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The Courts Government United States News Your Rights Online

Pennsylvania Court Forces ISPs to Block Porn Sites 556

Posted by chrisd from the that'll-keep-them-from-the-bad-stuff dept.
jkastner writes "Salon is reporting that Pennsylvania is forcing ISPs to block web sites that have child porn. While we can all agree that child porn is bad, this sort of approach starts us down a slipperly slope. If one site slips through, does that make the ISP liable? In addition, the court ordered blocking may prevent access to legitimate sites that are hosted on the same server."
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Pennsylvania Court Forces ISPs to Block Porn Sites More

Pennsylvania Court Forces ISPs to Block Porn Sites

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  • Good! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (reggoh.gip)> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:10AM (#5343549) Journal
    This means that there will be more bandwidth available when we surf for pr0n, since all those kinky amish won't be able to go there too!!!

  • Court orders without how to do it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WPIDalamar ( 122110 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:12AM (#5343572) Homepage
    It's wacky that courts can order companies to do things, and not suggest ways of doint it.

    This wouldn't be news if the court had listed the sites it wants blocked. Let the court make the distinction between allowed and not allowed once, instead of making every single ISP make those choices.

    Kind of like a court saying, "Hey, <INSERT POWER COMPANY HERE> you have to start using fusion power next year."
    • Somebody can/will correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they have a list that they are going to give to ISPs, it's just that they're not publishing it so they don't give the pervs some new sites they might not know about?
      • So the Pennsylvania government will be keeping a secret list of sites to block? And they won't be publicizing it because it will help people find sites which are supposed to be blocked anyway? That sounds like a contradiction to me.

        (And I'm not implying you said it made sense, but these are my thoughts based on the point you raise.)
        • No because the block will be in PA only, if you make the list public pervs world wide will get it.

          • Re:Court orders without how to do it. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Psmylie ( 169236 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @12:08PM (#5344085) Homepage
            Pervs will get it anyway. They are insidious that way.
            Actually, I'm pretty sure if there was a comprehensive list of kiddie porn sites that 2 things would happen:
            1: Most ISP's would voluntarily block those sites
            2: The kiddie porn sites would simply switch hosting on a regular basis (like they do now) to keep one step ahead of law enforcement and blocking policies.

            The problem that I have with this is that it seems to put the responsibility for determining what is and is not legal in the hands of people who are not qualified to make that decision. So, if I have vacation pics of my kids at the beach, they might decide to block the site just to be on the safe side.

    • Like asking telephone companies to block (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonym0us Cow Herd ( 231084 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @12:00PM (#5344018)
      How would the telephone company implement an order to block, say, terrorist planning conversations?

      The telephone company is hereby ordered to block phone numbers of terrorists.

  • Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:13AM (#5343576) Journal
    How do they block it without knowing what the sites are?

    If they know where the sites are, why haven't they been shut down?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 )
      If they know where the sites are, why haven't they been shut down?

      The sites probably aren't in Pennsylvania. They might be anywhere in the world.

      • Goverment Conspiracy? (Score:5, Funny)

        by edgezone ( 51898 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:55AM (#5343978) Homepage

        If they know where the sites are, why haven't they been shut down?

        The sites probably aren't in Pennsylvania. They might be anywhere in the world.

        Oh, I think you're on to something here. The goverment start requiring blocking all domains that might have child porn, leaving only iraqi domains unblocked, so all child porn sites end up migrating to the underutilized .iq (is pr0n.raises-your.iq registered yet?)...and in the name of all that is decent and family values, we finally have a reason to invade and bomb iraq! oh wait, nevermind.

    • Most ISPs can't even block spam.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gilesjuk ( 604902 ) <<giles.jones> <at> <zen.co.uk>> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:22AM (#5343656)
      So how do they intend to block such sites?

      Scanning emails for spam is pretty easy, all the mail comes into your server. Blocking websites is a lot harder, you will need a transparent proxy with lots of rules or a list of sites to block. User changes their DNS server and uses a third party proxy and voila, no more blocked sites.
      • If they just have a list of sites to block, they'll normally block the hostname, and sometimes the IP.

        So if for some reason PA wanted to block slashdot they'd keep me from using slashdot.org, and possibly 66.35.250.1 (/.'s current IP). However, couldn't I still connect with 0102.043.0372.01 (66.35.250.1 in base 8)?

        Note: if you use slashdot's IP instead of hostname it looks like you're entering the backend. It isn't that way with most sites.

        • Re:Most ISPs can't even block spam.... (Score:5, Informative)

          by aridhol ( 112307 ) <ka_lac@hotmail.com> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @12:31PM (#5344321) Homepage Journal
          However, couldn't I still connect with 0102.043.0372.01 (66.35.250.1 in base 8)?
          No, that wouldn't work. By the time the IP address gets out of your computer, it's no longer a set of four 8-bit numbers, but a single 32-bit number. So the routers that are blocking the address just have to match up the IP address in the header, as a single 32-bit number, or more likely as a masked 32-bit number (network instead of host).

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

      by moominpapa ( 193163 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:26AM (#5343705)
      They can ask Pete Townshend where the sites are ;-)
    • How do they block it without knowing what the sites are?

      Obviously they can't. They have to identify the site first.

