India To Ban .xxx Domain

An anonymous reader writes "The Indian government have said they will introduce measures to block the newly approved .xxx domain from the country. The Economic Times reports that 'India along with many other countries from the Middle East and Indonesia opposed the grant of the domain in the first place, and we would proceed to block the whole domain, as it goes against the IT Act and Indian laws.'"

Comments

Nobody saw that coming

[guyminuslife]

Excuse the pun.

This is exactly why we didn't want the .xxx domain name. It seems like it exists for the sole purpose of being censored.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I haven't quite decided on whether it exists to be censored, or as some sort of unwholesome baptists/bootleggers coalition between those who want censorship to be easier and those who want smut to be yet more profitable(and some of that cash to go to them).

A given human-readable domain name in some TLD just has to be DNS-able back to an IP with something on it in order to be functional. There is no requirement that it be the only domain name that points back to that IP, or that it only point back to one IP. Given that, I'd expect that a fair slice of the .xxx names will simply be purchased by porn outfits who are already online under .com, .net, or others and will point back to exactly the same IPs and servers. Those will represent easy money for whoever runs .xxx; but blocking them will achieve very little, since they will just be a second alias pointing to something that is already pointed to by 'respectable' domains(or obscure TLDs that are super cheap, and who cares as long as our pagerank is good).

Anybody who is .xxx only will, indeed, be fairly easily censored; but that won't be too helpful to the powers-that-be unless someone manages to require all smut to show up only on .xxx(and how exactly would that be accomplished? Individual nations can restrict use of their own TLDs, or make operating porn servers criminal, or what have you; but nation X can't really tell smut.net in nation Y what TLDs it can or can't have domain names in...) Whether or not .xxx is largely a tool of people who just want another TLD to spin money from(not as bad as those "hey, let's let literally any string be a TLD!" nuisances; but in the same vein...), or whether there is a bloc of ignorant moralists who think that .xxx will magically force all the smut into that one area, where it can be blocked, or whether the moralist bloc is playing a long game, and the eventual plan is some sort of legislative shove is not yet clear to me...

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[mewsenews]

This is exactly why we didn't want the .xxx domain name. It seems like it exists for the sole purpose of being censored.

I would argue the exact opposite and say that this is why we DID want the TLD to exist.

Reputable smut dealers don't exactly try to hide what they're selling and will have no problem hosting their domains under the .xxx TLD.

Most people have no problem with the product in adult hands, but would like it to be as easy as possible to block traffic from .xxx domains to an elementary school library without some stupid third party whitelist or blacklist.

It works out for everybody except porn fans in puritanical countries, as TFA illustrates.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[dgatwood]

Not without a lot of collateral damage, you can't. There's nothing stopping a single hosting server from serving Whitehouse.gov and Whitehouse.com on the same IP.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Pharmboy]

The thing is, it's not exactly possible to censor a TLD.

Not only is it possible, it is relatively trivial to do. All they have to do is get all ISPs to redirect all port 53 requests to internal DNS servers, then filter their own DNS servers as they wish. Then it is a matter of the DNS server essentially returning "127.0.0.1" for *.xxx That should take care of more than 99% of users. Pretty effective by anyone's standards.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[drinkypoo]

It works out for everybody except porn fans in puritanical countries, as TFA illustrates.

I can't help but notice the influence the religious reich holds over American politics...

Excellent play

[NFN_NLN]

Excellent move by the Indians.

Nobody wants there porn censored out, not even the Indians (except a few crazy religious zealots). By declaring they will censor it immediately this will surely kill the .xxx domain AND ensure they can get their porn the good ol'fashioned way as they've already been doing.

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

The religious zealots are also the ones consuming. You can look at the consumption rate in Utah for example. (It is much higher)

http://techliberation.com/2009/03/02/conservatives-porn-and-community-standards/

Re:Excellent play

[binary paladin]

Their prescription drug abuse tops the charts. Who needs to loosen up with a beer when you can get Vicodin for a hangnail. Remember, if your doctor okays it, so does your god!

