA

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "the great firewall of the world". An annoying number of routes wind up going through the US, even if it seems like they shouldn't.

Fortunately for the rest of us, this just means that the rest of the world will have to build up infrastructure around the damage that is the US and start routing around them. (Which will also help avoid the US military's numerous "cyber-warfare" divisions.)

Things are looking up for Canada to become a new bandwidth super-power, as the Europe and Russia have to rely on them to skip past the US.

Re:in soviet USA

[Anonymous Coward]

USSA

Re:in soviet USA

[Anonymous Coward]

In soviet USA, the web searches you!

Not to honk my own horn....

[alexborges]

Or any slashdotter's (now that doesnt as good as it did when I thought about it), but yeah, WE thought so: its just for nothing.

And thats GOOD as well. What on earth can the ISP's do against child porn, other than snooping arround in real time at everything all users do?

This guys think that the net fosters child porn. What, didnt they see that greek pottery from a gazilion years ago?

Re:Not to honk my own horn....

[Stanislav_J]

What on earth can the ISP's do against child porn, other than snooping around in real time at everything all users do?

Right -- that should be the government's job.....

Dual-edged sword

[Psmylie]

Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review."

I would think the ISPs would be more concerned with the perception that they are somehow responsible for policing for this kind of content. Once you open the door to that kind of expectation, how can you close it again?

Re:Dual-edged sword

[betterunixthanunix]

That's why they started with child pornography. As TFA states, who can protest anything that appears to be a blow in the fight against child pornography? Anyone who protests this move will be easily labeled as either being naïvely soft on child porn, or as being some sort of pedophile themselves.

The next step? A "family friendly" ISP, that blocks all pornography all together. Then ISPs that block websites or forums where people discuss controversial topics like drug use. All in the name of being "family friendly," and at each step, pointing to the previous step when someone questions it ("Why are you blocking http://www.erowid.org/ ?" "Well, we block objectionable content all the time, such as pornography, because we are family friend.").

Re:Dual-edged sword

[techno-vampire]

"Well, we block objectionable content all the time, such as pornography, because we are family friend.").

I can see why they'd want to block access to that site. After all, it has pictures of flowers, and as we all know, flowers are reproductive organs!

Re:Dual-edged sword

[Anonymous Coward]

The next step? A "family friendly" ISP, that blocks all pornography all together. Many of these ISPs already exist, e.g. http://www.christianpurity.com/ I don't see the problem with that, as long as you have a choice to use a different ISP that does not block.

Re:Dual-edged sword

[mrmud]

I would think the ISPs would be more concerned with the perception that they are somehow responsible for policing for this kind of content. Once you open the door to that kind of expectation, how can you close it again?

I guess the only way for ISPs to insure that we are getting good, wholesome, content is to provide that content to us that is directly under their control. I personally can't wait for "LIVE! Reality Internet! In this episode, Joey learns MSN with an UNEXPECTED twist! It's a laugh riot! Brought to you by: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese!"

Re:Dual-edged sword

[wild_quinine]

The next step? A "family friendly" ISP, that blocks all pornography all together.

Back in the early days of the internet there were content providers with limited/restricted/obscured access to the real internet. Compuserve and AOL were two of them. What happened, I hear you ask? Nobody gave a shit about their 'content' in the face of a real internet full of real goodies, and their finances began to atrophy. Cserve was bought out by AOL, which made steps to become a more genuine ISP, and incidentally isn't doing all that well anyway.

Re:Dual-edged sword

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Fuck "family friendly". I do not want to live in a childproofed world; I am an adult, I am neither married (nor do I wish to be) nor do I have children (and nor do I wish to ever); if I wish to pursue adult interests, then I've got the right to do so and no ISP should be allowed to "police" content on my behalf. Them, them, fuck them.

Re:Dual-edged sword

[Anonymous Coward]

But you haven't gotten to the obvious step yet.

Ability yo ban porn opens the ability to ban ANY "offensive" content. This is can be pretty much anything, but to boil the frog we start with things people hate or have taboos against:

For instance, maybe websites promoting Satanism will go down. Then they go after 911 truth. Then those disputing global warming will be banned. Then those promoting flag burning will be banned. Then maybe, those sites which don't support the current war are blocked. Then those which don't support the ruling party...

A blow against net neutrality

[ndnspongebob]

From my point of view, anytime any institution mentions child porn, they are actually using that as a cover to gain control. Since when did everyone become so altruistic and when has child porn become a rampant problem? The FBI has been using this line also but only to gain control over the networks for other purposes. The ISPs will be the same in which case, it is the first blow against net neutrality for them. It is also a clever trick since no one would be against a plan to go against child porn. A bit of a political move in my eyes.

Re:A blow against net neutrality

[g0bshiTe]

Freedom is slavery. Give over your rights.

Re:A blow against net neutrality

[Bryansix]

Exactly! I'd like to see actual statistics about how much child porn is produced in a year. And I'm not talking about pictures of kids taking a bath. Nudity isn't illegal. It's the explicit sex acts involving children that are what compose "child porn". Where are the real statistics on that?!

Re:A blow against net neutrality

[QuantumRiff]

Exaclty my thinking.. and on a curious note, what does the FBI do when some person hires the use of a spambot network to send out craploads of image spam with actual pictures attached? Arrest everyone that got the Image? Or just shut down all email? I have a feeling it would pass through most spam filters, since if the message is over a certain size, it is statistically less likely to be spam...

Re:A blow against net neutrality

[Xemu]

I'd like to see actual statistics about how much child porn is produced in a year. And I'm not talking about pictures of kids taking a bath. Nudity isn't illegal. It's the explicit sex acts involving children that are what compose "child porn". Where are the real statistics on that?!

Here: http://www.unicef.org/magic/media/documents/beyond_all_tolerance.pdf

Re:A blow against net neutrality

[Xemu]

I'd like to see actual statistics about how much child porn is produced in a year. And I'm not talking about pictures of kids taking a bath. Nudity isn't illegal. It's the explicit sex acts involving children that are what compose "child porn". Where are the real statistics on that?!

Here: http://www.unicef.org/magic/media/documents/beyond_all_tolerance.pdf

A quote:

The little research being done (principally at University College Cork in Ireland
within the COPINE project supervised by Professor Max Taylor) shows that the
number of children drawn into the traffic is consistently increasing. In 1998/99, a
study was made of how much child pornographic material was being distributed
within News Groups. Over one year, more than 50,000 child pornographic pictures
were collected. A couple of thousand children were exposed, and for every
week there was a new child, previously unseen. Parts of the study were repeated
in 2002/2003 and it was noted that the weekly frequency of new children had doubled.

Re:A blow against net neutrality

[Bryansix]

Whether the Internet has merely exposed the extent of child pornography crime or whether it has caused it to explode, is still unsure.

This is the point. Go after the perpetrators of the crime. The ones making the child porn. Instead even this agency you mention still goes after those who see the product of such abuse because that is easier. That doesn't cross international boundaries and make pursuit difficult. These organizations need to man up and pursue the root cause of the problem wherever it happens to be in the world.

Re:A blow against net neutrality

[Bryansix]

Whether the Internet has merely exposed the extent of child pornography crime or whether it has caused it to explode, is still unsure.

sorry this was a quote.

Re:A blow against net neutrality

[tatermonkey]

That article is pretty funny coming from Sweden. A country where 15 is the legal age of consent for sex. That right, in Sweden its legal for an adult to have sex with a 15 year old.

O Rly?

[atari2600]

"Things get wet when you put them in liquid water! More at 11!"
"Myspace is full of angsty teens and pedophiles"
"Santa is real but works for the NSA"
"Pro wrestling is fake, so are the breasts but it's fun to see women tear their clothes off each other anyway"

Fixed...I think...kinda.

Re:O Rly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor GP bunny got -1 Redundant, and you got +3 funny. Don't that make your heart ache.

Re:O Rly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seth, Is that you?

to be fair

[circletimessquare]

1. there really IS child porn all over alt.binaries.erotica. completely mislabeled and miscategorized

2. furthermore, nntp is a dying protocol. there is no way they could get away with this with smtp or hhtp. but to the average joe, nntp is utterly obscure

conclusion: they are going to get away with it, and they are going to put a stake through the heart of nntp

Re:to be fair

[fatduck]

seriously people need to tag their child porn appropriately

Re:to be fair

[Applekid]

nntp is a dying protocol.

I'll admit I haven't generated any nntp traffic in about a decade. But, are the ISPs actually blocking nntp traffic or are they just taking this an excuse to turn off their newsgroup servers and relays, fire the maintenance people, and buy some ivory backscratchers with the savings?

Re:to be fair

[nurb432]

To be fair, people drive to the back-alley porn and buy illegal pornography ( or other things ).

So i guess we should start banning car use on back alleys?

Re:to be fair

[MightyMartian]

Good grief, my favorite hangout on Usenet averages about three or four hundred messages a day (I know, I don't get much of a chance to post on weekends, and when I look on Monday, there's often seven hundred new messages). A lot of the web forums out there would give their left nut for that amount of traffic.

