modemac writes
"Verizon has declared it will no longer offer access to the entire alt.* hierarchy of Usenet newsgroups to its customers. This stems from last week's agreement for major ISPs to cut off access to 'newsgroups and Web sites' that make child pornography available. The story notes, 'No law requires Verizon to do this. Instead, the company (and, to varying extents, Time Warner Cable and Sprint) agreed to restrictions on Usenet in response to political strong-arming by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups — out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist.' In response, Verizon will cut its customers off from a large portion of Usenet, as it will only carry newsgroups in the Big 8."
Be clear on this: The telecommunications industry sees the entire Internet as we know it as a "niche market" because there is stuff going on from which they are not making money.
Little by little, in steps of increasing size, the Internet is becoming television. We all agreed that the spam video that came out a few weeks ago of the woman talking about how the "internet will disappear by 2012" was an overreaction and it really wasn't all that bad.
Unfortunately it is exactly that bad. Do you think Slashdot will be part of the Internet if they have their way? I'm betting that if each of us were to list our 10 favorite websites, that 8 out of 10 of them would cease to exist unless strict net neutrality laws are put into effect immediately. What will it take for you to see that the "free market" effects are going to make the Internet just a memory for those of us who lived through the 80's and 90's and saw the birth of such a remarkable phenomenon.
More importantly, are we expecting these customers to physically move? Because often, the big ISPs have a physical monopoly on an area.
Amen, this is the thing that people keep forgetting about. In my little hometown (and the towns immediately surrounding it), we've got four choices:
1. delaware.net - Can't complain about their service or policies as I was a member for years, but... it's dialup.
2. Comcast.
3. Verizon (they aren't available for me, but if I lived a little further to the north and to the east, I could get it).
4. AOL.
Those are my choices if I want to get online. I'm not going to be so silly as to pull a number out of my ass, but I doubt that I'm in the extreme minority there.
The internet in the US, now that it has been taken over as a telecom commodity, is only available to the vast majority of people as "choose one of the following options"...
1 - local cable monopoly (usually the fastest affordable option) 2 - local DSL monopoly (about the same price, but much slower) 3 - local dialup barely eking survival (cost about half 1 or 2, but too slow to matter) 4 - national dialup (about the same as 3, unless you also purchase a line from 1 or 2 as a carrier, increase speed at increased cost) 5 - local telco T# line (very fast, but bend over and grab your ankles for the pricetag)
Very few other alternatives exist anymore, as most were driven out of business. Lately we've been seeing FIOS as a new option, but the valid market segments in the US for people who can see fields and trees outside their home's windows can be counted on the fingers of one hand. For instance, I probably won't have FIOS available in my area until about 2019.
Do I like having Comcast as my provider? Hell no. Do I trust them with my connection? Hell no. Do I have any other options? Hell no.
This complaint has come up several times recently on Slashdot and other sites, and it always burns my ass when people reply with statements like: "Well, why don't you move?"
For an easy thing to say, it's one of the hardest things to do. Maybe those of you that are thinking this can pay for me to buy a new home and move to it. If it's outside of Comcast's influence, since moving that far would make my commute somewhere on the order of 3-4 hours each way, maybe you'd also like to get me hired to a job near my new home so that I can continue doing things I've gotten into habit to do - such as, you know, "eat".
The real fun will be when all of the "normal" user groups are taken over by the folks who no longer have access to the.ALT usergroups. I mean DUH everyone will just move in on other newsgroups and flood them! They are going to end up playing whack-a-mole removing group after group, this is stupid!
We dropped usenet several years ago when the cost kept going up from our provider.
When we dropped it, we had exactly two calls to complain. Neither of them canceled because of it. This is out of a couple thousand subscribers.
I was probably the only one who actually cared, and it wasn't that big of a deal for me; Because I work there, I still had access to our upstream provider's news servers which weren't open to our subscribers.
I doubt Verizon will hurt much because of this. If they lose anyone, it may only number in the hundreds, if that. The cost of the bandwidth saved by dumping Usenet will more than make up for the subscribers lost.
There are always independent Usenet providers, too, for a few bucks per month.
If everyone that accessed UseNet just switches to a pay for use news site theres no change in bandwidth... You still download it? They just save on hardware.
Even worse than that, it costs them MORE bandwidth this way.
Keep in mind, most ISPs only pay the big bucks for their internet connectivity. The network between them and you (and all their customers) is MUCH cheaper, measured only in maintenance costs. The internet lines have the same maintenance cost, plus bandwidth costs, on top of base charges.