      If they know where the sites are, why haven't they been shut down?

      I assume, because of jurisdiction. Remember this is a Pennsylvania court.

    • double standards (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:50AM (#5343925) Homepage Journal
      Research is the only way that they could know.

      Pennsylvania's attorney general, Republican Mike Fisher, is leading the state's effort, which already has forced Internet providers to block subscribers from at least 423 Web sites around the world.

      423 kiddie porn sites?! I hope the Attorney General has his office raided and his computers inspected for that, the man should be in jail. Anyone else would be in jail for that kind of collection.

      This is arguably one of the worst pieces of news in a while. Once, we laughed at places like Saudi Arabia for trying to censor the internet. Now we are to have state mandated censorship as well.

      Mr. Fisher, your efforts are not appreciated. You conclude that everyone in your state is into kiddie porn and that gives you a right to interfere with the press also known as the internet. It's offensive and unconstitional. Kiddie porn is vile and illegal already, but you are going to have to respect the rights of the rest of us while you catch people who can tell you where the best kiddie porn is. Your monitoring of my web surfing or email is a violation of the fourth amendment. Any restrictions you might place on my web surfing, however well intentioned, are violations of the first amendment. If you have reasonable suspisions backed with evidence you are ready to swear to in a public court of law, then you might be able to look in a particular place at a particular time. You might even be able to watch the web surfing of an individual for a limited time.

      In the end, the only way to end the kiddie porn industry is to teach the world to have respect for their fellow man. Children would not be violated if people would not violate each other. Abuse of state power, presumption of guilt, and disrespect for your fellow citizens are all steps in the wrong direction. Aid to countries where this occurs would be a better use of your money.

      • Where do we draw the line in the sand, This is slashdot and many people here are from the US, but we also have a lot of people from other countries. How do they view this. In Holland, at 15 your an adult and can be in porn if you like. Is this a problem? Where did we pick the magical age of 18 and do we have the right to impose it on everyone? I personally enjoy the look of a mature woman, which is why my wife is 4 years older than I am and I find her sexy every day I wake up. But what if I was 17, and I took pictures of my 17 year old girlfriend, do I go to jail? you can't expect a 17 or 16 year old boy or girl to want to look at people much older than themselves. hmmm... and then there is this issue of men of my age looking at young girls. This really pisses me off, but I have a daughter, so maybe my view is biased. See that is the problem in this country. Were always so gung ho about picking a random moral standard and forcing everyone to follow it. We get pissed off over child porn, but then I see, we don't seem to respect our own principles in our own homes. I often drive my daughter and her friends to drop them off at the movies, or the mall, and I see these parents who let their 13 year old daughters leave the house in outfits that would make me blush to have seen my wife wearing in college. mid drift shirts and belly button rings, thong underwear very vissible. This pisses me off, but you don't see me running out to make a law against mid drift shirts, or belly button piercings, although I feel this causes more rapes to happen than any child porn we can imagine. I guess my point is, that life is subjective, and we must be careful what laws we start throwing around willy nilly, a friend of mine in college became a nudist when she got married, she has kids and a husband and has been happily married for 15 years, should I look down on her, because it is not the lifestyle I chose. Let me reitterate, men who take erotic pictures of children should die a horrible death, but I just don't want our laws suddenly starting to infringe on the rights of the innocent, and I fear vague rulings such as these could result in that.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by scoove ( 71173 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:52AM (#5343951)
      How do they block it without knowing what the sites are?

      Exactly. I'd have to require a list to impose anything per court order. To expect otherwise would be like asking the police to "just go get all the criminals out there - we don't have names, but make sure you get them all."

      This issue will certainly be moved up on appeal, and I'd have to believe it will lose as it violates the framework of common carrier. You can trust that no service provider will permit themselves to operate without those protections - Prodigy's embarrassing loss in the 90s (due to its policy of filtering some content and therefore providing a guarantee thta the content was free from offensive material, vs. the Compuserve case where they clearly disclaimered "life has risk" and let people determine where they wanted to go) is enough of a reminder of where we service providers do not want to go.

      I think it'd be wonderful to demand the list from the State of Pennsylvania, and then when they miss a site, hold them accountable. Or if they accidentally block a site, nail them for interfering with commerce.

      BTW, it'd help if people would quit electing nanny-wannabees...

      *scoove*

  • They just need to ask for a list... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by z-kungfu ( 255628 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:13AM (#5343578)
    ...of sites to be blocked. I worked at an ISP and at one time a rather irate customer wanted all of a certian kind of pr0n blocked. We simply asked for a list of all those sites that they wanted blocked. This simply made them go away...

  • Now, how is this going to work? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (reggoh.gip)> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:14AM (#5343585) Journal
    I RTFA, and:
    Connolly, the spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general, said Wednesday that in such cases involving a Web site with a shared address, authorities contact the Web-hosting companies and order them -- under threat of legal action -- to pinpoint and shut down the illegal pornographic sites.
    Does the reach of the Pennsylvania attorney general extends beyond the border of Pennsylvania, or, for that matter, beyond the border of the USA? No? So, how it's gonna work?
    • Beyond that, if indeed they can do this for "shared" website, what stops them from doing it from non shared ones? Or is child porn ok as along as we can block it from OUR community?
    • ...authorities contact the Web-hosting companies and order them -- under threat of legal action -- to pinpoint and shut down the illegal pornographic sites.