It's true that there are lots of vacant and abandoned groups, but then again, there were plenty of those back in the early 1990s when I first started posting to Usenet. A lot of the vanity groups croaked, but there are still areas of Usenet that are very active. Even in the mid-90s when the Internet started its big growth spurt, most of the new consumers didn't know anything about Usenet. I remember my first ISP job was going around installing Trumpet winsock on computers, and when it came to setting up xnews, people would ask it was, and after I explained it, most of them said "Don't bother".

Re:to be fair

[againjj]

there is no way they could get away with this with smtp or hhtp.

Ah, yes, the Hyper-Hoopla Transfer Protocol!

Re:to be fair

[mikael]

furthermore, nntp is a dying protocol.

Which is why it would be attractive to anyone dealing with illegal images. It's like having underground tunnels that nobody rarely visits, except to those knowing where the entrances leading to the surface are.

Re:to be fair

[mce]

Be all that as it may, that does not change the fact that nntp will die, whether we like it or not.

I was quite active along time ago. I started in 1988, I absolutely *loved* the whole Usenet concept, and I even co-maintained a Usenet client program, but I gradually moved away and now I can't even remember when I last connected to port 119, let alone when I last posted something.

I left because 1) http came along; and 2) all the once useful groups were getting ever more swamped by junk. Sure, a good kill file would take care of most of it, but the issue is that the number of "quality posts" went down nonetheless as people were leaving anyway. There's no real fun in seeing that there are 500 new messages in your favourite group, 480 of which get killed for being either pure spam or written by some *ssh*le who throws flames in any discussion he can find and 15 more of which don't actually add anything of value. Certainly not if you remember the times when there were "only" 100 new messages at a time of which about 40 were worth opening.

Usenet is dead (with or without film at 11). Old people stop using it. New ones don't even start. Yes, this really means that it's an economical waste for ISPs (and others), so yes they do have a bit of reason to close it down, whether we like it or not. Face it, this is a spiral from which there is no escape. And it's not even unexpected: every technology, system, or even state eventually dies.

Re:to be fair

[MightyMartian]

Except that it isn't dead. That you don't use it isn't a legitimate declaration of anything. And, for better or for worse, Google Groups has brought a whole new crowd (and a bunch of spam) to it.

Re:to be fair

[mdwh2]

Usenet is dying, but I've thought it a shame that people didn't use NNTP more. Consider, there's nothing stopping people setting up forums that work using NNTP, but are not part of Usenet. So you don't have the spam, and can have moderators if you like. But you do get the advantages of NNTP, such as far better software to read and post with. I can't stand webforums - every webforum looks different, they often lack in features such as threading modes, and don't even think about advanced features like killfiles. You get power-crazy-moderators who love to "lock threads" simply because they personally are bored of the threads. Fundamentally, the point is that you're dependent on the website software, but with NNTP, the control is in the hands of the client.

I have seen some mailing lists that worked over NNTP, but unfortunately there don't appear to be many of them.

Re:to be fair

[Oktober Sunset]

No that would cause outcry, people would be appaled by such behavoir, they wouldn't stand for it, thier reputation would be ruined!

They will buy eco friendy, ethically produced fairtrade mother of pearl back scratchers, from managed freerange oysters.

Re:to be fair

[mce]

Back in the nineties, the company that I used to work for used to have a set of internal Usenet groups, served by the same server that provided the outside groups. The internal fora were first to be threatened as "redundant". I actually liked them a lot and actively promoted their use (also because I knew that their demise would enable killing the rest of our Usenet access). To no avail in the end: usage dropped away and at the second or third attempt, IT sadly but rightfully managed to kill them as a waste of resources. As I expected, the rest of the feed was first reduced and then killed a bit later. There simply was no interest any more. :-(

Sadly, the internal groups were never replaced by anything. No http fora, no mailing lists, no nothing.

Why is viewing so bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, shouldn't we be going after the people making child porn, and not the people viewing it?

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[lordofwhee]

We should be going after the kiddie raping motherfuckers who DON'T look at little suzie down the street on the internet, they go entice her with candy in a white van and take her behind the gas station. THAT'S abuse. It's like saying looking at trees is abuse of the trees. It's not, and it's exactly the same in this case. Hell, internet kiddie porn probably keeps more kids from being raped than it encourages. Think about how many people there are that are actually pedophiles. Not kiddie-rapers, they just like little kids. So they hop on Usenet, download a video or two, and that's that. Now, what if they couldn't? They might eventually end up kidnapping little suzie.

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[nurb432]

Since the "object" you are viewing is illegal to produce and legally shouldn't exist at all ( at least where you live ), it is logically extended to the act of viewing.

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was susie, the van was blue and I liked it....

troll.

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[nurb432]

Except the picture of an illegal drug ( not all of those were illegal btw ) isn't banned from possession, while the child porn image is banned.

My use of the term "object" here is not the content of the picture, but the actual picture itself. There is a difference.

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[stuntmanmike]

It's like saying looking at trees is abuse of the trees. It's not, and it's exactly the same in this case.

Damn it, I am getting really sick of this pro-CP crap.

It's not the same because trees aren't sentient beings with emotions and feelings and all that gushy stuff. Trees don't care if there are pictures on the internet of you sticking your dick into their knothole.

Have a little empathy for the victims here.

Hell, internet kiddie porn probably keeps more kids from being raped than it encourages

Bullshit. Does watching regular porn stop you from having sex in real life? Just about every guy I know watches porn, and they still fuck women.

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Does watching regular porn stop you from having sex in real life?

Um... sometimes?

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[mdwh2]

So you say that viewing is bad, because it's illegal? I think that's rather backwards...

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[MRe_nl]

I understand the reasoning, i simply disagree. Images should never be banned IMHO.

"( not all of those were illegal btw )" That's why i used the prefix (some).
I don't think any of those substances should be illegal either, but that's
a different cup of tea alltogether. Psilocybin FTW!

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[nurb432]

"Bad" would be a judgement call, i'm not making that.

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[nurb432]

Oh, i wasn't debating if the law is right or wrong, just how i interpreted it to extend to viewing as well as creating.

Im steering clear of judgments on if i think the law is right or wrong.

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[mysidia]

Ah.. but see the internet is a global medium. Don't you see the fallacy of the logic?

It reasons someone may eventually create 'depictions' of said horrific imagery in parts of the world where it is not illegal to produce them (say "art").

Then they will exercise free speech rights in their native country to share their expressions with acquaintenances in other countries.

Those individuals have become able to view the objects that were produced through means, where their production is legal (where they are originally produced).

In fact, they are not objects at all, but electronic messages.

Expression that the US holds so tantamount among the rights of its citizens as to be protected by the constitution's 1st Ammendment, as the supreme law of the land and supreme to all other rights of the citizens AND supreme to all rights and privileges that the government itself is legally permitted to exercise under said constitution.

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[mysidia]

This is true, but irrelevent.. it is not necessary to possess something in order to view it.

As could be evidenced by displays at a physical storefront. You do not possess something, just because you happen to see it.

As could also be evidenced by popup ads.

Which reportedly at times have contained distasteful images for some viewers of popup ads.

One of the worst places for illegal popup ads to show up is in a school setting, due to an infected teacher's laptop displaying such on a monitor. In this case, however, clearly the crime should be negligence: not "possession".

For the sake of argument, assume the viewer does not save anything to disk, and their browser does not normally maintain any cache, so the display of any image is merely ephemeral (only viewable until the window is dismissed).

In what manner does the viewer "possess" anything, other than the equipment which can find a remote image on command?

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

correlation != causation

Re:Why is viewing so bad?

[nurb432]

If the viewing was intentional they possessed the bits and thus the 'object', since this society currently believes in legal IP rights.. Doesn't matter if it was 'shredded' afterwards, the intent was still there and the crime was still committed. Might be hard to prove it was viewed however.

if it was a 'walk by' ( to use your 'storefront analogy " or 'non requested popup', then you might have a case, but ive heard that even just holding the picture unintentionally in your hand could be considered a crime.. Which i think is ludicrous. But then again, holding a joint, even if my accident is jail-able so there is some sort of twisted correlation.

but what I want to know is....

[CaptnCrud]

can you at least pee on the screen, where is R Kelly when you need him.

To what end?

[thatskinnyguy]

To what end will ISPs stop blocking things that could be used legitimately? I mean, some block or throttle P2P traffic because their infrastructure is out of touch with the 21st century and as a kowtow to the **AA. Now they're blocking newsgroups which have more uses than just porn. What next? Are they going to start blocking all porn sites in general just because it's impossible to verify that all sites aren't disseminating smut of an illegal nature?

Re:To what end?

[dark whole]

What next? Are they going to start blocking all porn sites in general just because it's impossible to verify that all sites aren't disseminating smut of an illegal nature?

