British Telecom Blocks Access to Child Porn Sites 835
An anonymous reader writes "British Telecom has taken the unprecedented step of blocking all illegal child pornography websites in a crackdown on abuse online. The decision by Britain's largest high-speed internet provider will lead to the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western democracy."
Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Interesting)
iit wont get blocked.
BUT it is a good thing, this means that no one can, ACCIDENTLY go onto a child porn site. Something which i've always feared tbh. As even temporary files can be concidered as stored information. Accidently finding such a site "could" get you into alot of trouble.
For once BT have done something good!.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd prefer to keep the internet a dumb network thank you very much
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Insightful)
And have you no sense of proportion? Which is worse, kiddie porn, or the outside chance of collateral damage? If you say collateral damage, then you must also be against real time block lists for anti-spam purposes.
Look at this discussion... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's a sad and telling statement about our society that every poster in this thread who criticized this decision also felt compelled to include a disclaimer, "I do not support child pornography."
That fact is what makes actions like this insidious. You begin by pushing an issue that is so black-&-white, it's nearly indefensible. You begin by condemning something that absolutely no one wants to support. And you gain momentum.
crib
It's called WEDGE POLITICS. (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget that most sexually molested kids are interfered with by their relatives or even their parents, the thing that people fear the most is evil strangers, hiding in the bushes in children's playgrounds, "grooming" children on the internet, jerking off to strangers' baby photos. The press have whipped the public into an absolute hysteria over the Evil Pedophile Menace, and it's fertile political capital for anything you want to do.
The first thing any opponent of yours has to do is concede that Pedophiles Are Evil Agents Of Satan, which is basically agreeing with 99% of whatever you propose to do. If he doesn't, then He Is Siding With Those Evil Monsters. His hands are completely tied. All he can propose is something even stronger and accept your position even more than you do. Of course, your proposal will do fuck all to save anyone, let alone the children, from the pedophiles. It's all a ruse to get money and power. But if anyone dares suggest that, They Are In League With The Sick Pedo Beasts.
Re:Look at this discussion... (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeping it in the open.
As soon as you drive it underground, the people that REALLY want it will find a way to distribute it. Charge more for getting the 'goods' to the 'consumers' and it becomes another string to the bow of organised crime.
Drugs. Prostitution. Alcohol in prohibition..
Think it got rid of the problem? Or did it simply make a lot of money for just the kind of people you really didn't want the laws to be making money for?
Whoever thinks that simply filtering child porn websites is a quick fix is smoking something strange, and hasn't thought about the effect it'll have (i.e. driving it underground, and the police being then less able to track potential paedophiles as other methods of distribution are found).
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
It also allows them to block other things they don't like. Blocking their competitors websites is probably too obvious, but if the boss wants to support some issue, throwing a warning about child porn in front of a page will make most people turn back immediately.
Finally, they could do just as well by setting up a department to find these websites and report them to authorities, which would be useful without the problems of accidental censorship.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Insightful)
The only people with a legitimate excuse are people who downloaded misnamed files from p2p programs like Kazaa but if you only have 1 file on your harddrive you will not get prosecuted. You should not be browsing p2p networks at work. What are you
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Interesting)
"You are attempting to access a site we believe is child pornography. If you would still like to view the site click here."
Optionally, they could add "If you choose to continue your IP will be logged" and/or "your information will be sent to the authorities".
Safety for the accidental porn browsers, and if it was actually an anti-BT site people can still get through.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Interesting)
Since when are there child porn web sites anyway? I thought it was all IRC and USENET.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Funny)
Definition of Kiddy Porn (Score:5, Insightful)
As well what is the definition of 'kiddy porn'. Is simple naked children, i.e. nudist web pages, kiddy porn? In many places that *is* becoming the standard: take a picture of your children bathing and you goto jail.
Is this painting [ibiblio.org] the next to be blocked? This one [ibiblio.org] or perhaps this [ibiblio.org]?
Perhaps spamming such art around would desensitize people to the hysteria that has developed over the past 20 years surrounding this topic.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Interesting)
I have accidentally come across kiddy porn sites as a part of my search for free (consenting adult) porno. Whenever I saw a site that appeared to be located/run from within the US, I called the FBI and reported it.
My goal was two-fold, first I wanted to let the authorities now that these people are out there and if someone ever tried to accuse me of intentionally going to that site, the FBI's records would show that I called them and reported it.
Cracking down on kiddy porn is not an unreasonable restriction on free speech.
LK
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Although porn consumes a large percentage of internet bandwidth, it's easy to overestimate it's importance. Multimedia is just by it's nature a high bandwidth activity. If there were 10,000 people dealing with email and one person watching porn videos the one person would probably be using more bandwidth than the 10,000.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this a good thing? Well, not for those of us who like our music and movies for free, but as far as companies are concerned, it probably is, although presumably they could lose a lot of business if they started blocking P2P.