      Okay... english isn't my native lingo, but the way I read this the web-hosting companies will be asked to find (pinpoint) the illegal porn. To me, this seems to mean that someone working for the ISP will have to search through all the 'net for illegal porn...

      Somehow, I don't think thats the best way to make illegal porn go away...
      • I can just see it now...

        The PA ISP's need YOU! Make $50/hr scouring the net for kiddie porn!

        Sad thing is, they might have to...

        Q. Why doesn't PA require the post office to ban ordering of kid pr0n through the mail? Maybe because that's more intuitive and they see how ridiculous it is?

    • Does the reach of the Pennsylvania attorney general extends beyond the border of Pennsylvania

      Most assuredly.

      A friend of mine spent two years in an Alabama jail for running a "porn" BBS from his home in Florida. There was nothing on his site that was any more explicit than what you would see in Playboy (some fur but no pink.) It didn't stop a grandstanding bible-thumping asshole from sticking him in jail.

  • Not their call (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gurnb ( 80987 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:14AM (#5343587) Homepage
    Not that I'm in any way in favor of Kiddie-Porn, but this simply isn't the States call to make.
    Do they stop the US Mail from delivery Kiddie-Porn within the state?

    • Re:Not their call (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fwr ( 69372 )
      No, the Federal government does, because US mail delivery is clearly a Federal government task. It isn't clear who is responsible for Internet traffic though. While it may be regulated, it is not run by the US Federal government. Would PA be in their right to stop Fed-Ex deliveries of child pornography within their state? I'd think so.

  • But.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by b96miata ( 620163 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:16AM (#5343599)
    What I'd like to know is how they expect the ISP's to know what sites do and don't have child pornography on them. I mean we've had software on the market for years to block regular porn, and look how effective that's been. This kind of thing is just not the realm of the judiciary, or even the legislature. PA's always been stupid on stuff like this, I believe there was some previous ruling/bill about blocking access to obscene material which cause standard porno boilerplate to add "if you live in PA" alongside "if you're a minor" in a number of cases. I'm not dissing pennsylvania, I live here, but the old adage about PA being Philly and pittsburgh with alabama in between is really quite true

  • I don't care (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 )
    This is a move that will help in limiting child pornography on the internet. The process of legistlation should correct the issues concerning the blocking of valid sites on the same server (at least I hope so). Besides, if my stupg blog has to go offline for a few days while the FBI gags-and-bags one of these sicko's, I'm fine with it.

    I understand that people that run businesses online can't afford to be so blase, but hey. I'm just a turd with a website.

    • You should care. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Booie Paog ( 640418 )
      Empowering an ISP to block certain content is to blatantly go against the end-to-end design which the Internet was built on. It is a slippery slope indeed. Setting a precedent like this is to give the courts the ability (i.e. and high powered self interest lawyers of corporations) to CONTROL the content layer of the Internet. Porn is bad. No doubt. But is a historical image gallery of lynchings in the American South ? Is the image of Jesus in a jar of urine ? How about a website that criticizes Republicans ? Democrats ? Catholics ? Jews ? Controlling the access to certain content should exist as the ENDS of the network, not the network itself.

    • Re:I don't care (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pheared ( 446683 )
      No one's saying it's not a noble effort to reduce child porn. The problem is a major logistical one for ISPs. Most of them work with the mindset that they are carriers, nothing more. This means they don't usually have granularity in the controls over where their customers go by region. null routing all traffic to a site is usually cake, but only traffic from Pennsylvania adds a wrinkle. Sure, it can be solved given time, money, and resources, but it's a big problem for ISPs now since they are being required by law to do this, and probably don't have extra resources just lying around.

  • Again, the problem is definition (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:17AM (#5343619)
    Is a picture of a 2 year old in the bathtub on a family website 'child porn'? It IS a picture of a naked child. And some kiddie porn purveyors would salivate over it.

    Yes, child porn is bad. So intensely bad that the website owners need to be hung up by their testicles, and then drawn and quartered.

    But...let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. If the webhost can be identified, and the website known....why are we not going after the website owner/designer?

    Don't just block it....put the ass in jail.
    • You're right, but only because of the complete lack of common sense in modern society.

      I know what child pornography is, you know what child pornography is.

      I think we would both agree that the coppertone ad where the dog is tugging at the little girls swimsuit isnt child pornography.

      But then there are the crackpots. I was watching some news show where they interviewed some little old biddy who thinks that Huggies commercials are pornographic.

      So this whole scheme is utterly useless. The people who create and disseminate child pornography need to be tracked down and prosecuted, or hunted down and shot, but not simply hidden.

      This is a "look at my tough stance on internet child porn" play for votes in a fairly conservative state, and not a feasible solution to the problem.
    • on law enforcement, which has already been proven ineffective, and is thus an embaressment to those who enforce the law.

      This punts responsibility to the poor ISP who all government officials can now point their scrawny little finger at while cackling "There's the bad guy" to the voters.

      This is actually a quite common tactic and if you examine laws closely you'll find any number of examples.