Not if the porn industry throws the ISP a cut. They probably WOULD block it if there was enough extra lining in their pockets.

Re:To what end?

[blueg3]

And according to the FCC, they're not allowed to throttle P2P traffic.

They're only blocking enumerated newsgroups that are primarily used for trading CP, not blocking all access to newsgroups. Further, the only blocking of newsgroups they're doing is restricting what newsgroups they are hosting locally.

Likewise, the only action they're taking against websites is removing sites with CP (illegal content that is against their terms of service, which they're well within their rights to remove) that are hosted on their network -- not blocking access to some list of sites.

It doesn't seem that the author of TFA read the freakin' (original) article.

Re:To what end?

[spazdor]

As it turns out, porn consumers have more money to spend than antiporn advocates.

10 Years Gone

[Cytlid]

I worked for an ISP from 2001-2006 (Dreamscape Online) who had their POP raided in 1998 from then-AG Steve Vacco (he was running for re-election if I remember correctly).

Here's a nice writeup on it: http://www.theharbinger.org/xvii/990119/blair.html

In 1998 I heard about this in the news, and was annoyed at the common man's lack of knowledge about technology. By the time I worked there the ISP outsourced it's newsgroup servers.

I love the attorney's quote at the end of the article. How people should go after the originators and not the ISP's.

I was very glad to have worked at a place which seemed to have set a precedent. But did it really? I mean, here we are 10 years later, and some average Joe sixpacks (including AG's) still have no clue as how to fix social issues.

Because that's what they are. They're social issues not technical issues. Hell, the internet connection is just the carrier. We need to get ISP's out of the service (and content) business _NOW_.

Somehow I feel like this is bureaucratic BS ... like my local municipality saying they're going to take care of pot holes, only to come examine and scrutinize my driveway ... and patting themselves on the back for the excellent job they're performing.

I want to see this stuff wiped out as much as anyone else. But for some reason they're focusing their efforts at the wrong ends of the internet.

Re:10 Years Gone

[Tuoqui]

I agree theres no such thing as a technical solution to a social problem.

That said... When the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems seem like nails.

Re:10 Years Gone

[Gazzonyx]

Unfortunately, the person wielding the hammer doesn't know the difference between a hammer and a jackhammer.

Just like stopping file sharing; ask them to define 'file' and 'sharing' and you'll quickly see what I mean. Should they somehow pass that test, ask them to tell you the difference between a protocol, transport, and application. Yet they'll tell you using Azureus for P2P torrents is illegal. Of course, they can't be bothered to be educated on such things, they only create policy based on their ignorance. Which is a good thing, I guess, otherwise they could be dangerous instead of a nuisance.

Re:10 Years Gone

[Thing 1]

I want to see this stuff wiped out as much as anyone else. But for some reason they're focusing their efforts at the wrong ends of the internet.

And, pointing that out gets you labeled. I wonder when they'll start linking child porn to terrorism, drug use, poverty, and obesity? I mean, our wars on all those worked out so well...

CYA

[l0ungeb0y]

Can you blame them? With this they get press releases and can claim that they are doing SOMETHING, whatever that something might be against child porn the next time the US AG gets a bug up his ass about child porn online.

Re:CYA

[ricebowl]

Can you blame them? With this they get press releases and can claim that they are doing SOMETHING, whatever that something might be against child porn the next time the US AG gets a bug up his ass about child porn online.

Blame them? Yes. I can understand why they're doing it, but I don't like the direction it takes the ISPs; censorship is always bad. I don't wish to state the obvious but, hey why not?, I'm an adult. I can vote, I can certainly decide whether or not I find something offensive.

And, if that 'something' is material of a criminal nature, I can report it to the relevant authorities and they can deal with it properly. Not by sticking their fingers in their ears, or up their ass, whichever term you prefer, and ignoring it; hoping that if no one can find the difficult-to-prosecute crime they won't have to spend their time finding the criminals. Hiding it ain't solving it. And I really want child porn, however prevalent it may, or may not, be, ended. But even with that mindset I think censorship is wrong, especially so with no way to review the list of content to be blocked.

Definition of ISP

[HaeMaker]

This is why we need a clear definition of "ISP" and government agency to enforce it.

If we define ISP as:

-> Access to the internet which is unfiltered* and unfettered
-> Hosting of DNS, NNTP, SMTP**, HTTP (hosted page for users), POP3 and IMAP

Anything that does not meet this criteria can not be called an "ISP" and can not offer for sale "Internet Access". Selling service that is less than the above yet calling themselves an "ISP" or selling "Internet Access" is "false advertising". FTC is probably the proper agency to enforce, or perhaps state agencies.

*or the ability to turn the filter off on your own. I have this with my ISP, they block 25/tcp by default, but I run my own mail server so I disable it. Blocking 25/tcp is good for the internet as a whole, but for certain users, it should be turned off.

**mail forwarding for those who do not run their own server.

Re:Definition of ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

Telus blocks port 25. To unblock it you have to pay more and upgrade to a business account. They refuse to unblock it for residential customers.

I switched to Shaw.

Re:Definition of ISP

[AnyoneEB]

You mean like how CDs with DRM are not allowed to show the trademarked CD logo because the DRM breaks the audio CD specification in some subtle way, but no one notices and everyone just buys those CDs anyway?

Re:Definition of ISP

[HaeMaker]

Yep, because it looks and acts like CD. However, YOU know how to purchase CDs and if the logo is missing, YOU won't buy it.

If we add enough words to be defined in such a way, like:

-> ISP
-> Internet Service Provider
-> Internet Provider
-> Broadband Access
-> Internet Access
-> Broadband Provider

If someone advertises "Web Access" you can say, "No thanks."

The problem arises when no company will provide true internet access in a given area, but then you have other pressure, like equal access, etc (small ISPs have to be given access to DSL for example, my provider is Sonic.net, but uses access to AT&T DSL to get access to my house). There are also other laws that mandate access in certain areas, and this access is defined using the words above so they HAVE to provide this level of service.

Why they can't be against child porn

[Anonymous Coward]

If they really were against child porn, they would make it a point to only filter out child porn.

When they block something, anything that isn't, they are doing what microsoft did when they used the same security against piracy off of the x-box to keep linux off of the xbox.

When they do that, they get the efforts off all the parties involved working against them. They tell the people that had nothing to do with child porn but got blocked anyway, to work with the people who got blocked for child pornography.

Re:Why they can't be against child porn

[The End Of Days]

If they really were against child porn, they would make it a point to only filter out child porn.

How? Invent such a thing and become rich.

objectionable without any review.

[nurb432]

Well, they are a company and not a government so really arent bound by the rules of 'free speech' or 'censorship'. "review" consists of their customers looking elsewhere for service.

Too bad many have a virtual lock in their market area.

Telco removes "E" section from Yellow Pages

[dpbsmith]

And in further news, responding to charges that some escort services provide illegal services, the announced that effective today will carry only the "big 25" Yellow Pages sections: A through D and F through Z.

Re:Telco removes "E" section from Yellow Pages

[RobBebop]

And what happens when escorts start calling their business model "fuck friends"? Will that wash away the "f" section too?

Re:Telco removes "E" section from Yellow Pages

[Inner_Child]

And this could be the reason why Verizon blocked all of alt.* rather than just the groups concerned. Move the content to a different group and they'll have to block more. Just burn it all in one big chunk and fuck the legitimate users (and uses).

That said, I really do believe there;'s something more nefarious going on here, because hey, they just got rid of very large groups containing material from the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA members. Sorry, I just can't see this as being a coincidence.

More money for Supernews, et al.

[gujo-odori]

My ISP already doesn't offer Usenet, so I have the cheapest account Supernews offers. If ISPs turn off Usenet, they'll just drive more business to Supernews and other NNTP services. As a former ISP sysadmin, I suspect that's actually their real plan. Running a decent news server takes quite a bit of bandwidth and disk space (at least if you carry binary newsgroups).

So, what's an ISP to do? Hmmm. Drop NNTP service. Saves you money and disk space. Claim it's to fight CP. Makes you look good to some people who don't know the real story. Customers who want Usenet then sign up with an NNTP service. They go over their bandwidth caps and you either then throttle them down or charge them extra bandwidth charges. They may pay, they may go elswhere. Either way, you've solved a few business problems for yourself, all the while being able to claim it's because you're thinking of the children.

Don't get me wrong about CP - I'm a dad, and I not only think child pornographers should be taken out and shot, I'd be happy to shoot them myself - but this just isn't going to do anything to control, contain, or prevent CP>

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[maxume]

Astraweb offers pay $10 once for 25 GB and pay $25 once for 100 GB if you aren't generating a lot of traffic.

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[techno-vampire]

If there's no other monthly charges, that'd be a good deal for me, but they'd lose money on me hand over fist! I surf two Usenet groups, both text only. I doubt I go through 10Meg per month!

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[maxume]

As far as I can tell, there are no other charges period. There aren't any time limits either. Oh, and performance seems OK.