Before, they transfered all of the news articles Once, using internet bandwidth once, from their upstream new servers to their own. Customers could get these all from their news server, which can happen by any number of customers any number of times and there is no extra bandwidth fees to the ISP.
Now, all of their users will be transferring news articles from the internet to them, each one taking their share of bandwidth from the internet pipes.
What a coincidence that they make an enormous overreaction which frees up countless gigabits of bandwidth!
Perhaps not. Isn't the whole point of carrying newsgroups for a provider to have a local copy (local to the ISP, that is)? Bandwidth from that local copy to users is cheap for an ISP.
Ditch that local copy and what happens? Some users will stop downloading these things. But many users would just find another way. For example: other provider's usenet servers, sites elsewhere on the web, P2P programs, etc. I reckon most of these forms would mean traffic from users to random places on the internet, read: much more expensive/troublesome for the ISP than if traffic came from their own servers.
Personally, I would vote with my feet ASAP if my ISP stopped passing on data for anything other than technical or legal reasons.
"Personally, I would vote with my feet ASAP if my ISP stopped passing on data for anything other than technical or legal reasons."
Problem is, even after crippling usenet, Verizon is still the best in my area - I can either go with them, Comcast, or RCN (cable) unless I want to shell out for a dedicated line. I'm surely not going to vote with my feet over to Comcast, and RCN doesn't have a stellar reputation, either.
My previous ISP did not offer local newsgroup support, so I was left to go looking elsewhere for it. What I encountered was frustrating, because ALL the free usenet services on the network were not complete. Most for example, did NOT cache the entire alt.binaries tree, or any other group that hosted large amounts of data. The few that did were very selective as to which groups they carried, had a low retention (some as little as 4 days) and were god-awful slow.
The free services came and went on a weekly basis, and every couple months I'd have to blow another afternoon looking for another service.
So I ended up ponying up for a pay newsgroup service that carried all the groups, for an extra $20/month I felt my ISP should already be giving me. The service was metered, and once you'd downloaded your monthly limit, you were done until next month. But they did have good speeds and almost 100% of the available groups with at least 2 weeks retention.
Although cost-cutting and censorship are both being blamed here, I don't think that's it. It looks more like a company taking the path of least resistance. The ThinkOfTheChildren tag seems most appropriate. People exercising extremely poor judgement and foresight that result in a massive net-loss in public benefit, under the guise of some holy cause, the only real purpose of which is to shut up a few whiners.
Newsgroup feeds use up about 1.5TB a day. Do the math for 14 days retention. It's a heck of a committment.
Dropping the entire alt tree is an overreaction but it will save them money in server administration and bandwidth - I'm willing to bet 95% of their users have never even heard of usenet (and half of the remainder call it 'google groups').
Child pornography has also been found on 3,000 of the 100,000,000 sites that form the Worldwide Web. Verizon will be shutting down access to this service immediately.
Child pornography has also been found being shared by approximately 0.5% of users on peer-to-peer networks. Verizon will be shutting down access to this service immediately.
Ahh, nothing like feeling protected. Pretty soon you'll find you can receive the same level of service and "protection" AS Verizon provides by cancelling your internet service entirely and save yourself $40/month in the process.
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday June 15 2008, @09:11AM (#23800011)
"Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups--out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist.'"
Can we apply the same logic and standard to New York's population. If the state has any areas/counties/towns with a.088 or greater percentage of sexual predators will they restrict the rest of the state from traveling to that area?
What about other crimes? After all we are talking about everyone's well being. If NY's overall crime rate is greater than.088 then other states should restrict all travel and communications with NY.
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday June 15 2008, @09:11AM (#23800017)
the same way Republicans are obsessed with Homosexuals.
If you thought GOP was bad in these past 8 years wait until Democrats assume the wheel with supermajority to push whatever nanny-state bullshit they can think of in the name of the "children"
Video games and the internet seem to be the useful idiots for Democrats. Just blame it on violence and child porn to shut things down and generate talking points for the next election cycle. Oh yeah, do that in between paying lip service to net neutrality proponents.
follow me, on this. right now, the network is *mostly* unfiltered and for many users, they do get a clean unfiltered net feed (home, work, whatever). and so if laws are broken (say you illegally download something), the own-ness is on you. the carrier or the authority policing the carrier isn't at fault since its not them who are guaranteeing a '100% legal internet feed'. they clearly can't say that all things you could pull down are legal and they are just a common carrier. I know that CC status is magical and not all real CC's have it but that's just because our laws in this area are not well fine-tuned yet. any reasonable person knows that an ISP is a service provider just like the water department, electric department or the phone company.
but say that they now have the job of regulating the legality of all things you could net-access. then, if you -do- find some song or other 'illegal content' and you do manage to download it, you SHOULD be free and clear. right? afterall, there is now a policing layer (a 'great firewall' if you will) between you, the user, and the ISP or upstream service provider. if they take on the job of filtering and 'ensuring a clean and legal net experience' then ANY bad deeds you do by downloading files is not your problem anymore.