      The fact that this ruling makes no sense, is impossible to comply with, and thus defines every ISP as a child pornographer is beside the point.

      Shit rolls downhill.

      KFG

  • If you read the complete article... (Score:3, Informative)

    by oldave ( 160729 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:18AM (#5343624)
    You'll see that the state of PA orders companies that use virtual hosting to shut down the child porn sites that're on the same IP as other, legitimate sites.

    "Connolly, the spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general, said Wednesday that in such cases involving a Web site with a shared address, authorities contact the Web-hosting companies and order them -- under threat of legal action -- to pinpoint and shut down the illegal pornographic sites."

    I think there's still some question about exactly how they're enforcing this law, and as the article says, attorneys are requesting information from the PA Attorney General.

    There's no good excuse for child porn, and while this law (and therefore method) may not be the way to go about it, it's a start.

  • And another thing .... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bizitch ( 546406 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:18AM (#5343628) Homepage
    Is the ISP responsible if their users are surfing thru anonymizers or redirectors?

    What if they download that child porn via FastTrack or Gnutella?

    Where is the line drawn ... and who gets to draw it?
  • "Connolly, the spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general, said Wednesday that in such cases involving a Web site with a shared address, authorities contact the Web-hosting companies and order them -- under threat of legal action -- to pinpoint and shut down the illegal pornographic sites."

    So Pennsylvania authorities are going to call a Web-hosting company in Denmark and threaten legal action? In addition to being silly, I think that also violates US law. Foreign policy is the domain of the federal government.
    John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
    • "So Pennsylvania authorities are going to call a Web-hosting company in Denmark and threaten legal action? In addition to being silly, I think that also violates US law. Foreign policy is the domain of the federal government."

      I imagine in this case they will simply contact law enforcement agencies in Denmark or whereever. Child porn is illegal in many countries. Also, I do not think local law enforcement needs an OK from the federal government for this.

      To my knowledge our (Dutch) police already work extensively with European and US police to find purveyors of child porn and bring them to justice.

  • Great, and this is how they need to do it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by antis0c ( 133550 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:21AM (#5343649)
    Pennslyvania needs to provide ISPs a list of websites it says contains child porn. It's not an ISP's job to determine what is and isn't child porn. It's only job should be to block it if the state deems something child porn. You can't just go off enabling filters that filter out key words like child porn, etc without disabling other legitimate websites. In fact, that article itself on ISP's filtering child porn would probably be marked as a child porn site and thus filtered.

    Ah, nevermind I'll stop beating the horse.
    • that they shouldn't be blocking ANYTHING. End organizations (i.e. where you can view the porn, like your house, school, etc.) should be able to control access.

      are you suggesting that the STATE decide what content ISP customers can see and what they can't ? what if the Democratic Senator from that state decides that you can't see Republican websites ? or Catholic ones ? or Jewish ones ? yes, child porn is bad. so are a lot of things that are in newspapers, cable TV, and on the radio.

      but to give the control of that content to the people RUNNING the network flies in the face of the end-to-end design the Internet was built with.

      once you put control within the network, not at its ends, you have a situation where the vested interests (in this case, the state) can decide what is good and what is bad. that, my friend, is worse than ANY child porn you can find.
  • In addition, the court ordered blocking may prevent access to legitimate sites that are hosted on the same server.

    I don't think policies like this are meant to actually block 100% of the targeted sites, but simply to make them as unaccessible as possible. If such a targeted site is found to not be blocked I'm sure all it takes is reporting it to the ISP and it will be added to the block list.

    What I'm curious is if something like this will start going to other levels like P2P and newsgroups, where ISPs have to block any file or newsgroup that matches in a list of keyword regexp that denote child porn, I know RCN [rcn.com], my ISP, already does it for newsgroups [rcn.com].
  • This is not a bad idea, I don't think the blocking is the problem - why not close down the sites completely? Are there really any countries out there that wouldn't cooperate on such a task? Maybe blocking is a strategy to log which users visit these sites and keep them under surveillance?

    In .au the govt with Telstra have a list of sites that are collected (porn sites) that are listed as banned sites for visiting during work hours (within govt). Visiting such a site that is listed as banned gets you logged and then you need to have a good explaination as to why you shouldn't be fired. Once hotmail.com was listed and all hell broke lose - "I can't read my mail", although I wouldn't call reading hotmail mail as being work constructive.

  • Headline is misleading (Score:5, Insightful)

    by leviramsey ( 248057 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:23AM (#5343666) Journal

    The post makes it sound like some judge woke up one morning and decided to order blocking. That's not quite the case. The Pennsylvania legislature passed a law requiring such blocks. Since county courts (in most states; I assume PA is similar in this respect) do not have the power to declare a law unconstitutional, the judge has no choice but to order the blocking.

    Ultimately this is a good thing. The order gets appealed to (the PA equivalent of) a state court, which will (as those tend to lack the power to declare a law unconstitutional) uphold the county ruling. Once a state court issues an order, then the (PA equivalent of the) state Supreme Judicial Court would be able to take an appeal and (finally) declare the law unconstitutional (especially if the PA Constitution has a free speech clause).

