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."
They block web sites but... (Score:3, Informative)
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].
Re:Is this bad or good? (Score:2, Informative)
It wouldn't suprise me - since in the UK hardcore porn _is_ actually illegal. They have a law that stipulates (and I'm not joking here) the maximum elevation an erect penis can be in porn flicks there.
Most full-frontal nudity is banned on television, and you can't really show acts of penetration.
So given that child porn is illegal, and what most mainland European's consider hardcore porn is illegal too - how long do you think........
P.S. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get Google to find a link to 'UK erection laws'. I really tried. I did.
Re:Typo? (Score:2, Informative)
The Register: Pennsylvania child porn law causes 'massive overblocking of sites' [theregister.co.uk]
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Informative)
Exchange = grater demand = more supply needed = more children affected.
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:Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Informative)
For example S&M acts between consenting adults is illegal (see the Spanner [slashdot.org] website).
There has been cases in the UK where people have been found guily of GBH (wounding a person) when the act was 100% consenting!
IANAL I would assume all images depicting said acts would likely be illegal
Jaj
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.
Re:WTF? (Score:2, Informative)
That's not true any more. Japan introduced anti child porn laws [theregister.co.uk] back in 1999. The US and others had put pressure on their govermnent because Japanese websites were easy to access by their citizens.
Re:Will they block Freenet (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think you're aware how Freenet works. If you did, you'd realize that it's nearly impossible to block.
1. Random ports. Since there's no standard port, there's nothing to block unless the ISP just blocked everything, but... they'd lose the majority of their customer base.
2. Encrypted data. No one will be able to see what you're transmitting, so there's no pattern to filter.
3. Decentralized. Like Gnutella, there's no central server that houses Freenet node information and locations.
Even if they DID make laws to ban freenet itself, short of installing a camera in front of your monitor or software to monitor what's running, it's impossible to detect who's using it.
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.
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:2, Informative)
Woah woah woah, you're making a BIG leap here. British Telecom is talking about banning websites that show child pornography, which is NOT the same thing as stopping the child pornography from ever being made. Child porn isn't like, say, deordorant. Without a large enough market to justify the sale of deodorant, people wouldn't make it. It's cost prohibitive. Child porn, however, has intrinsic value for the people who make it. There isn't really any profit motive in making kiddie porn. This issue is totally distinct from any other illegal item because the act itself involves things which are already in existance and cannot be regulated, namely adults with an appetite for children and children. It isn't like marijuana or alchohol where you can find the plants or bottles and distroy them.
What you're suggesting is an economic solution to a sociological and psychological problem. It's not as easy or as simple, but the only solution to a sociological/psychological problem is a sociological/psychological solutuion. I don't know what it would be, I'm not a psychologist or a member of a think tank with a lot of time to devote to the issue, but I'm sure as hell there's a better solution that the one that BT is proposing.
To review:
understanding of economics = good
desire for a quick fix instead of a solution to a complex problem = bad, and way to frequent these days.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Informative)
Inevitably this is a rather subjective judgement and has lead to a very inconsistent application of the act. It also makes it all but impossible for an individual to determine whether a given image in their possession is illegal under the act or not - it all depends on the opinion of the judge that you may or may not be hauled in front of.
That said, possession of such 'obscene' material is not itself illegal unless it was imported illegally. Distribution and publication of 'obscene' material is an offence. And simply showing someone an 'obscene' image is classed as publication for this purpose.
The law regarding pornography involving consenting adults is really a complete mess in the UK.
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: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:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Informative)
There was one fellow on the news a few weeks ago who said that he now had to leave Iraq because he could not face the humiliation of being known as one of the people in the photos.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Informative)
If the porn is on DVD or Video then it is ilegal to sell it unless it has been classified by the BBFC.
Likewise to show it in a cinema the film has to be classifed by the BBFC or approved by the local council. (who have the power to change any clasification issued by the BBFC)
If the BBFC give the work an R18 clasification then it can only be sold through licenced sex shops or shown in member's only sex cinemas (of which only few exist) such as the Other Cinema in London.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Informative)
BT does not employ shit nowdays besides managers as far as Internet is concerned. Nearly everything is otsourced to TATA or someone else.
Their internet access at work is censored to the point where it is nearly useless especially as far as port in concerned. Still, people find way to get around it. Check on theregister. They had a fairly decent coverage of a story where a student offered her virginity on Ebay to pay for Uni. The person to buy the goods and consume them was a BT engineer (apparetnly did it at work the poor sod and in the UK soliciting for prostitution happens to be illegal).
Re:Look at the facts! (Score:2, Informative)
Uhm, nope, the fact is we are talking about blocking sites that, as determined by the law contain child exploitation content.
Another fact is, this also means we are talking about supression of speach.
There are many reasons why this is wrong.
The goal of preventing child exploitation is to prevent a "child" from having sexual encounters until the child knows what sex is and is mature enough to make decisions that will effect his/her life.
Many would consider a child/person that reaches this maturity level to be an adult.
The law would consider this person to in fact be a child. And reality has a person that is a natural adult that is legally a child.
Usually the major factor in determining child exploitation is age.
Children learn about sex at different ages. Children also mature mentally as a function of their biology and their surroundings, etc...
So now we wonder, should the law be based on natural maturity which can not be measured or a predetermined age? Well, since you cant measure maturity and exploitation can not be tolerated and most certainly would still exist and be exploited if the law were to be based on maturity, the obvious choice is age.
We have been looking at the law on the childrens side, but child exploitation has to have a child and an adult involved. So lets look at it from the adults perspective a little...
No law in the world is going to be able to stop a natural-adult/legal-child from accidentaly flirting with someone that is a legal adult.
Also, where should the law stand when a legal child lies about their age to an adult? Many would think thats not the fault of the adult. But the law generally will not punish the child and the adult will go to jail.
Should the law be allowed to basically enforce "no sexual/erotic encounters until positive identification is insured"?
Should the law allow suppression of speach as long as its for the children?
So when you ask yourself "do I think this is ok?" you must ask yourself if you think its ok for supression of speach to be merged with laws that are so grey even if it is for the children. If it is allowed then suprression of speach will be legally grey, even though most people would consider it to be black. This is obviously not a good scenario.
Since supression of speach for this reason will not eliminate the exploitation and has many chances of incriminating (what many would think to be) innocent people, I believe the law should find another way.
And I'll finish up with something other slashdoters and the Bush administration has made clear...
Ya give an inch, they take a mile.