I don't think they want either side, to be honest. they don't want to be in the regulation business because once you do that in an above-board manner, you should be liable for any faults in your so-called filtering algorithms. if you tell some grandma that 'the net is now safe' and she finds something she does not like, she SHOULD be able to sue your damned ass.
its sad to think that the ISPs are not thinking far enough in the future to see where this leads. they must insist on common-carrier status and all that that implies. the net is like a water pipe (cue the infamous senator quote about 'tubes!' here) and it should not be filtered or mangled by some well-meaning (cough!) government moran.
responsibility belongs AFTER the demarc point, so to speak. NEVER EVER before it!
That is why they are probably legally safe from just not carrying the entire alt.* hierarchy.
Common carrier does not necessarily demand you service anybody. A common-carrier truck line can only service two major cities (say, Portland OR and Seattle WA), or only be able to provide services with a 14-foot van.
Similarly, Verizon can choose to not carry a wide swath of net.news, provided their reasoning for not carrying it fills a technical requirement. All they have to say in front of a judge is that it is increasingly difficult to operate and maintain a news server to carry those groups, and any potential lawsuit is over.
If it even sees the inside of a courtroom. Last I checked, Verizon subscribers are tied to binding arbitration.. so good luck with this ever being seen by a judge.
MY question is why are we treating the child porn imagery itself as something horrid and evil that anyone who possesses must be arrested for?
Why not go after the people who MAKE child porn? You know the ones ACTUALLY HURTING kids? Oh wait, that's because this requires actual police work, which is DIFFICULT. The prosecutors and lawmakers need someone to blame, so they blame the people who possess and distribute simply because they are easier to find.
It's laziness combined with a need to point a finger at someone. And it really stinks.
Suit: So Cocks called.
John: Cocks?
Suit: Yeah, Cocks. The network for the ballsiest.
Anyway, they want to be hooked up to our digital cable service. What's the capacity on our system right now?
John: Well we still have 50% of our bandwidth av--
Suit: Sweet Virgin Mary! Only 50%? Who's eating up all our bandwidth?
John: Well it's mostly HD football channels, and then peer to peer, and then Usenet.
Suit: Well, we sure as hell can't get rid of the football, and you were supposed to block peer to peer anyway! What in God's name is Usenet?
John: It's a bulletin board system where people can share files.
Suit: Well drop it! I'm not going to limit quality programming for some godless file sharing faggots.
John: But how do we explain that we're arbitrarily dropping a significant portion of our service?
Suit: What are you, stupid? Just say what we always say: we found child porn. Why do I pay you if I do all the thinking?
In other news, automobiles were banned from expressways today in an effort to curb alcoholism once and for all. Items also banned today were kitchen knives amid concerns of forced penis removal, horseback riding in an effort to promote the chastity of young ladies, and bedsheets due to fears of beds not being made.
Verizon isn't blocking anything, they are just not going to carry anything that isn't from the big 8 ON THEIR OWN SERVERS. That is all they are doing. There is no attempted blocking, no attempted fuck big brotherism, nothing. Anyone who was using the Verizon server can simply use another one (pay or free) and suddenly they have access to all the stuff (legitimate and non) that used to be available from the Verizon server. All that really happened is Cuomo wanted to look good to voters, picked an issue you can't lose (politically) with, started talking to several ISPs, and then they decided that even though what the guy wanted wouldn't solve anything, giving him something to make him happy wouldn't actually hurt anyone, so they said sure. This little bit of theater makes Cuomo look good, it makes the ISPs look good to the (mostly non usenet-using) public, and in actuality doesn't hurt anyone.
Before the Internet, how did they track it down? Huh? How did pervs get their porn? Most likely, they got it through the mail or stores, via porn distributors that put up a legal front, but did some percentage of their biz in illegal material. To bust guys like that, back then, must have taken some effort. You can't just open mail willy-nilly or search store inventory looking for the needle in a haystack.