Re:Excellent play

[oliverthered]

all that really says is conservatives think they should pay for sex, liberals may well, being liberal and all, get the stuff for free.... possibly off some other liberal hippy chicks.

or a million and one other reasons (e.g. liberals put out easier than conservatives so there are more people in conservative places who ain't getting any)

But there is one thing that should be noted.... people tell you about themselves... so if they think that only dirty perverts watch porn, they must have gotten that idea from somewhere and have some idea what a dirty pervert is. Given Theory of Mind and other models... chances are it's cos they are dirty perverts.

Why are they against the domain?

[Kaz Kylheku]

Why are they against porn being collected into a domain that they can easily block?

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[tacarat]

Exactly. If you lived in those countries, porn access wasn't allowed anyhow (pretty much unenforceable, though). It won't change anything. Porn sites will keep their .com/net/sheep TLD names and have a .xxx one. Countries or networks with filters in place will still have circumvention by whatever means are needed. The politicians and folks in power can now make empty boasts about cleaning up the internet and the rest of us can still enjoy the things from the pre-.xxx world like nothing happened.

Wake me up when the US Bible belt states try to ban access to a certain classic that has a part where two daughters get their father drunk specifically so they can have sex with him.

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[Baseclass]

Genesis 19:32-36 (King James Version)

Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

Makes me wonder

[Nikker]

Kinda makes you wonder though, if so many people are against pornography that they had made it law, why would they need the law since none of them would look at it anyway?

Re:Makes me wonder

[Wingnut64]

Slashdot comment pulled from my quotes file:

Social conservatives keep demanding laws to regulate everyone because their usual tools of ostracism and shame are only effective within their own communities.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Kjella]

Because religion puts you up to being a busybody. As individuals I mind my business and you mind yours as long as it doesn't have too ill effects on each other. But if you're seeing this as a sin and an offense against god, then it's not just my choice and your choice but a Right and a Wrong choice.

To religious nuts it's like trying to say that a cancer cell isn't better or worse than other cells, just different. They want a society that encourages people to make the Right choice and discourages them from making the Wrong choice. They want to push their way of life, their moral systems and their belief on you. They want to cleanse society of sin and taint and if you like your sinning ways that's a problem that needs solving, not a choice to be respected.

As for why pornography? Because lust is such a basic feeling in people, I doubt there's any religious man who isn't at least feeling somewhat guilty for having naughty thoughts. That's the hook that makes people work for religion, they give you guilt then let you work towards forgiveness. Religion is a bit like evolution, it doesn't care how it survives it's only about numbers - births and converts.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Kjella]

Religion doesn't put people up to that, they do it on their own. Islam, Christianity and Buddhism in particular do not allow for that sort of behavior as a route to the goal. It's something which the ignorant amongst them do, and if you actually study up on the theological aspect it's really clear that such individuals are not in keeping with the religion.

If you claim the ignorant is 90%, maybe. Christianity and Catholicism in particular has been doing it for 1500 years at least with absolution of your sins. And if you think being a good Buddhist is easy, try following the Eightfold Path and you'll quite quickly see it's near impossible to be that good. So to offset that you haven't been a living saint, you donate to the Tibetan monks or whatever. When you add up the collective guilt of a people you get a lot of money and a lot of power. You do know a fairly central part of the Lord's Prayer is "and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us," - it's pretty clear you need to seek the Lord's forgiveness and often too. And don't get me started on Islam, between halal and haraam and prayers and pilgrimages and then some there's more than enough to give the average Muslim guilt too. Of course on the flip side you could say this is simply religion asking us to better ourselves, but in practice the bar is such that almost no one feels pious enough.

Re:Makes me wonder

[LordLucless]

I think what the previous poster was saying is that those religions don't encourage imposing that sort of behaviour outside their community. All the rules in the Bible are for either the Jews (OT) or the Christians (NT). Pretty much the only thing Christians are supposed to do in regards to non-Christians is to tell them about Jesus.

The problem exists when you have a theocracy - which was essentially what we had during the middle ages, and what some Americans believe the US has now. In a theocracy, everyone must belong to the religion in question, therefore state laws applying principles that should only be applied to members of the religious community is somewhat consistent.

Re:Ehh

[mwvdlee]

Banning the entire .xxx TLD; I didn't see that one coming.