IIRC, several of the UK's mobile phone providers announced they were going to block all porn for mobile internet access unless the phone owner submitted proof of age. I can't help but wonder how many people would have the nerve to ring up customer support and ask for their porn access to be restored
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Informative)
Really? When did this momentous change in the law occur? I must have missed that one as it passed me by somewhat.
The truth is, a couple of years ago the British Board of Film Censors (or whatever the hell they happen to be called now) relaxed their regulations and started granting a certificate to films that show erect penises and penetration, arguing that public standards had changed, but I think that's rather a long way from saying that pornography between consenting adults is legal in the UK.
The truth is, there are even some sex acts between consenting adults that are still illegal in the UK -- let alone representations of those acts. There has been a recent bureaucratic decision not to prosecute certain images and films lately, but there hasn't been any change in the laws relating to obscenity, etc. which are still archaic.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:4, Informative)
It's less than 30 years ago that three men were sent to prison for publishing cartoon drawings of Rupert the Bear fucking Gypsy Granny.
Raindrop's comment below seems to me to be a very insightful summary on the state of the law in the UK.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry, I just had to laugh, that acronym works on so many levels in this context
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny thing is .... (Score:5, Insightful)
A LOT is two words (in this case) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Informative)
The category list is on www.cleanfeed.co.uk/catlist.php [cleanfeed.co.uk]
Some of the interesting categories are Religion, Web based e-mail, Health and Medicine and Usenet.
Though Cleanfeed only blocks 12 of these categories it can log access to all of them.
In my case I use Demon's web proxy to be a good citizen and cut down on bandwith usage on the net, therefore all my web accesses are logged in the proxy anyway - but I don't have to do it. I have the choice not to as Demon allows direct access by-passing any ISP proxies. If Cleanfeed comes in all my web accesses to sites that somebody else may deem inappropriate will be logged regardless. The list is defined as the, "Cleanfeed Master Database of classified Internet domains", and any domain of interest could be inserted into it. The use of Cleanfeed as a monitoring tool for anything that an ISP, and by extension a Government, may not like is obvious and it's use to block sites may only be secondary to its ability to monitor people's access to sites.
It's a crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because no one appears to be willing or able to answer the question why people are interested in images of (semi) naked 'underage' individuals (children) doesn't mean that by continuing to evade the issue in the long term even more damage will be inflicted than when society as a whole would stop pretending that things one doesn't like can just be ignored and/or suppressed without any negative side-effects.
On a sidenote, I've got loads of images of (semi) naked young children in my possession, in various positions, including a number of close-ups. I would assume that they are mostly underage.
It's called a friggin' medical encyclopedia.
This is why they don't block at the source (Score:5, Informative)
I built and manage a Usenet binaries site (one of the original ones, but now sadly in need of an update and, since Cidera bit it, not terribly complete). A lot of pure Usenet servers (no binaries decoding) make all newsgroups available under the hope that common carrier law will apply if (when) the shit hits the fan, but we suspected early on that common carrier law wouldn't apply as we were decoding and thumbnailing images. Thus, one of the first things I did when I wrote the code was to create an MD5 checksum database to block images. Anything that appeared in a known KP group would be be checksummed and added to the database, and anything anywhere else with a checksum in the database would be blocked (a good idea, since pedophiles change newsgroups frequently, and commonly take over abandoned groups in alt.*). New or newly active newsgroups were quarantined, no image decoding but with the subject lines presented in a report for our review. We could tell fairly quickly whether a newsgroup should go into the blocklist just based on the subject lines and content filenames.
A few years ago I had occasion to speak to law enforcement (police and FBI) who were investigating someone for KP possession, and he had a subscription to our site. They decided we weren't the source (biggest sigh of relief in my life) but were interested in our blacklist system and wanted a copy of our blacklist database. I spoke with one guy (FBI if I recall correctly) for an hour or so and I got to hear more than I ever wanted to know about KP on the net. Here's what he told me. He seemed to know what he was talking about (and seemed to be rather discouraged by the whole mess) but for all I know it could be bullshit.
There are three major sources of KP on the net. The first, present in Usenet but not on the web, is scans from magazines and such that were, at one time, legal to possess, but were criminalized during the Reagan administration (I think). As you might imagine the sickos who had stacks of "lolita" magazines weren't exactly rushing to turn them in to the cops. Once scanners became available, people started scanning in images and distributing them. Now, the original scanners' series are passed back and forth endlessly on Usenet and probably will be until the end of time. Fortunately, they're pretty easy to block by name and checksum.