I think they just have things set up with almost no overhead.

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't think the child pornographers have parents? Do you even recognize their humanity at all?

If you are really happy to shoot them yourself, I'd hazard a guess that you are as bad as they are - or worse.

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[gujo-odori]

Yes, I'd really shoot them myself.

Why would I do that?

Certainly not because I'm as bad as they are - I can't figure out what dumb-assed logic leads you to conclude that a person willing to serve as an executioner is = a child pornographer - but because they deserve it and because I support capital punishment. I not only support capital punishment, but believe that if you *really* support capital punishment, you should be willing to serve on the firing squad. In the case of child molesters, I'd not only be willing to serve on the firing squad, I'd be willing to *be* the firing squad.

Your post reveals a lot about you. First and foremost, that you don't have children, or you would not for a second question my willingness to personally execute convicted child molesters. I don't need to list any of the other things it reveals about you (none of them good), since they're even more obvious to all than the fact that you don't have kids.

Do I recognize their humanity at all? No, I don't. They laid that down a long time ago. Executing a child molester is no different than putting down a rabid dog, and yields a greater benefit to society.

Mods: if you disagree with me and can't bother to respond, preferring to vote with mod points rather than reasoned argument, please go for flamebait rather than troll. Trolls are just trying to elicit a kneejerk response and don't (necessarily) mean what they say. I really mean all of the foregoing, so it's not a troll. It's not meant to be flamebait either, but the lazy may mod it that way instead of taking up their keyboards and responding. Thanks for your time.

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[91degrees]

Well, of course. Usenet takes terabytes of storage and is used by a handful of users. Most users haven't even heard of it. The main problem with dropping it is dealing with a lot of angry emails from the few customers who do use the service. Having a response that makes them sound liker the good guy helps here.

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[Cadallin]

Ah, but who is a child molester and who isn't? Is a 15 year old boy fooling around with his 14 year old girlfriend a child molester? If they take pictures are they child pornographers?

Legally, in the USA, the first one is definitely possible depending on local law (although many places, the District Attorney's apply unofficial and not codified rules for such issues), and the second one is almost always a "yes."

How guilty are they really? Are they really the same as 50 year old molesting a 6 year old? Really now? One of the real problems today is that the law becomes increasingly harsh with worse sentences and additional post sentence penalties, so that lawmakers can pat themselves on the back for "protecting the children," but rarely, if ever, do they bother to discriminate on degree.

Does the hypothetical 15 year old boy in my example really deserve to be listed as a sex offender for life, with all that entails?

This issue is actually quite significant, as with the widespread usage of the internet, webcams, etc, underage individuals are themselves often both the victims (of their own foolishness and their parents negligence if nothing else) and the producers of child pornography. How guilty are they and what is the right way for society to deal with them? Are you willing to take out back and shoot adolescent girls as well?

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[Anonymous Coward]

You having a child doesn't make you any more wise or good than the rest of the world. All it does is give you a "unique" bias.

If you really thing executing a child molester is like putting down a rabid dog, I truly feel like you lost your sense of humanity and compassion.

You are indeed a very bad person.

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[wkcole]

So, what's an ISP to do? Hmmm. Drop NNTP service. Saves you money and disk space. Claim it's to fight CP. Makes you look good to some people who don't know the real story. Customers who want Usenet then sign up with an NNTP service. They go over their bandwidth caps and you either then throttle them down or charge them extra bandwidth charges. They may pay, they may go elswhere. Either way, you've solved a few business problems for yourself, all the while being able to claim it's because you're thinking of the children.

You have hit the nail on the head. ISP's have been straining to do a halfway decent job in carrying the newsgroups that users want most (warez and porn) for years, and have been doing an increasingly poor job of it for a shrinking slice of their users while pouring more and more money down the rathole of disk, bandwidth, complex high-availability/synch architectures, and smart admins. Some (e.g. the SBC side of the 'new' ATT) have not carried the highest-volume groups for years with the lame excuses of piracy and/or kiddie porn. The push from Cuomo and NCMEC to drop alt.binaries.* is just what they need to validate a decision to drop a service that has made business sense for a long time. The external pressure lets them brush off user complaints and gives them a way to avoid suggestions of collusion with each other.

And from the control perspective, this actually may provide something useful for law enforcement. With ISP's operating free news servers for their customers and carrying the huge flood of binaries, Usenet is too big to really watch closely. With the shrinking universe of news servers that carry alt.binaries.* and the elimination of casual gawkers from the audience for "bad" binaries, it becomes easier for law enforcement to harvest a steady stream of serious kiddie porn fans. That is not actually useful for controlling the creation of kiddie porn, but it is a useful tool for law enforcement to maintain their PR and a sense of fear. There have been some people who have suggested that the most obvious kiddie porn posted in alt.binaries.* groups may well be law enforcement "bait" but one argument against that theory has always been that even if law enforcement was working with ISP's to track retrieval of those images, the population of targets is just too big and too rich with accidental viewers (i.e. casual news users whose filtering is done by eyeball) to be useful. With the users of the porn groups reduced to those willing to pay for them through a shrinking number of news specialist providers, baiting becomes a more feasible tactic.

Re:More money for Supernews, et al.

[Reziac]

In which case, Teranews' free access would suit you, if you can't get to your preferred addic^H^H^H^H newsgroups any other way -- 50mb/day, tho the 3 minute timeout can be annoying. $3 signup and you never hear from them again (unless you go over bandwidth).

Taking a Stand

[ticklemeozmo]

>> "Unfortunately, the 'stand against child porn' isn't actually a stand at all, it seems more like ignoring the issue while trying to snag some headlines and good will"

Isn't this EVERY headline and corporate stance?  Isn't this every company that "celebrates Black History Month!"?

Usenet Isn't Gone

[DigitalisAkujin]

Most ISPs only ever provided a watered down version of Usenet anyway. In which retention was limited in many cases to less then a week and in which bandwidth on file downloads was much less then your line speed. I know first hand that this was the case with Comcast and Verizion FIOS. The reality is that Usenet was ever only good from pay Usenet services before this and it will continue to be the case after this.

Generally I'm against censorship, but..

[scorp1us]

I think hate speech is protected and all other kinds of censorship is wrong, but I have to agree here. There can be no artistic, social or any other benefit from this industry. I've known sexual assault victims (from when they were children), and it really messes with their heads. It completely screws them over in terms of how they see themselves, their place and reality in general.

I'm not worried about people getting frustrated and searching out real victims. I think there is a line between fantasy and reality that is a barrier. For instance, I've always wanted sex with multiple women. Despite having been in Nevada, I have yet to 1) expereicne a prostitute and 2) experience multiple women.

Then there is the issue of hentai (sp?). I often see this as ironic, because you have to draw these images 12 frames a second, provide story board and script. A of more work goes into that production! Does this turn artists into pedophiles? I don't know. But still, this medium can serve as fantasy release. The one thing I got from watching the Matrix in HD is that it doesn't change the experience. Concepts are the same. But at the same time no one is getting hurt. So maybe it is a good thing and can serve as a vent. I don't know.

But I don't think child porn is like a gateway drug. I think regardless of what images you are presented, you have the choice in and responsibility for your actions.

I do have to ask though -- I have social worker friends, and they are telling me that sex between 12-year olds is increasingly common. If people are voluntarily engaging in behavior at that age, are we really protecting them? I guess the idea is that we protect them from adults, and that is all fine by me, but wouldn't that be just as bad as any other sexual assault? I've also seen instances where teenagers send pictures of their own naked bits via cell phones to other teenagers. Should they be charged as well?

Today too many kids race towards adulthood. I think part of the intent is to protect that childhood. But kids these days are ding everything they can to deny childhood. I have to question the effectiveness, where the "victim" is a willing participant.

I think though, it is a noble goal and for whatever it is worth, should be pursued. I think everyone would agree that no one wants an industry of child exploitation.

Re:Generally I'm against censorship, but..

[dave562]

I do have to ask though -- I have social worker friends, and they are telling me that sex between 12-year olds is increasingly common.

When you see behavior like that it is usually the children modelling their adult role models. In this day and age of "babies having babies", it isn't unusual for young children to see mom and the man of the week doing "adult" things with each other.

Re:Generally I'm against censorship, but..

[cdrguru]

I do have to ask though -- I have social worker friends, and they are telling me that sex between 12-year olds is increasingly common.

Increasingly common? From what? Since 1850? Or since 1980? How about the fact that 12-year-olds have been having sex since the beginning of time. Sometimes, in earlier generations the parents have maintained a watchful eye over their offspring such that the opportunities for such adventures were few and far between. But since the advent of the working mother and latchkey kids...

Come on now, what do you think they are doing after school? Not all of them are having sex to be sure. But some are. And it has certainly gotten a lot more acceptable.

Re:Generally I'm against censorship, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes yes!! The majority of child porn isn't adults exploiting young children, it's young people fucking (and taking pics) or young girls sending pics to their boyfriends.