  • cowboyneal (Score:2, Funny)

    by solidox ( 650158 )
    "In addition, the court ordered blocking may prevent access to legitimate sites that are hosted on the same server"

    no more slashdot for pensilvanians if cowboyneal's secret stash is discovered then ;)
  • I thought most of the filter lists has a category for porn, not child porn. This is may to force a new set of categories, for each state. There is a category for illegal activities, which could include child porn, but I don't think that the lists were built that way.


    This may be unconstitutional as it may put too much of a burden on interstate commerce.

  • A confused European writes... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Burb ( 620144 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:27AM (#5343710)
    Why do so many Americans take the view that the Constitution is a priori a good thing in and of itself, and therefore anything that can be seen to conflict with, say, the constitutional right to free speech is in and of itself a bad thing?

    Is it not possible to argue that child porn is a bad thing, socially unacceptable, with devastating consequences for innocent lives. Therefore if the constitution has some kind of loophole which permits child porn, perhaps there is something wrong with the constitution? Guys, lots of us are software engineers here. If the specification for your project is causing massive problems, consider getting the spec changed!

    Don't get me wrong. The constitution was a wonderful thing back in the eighteenth century and a vast improvement not only on its predecessors but its sucessors too in many ways. I'm just baffled how so many folks in the USA act as though the constitution was handed on tablets of stone from Mount Sinai by Founding Fathers who were acting in some infallible capacity.

    Not a troll, just curious. And yes, I live in a land with no constitution, cameras on every street corner, and elective dictatorship and bad dentistry blah blah blah. Before you tell me what's so bad about my world, please satisfy my curiosity about yours.

    • Why do so many Americans take the view that the Constitution is a priori a good thing in and of itself, and therefore anything that can be seen to conflict with, say, the constitutional right to free speech is in and of itself a bad thing?

      And yes, I live in a land with no constitution, cameras on every street corner, and elective dictatorship and bad dentistry blah blah blah.

      You just answered your own question.

      Anyway... for the ignorant. The Constitution itself says nothing about specific rights that cannot be denied. That is all in the Bill of Rights which consists of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. The Constitution just defines our system of government. Things like, how the constitution can be amended... length of terms for the President, senators, etc... requirements for holding office (presidents must be at least 35 years old and natural born citizens). It defines how our government works, it sets the boundaries for what the goverment can and cannot do. This is why it is so important. Without boundaries, you have dictatorship.
    • in this case, it's not a freedom of speech issue. not from first glance, anyway. maybe it is, but more on that later...

      what *is* happening here is law (whether temporary or not) empowering the state to inject control of content WITHIN the network. this goes against the original design of the Internet, which allowed for control only at the ENDs of the network (i.e. your house, the library, school, etc.)

      not having control of content *within* the network is a good thing. in fact, it is for that exact reason that the innovations we have seen with the Internet (and its protocols) have been able to come about. once their is control placed WITHIN the network (i.e. the ISPs or Tier1 providers) then the entire network is affected in a controlled way.
      that is BAD for innovation and creativity, and can kill any future creations that might come about.

      now, about the freedom of speech part of the constitution. that's actually the best part of the constitution. it guarantees that someone who asks questions of his government (and therefore inact change in it) cannot be punished or held silent by anyone who might not agree. it is exactly that part of the constitution that would ALLOW us to "change the specs" of our project.

      p.s. it's the US government, not a software design project. there are some great parts of it, and some not so great parts of it. believe me when i say that not everyone thinks that it is handed down on stone tablets. far from it. that's the beauty of it.
    • It is possible to argue that child porn is a bad thing, but so far as I am aware, there are no actual studies showing that it causes any bad effects. To be sure, the scarcity of child porn, and the difficulty of getting a grant to fund a study of it probably contribute to the lack of studies.

      On the other hand, there is plenty of historical evidence of the harms caused by lack of free expression. If people cannot communicate their sincerely held beliefs in a meaningful way, they become unhappy, and agitate for what they want in clandestine ways. Ultimately, this pressure can build up enough to lead to a revolution that changes the rules in radical ways. Anyone familiar with history who prefers a stable society will advocate free expression rather than censorship.

      In order for free expression to work, there cannot be some authority saying what expression is permitted and what is not. Such authority quickly becomes corrupted: the first thing it will forbid is any criticism of itself! Therefore, all expression, even the most repugnant, must be permitted.
      John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
    • A lot of people don't get it. The Constitution most certainly doesn't have a loophole which permits child porn. This is plainly obvious given the laws against child porn which have not been struck down. People misunderstand the free speech bit. Free speech doesn't, as the classic example goes, allow you to yell fire in a crowded theater or slander your neighbor. Free does not mean absolutely free and unrestricted.


      Now, as far as laws go, anything which conflicts with the Constitution *is* illegal. It's not about good and bad, it's about law. People may be saying, in the examples you notice, not "Hey, that's Bad because it conflicts with the Constitution", but "Hey, that's illegal because it conflicts with the Constitution." If Congress passes a law taking the right to vote from people with blue eyes, it will be struck down as unconstitutional, which is short for illegal because the Constitution says so.


      Hope that helps.

    • Re:A confused European writes... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Unfortunately, if you don't have a problem with living in a country without a constitution, then I don't think that you are actually willing to understand what it means to an American. For me personally, the cost of losing my freedom is greater than the cost of child porn. If you don't understand that, no other explanation will help.