The second and by far largest major category of KP on the net is softcore websites (nudity and sexually suggestive poses, but no penetration or sex acts), and reposts of same on Usenet. I'd always assumed this meant casual nudity (like nudist camp photos) but the guy I spoke with corrected me and said a lot of them are highly sexual poses and attire, with genital closeups. There are only a handful of major companies involved, each one runs multiple websites, and they tend to use the same limited number of "models" (i.e., exploited kids).
And "exploited" is the right word. Regardless of the fact that there's no penetration involved, these are poor kids making very little money for themselves and a shitload for the websites, and IMO it's similar to (tho not as bad as) parents selling their kids into prostitution. But in the areas where this occurs (largely but not exclusively former Soviet republics), it's legal, or in some cases just ignored because the cops are bribed or have bigger concerns to worry about (like actual child prostitution, organized crime, etc.)
The third category, appearing on Usenet and P2P networks but not the web, is hardcore material produced by the same evil fucks who are raping the kids. There's no money involved, but most of it is privately traded (or posted encrypted on Usenet with keys exchanged privately) and to be admitted to trading circles you either have to find rare content or produce your own stuff. So this *definitely*
Re:It's a crime (Score:5, Insightful)
I can imagine situations, for example, where planned parenthood sites might get blocked because they have the words "children" and "sex" in close proximity. I wonder if BT has a plan to deal with kind of situation? My intution says "no".
What alternatives are there to keyword searching? Manually identifying sites? Who is going to do this, and isn't it a crime to download pages from such sites just to check whether they should be filtered?
Good motives but... (Score:4, Insightful)
My fear if this came here is that it would be used to block all manner of 'improper' political sites.
Slippery slope.
nude anime gallery [sharkfire.net]
no different than the real world (Score:5, Insightful)
The only issue to be concerned with is whether or not the list of blocked sites is accurate or not.
And of course, this will not stop the knowledgable pedophile, but if it can keep some companies from earning money via paid subscriptions, good for BT.
Re:no different than the real world (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a subtle difference here, however, and its a matter of economics.
Putting together and mass-publishing a magazine is not easy or cheap. It takes a good deal of money to do it. So your average Joe Citizen is not
Re:no different than the real world (Score:3, Insightful)
And a less imperfect (though still pretty silly) analogy would be a taxi company refusing to drive you to a place for the purpose of obtaining child pornography.
Any anaology that involved removing all references to illegal behaviour and insert innocuous behaviour (a strip club) in its place is going to distort the position, not provide insight.
Typo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't that read "attempted by a large ISP"? Could this result in mass-migration to other services, or are no others viable? As an aside, are cable modems available in Britain?
I do think this is a slippery slope, especially since "pornography" is always hard to define... Are "innocent" shots of (semi)naked teens on Scandinavian beaches "porn", for instance? Who decides?
Re:Typo? (Score:5, Funny)
No. In jolly old Britian, the best we have is 300bps modems. I would write more, but it would take too long to upload.
Re:Typo? (Score:4, Insightful)
The low down on British Telecoms is as so, you have 3 major telecoms providers, BT, NTL and Telewest. BT are everywhere, NTL and Telewest have fairly large areas, some you can only get one or the other, but you can always get BT.
Now, BT are the major ADSL provider, NTL and Telewest are the cable providers. As stated in the article, BT have alot of ADSL resellers eg Yahoo! who according to the artcle, would come under this.
If you want to leave BT, this leaves you with either most likely NTL or Telewest for cable, or switch to another ADSL provider. There are quite a few ADSL providers, if you already have ADSL through BT it should be perfectly possible to come off BT and the pricing is pretty competitive.
However, even though there is an OK range of choice, I doubt we'll see any mass anti-censorship protest of people switching from BT as to the majority, you'll just look like you're against BTs efforts to clean up child pornography, and with alot of recent paedophile news over the last few years, you won't be very popular.
IANAL yadda yadda yadda... (Score:5, Interesting)
The door swings both ways.
Re:IANAL yadda yadda yadda... (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to do it but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not insane, just concerned. I say fight the problem of child pornography (etc..) from the other end. Arrest the people, not the websites and protocols.
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:3, Insightful)
>(etc..) from the other end. Arrest the people,
> not the websites and protocols.
But this *is* fighting child pornography. By putting barriers to the potential demand you're actually affecting the offer.
I'm willing to lose some of my 'rights online' if I can improve the 'rights offline' of some children by accepting this kind of measures even with the risk of potential misuses.
No problem with me.
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The ISP is striking at a cloud of smoke with a sword. They can scatter the cloud and hurt people on the sidelines but they cannot make the cloud go away. You have to cut the problem at the source. The internet does not lend its self well to censorship.