Re:Generally I'm against censorship, but..

[JesseMcDonald]

I think hate speech is protected and all other kinds of censorship is wrong, but I have to agree here. There can be no artistic, social or any other benefit from this industry.

So you're against censorship right up until we come to something you want to censor? How, exactly, does that differ from the pro-censorship position?

Re:Generally I'm against censorship, but..

[scorp1us]

I'm glad you asked.

In all other attempts, it is an attempt to oppress an idology. Whether it is Nazi, KKK, use of the N* word, dissenting views, etc.

Here, this is about preventing an industry of sexual exploitation and abuse, something that _no_ culture is for. Even the cultures that participate in genital mutilation do not engage in sexual exploitation.

I've done some research about subjects related to it, but the closest I can find is a culture that would send adolescent boys to a woman to be trained on how to please a woman. Having been an adolescent boy, I don't think they saw it as explotation...

Oblig.

[halsver]

Think of the children! Won't anyone think of the children!?

Re:Oblig.

[funaho]

Think of the children! Won't anyone think of the children!?

Isn't that the whole problem they're trying to prevent? :)

Re:Oblig.

[danwat1234]

Thinking of the children's well being, or ThInking of the children...lol. I wonder what Cowboy 'Oneal (or whoever wrote the dept. phrase on this article) meant.

Re:Oblig.

[jez9999]

Don't think of the children!! Won't anybody stop thinking of the children?

Re:Oblig.

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of the children! Won't anyone think of the children!?

Isn't that the whole problem they're trying to prevent? :)

Really! If people would just stop having these god damned children in the first place the problem would be solved.

neutral or not?

[Dan667]

ISP's should not be able to have it both ways. Either they are providing a service and not responsible for what is sent across their networks or they are responsible and everyone should be able to sue them. I would pick option 1, but what do I know. And if they are going to do stuff like this in the name of child pornography, why are the freeways still open? They obviously facilitate actual child abuse so why not just nip it in the bud and close the freeways? Think of the children!

Re:neutral or not?

[Naedst]

What I can't understand is why no-one's taken this to the only logical conclusion: ban all children. No children = No child porn. Problem solved.

Fuck Godwin

[Anonymous Coward]

Until we read history and REALIZE that this is a fundamental fault in a media-accessible society, we'll never learn.

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation." --Adolph Hitler

Re:Fuck Godwin

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Hear, hear!

Re:Fuck Godwin

[moogyboog]

As Wilhelm Reich once said, in a book that was burned by the Nazi's and the US in the 1950's:

"Man's authoritarian structure---this must be clearly established---is basically produced by the embedding of sexual inhibitions and fear in the living substance of sexual impulses."

"With the restriction and suppression of sexuality, the nature of human feeling changes; a sex-negating religion comes into being and gradually develops its own sex-political organization, the church with all its predecessors, the aim of which is nothing other than the eradication of man's sexual desires and consequently of what little happiness there is on earth. There is good reason for all this when seen from the perspective of the now thriving explotation of human labor."

Re:Fuck Godwin

[CrkHead]

IIRC, Godwin just said that any discussion would eventually have a Nazi reference. Not judgement on if the reference is valid or not.

It seems that more and more often it's a valid reference.

Ban Wal*Mart

[Speare]

ISPs banning Usenet to get rid of child porn is like cities banning Wal*Mart to get rid of lead paint from China. Or more like banning Wal*Mart, Target and Pizza Hut to get rid of Barney-themed products from China that have lead paint.

It is quite ironic...

[JBG667]

That in the same country that won't outlaw guns, which definitely and directly harm people, folks are finding it necessary to ban newsgroups, which do not harm anyone directly or indirectly. Get your f***n priorities straight.

Re:It is quite ironic...

[cdrguru]

The result of banning guns means that it would be illegal to have a gun, right? That means that criminals would be sure that only fellow criminals would have guns. Since there are just about the same number of guns in the US today as their are people do you really believe any sort of "ban" would have any effect on people that breaking the law was irrelevent?

The trap that the US has gotten themselves in is with relatively "open" borders and trade, guns, drugs, people and just about anything else has streamed into the country. Other countries have effective border controls. If I try to import guns into Germany I will fail and likely be arrested. Importing of guns, legal and illegal, happens every day in the US.

Further, if I try to cross the border into Mexico I will be arrested and detained. Possibly imprisoned. On the other hand, thousands of people cross the border into the US every day and stopping them has become a "race" issue. No police or military even attempts to stop them. Many cities declare themselves to be a sanctuary for people that have crossed the border illegally.

Do you really think a gun ban would do anything except ensure that only criminals have guns?

Today, I can get a gun and a license to carry it. If a criminal tries to rob me, my business or another business that I am a customer at, why, he could get shot! This is about the only effective deterrent there is today with the crime situation the way it is. Remove the possibility that ordinary citizens can be carrying guns and this potential deterrent is removed completely. Is it an effective deterrent? I doubt it. But I assure you that a criminal that trys to rob a legal gun-carrying citizen is likely to be his last act on Earth. There are no future crimes.

Re:It is quite ironic...

[Reziac]

A study that should be required reading for all gun-control proponents:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

Take special note of the statistics covering several countries with draconian gun control, and how if anything, murder rates tend to be inversely proportional to gun ownership. Luxembourg, in the heart of civilized Europe, is the most astonishing example: despite an absolute ban on handguns and near-total ban on other guns, it has the highest murder rate of that contiguous set of countries.

And an article on feelgood laws, and why they don't work:

http://www.naiaonline.org/library/From_Firearms_to_Fido.htm

Re:It is quite ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can rationalize it 15 different ways, but the fact is, the easier it is to get guns, more of them end up in hands of criminals. If it was illegal to sell them, fewer would be sold to criminals (legally or illegally)...

Yeah right ...

[jon3k]

And it's even more about reducing their bandwidth costs than grabbing headlines. alt.* probably accounts for 99% of nntp traffic which these providers will now reduce to zero.

Re:Yeah right ...

[symbolset]

I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with the evil content in the music and movie sharing groups. This is just about protecting the children.

newsdemon.com, too

[RiffRafff]

Apparently not just the ISPs' version of Usenet is watered down. I just signed up with newsdemon.com, and there is absolutely NO alt.erotica.* newsgroups. Is this normal for third-party NNTP providers?

Re:newsdemon.com, too

[Anonymous Coward]

dude... it's not alt.erotica, it is alt.binaries.erotica.... er... I heard that from a friend of mine.

Re:newsdemon.com, too

[RiffRafff]

Okay, I left out "binaries." Still, filtering for "erotica" results in zero newsgroups. Seriously, did I pick the wrong NNTP provider, or are they all like that?

USENET least of my worries.

[Kazrath]

Have you had a chance to read the new article about Child porn and Cable companies letting a private organization dictate their content?

Check this out

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9994159-46.html

This scares me a hell of a lot more than usenet. Usenet is basically used by the more "in" technical crowd.

Standard websites and family photos of bathing children etc have in the past been called Child Porn when parents try to develop harmless photos. This went away for a long time because of the digital age... Now these buggers will be able to repeat the same crap with more innocent photo's against parents who are not doing anything wrong.

There is real child porn out there.. I get that.. and kids should be protected... protect the children ... yata yata...

But giving an unsupervised private organization complete control over the vast majority of US web space content is pretty scary stuff.

Since I'm sure it's possible to use P2P sites...

[spagthorpe]

to get CP, then I'm sure it will become reasonable to block all P2P sites. The more I hear about this, the more I think it has nothing to do with CP, but was dreamed up in RIAA/MPAA backrooms.

What great way to get bully everyone over to your side. Exploit a topic that caries such a stigma with it, that nobody will dare fight it, since they are obviously encouraging CP.

uh...review?

[buddyglass]

this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review.

Why would they need review? These are private entities. As long as they don't violate whatever contracts they have with their customers, they're free to block whatever they want. If you don't appreciate that a particular ISP blocks particular content, then don't become a customer of that ISP.

Re:uh...review?

[AceofSpades19]

Its not all that easy to just switch ISPs in some parts of the world, I know there is lots of places in the us that only have comcast

Re:uh...review?

[mdwh2]

They're free to block it. And he's free to say it sucks and warn others about it.

Re:uh...review?

[buddyglass]

I never said he wasn't free to do exactly that. The original article, however, bemoans the fact that there is no independent review board that's to determine what gets blocked and what doesn't. That's what I objected to.

Juts get it over with...

[WilyCoder]

Can we please just outlaw the internet? The **AA will eventually say every thing on the internet is for child porn.

What makes usenet different than any other internet technology when it comes to child porn? Wow, its a different way to shift bits around. Until they can stop all forms of bit transmission, there will be porn....

Re:Juts get it over with...

[Mesa MIke]

> Until they eliminate Humans from the Earth, there will be porn....

There, fixed it for ya.