  • A Better Idea... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TWX_the_Linux_Zealot ( 227666 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:29AM (#5343725) Journal
    How about, rather than blocking childporn sites, which requires ISPs to know who the offending sites are, you make legislation that if an ISP finds childporn, they are required to report it?

    How are ISPs supposed to enforce this law? If I were a small or medium-sized ISP, and I were starting or contemplating doing business in Pennsylvania, I'd cancel the plans. There's way too much at risk, and if authorities themselves can't track down and properly prosecute paedophiles, they shouldn't force ISPs to do such or possibly face prosecution, when all they're doing is running a legitimate business of connecting people to the largest public network in the world...

  • This is an "enabling" law? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:29AM (#5343732)
    We won't know until the state discloses the info, but this seems very much like an "enabling" law. Basically one that is not meant to be enacted proactively, instead it enables an action to occur. Basically, if I complain to an isp that www.whatever.com has kiddie porn, then they are compelled by the law to block access to it, vs throwing up their hands and saying "well just don't surf there". I would assume that unless the state is going to come out with a "banned sites" list that all isp's use, that this is the way the law will be enforced.

    I don't know why people are asking questions about jurisdictions since this law does not seem to address the hosting of these sites, just peoples access to them. And it looks like the counter argument is focused on the fact that the law requires the blocking based on ip vs url, thereby possibly blocking many potentially unrelated sites (like someone complaining about msn communities and having them all blocked).

  • Won't this just worse-ify the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:29AM (#5343733) Journal
    Now the pedophiles, blocked from quietly wanking at home, will have to go to a day care, steal a kid, and commit horrible acts in the comfort of the back of their van.

    No good can come from this.

    Here's a sig for someone...
    --
    Pennsylvania: Michael Jackson free since 2003!

    • This will get my lynched, no doubt, but...
      Is there a good essay that examines just "what is wrong with child porn?"
      I keep seeing posts like "Child porn is bad. So bad that ..." but nobody has explained the logic behind their position, which is strange to see on slashdot.
      I understand perfectly well the problems inherent to the creation of child porn and the mental problems associated with the people interested in child porn, but wouldn't it be better to fix the problems, not the symptoms?
      Or does it depend on context? What about high school yearbooks, where parents often send in "embarassing" naked-little-kid pictures? Isn't that child porn? What about parents who take pictures of their kids in the tub because the kid is doing something cute? That's also child porn...
      And how does child porn relate to age of consent? In many states, the age of consent is 16, yet you can't take nude photos of someone under 18 (legally, anyway), even if they are begging you to. I've never quite understood this, either.
      I suppose the lawmakers assume the typical person interested in naked 16-year-olds is a 45-year-old male, but what about other male 16-year-olds who always click the "Yes, I am over 18" button anyway?
      Bah, OK. I tried to come up with some interesting questions, so I'm expecting some interesting answers (and probably many trolls, too).
      • Here's an essay [misanthropic-bitch.com] that argues why it should be legal. It's an interesting point of view, nonetheless.

        Here's another interesting piece [misanthropic-bitch.com] by the same author.

      • Or does it depend on context? What about high school yearbooks, where parents often send in "embarassing" naked-little-kid pictures? Isn't that child porn? What about parents who take pictures of their kids in the tub because the kid is doing something cute? That's also child porn...

        Excellent post, BTW.
        I agree with you here - pr0n is in the eye of the beholder, not always the taker. Some sicko is probably going to spank off at the picture of the cute kids in the tub, even though that wasn't the intention of the parents. Likewise, I rather enjoy looking at the Victoria's Secret catalog... Does that make it pornography, and if so, is my mailman a pusher? ;)

        Unfortunately, you can't define and classify something as obscene without knowing what the person viewing it will think.

        And how does child porn relate to age of consent? In many states, the age of consent is 16, yet you can't take nude photos of someone under 18 (legally, anyway), even if they are begging you to. I've never quite understood this, either.

        Again, good point - more so, what about other countries where the age of consent AND the picture-taking age is 16 (i.e. Denmark, I believe). Is that kiddie porn or adult porn?

        -T

  • You've got a friend in Pennsylchina (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It seems to me that the PA court has made the same mistake many techies do. They have decided upon a technical solution to a social problem.

    Aside from the various technical flaws in their approach, which others have already pointed out, the court's action sets a terrible example.

    On the bright side, though, perhaps the federal government could finally win the war on drugs simply by requiring state transportation departments to not permit vehicles containing drugs to use any roads maintained by the states. I'm sure that would solve the problem handily.

  • And to quote the poster,
    • ..."the court ordered blocking may prevent access to legitimate sites that are hosted on the same server"

    Tough. If they are they hosting "legitimate" sites as long as their kiddies porn, they get what they deserve. Perhaps they will think twice next time, or at least keep the kiddy porn stuff where it belongs (to /dev/null).

  • Since most search engines now do images, will they be required to block them? I guess the next step is to have the phone company block calls to porn distributors and the post office to stop delivers for porn, and the highway department to stop drivers from using the road to deliver porn, and FCC to stop porn transmission over radio/ham.... and so on. I hate it when the government goes after the MODE of transport vs the villians. How do these people stay in office?