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes there is.
There is a legitimate argument for blocking harmful material, and some would say there is a legitimate argument for blocking immoral material.
However, blocking illegal material is, by definition, blocking material the government doesn't want you to see, if you accept it as legitimate, you are accepting every possible act of government censorship.
In china, for instance, certain kinds of political material are illegal, so by your argument there is nothing wrong with the Chinese government blocking it.
I know this may sound pedantic, but this is one of those confusions which we are encouraged to make by the state and it's friends in the media. One we all need to be wary of. Slipping betwen `immoral' and `illegal' is easy and dangerous.
They block web sites but... (Score:3, Informative)
Go BT. (Score:5, Insightful)
The alterative is trusting a government body that you have real freedom of information rights. Say no more.
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
So I'm more that a little concerned the "solution" is to ban urls... wtf?
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
In Japan, pornography is defined as the showing of pubic hair, so showing images of young children naked is not considered porn.
Even "abuse" has different definitions. I've seen a (mainstream) Japanese movie where a mother started grabbing her son's privates, after he was running around naked playing a game of tag with her. In the context of the movie it made sense, but the scene was still sex
Not the first attempt (Score:5, Informative)
No, it is not the first case. Remember blocking child porn in pennsylvaia? Have a look here [slashdot.org].
In North Rhine-Westfalia all providers have to block access to two Nazi websites: look here [slashdot.org].
Not good. (Score:5, Interesting)
a) Practical reasons. How on earth are they going to decide which sites are child porn sites? Do these sites announce themselves as such with a special logo? Or will the government employ 1,000 people who search google all day for new sites? Or will all sites that refer to "child" and "vagina" in the same sentence be blocked (I guess that includes nudist sites and anti-childporn sites as well)? For these practical reasons and many more, this idea will not be practical.
b) The slippery slope. OK, child porn is obviously bad. And so is antisemitism. And bomb making. So, the PLO site is soon to be banned too? All newsgroups that ever discuss bombs? Sites that sell radar detectors? Web sites taht discuss and encourage tax cheating? Anti-government sites? Exam cheat sites? When you accept that the government can decide what we are allowed to read online, this is a dangerous state of affairs.
c) Drawing attention bad. It will no doubt make it a challenge to get to the forbidden sites.
Censorship has never worked. My kids watch only shows that are rated "mature". While I sympathise with the intention here, the idea of a wise government that bans access to information is one that has never worked in the past and will not work now. It seems to me that enforcing existing laws against child porn (producers, viewers) would be a much better course of action; one more likely to lead to real results.
Filtering content is NOT illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
Some slashdoters seem to have a view that the internet is a realm where all information should be free and available. This is bullshit. If, for example, my personal medical records became avaiable there, I'd be pissed. This is yet another example of information that you have no right to have in the first place. There would be nothing wrong with shuting down a site that listed everyone's the medical history. Same case with the kiddie porn. I'm sorry, but anybody making an argument that filtering all content is illegal should have NO expectations of privacy. RIAA/cops/evil twin want your fingerprints? No problem, that resturant you ate at can put them online(hosted, of course, in a 3rd world country with at best lax law enforcement) - filtering content is, after all, illegal.
The only concern is that they have measures in place to unblock a site that is blocked in error, and that they make a best-effort attempt to minimize the number of errors.
I have a better idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Censorship in this case might be with the best intentions, but the precedent and future problems it creates is immense.
What will they block next?
- How to build a bong.
- How build a petrol bomb.
- How to make your car street illegal.
- How to hack your ipod.
All these things were blocked in China when I lived there.
Okay, I have just one problem with this (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, people seem to be missing what the actual problem is here. It's not that people download it (not that that's a good thing). The main problem is that people create it in the first place. That is the part that does the most harm.
not a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Every major child-porn bust in both western europe and the US has linked the end users with the web sites via their credit card, this is a good way both to bust end-users and to get a good statistical overview of the problem.
Also if the sites are actually on the web it is also much easier for law enforcement to trace people / places where this kind of material originates.
I mean, it would become a nightmare scenario for law enforcement if every end-user of child porn actually took the step and started downloading / posting everything anonymously w/PGP encryption on usenet or other message boards, it would be close to impossible to monitor and no credit card to trace.
just my two cents
Filtering is the wrong way (Score:3, Insightful)
Most illegal pictures the Britons found were on webservers in the USA. You can find data here [guardian.co.uk]. In USA are laws against child porn. You can remove the content.
Very Frightening Possibilities (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue most people have is a large corporation having sway over what it's users can and can't view.