Angry redactor

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that the redactor of that article is just trying to justify his anger against his ISP for blocking him access to the pr0n.

Simple as that.

red herring

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the most perverted, sociopathic people who don't actually give a fuck about anything, who are either ambivalent about tasteless material, or even those who seek it out as sport... seem to never come across anything that qualifies as "kiddie porn."
Yes, it can be easy to find juvenile photos in the "nudism" context, but that's not really "porn", and yes, there was a time that say, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic published a certain amount of hard core porn with 15 and 16 year old models. So those kinds of things are out there, at least you will come across them without really trying. But "kiddie porn." The stuff that people seem to be so terrified of. Seven and Eight year olds in hardcore sex acts on film. Ever seen it in 15 years on the internet? 15 years as say, an admin for a big webhosting company or something like that? One that specializes in "mature content?" Seen it? At all? While you're at it, ever seen a snuff film? This stuff out there in such extreme quantity that we need to rewrite all laws in response?

Just wondering, because it seems like a red herring to me.

Re:red herring

[urbanriot]

That's a good question. Being around the internet since it was publicly available to anyone who had the money, I've certainly seen some questionable material (especially when I was sub 18), but they've never looked to be exploited and I'm quite sure they would be fucking regardless of whether their was a camera on them or not, or whether they were being paid. But, that's a good point... I don't believe I've ever seen an exploited 'child' (although I've never looked for it, and never will).

The only that's needed...

[Anonymous Coward]

... to bring an end to this silliness is for someone to sue an ISP for failure to properly "protect" them from child porn and/or its effects and the ISP will disavow any responsibility for content go back to being what they used to be; distributors and not publishers. I don't know, maybe I missed it.

The ISP's are very stupidly creating some expectation of "safety" in the minds of their customers which will only come back to bite them in the ass.

Good news...

[Doorjam]

...for child pornographers. Now they have someone to sue if they get caught!

insightful or informative!

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

Funny, yeah, but there's a certain inconvenient truth in that comment, as well.

Kuma

[Anonymous Coward]

Kuma does not approve of blocking usenet.

Meh, just capitalism

[zmollusc]

1. Sell 'unlimited broadband at super speeds'
2. Throttle downloads
3. Block usnet
4. ???
5. Increased Profit!!

Oooh, I thought of a beer analogy.

1. Sell 'as much beer as you can drink'
2. Limit to 3 pints per hour
3. Water down beer
4. ???
5. Increased Profit!!

They are happy to have an excuse

[houghi]

Either they rent it from others or they are maintaining their own servers. Both cost them money. They now have a great excuse to dropt this, keep the money and need nothing to for the customers, because "it's the law".

Each and every CEO will get a hardon if they can stop providing a service that costs them money and not held responsible for it.

The ISPs aren't blocking anything here...

[I.M.O.G.]

...they are just not providing the access themselves.

The argument that this sets a bad precedent is BS. If you wanted to say that, then you should talk about packet filtering and bandwidth throttling, but dropping usenet access is meaningless in this regard.

All said and done, this whole usenet thing is a lot of noise about nothing. Likely because a lot of people misunderstand what Usenet is, how its accessed, and what the ISPs decision really means much like this article misses the boat.

obviously not about child porn

[Tumbleweed]

If they really wanted to catch pedophiles, they'd open everything up and track the hell out of who is downloading the child porn, then go arrest them. This ain't that, so that ain't what this is.

I think it's pretty obvious this is about trying to stem the tide of piracy. Most people downloading stuff from Usenet are likely not using a pay service, but the one included with their net access. Thus, shutting down access to the alt.* groups at the ISP level will block *most* of that kind of activity (along with all the legal stuff, too, of course).

From the same people who brought you the "Patriot" Act. If it's in the name, that ain't the game. :)

Re:obviously not about child porn

[^_^x]

Absolutely.
Usenet is... well, at one point it was kind of "the internet" to most. It's fallen into such disuse now that no one even knows what it is to protest this, and ISPs offered such crap service several years ago that I stopped even discussing things on it because half the discussion would be missing.

But I don't know why they can't just log and report the IP addresses of these guys. I know many obscure them, but in any other group there would be a majority who is too dumb to do it, and seeing how many people get busted at work with it, I'd imagine there must be in this case too.

This is basically like blocking access to all webpages because some of them may have child porn on them. pfft. More like they're disabling usenet because it may have warez ISOs and movies on it!

sue them into recievership and buy them

[justdrew]

it's long past time we put these fuckers out of business.

How do I change ISP's?

[77Punker]

In my apartment, the only ISP I can get is Cox. Cox has done fine for me so far, but I can't change. I can't move, either, because I picked this particular apartment for reasons bigger than internet access. Cox is a monopoly here and needs to be kept in check just like every other monopoly.

Re:How do I change ISP's?

[buddyglass]

If there is no rival provider in your area trying to one-up Cox by offering unfiltered content, then the market has spoken. You are in the minority. If everyone in your immediate vicinity were like you, ripe to move onto any other carrier who offered unfiltered content, then most likely someone would move in and capitalize on that potential profit.

Your current living situation is apparently attractive enough to you for other reasons (location, cost, etc.) that the lack of unfiltered internet content is not sufficient motivation for you to move. Given that, why should Cox bother to offer you unfiltered content? You're not going anywhere, and you're clearly not willing to go without net connectivity altogether. That's the way the cookie crumbles. Sorry.

As a general rule of business.....

[Stanislav_J]

The ideal way to deal with any controversial issue is to seek action that produces maximum PR benefit with minimum effort and expense. Actual efficacy of the measures taken is irrelevant.

In this case, it's the perfect con:

1. Go after a backwater of the Net that probably less than 1% of your subscribers even know about, let alone use.
2. Cut it off mercilessly -- no surgical strikes here.
3. Lose a dozen or so hothead subscribers in the process. (CEO's annual bonus will be reduced by maybe 6 cents...)
4. Bask in the adulation of the mindless cattle who will "moo" their approval at your strong and fearless proactive stance for the children.

Re:As a general rule of business.....

[freedom_india]

To continue your steps:
5. Start attacking slightly above-average used stuff. Use the same principles. For instance attack FTP.
6. Block FTP claiming to protect children. More users get affected. Charge more for "clean" FTP access.
7. Block BitTorrent claiming same as above. Still more cry out loud. Get AG to say whoever uses Torrents is a child abuser. Block the same.
8. Stop HTTPS unless bought from ISP. Say HTTPS is used for child piracy. Same results.
9. Start charging separatetly for Torrent, HTTPS, and even HTTP.
10. PROFIT!
 

Why is viewing so bad?

[MRe_nl]

Since the "objects" you are viewing are illegal to produce and legally shouldn't exist at all ( at least where you live ), it is LOGICALLY extended to the act of viewing."

Surely you jest?

Click this link to view (some) illegal shit.
http://www.drugs.indiana.edu/drug-picture.html
Are you now a criminal?

Real Newsgroups will never remove alt.*

[ArtemaOne]

www.newsrazor.net / www.giganews.com / www.thundernews.com / A google search of Newsgroups popped up these first thing. Do you think a single one of these services has removed alt.* or ever will?

So will my bill go down?

[fortyonejb]

You know because of the fact I'm receiving less service than before? No? Oh, yeah I forgot these are ISP's we're talking about.

Child Porn is a Trojan Horse for Corporate Control

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I made this point in a comment posted to the other story about ISP's blocking newsgroups due to child porn.

The truth is... Its just a trojan horse. Its not at all the real cause. Its a bandwidth issue, and piracy issue. It has nothing to do with protecting children.

Most people are not attracted to children. This may be a shock to the news media, but most adults are attracted to each others sexual appetite and physical appearance. There is nothing attractive about having sex with a child. Its a demented psychological issue that has nothing to do with the newsgroups.

Most people in the newsgroups are trading "of legal age" porn, movies, music, software, emulation roms, linux distros, windows betas, shareware, personal photos, personal videos, knowledge, programming code, user made content for games etc.

Most people are not jacking to children in the newsgroups and we all know this.

To assume that any given network avenue is predominantly child porn oriented is ridiculous when child porn is a very very small minority of civilization. Most adults lust after other adults. Until that is proven otherwise... and i doubt it ever will.... Then how in the hell can we allow this bullshit "anti child porn" movement conquer the newsgroups.

This is a political and economic power play for retaking bandwidth and controlling and eliminating a popular user based distribution system, and communications "forum".

Simply ask this... How much newsgroupd bandwidth is due to child pornography? Then compare it to the amount of bandwidth used by "of legal age" pornography.... and add in all of the .flac, .mp3, .warez, .movies, .divx, .xvid, .mkv, linux, newsgroups.

Child porn is a unmeasurable minute fraction of newsgroup traffic. The majority of it, is in other material, such as the above mentioned.

These companies dont like it, and they're taking a page from the politicians who for years said "Its for the good of our children", as an excuse to destroy and eliminate personal freedoms, and gain politcal power etc. After all, who could refuse the idea of helping children!?... Which if you think about it.. supports my point that most people arent out to fuck children. They never were.