    There are some people that I have had this discussion with and once you start extrapolating into other areas that they didn't think of they back off thier original arguement. Hasn't anyone talked/e-mail/wrote thier representatives explaining this crap to them? ARGH!
  • If you want to DoS any site that allows uploading of pictures, here's a fun way to do it.

    Funny, I wonder if this will work with URL redirection, like if you use yahoo's little web redirector to visit a porn site? Will yahoo.com be blocked?

  • Something to think about.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bezza ( 590194 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:38AM (#5343822)
    An overwhelming majority of people agree that kiddy porn is a bad thing, as do I. But isn't having kiddy porn on the net a way for the people who do suffer this attraction a way to vent their 'frustrations'? Isn't it better that they view these pictures (that probably would have been taken anyway) on their computer than actually going out on the street and being 'voyeurs' or god forbid trying to actually have sex with a child?

    I believe that these people can't control their fetish (or choose it) so isn't this the most preferable thing? I mean child fetishes are not going to go away once all these sites are closed down or blocked. It is the same reason I believe that prostitutes and brothels should be allowed to operate freely, as it keeps the rape rate down.

    Thoughts? It would be interesting to hear what you guys think.

  • Why just the Internet? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by faust13 ( 535994 ) <.contact. .at. .hanshootsfirst.org.> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:40AM (#5343834) Homepage
    If PA is so intent on blocking child porn, why don't they fine the USPS for delivering porn?
  • Everyone knows what this is really about: Control, and the easy way.

    Finding bad sites, tracking down some underage porn dealing scumbag, successfull prosecuting him/her in a local venue - that's all a lot of work. In the case of offshore sites, it's difficult if not impossible to nail the foreign owners - and rightfully so since they don't fall under US law (we all know where this ends up).

    So, that leaves us with a few solutions:
    a) We can tag and nail users who go to these sites. Can anyone who hasn't gotten disturbing mislabeled pictures from kazaa, or shipped to a rauncy site (maybe not one of the ones in question, but bad enough) when surfing warez.

    b) We can block the sites. This will almost assuredly end up blocking legitimate sites, being used as a weapon to control internet traffic (oh, that anti-gov't site is unavailable because it shares IP's with an illegal porn site).

    c) They can be smarter. I mean, disgusting sites aside, what about freakin' newsgroups? To my knowledge ISP's actually locally cache these things, and on my ISP I've seen some newgroups that blatantly indicate illegal porn (whether they actually contain it, I dunno, but likely they do).

    Really, we should be nailing owners as many US-born sites as possible, and then try and find a way to deal with the rest. Simply blocking won't give the same deep-seated satisfaction as slamming some underage pornsite owner is a federal PMITA prison. My-kid-in-bathtub pictures not applying, I'm talking about sites with intent to promote this type of material.

    The last question of course is... that do people who view this stuff do? Do they go out and target possible victims? Are they actively damaging young children themselves.
    Or, are such sites sufficient to provide their fix of sick fantasy? Or do these sites string them on to sicker, more dangerous activities? I've heard these questions asked by psych-types for a long time, and as of yet I haven't seen anybody who really knows the answer.

  • Am I missing something? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NaugaHunter ( 639364 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:42AM (#5343845)
    How can an ISP be prosecuted for not blocking a child porn site if the site hasn't been legally proven to be a child porn site? How would the state get tips? Are they looking for the sites? If so, when they find them, why not report them to the FBI? I would think this is similar to requiring bookstores to stop selling certain magazines - they'd have to first provide due process that the magazines should be blocked.

    A problem with this is unless the ISP's announce a list or warn the site they are blocking, it does risk legal sites being blocked and not knowing it. Unlike the print industry, which knows if shipments are refused or returned, neither legitamite sites nor their attempted viewers would know why the connection didn't work.
    • why not report them to the FBI?

      One word: Jurisdiction

      Although the FBI can cooperate with foreign governments, the material may not be illegal where it is being hosted or the government in question may not be willing or able to stop it.

      In some countries, 16 is not considered child porn, while in the US it is. In addition, certain types of nude material may be considered pornographic under Pennsylvania or US law but may be completely legal in the country in which it is being hosted.

  • Politics (Score:2, Insightful)

    by argmanah ( 616458 )
    Unfortunately, laws like this are likely to get passed in other states as well.

    Not necessarily because the legislature doesn't understand how the technology works (although that is often also the case), but because if such a bill is proposed in your state, which politician is going to open himself up to the inevitable "he voted against a bill designed to reduce child pornography" campaign when he runs for re-election?
  • that any server or ISP serves a porn site is tainted and therefore deserves to have everything blocked, because, you know how one bad apple spoils the whole barrel, kinda like Catholic priests who molest little boys.

  • More Blockage to come? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Billkamm ( 322282 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:46AM (#5343885) Homepage
    The thing that bothers me the most here isn't that child porn sites are going to be blocked, but IF courts are allowed to tell ISPs that the have to block to web sites of some kind than it is just a matter of time before the forced banning gets out of control.

    What if some yahoo gets elected and thinks violence is bad and has all websites containing violence of any kind forcibly banned by court order. What about bad language? What about porn? What about sites about drugs and alcohol?