It's not just child porn, what happens if someone posts anti-BT comments or messages? I've seen enough companies censor their support forums by banning users and deleting posts that criticise their service, do we really want a company able to censor the entire internet? the 'net is one of the few havens of totally free speech availible, and if BT is given the power to block one sort of site, then they will use it as a 'test case' to gain the right to block other kinds of sites.
Next will go the anti-government sites. Websites that criticise the government, simply blocked from view thanks to BT. Then regular porn sites. Scream at me to say I've got my tinfoil hat on over this, but all I see is a large corporation taking it's first tentative steps towards 'sanitizing' the internet. Blocking child pornography is just the start - the company can block child porn and live safe in the knowledge that anyone who objects will be labelled a paedophile or a supporter of child pornography. Then they can start sliding other categories onto their block lists, safe in the knowledge that anyone who objects to it will get the full wrath of the following knee-jerk reaction:
"Oh so you don't like internet censorship, then, do you? what do you want, then, you want kiddie porn all over the place then? is that what you want!" - BT looks good by proxy of public hysteria.
First it's the big, bad child-porn sites. Then it will be the big, bad anti-government sites. Then it will be the whole porn sector, then whole swathes of the internet that do not agree with 'company policy'. Like I said, I might have my tinfoil hat on over this, but the world seems to get a little closer to something out of a cyberpunk novel everyday.
Not the first.. (Score:3, Interesting)
In my own neck of the woods, even the widely held as enlightened, geek-run, freedom-of-information-positive provider xs4all blocks kiddy porn newsgroups on usenet. And there are multiple "Christian" themed providers that provide an internetfeed that is filtered beyond belief (usually using some sort of server-side implementation of wildly inaccurate blacklists like netnanny); most public primary/secondary schools also get filtered (if any) access.
It's a matter of consumer choice really. At least BT (and the aforementioned "Christian" themed/school ISPs) are upfront about it. And let's hope the "error message" people get does inform people how to get innocent sites delisted.
Now, if BT was doing this as a part of their wholesale operations, that would be A Bad Thing.
I know for a fact that BT subsidiaries like to restrict their internal networks a whole lot; even browsing to another ISP's webmail is blocked, on the theory you might receive or send some (*gasp*) non-work related e-mails. That's pretty evil (not to mention counter-productive).
This is not the censorship you are looking for... (Score:4, Insightful)
What you are trying to do is link the relationship between free speech and censorship to BT's actions.
What do you think free speech is? Your right to say whatever you want whenever you want wherever you want and make someone else pay to distribute it for you? If so, you have no idea what free speech is.
Free speech is your right to have an hold unpopular ideas and convey them (at your own trouble and expense) to others if you wish.
You cannot use this right to abrogate the rights of others. So you can't libel or extol the use of violence against your fellow citizens. You also can't steal from others by forcing them to pay for the distribution of your ideas.
BT has every right in the world to engage in these actions.
This article is not about the government suppressing ideas that it does not like. That's the only censorship that is truly dangerous.
This is a private company. They can block what ever they and their shareholders wish. They are in the marketplace of ideas and goods.
If it really bothers you, then compete with them.
But don't try to tar and feather them with the misuse of poorly held ideas.
Re:This is not the censorship you are looking for. (Score:3, Informative)
So this is a government initiative more than a BT shareholder initiative, and in that sense it is "about a government suppressing ideas it does not like". And yes, child porn is bad, but that is not the argument.
My ISP can barely keep my billing straight (Score:3, Interesting)
You think the ISP's are going to go back through and make sure the original sites they blocked are still being used for the same purpose? HAHAHAHA! Then you've never dealt with tech support on some of the bigger ISP's. Yesterday I couldn't spell ethernet, today I is a tech support pro-fessional.
This really doesn't have anything to do with kiddie porn. It's a question about who decides where we can go on the Internet and who makes the call about what constitutes objectionable content.
And, as usual, it's only going to stop the honest people. Anyone wanting to get to a site bad enough will figure out a way to proxy around the block.
in related news, illegal stuff is illegal (Score:3, Insightful)
One the functions of governments is to crack down on illegal activities and generally enforce their laws. As long as it's illegal, this is what I'd expect.
Now you might argue that this material shouldn't be illegal. Go ahead and argue, but you're not going to get any sympathy from me.
Slippery slope my ass (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, right. Governments change. This year they lean to the right, next year they lean to the left. So what happens? Do the filters switch on election day, to block anything critical of the new rulers? Please...
There are enough people on all sides of the political spectrum to make this a non-issue.
Child porn is universally wrong. Show me an upside.
"Why censor? Why not just arrest the blighters?"
And we know that's not the next step how? Identify, notify, arrest, prosecute. But you have to identify first.