Child pornography is real, molestation is real... but that does not give these corporations and law makers the right, or power to destory everything they deem a threat, under the guise of "its for the safety of our children"... or "child porn".

Its all bullshit, and they will do what they want. But at least we should know the truth of the issue, so we can hate the appropriate government officials and companies for lieing to us like we're stupid.

Are you folks nuts?

[cdrguru]

First off, how does someone "track" the actions of a child-porn downloader? By IP address, you say? Well, ask NewYorkCountryLawyer about how much value there is to an IP address and how much proof there is that an IP address equals a person. So I doubt very much if you can do any meaningful "tracking".

Next would be the publishers. Did you know that it is possible to have a web site that hosts child porn? A web site that is absolutely protected against anyone finding out who the actual "owner" might be. A web site that protects the anonyminity of the "publisher" completely. Its very simple. It might be hard to do in the credit-card happy US but outside of the US it is perfectly legal to use cash. And to do so anonymously. And post any objectionable content you want. Would you want it any other way?

So you say that such illegal material should be prohibited. What about torrent trackers for copyright movies? How about links to bomb-making instructions? Abortion doctors home addresses? How about instructions for making sarin or VX gas? Where exactly do you draw the line for "objectionable" materials? And where do you require people to give up their anonymity?

Sorry, this is the Internet we're talking about. If you aren't incredibly stupid, it is almost impossible to track a "downloader" and connect up the actions that take place on an ISP account with an actual individual. Fortunately, most criminals are really incredibly stupid. So they brag about their exploits and what they have done - almost always to the wrong people. Which then gets them convicted, sued and whatnot.

How are you going to stop child porn really? You aren't going to stop it by making it illegal - there is way, way too much money in it. You aren't going to be able to track it down on the Internet because of the basic protections that web hosting providers and registrars are more than happy to provide to their customers. You aren't going to track downloaders because you will find grandmothers, 9 year old girls and dead people getting hauled into court - such are the perils of believing an IP address means anything at all.

Yes, child porn is a problem that involves at least 50% of all computer forensic technicians today and probably 30-50% of all law enforcement and prosecuters today. But no, I seriously doubt you are going to stop it any time soon. Millions of dollars change hands on a weekly basis because of child porn. Might as well just license it and tax it like drugs.

Don't say unfortunately

[Snaller]

No matter what you do you can't prevent it. There are millions of people who get their jollies from that, and they will always find a way around it. Only if you have armed guards in all rooms watching all people would you have a chance of preventing it - and that assume none of the guards were bribeable - or pedophiles...

This just brings totally draconian censorship and totalitarianism down on the rest us.

Now capital punishment might work, eventually you'd have removed those gene lines from the pool.

It's a pretty poor argument

[99luftballon]

Look, the deal isn't perfect and certainly the banned list needs to be reviewed and an appeals process built in.

But, to misquote South Park, these people fuck children. I'll fight for internet free speech and open access but not for this, it's one of the few things I'd be in favour of blocking because it's abuse.

You could argue it's the thin end of the wedge and if it is then I'll fight alongside to prevent other stuff being banned. Just not this.

Re:It's a pretty poor argument

[Anonymous Coward]

What people fuck kids?

I've never seen a real child being fucked by a predator. I've seen plenty of porn where young porn stars 18 - 21 get fucked by older, grunting men but I've never seen real, exploitative child porn and I've traveled to the depths of the net. I have, on occasion seen questionably young girls fucked by their boyfriends... but what's being tabled here has nothing to do with preventing teenagers taking pics of themselves fucking. Get your head out of your ass.

Re:It's a pretty poor argument

[99luftballon]

I've been shown child pornography by the police while writing an article on this and this is not teenagers mucking around, it's children being abused by adults.

Not that I disagree with the sentiment....

[Junta]

But don't use misleading attributions. The first sentence is Hitler, from Mein Kampf. It was speaking on the view that the duty of the people is to produce healthy children and not burden society with the support of children. Not to protect the children, but to have useful children. A disturbing sentiment when considering how extreme Hitler took things like this, but orthogonal to this discussion.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin is the person who actually wrote that quote, putting the totalitarian twist on it to link it to an excuse to curtail liberty. It's insightful, but not directly linked to Hitler's strategy for totalitarianism. He wasn't nearly so subtle as that.

Re:Not that I disagree with the sentiment....

[Anonymous Coward]

The quote is on page 402 of Mein Kampf.

How is that not "attributable to Hitler"?

No! Really?

[Flicker]

You must be mistaken. I can't believe they'd mislead us like that.

Interesting comment from TFA

[Reziac]

Someone commented thusly following TFA:

======
1) Usenet is not the problem by anonymous coward on Jul 18th, 2008 @ 10:45am

I always suspected that child pornography isn't nearly as invasive as people say it is, and now I know for sure that's the case.

I have been involved in Usenet for 10 years, and have at times decoded the entire newsfeed, including all of the alt.pictures.erotica groups. There is no child porn there. Even on the newsgroups that supposedly feature it, there is a very small amount, but most is just ads for porn sites and random legal porn that people are cross-posting.

In truth, Usenet is one of the worst places to put illegal images. There is zero privacy, there is no private clubs where you can make sure your illegal activities are viewed by only a few. And there is little anonymity, because almost all ISPs keep logs of Usenet posting.

One wonders if the anti-piracy people are really behind this somehow. Piracy, unlike child pornography, is rampant on Usenet.
=========

More Effective

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Major ISPs, a lot more CP would be cut off if you blocked all HTTP traffic instead. Why don't you try that? Your customers will thank you!

Welcome to Salem

[Reziac]

We seem to be rapidly returning to a society where across the board, a mere accusation is sufficient to determine guilt, and where anyone can scream "WITCH!" and the law will make it stick, valid or not.

It's not just CP and ISPs and DCMA either. Here in California, it's the proposed AB1634, which in its new incarnation allows anyone to accuse without merit, and the accusation WILL be taken as proof of guilt, with absolutely no recourse and no protection from the Bill of Rights. That it happens to target pets is irrelevant. What's truly scary is how it codifies witch-hunting. And once that precedent is back in legal force, ANY aspect of our lives can far more readily follow the same legislative and regulatory path.

Welcome to Salem, in the year of our Lord 1689.

Usenet is no ordinary internet service

[wiredlogic]

The ISPs are just using the child porn angle as an excuse to get rid of supporting a service they see used by only a small fraction of their user base.

However, it is worth looking at the Usenet problem from the ISPs perspective. Unlike most internet services, Usenet is decentralized and requires mass distribution of the articles traversing the network. This represents a significant storage and bandwidth burden for the ISPs if they are to maintain a reasonable time span of articles. It also isn't entirely fair to frame this proposal as "blocking" in the same sense as the efforts to block P2P traffic and the like. Supporting Usenet incurs real costs for the ISPs and it has always been their perogative to choose what groups they want to carry on their servers. A much better solution to the storage problem is to just drop alt.binaries.* wholesale. The heyday of legitimate Usenet porn is long gone and I can't believe there is much remaining legitimate non-porn activity that hasn't moved to the web. Is anyone really going to cry over the loss of alt.binaries.pictures.pets when they can get their fix at places like kittenwar?

Inquiring Minds Would Like To Know

[Gazzonyx]

Just to clarify; is that free beer?
Or is that free, as in speech, beer?

Re:Inquiring Minds Would Like To Know

[Tpl2000]

"-->SELL-- 'as much beer as you can drink'" no, he's getting paid.

LETS BLOCK CHILD PRODUCTION

[Anonymous Coward]

this will get rid of the supply side in about 18 years.... I'm kidding of course

GP had a legit point

[BenEnglishAtHome]

Does watching regular porn stop you from having sex in real life? Just about every guy I know watches porn, and they still fuck women.

I do both, just like most guys. BUT - I know I'd grudgingly just watch porn and never again touch a woman if fucking women was illegal and could get me thrown in the pen for the rest of my life.

Isn't that actually the choice that pedophiles face?

Actually, come to think of it, if that was my choice I'd probably just kill myself. Life wouldn't be worth living.

I guess it's no wonder that most pedophiles are supposed to suffer from depression.

Re:GP had a legit point

[The End Of Days]

I guess it's no wonder that most pedophiles are supposed to suffer from depression.

Well, you know, it's kinda hard knowing that you have to hurt kids to attain sexual satisfaction. Depression is the least they should have to worry about.

Re:GP had a legit point

[stuntmanmike]

I know I'd grudgingly just watch porn and never again touch a woman if fucking women was illegal and could get me thrown in the pen for the rest of my life.

I wouldn't. Homosexuals didn't, even at times when getting caught meant the rest of your life was going to be pretty short.

Isn't that actually the choice that pedophiles face? Actually, come to think of it, if that was my choice I'd probably just kill myself.