Who would have thought.

[pclminion]

A sovereign nation taking steps to enforce their own moral and legal standards. What is the world coming to?

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

Nations aren't supposed to enforce moral standards.

Re:Who would have thought.

[hedwards]

The US bars and prosecutes people for cannibalism when it comes up, but in the past their have been societies that engaged in it from time to time as a part of the culture. I'm not sure if any still exist, but that's definitely a moral call and one that has the full force of law.

The relevant question is at what point it becomes reasonable for a government to regulate it or ban it or has to just deal with people having other morals.

Re:The whole xxx thing is a joke

[Seumas]

This is why I disagree with idiots who go around touting the whole "PROTECT THE CHILDREN!" bullshit with the intention of nerfing everything in the world at the expense of free expression and consumption by adults and in favor of someone's children. Nobody is forcing parents not to parent. Nobody is forcing parents not to censors their children's content. There's too much risk and corruption in allowing some organized body of people (think the MPAA creeps, here, which are composed mostly of people in their 50s or later with children in their 20s or later, plus a protestant and a baptist minister who don't vote, but offer their thoughts to the censors who vote in secret and offer no guidance on what is or isn't obscene, but they know it when they see it) to classify content for people.

If the consequence is that your precious little snot-producing dimwit may or may not come across a pair of tits or a couple of dicks at some point in his life and completely lose his shit over it, then so be it. I don't see any purpose for making exceptions or allowances here. The potential price of going down that road is too steep.

Re:Ehh

[Dan541]

Yea, not like porn sites have any other TLD they can use.

Re:So why did they not support it?

[jrumney]

Perhaps they opposed the introduction of the domain because the politicians like their porn as much as any other red blooded male (perhaps even more due to the repressed society in which they live), and now they have no excuse not to block it.

Re:Good

[shutdown -p now]

So, what does the Islamic Law say on open proxies, Tor and Freenet?

We don't need peeps watching sex.

[Nyder]

With our population problem, it's best if peeps didn't have sex on their minds. -- Indian Official

Re:this is perfect.

[Krishnoid]

Dogbert figured this out a while back. Let's hope CNN lets us know how it works out for these governments.

Re:Ehh

[Grishnakh]

While India does have a sizable Muslim population, I thought the beautiful culture that made the Kama Sutra was destroyed and buried by British conquering and colonization, and their prudish ways.

Islam certainly isn't very friendly to such things either, though. Interesting how the cultures that have become dominant on Earth are the ones that hate fun and freedom the most.

If India blocks a whole TLD

[formfeed]

.. how can one get phone support for that TLD?

Re:Ehh

[t2t10]

That same "beautiful culture" also had a caste system and a history of enormous inequality and poverty stretching back three millennia. While the British certainly did some damage, a lot of India's social and cultural problems are old and home-made.

Re:Ehh

[Grishnakh]

So what? These aren't valid criticisms, because almost every culture has them. Inequality? British culture was full of inequality back then, and still has it. Ever heard of the King/Queen? That's no different from what the Indians already had, with monarchs and hereditary rulers. Even today, inequality is becoming greater and greater in places like the USA, which is now more of a banana republic than any other, as it has a greater difference between the rich and the poor than just about any society in history.

Poverty? 1700s-1800s Britain was full of terrible poverty.

The British taking over India certainly didn't fix any of these problems. What the British brought to India wasn't any better than what the Indians already had, and was mostly worse.

Can anyone register a .xxx domain?

[Dwonis]

I'm seriously considering moving some of my websites to .xxx and not having porn on them (anybody want to register laughingsto.xxx?). Are there any restrictions to registering whatever you want on .xxx?

Oh, and for the record, RFC 3675 anticipated this whole mess.

Re:Ehh

[Vegemeister]

I would welcome a google.xxx if it would autocomplete profanity.

Re:Can you imagine www.disney.xxx?

[lessthan]

Yes! Pocahontas has been a naughty girl!

.xxx domain AND IPv6

[OldSoldier]

If you believe this article the powers that be should force all porn providers to use IPv6 addresses too. If porn helps push technology forward then this should help IPv6 rollout.