Pre internet, pedophiles were out there, but isolated. With the fre range internet, and easy access, interest boomed. "More, more!" How many pedophiles got their start in the last few years only because they could find this material easily? We'll probably never know, but I'd be willing to bet its grater than 1.
Slippery slope? fuzzy logic versus binary logic (Score:4, Insightful)
In some ways, it comes down to deciding on a lesser of n evils (or, in rare circumstances, n goods). I don't want any government or private agency or person to secretly search my house, library records, or financial records. I don't want to be thrown in jail with no charges, no lawyer, and no acknowledgement that I've been imprisoned. Nor do I want murderers to get out of jail before pot smokers; it usually comes down to making unclear choices. And what is a "kid"? 6-year old - kid. 17-year old, in a country where 16-year-olds are adults - different answer.
The abortion rant is similar; partial-birth abortion sounds to me like 99.9% murder (of an infant, no less), while a day-after contraceptive sounds like
So I suggest we assess each action as it happens, and stop forcing it into a binary view.
~, not ==/!=
Knee-jerk Reactions (Score:5, Insightful)
My mother has pictures of me as a young child taking a bath in her wash tub. She also has many pictures of my brothers and sisters and I swimming in the local watering hole. We're all starkers. They're all in her old photo albums - she even used some of them as part of a collage at my HS grauation party as part of a "roast the grad" display. Is my mother a child pornographer? What if one of the guests looked at it a little too long? Obviously that makes them a pedophile and they should be locked away.
My brother just e-mailed me a picture of my niece playing in her wading pool - topless! What about pictures of my wife on the beach (in her bathing suit) with someone else's topless child in the background? Is that kiddy porn? My local hospital has a large full-color poster of about a dozen toddlers, lined up "cheek-to-cheek", with some sort of cute saying on it? KP? Why not? Are the toddlers too young?
What about a picture of a 12 year old girl in her underwear? That can't ever be right! Except in the Sears catalog. But only pedophiles read that section right? Is Sears contributing to the lust of pedophiles? Boycot them!
What about that Discovery Channel show about growing up and aging where they line up 100 people from infant to 100 years old, one for every age, all naked?
The argument for pornography, and by extension, kiddy porn, is "I'll know it when I see it". The problem with that argument is that what is one person's porn is another person's art (or research, or marketing, or memories, etc). Another problem with "kiddy porn" is that the subject is SO taboo and SO reprehensible that there is an instant knee-jerk reaction to it without any rational thought.
Even my questioning the "status-quo" like this will invariably brand me as a pedophile. This makes about as much sense as my being branded a terrorist because I question the effectiveness of "security measures" that substantially inconvenience me and terribly embarrased my 14 year old daughter who was "caught" wearing an underwire bra on our trip to Europe and had to be "felt-up" by "the lady", in front of everyone.
The cry is: "It's for security!"or "It's for the Children!". Well, security is good - if not taken to mindless extremes, and protecting children is also good. But are we really about protecting the children? If so, why is is so easy for people to find KP online but so hard for the police to find it and shut it down? And, as another poster pointed out, what about totaly computer generated or hand-drawn material? What happens when "no children were harmed in the making of this film?".
Yeah, I know, "the material will fuel the lusts of the demented pedophile" and he will therefore be forced to hunt down neighborhood kids. Just like my neighbor downloading pictures from alt.sex.bdsm.* will force him to become a sadistice rapist, or like playing GTA will force the my son to steal cars and run down pedestrians or, God forbid, the next time I see a cross-post of bestiality, I'm going to just have to take out after my poor dog.
OK, I'll admit that I'm stretching the connections a bit. But it seems to me that trying to censor the end-user is not the solution. While it MAY help those who use Internet Exploder from being "accidentally" exposed to KP when their computer get hijacked and bombarded with pop-ups, shouldn't the effort be focussed on finding the people who are actually exploiting these poor children? And don't tell me that viewing a cross-post on Usenet is "contributing to the exploitation". I didn't ask for it, I didn't pay for it, and I'm sure as hell not gonna act on it.
In my personal opinion, people who get sexually excited by looking at pre-pubescent children have a phlychological problem, just like people who look at a pony and get that "special feeling". But, and I'm going out on a limb here, I'd be willing to bet that, of those who don't just view ALL pornography as wrong, a vast majority prefer to look at younger,
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:3, Insightful)
It will happen.
nude anime gallery [sharkfire.net]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:4, Insightful)
i know tons of you will say things like "this is just the beginning, wait till they think they can do this again" and you're right. They can do more, but I can gaurentee it isn't as important as this by magnatudes! Seriously, I would rather have not one child be sexually abused for losing one of those "inaliable rights" everyone loves.
dont' get me wrong. I'm a bit worried myself about the abuse of this system, but for now it seems ok.