I would encourage anyone actually facing that to consider castration instead.

Yes, it sucks for the people who have to struggle with it, but let's not lose perspective here. The real victims aren't the adults that can't stop jacking off to kids. Their consumption of those materials creates a demand, and where there is demand, there will be supply. The victims are the poor kids who end up scarred for life because they trusted the wrong person.

Impact on Freenet?

[BenEnglishAtHome]

IF the people doing this are right and there's lots of CP on usenet,
IF the people doing this are right and there's lots of web sites with CP,
IF the CMEC does a good job of finding all the sites and groups,
IF all the major ISPs actually wind up blocking the resources used to obtain CP,

THEN...

Will we finally get enough Freenet nodes online for the network to become usably fast?

Naw. I didn't think so either.

McCain and his policy

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGHirCmkiPk

McCain and his policy

Damned straight

[JoeGee]

You're right, it's not free speech, it's not a step down the slippery slope, it's not to-may-to versus to-mah-to. It's children, some of them *babies*, being used for sexual purposes. From what I knew as of 2005, the problem was in BBS's, not in usenet, unless steganography is now widely being used to conceal photos within other photos?

ISP's? Hell, I went after an individual in Alabama in 1998 for CP. The local PD were clueless, the FBI (in Cincinatti, Cleveland, and Tuscaloosa) had gone home for the weekend, and the ISP, when they found out what was being hosted on their service, *wiped the server hard drive*, destroying the evidence.

Don't leave enforcement to ISP's. Start with the international payment services and credit card companies. Hold them liable for honoring charges to CP sites. Educate citizens that *viewing* CP is a felony. Standardize national laws regarding CP.

The RIAA is killing off the "independent providers

[plasmacutter]

Part of the reason usenet is still around today is because ISP's were major contributors to the hosting at the time the content industry challenged their existence. This set a court precedent of usenet as a neutral intermediary protected by the DMCA safe harbor provision.

Unfortunately, the RIAA is trying to kill off the independent providers under the MGM V Grokster decision, which, contrary to what these self important USSC justices might think, did fully and completely overturn betamax and threaten the one good portion of the DMCA (see: Viacom V Youtube)

Picture this...

[Anonymous Coward]

No More 4Chan

They are also collecting knuckle-unders

[wingfinger]

They are collecting people, groups, and businesses that are willing to knuckle-under, given a signal to do so. The fact that the action is partially indiscriminate and lacks the expectation of lasting success within the purported cause, shows that the collection can be useful in the future.

Death Wish, ISP Style

[LifesABeach]

About 10 years ago, my ISP boss stumbled over a chat room on his server where this stuff was being talked about. He call the F.B.I., they told him to do some stuff. A couple of weeks later, an agent shows up and the problem was handled. One thing I can say about this was, "Those Perverted Nut Jobs know each other", and it still creeps me out to remember it. But in thinking about ISP's stepping up to take the law in their hands may not be the way to handle this perverted need. There is a department of the government referred to as the F.B.I., this is very much their Jurisdiction. If an person sees Child Pornography, report it to the local F.B.I. office. There are agents there that know how to handle this correctly. If an ISP shuts down something and states it was for something illegal, or not "allowed"; that ISP has just given the victim a reason to sue for damages. I know a lot of ISP folks, personally, none of them would take a bullet for their beliefs; and when their facing a person they have publicly destroyed, I do not think an ISP would take the "Moral High Road". And the more I think about it, an ISP that starts taking the law into their hands is setting themselves up for a class action solution.

"Objectionable" Content and Who Gets to Decide

[Lanir]

"Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review."

That's a very silly statement. You have to remember two questions and their answers to work with any situation like this.

1. Whose network is it?
2. Whose money is paying for it in the end?

Failure to address the issue in terms of the answers to those questions is just engaging in poor man's politics which is otherwise known as grousing aimlessly about things you aren't willing to take a stand on.

Here is an example of what was actually blocked

[Anonymous Coward]

Commands from cron.daily:

brag -q -s news.la.sbcglobal.net -l my_user_id@sbcglobal.net -p my_password -g alt.binaries.e-book.technical -o /uu/technical/;
cd /home/user1/.brag; find -name '[0-9]*' -type d -mtime +6 | xargs rm -rf

FRAGMENT OF CRON'S OUTPUT:

-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  4512931 2008-07-12 01:08 Artist_ Inventor_ and Renaissance Man.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  7689808 2008-07-12 01:22 A very Short Introduction.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users 15551091 2008-07-12 01:12 Continental Airlines _2002_.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users 26029547 2008-07-12 01:07 Harry Potter Coloring Fun Book.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  8168016 2008-07-12 01:22 Imperial Russia_ 1689_1917.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  2143149 2008-07-12 01:07 Maritime Exploration in the Age of Discovery.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  3027646 2008-07-12 01:08 Morgan.Kaufmann.TCP.IP.Sockets.in.Java.2nd.Edition.Feb.2008.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  4644594 2008-07-12 01:09 Nation_ State and the Economy in History.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users 20451797 2008-07-12 01:17 Natural_Products_From_Plants.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  5875812 2008-07-12 01:12 OpenCms.7.Development.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users   330450 2008-07-12 01:09 OReilly___Photoshop_Fine_Arts_Effects_Cookbook.chm
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users 10508727 2008-07-12 01:17 Packt.Publishing.Drupal.5.Themes.Feb.2008.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  8862656 2008-07-12 01:17 Peachpit.Press.The.Digital.Photography.Book.Aug.2006.chm
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  7216632 2008-07-12 01:17 Peptidomics Methods and Applications.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  3520171 2008-07-12 01:18 Pesticide Chemistry.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  3120648 2008-07-12 01:18 Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  4129115 2008-07-12 01:19 Pragmatic.Bookshelf.FXRuby.Create.Lean.and.Mean.GUIs.with.Ruby.Apr.2008.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  2129188 2008-07-12 01:19 Prentice.Hall.Effective.Java.2nd.Edition.May.2008.3000th.Release.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users  8528146 2008-07-12 01:22 The Twentieth Century.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 users 16755446 2008-07-12 01:15 The World Geographical Encyclopedia _Gale_ 2002_.djvu

Child Porn = Terrorism = Emmanuel Goldstein

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, compared to any *ACTUAL* threat what *actual* damage does kiddy porn cause? Not anecdotally, but real statistics. Can we compare it to number of people killed by choking on a candy bar? How about compared to the number of innocent people who's lives have been ruined by Dubya's war on terror? Or how about hundreds of thousands of dead in the Iraq sanctions ("worth it")? Can somebody come up with some explanation of how kiddy porn is more damaging than this?

We are going to rip up the right to free expression because of this?

Look: the only hope we have of getting rid of the current tyranny is to get candid information about the tyrants. This information had been withheld by the "news" organizations in the last hundred years and is only now being made available on the internet.

Government response: "OH MY GOD THEY ARE GOING TO RAPE YOUR KIDS!!!!!". You idiots believe them, and empower them to shut down your access to the truth that they are a bunch of thieving murdering scum.

Frankly you deserve what's coming to you if you go along with this.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I was exploited for child pornography over the internet. I feel qualified to comment. Child porn might be distributed on Usenet but new children are being groomed over the internet every day and that's not happening on Usenet. I came from a background of family abuse, I was a very lonely kid and the internet is where I sought attention. I met one much older man who was very nice to me, he told me we were falling in love and told me sending him photos were a way to express our love. This kind of crime happens in message boards and chatrooms, NOT on Usenet.

What would discontinuing Usenet done to prevent what happened to me? Absolutely nothing. Furthermore, when I actually reported what happened to me to the police they horribly mismanaged the case and this man still runs the message board where we met. The media might make a fuss over this but as long as law enforcement doesn't care children will still be exploited.

D'oh

[smartdreamer]

As anybody seen anything else than a way to take more power over users with no control whatsoever!? With a good publicity if that was not enough. Take ten seconds to think about it and you'll understand it would not even be feasable with current technology if ISP even bothered about doing something about child pornography.

Resume: "Say you're in and you'll have power to block whatever page for any customer without him be able to protest. Also, you'll officially be with the good one and there is not requierement to do anything proactive. What to ask more?"

Yah RIGHT!

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot access Road Runner Newsgroups or download articles?
As of June 23, 2008, Road Runner will no longer offer Newsgroups, however users can subscribe on their own to third party News providers.

Why is Road Runner discontinuing their own Newsgroups service?
Due to low subscriber usage Road Runner has decided to discontinue Newsgroups service as of June 23, 2008.

Better to turn off Usenet than spying on it

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe me. It may be better to turn Usenet off than approve a new Law that carries the flag of being anti-childporn while only have one article dealing with it. This is happening in Brazil apparently with the hidden agenda of government surveillance. As a brazilian, I'd rather having the Usenet turned off than having a Law like that.

Dying

[Slashdot Parent]

2. furthermore, nntp is a dying protocol

Ahh, but does Netcraft confirm it?