    Hey why not ban every site that this anti-that judge or every site that is anti anything?

    You can't just let courts force ISPs to censor things. I hate censorship so much, whatever happened to freedom of speech?

  • Alrighty then... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AyeRoxor! ( 471669 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:46AM (#5343887) Journal
    I can see it now: at the ISP: "Well, I'll just take this list of child-porn sites that we keep in the file cabinet, and enter it into the filter."

    What ignorant jackasses this court has proven itself to be governed by...

    Anyways, I don't imagine this will be a serious problem. Just make the plaintiffs send you a list of all child-porn websites or show you where to get one, and have them show you where to get updates without breaking the law, such as seeking such sites out. Or plead with the court to make you immune while you do said searches. I don't think they'll do so. The court will then realize that this request is impossible for you to fulfill without you breaking the law to do so, and have them throw it out. It's not the USPS's job to make sure I don't order seventeen magazine in a brown wrapper. That responsibility belongs to a government investigative body that oversees the USPS. The same goes for ISPs.

    And as for ISPs being liable, didn't the DMCA make that impossible?

  • Only _child_ porn is blocked in PA. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gannoc ( 210256 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:48AM (#5343907)

    You almost gave me a fucking heart attack.

    I read the title, and had this surreal tunnel-vision of a world without internet porn.

    Lets just say its not a world I want to live in.

  • And freedom of speech.

    Once you can force a provider to block any content, its just a matter of time before more content is added to the 'list of the day', until even basic speech is blocked.

    We are dangerously close to that now. just try to say things that our 'homeland security department' doesn't permit. If you don't believe me, post how to make a nuclear bomb, or a bio hazard, and see how fast your free speech disappears. ( and personal freedom, as you will be taken into custody )

    I'm not saying kiddy porn isn't bad, but it sets a bad precedent that will be MUCH broader down the road and we will all suffer.

  • You're a judge, a DA, or a cop. One day, you become aware that there's a kiddy porn site up.

    Should your priority be:

    A) Immediately contact the ISP and make sure people can't see that site anymore!

    B) Immediately get a warrant, contact the ISP and find out who the hell put the pictures up, so you can put them in jail. This will, of course, cause the pictures to be taken off the internet.

    I mean, this is like saying "If someone murders someone in your house, you are now legally obligated to put up a curtain so nobody can see the blood. What? You think that sounds stupid? Aren't you against murder???"

  • Slippery Slope (Score:3)

    by The Ape With No Name ( 213531 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @11:58AM (#5343999) Homepage
    When will people realize that "slippery slopes" arguments are, by definition, illogical? Grrrr.

  • I wonder what their criteria are for blocking? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Yekrats ( 116068 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @12:11PM (#5344108) Homepage
    There's a kinky story [ibiblio.org] accessible through this site [gutenberg.net] about two underage kids who fall in love, have sex, and later die. I've read it myself. It's called, "Romeo and Juliet."

  • Same server.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by robbo ( 4388 ) <slashdot&simra,net> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @12:23PM (#5344244)
    the court ordered blocking may prevent access to legitimate sites that are hosted on the same server

    I'm trying to imagine a context where a 'legitimate' site would be colocated with a child porn site on the same server. If the whoever's running the server knows its content, then they're clearly running a criminal operation and I wouldn't cry if his whole server was pulled. Otoh, if someone posts stuff to geocities, I think it's the responsibility of the host to keep the server clean and the threat of blocking all of their pages makes a strong enforcement tool. It's not that hard for a web operator, even of a large multi user site, to review its contents for illegal material.

    All that being said, it *is* a slippery slope. However, the law is pretty clear about what is illegal and what is not.

  • What about Interstate ISPs? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thesolo ( 131008 ) <slap@fighttheriaa.org> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @12:47PM (#5344490) Homepage
    The Salon article brought up Worldcom, but I'm still curious about this.

    I live in New Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia. My ISP is Comcast (@home, cable modem). Comcast is based in Philadelphia. Does this mean that now those particular sites would be blocked to me, despite me being a resident of NJ?

    Now don't get me wrong, I have no desire to see child pornography, but say one of those sites is on the same server as another site I go to. Am I blocked from that site? If I cross the Delaware river and go to PA, I legally have to be blocked, right?

    This measure seems overly broad and without real solutions or merit.

  • What methods will they use? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ruszka ( 456169 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @12:58PM (#5344589)
    I agree with the question everyone else is asking. Just how are they going to block the sites? I can just imagine an ISP blocking sites based on words found on the pages. If that happened, even Slashdot would be blocked. Look what words have already been said in this thread. Child porn, naked, kiddie, and the list goes on. I don't see any possible way to block those kinds of sites at this time. Sure, the ISP can have a list. But the sites on that list will change. And while who ever is in charge of making the list is putting together a new one, users WANTING those sites will have already found new ones. It's a vicious cycle, and I don't think forcing ISPs to 'block' sites is going to help AT ALL.

  • Dog shit (Score:3, Funny)

    by whereiswaldo ( 459052 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @10:45PM (#5349381) Journal

    I once voted to ban dog shit in oatmeal cookies.

    It was voted down because they said that might lead to removing chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, and other good things.

    So we still eat our dog shit cookies.

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