But let's be a politically aware and active bunch instead of bitchers and whiners and actually _DO_ something when it's wrong.
Blocking kiddie porn = Good
Being proactive against bad laws = Good
sitting on your ass in your mom's basement and complaining about losing rights when you have no clue how politics and laws work = bad
This isn't a troll, but seriously THINK about what powers we as citizens have (of whatever country you reside in). You CAN make a difference if you try hard enough. Martin Luther King never was what he became without hard work, dillegence and direction.
Sorry about replying to my own post, but I had to clear a few things up. I hope you guys don't see this as a rant but something insightful.
Just my 0.02
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is exactly why you shouldn't be making those decisions. Well, we lost some rights, but now all children are safe. (Well, they aren't actually safe. We gave up free speech on the Internet so that pedophiles would have to find other ways to get kiddie porn, and the abuse rate hasn't gone down much.) How many more rights should we give up for the illusion of safety?
And what if we did give up all our rights and were made relatively safe? What's the point of being safe if you can't enjoy basic human rights?
"Think of the children!"
We'll do more to protect them by protecting their freedom.
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Then you are in favor of shutting down schools, putting a stop to youth athletic activities, removing youth participation in religious ritual, and make child care centers illegal? Better make gay porn illegal too, popular prejudice states that gays are pederasts. Might as well get straight porn while you are at it, it degra
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll bet that there were children among the casualties when allied forces liberated France during 1944/1945. Guess we should have called off D-Day. Rather lose some rights than let any children get hurt.
Ironic that this topic should come up on the 60th anniversary of D-Day. I would say that this move by BT makes an absolute mockery of the memory of that day.
This isn't a troll, but ser
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most important facts is: The child abuse was already done, when the pictures got posted. With the open web, potentially everyone can look into it and notice it. I don't want child abuse happen to anyone... But it being back in the dark rooms no one has access to is the worst. Bring it to light, so we know, there is a problem out there, and we can do something about. If it gets blocked, then it goes on unnotified.
Fact is: Since pictures of abused childs are aviable on the web, the number of childs killed in abuses has dropped remarkably in Germany. From 40 per year in the Eighties down to six last year. That's 34 children rescued.
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or next month, when its another 'crime against society' they decide to block?
There goes free speech out the window. Don't get me wrong KP *IS* wrong, but you don't deal with it this way, by beginning the process of restricting speech, as once you start, its far to easy to add another item to the 'unapproved knowledge' list out of political pressure.
Ever hear of the Salem witch trials in America? This is similar to how that got started: People in power, imposing their twisted views of right and wrong on others.
Re:Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, then the public simply infers, since they are blocked, that they are child pornographers.
KFG
Re:Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:3, Insightful)
Denying rights without due process is a Bad Thing. This means that someone, somewhere, is sitting in judgement of another person's words with no re
Re:Question (Score:4, Insightful)
And the where do you draw the line argument holds little water. In every avenue of deciding what is permissable in society there are people making judgements of reasonableness. There are very few black and white issues, but that doesn't and shouldn't stop people tackling the worst of the problems.
Eh... wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Dixie Chicks still hold concerts [sonynashville.com]. Half of the Senate are vocal opponents of the administration's policies on terrorism. Michael Moore still got his movie out, and he's won a few awards [cannes.fr] I hear. Speaking out against authority today is nothing like how it was in ages past.
It's one thing to learn from history, but it's another to realize what portion of history is fact and what is propaganda. It's best that we all learn perspective from the past, instead of blindly believing what we are told today
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus, I don't understand why it's so wrong that child pornography gets exchanged. Obviously, the creation of the images in the first place is bad, but, by banning the exchange of them in addition to the creation, we're creating a legal taboo and sending a message, saying that, if you like pictures of naked kids, then, Houston, we have a problem.
What about sites like rotten.com, for people who like pictures of violence and decay? Shouldn't those images be illegal, too? Some of them are photographic evidence of criminal acts!
I don't think it's really appropriate to declare any private exchange of information illegal, ever. I don't think it's really appropriate for the government to interfere much with what property a person can own and what they can do with it. It's all paranoia. If someone wants to have guns and bombs, maybe they should be watched carefully, but the key point is, have they caused any harm to anyone or anything else yet, by merely having those items?
Maybe they just like pyrotechnics *shrug*. I know I've made gunpowder and little film-canister explosives, with the intent to detonate them just for fun, without causing harm to anyone else. Sure, maybe detonating them without a pyrotechnics license would still be a very bad idea (because then there's no guarantee I have proper training), but, if I had a license to do something dangerous, there's no reason I shouldn't be allowed to do it.
Nobody ever said freedom was an easy thing.
I suggest that anybody who believes in freedom like I do move out and colonize some area with me. We'll set up a country centered around freedom..
Oh wait! They already did that, it's called the U.S. of A. But then why does said country have so many laws prohibiting so many types of possessions and a few types of speech?
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Informative)
Exchange = grater demand = more supply needed = more children affected.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, is it really necessary to assume such individuals are through-and-through disturbed? That's what society argues, but, psychology is not an exact science.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, I do think that such individuals are disturbed. Period.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Interesting)
This came up in the discussion of virtual representations of child pornography. That is, drawings, computer animation, other things that portray children having sex but actually do not involve real children. A law was passed to outlaw such things based on the "market" argument, and this law was eventually struck down by the SCOTUS.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, so how about me and a few of my buds gome pay you a visit, strap down you and your girlfriend for a hot bukkake fest, film it as we do so and then we make your shame and humilation available for perverts to wank over via the internet for all eternity?
Can you still not see what's so wrong about that?
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
In several ways:
- Firstly, most of the people in the pictures on rotten.com are dead.
- Secondly, for those who aren't, rotten.com regularly take down such pictures at the request of lawyers.
- Thirdly, rotten.com is a legally run site with a named owner and so can be dealt with through the criminal and civil law. Distribution of kiddy porn site illegal in almost all jurisdictions, and so people whose rights are violated won't have legal recourse.
- Fourthly, it's irrelevant. Two wrongs don't make a right.
- Fifthly, answer my question: how would you feel if me and a bunch of pals were to come around to your place, forcibly rape you and submit you to terrible indignities, and then distribute the film on the net for the rest of eternity?
Or, how about the recent pictures of Iraqi POWs being tortured?
I imagine that those Iraqi prisoners are only too happy to have those photographs published because they serve to highlight a terrible injustice that has been done to them. My guess is that most people in that situation would want the world to know what happened to them. But if they didn't, they have a right to privacy. The people who are publishing those photographs are easily identifiable and again subject to the civil and criminal law -- unlike child pornographers.
Kiddy porn, in contrast, isn't produced so that right-thinking people can view it to see what a terrible crime has been committed against these poor children. It's passed around between people who have that particular kink in their make up, as fantasy and masturbation fodder. There are no parallels at all that I can see between photographs of human rights violations, no matter how embarrassing they might be and kiddy porn.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember Prohibitionism era ? It was effectively trying to cut the production and distribution of alcohol, but it never worked because the demand for alcohol was consistent and was probably reinforced by the fact alcohol become a "forbidden thing" and we all known how youngsters are attracted by things that are forbidden by adults during their transition to maturity. Police spent enormous resources trying to address the "alcohol" problem, just to see all the effort wasted because it was a pointless investment to begin with.
"Tracking and hunting" approach, typical of today knee-jerk reactionism, doesn't address the psycological problems child pornographers have, which probably is caused by an unhealthy approach to sex, seen as a "problem" or "filthy issue" instead of a completely natural expression of human beings. Education on the subject of sex works in the long term, while repression and prohibition has done more damages then good.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe that's called "entrapment." And if you can find a way to legally justify it for suspicion of one type of crime, it becomes easier to justify it for other crims.
For example, let's say someone is writing a book. For research, he wants to know how much contract killing costs. He googles for rates, and may or may not find the information he's looking for. Within days, however, his apartment is raided and his equipment confiscated. Shortly, he's charged with some sort of pre-murder or conspiracy crime.
What good is freedom of speech, if you don't have the freedom to find out what to say?
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I don't like the NRA. Should I demand my ISP block those sites too? And I believe in a woman's right to choose, so maybe I should demand my ISP block anti-abortion sites? I don't like the republican party. Should I demand that the ISP block their sites?
Anyone who now responds with "but that's not the same thing!" is missing the point. Blocking something that most people (myself included) is a universal evil sounds like a good idea, but it sets a dangerous precedent. It can be twisted around to allow someone to start blocking sites that have unfavorable political views by associating them with child porn in some way. Do this enough times, and eventually they'll stop even trying to make the association since censorship will become a fact of life.
Freedom of speech means NOTHING if it is not open for all. Freedom for all, or freedom for none.
Also, consider this: Child porn would not be around if there was not a demand for it. Perhaps the problem should be addressed there, rather than accepting this band-aid solution.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Child porn is a law enforcement issue. Ever heard of police? Warrants? Courts? Due process? No, it appears not.
I expect BT to comply with law enforcement. IPs hitti
Re:My theory: "The Universal EEW!" (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a slippery slope because when the kiddie porn perveyors are gone, then everyone else looks a little more censorable.