Now, I'm as much against warrantless search as the next guy, but with kiddie porn on the 'net, you can quietly ask Verizon to monitor a suspect's traffic. They don't have to comply, but if they don't you just get a warrant and then they have to comply. Then, getting all the guy's traffic is as easy as adding him to a list in a file. You don't have to tamper with his mail, which might give him telltale clues he is being watched.
Remove kiddie porn from the Internet, and you remove an electronic audit-trail that might even bring us all the way back to the original source, all in the comfort of the agent's office. Remove it from the 'net and you drive it into a new underground. Most likely it would be retro to whatever was used before. Agents would have to go back "pounding the pavement" more, and with the cost of ga$ going through the roof that's not likely to happen.
In other words, it will just go further and further underground. Pervs are as lazy as anybody else. If it's easy to find on the 'net, they'll find it.
Taking it off the 'net only makes sense if you believe that having it there is likely to "convert" normal users into pedophiles. That's probably as bogus an argument as the idea that having gays in your neighborhood is going to convert people. I don't have a study to back it up though. Do they?
Another thought... Usenet allows the free exchange of commercially produced child porn. It's child porn piracy.
Now if music piracy is supposed to hurt the music industry, and movie piracy is supposed to hurt the movie industry, then shouldn't child porn piracy hurt the child porn industry? By shutting down child porn piracy, aren't the feds and the ISPs helping the commercial producers of child porn by protecting their business model and intellectual property rights?
(Hee hee, I figure a post that equates the RIAA/MPAA with pedophiles has to get a +5)
Those posts of child pornography on Usenet are traceable evidence of crimes exploiting children. The state AGs should be tracing the evidence back to the criminal exploiters and busting them. Instead, they're driving it underground, where it's harder to stop. First use the evidence to find and bust the perps, then remove the evidence from the public where it does further harm. Or the perps will just disappear, then pop up again creating more harm to more kids.
This foolish shortsightedness isn't just prosecutors and cops misunderstanding the newfangled Internet. This is cops and prosecutors failing to understand how free expression is always a benefit, when you understand it enough to use it right. That's a lesson at least 200 years in the making. It's about time Americans forced our "justice" system to get smart about it.
I've been using Internet since roughly 1991. Before that I used X.25 a lot. Obviously, I make my living by working in network/internet related areas, and spend half a bloody day using Internet in one way or another.
I have never, ever, in my life, found a child porn, nor seen it.
It is pretty simple, I think. I have never looked for it, so I never found it.
If a dumb politician thinks that him looking for something and then finding it (and he was looking for nothing less than child porn) is a reason to be upset, well... I feel sorry for the people he represents.
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday June 15 2008, @09:02AM (#23799945)
Verizon subscribers can still access them through Google Groups, for example.
I think the issue for many people is more about being blocked from accessing the alt.binaries.* groups, of which Google Groups doesn't provide access (well, not to the actual binary files at least).
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday June 15 2008, @09:12AM (#23800027)
I think the issue for many people is more about being blocked from accessing the alt.binaries.* groups, of which Google Groups doesn't provide access (well, not to the actual binary files at least).
HAH! Caught you red-handed, paedophile. It's a well-known fact that alt.binaries.* is a haven for sadists sharing in UNDERAGE EXECUTABLES. Binaries with creation dates less than 3 previous have been found distributed over this network of filth. Hang your head in shame.
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday June 15 2008, @09:26AM (#23800115)
good luck getting an alt.* nntp feed for any less than $kilobucks$. (also, where are you going to get the OC3 needed to carry the articles to your home server).
Bullshit! If child pornography were the real target, they could have simply removed the binary groups. Removing alt.folklore.computers and alt.os.linux in order to avoid kiddie porn just makes no sense.
And bad things could happen with alt.sysadmin.recovery gone. Very bad things...
How about just blocking the 88 groups that have been identified as carrying child porn? That's quite doable and they could even include a provision to drop other groups if they had more than X reports of child porn in them as well. That way they only drop groups that are known to have child porn in them but keep the rest for their customers.
I think Cuomo's mostly concerned that they took no action on the groups they reported in the sting. If they did something like the above it would probably satisfy him because they're acting on reports (which they should have been doing anyway).
Nanny Verizon (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nanny Verizon (Score:5, Insightful)
Real men use a bidet.
Parent
Re:Nanny Verizon (Score:5, Funny)
Bidet? Barbarians...
Real men get a rimjob from their toilet slave.
Parent
Re:Nanny Verizon (Score:5, Funny)
*rolls on the floor laughing*
Parent
Re:Wipe their ass in the proper direction? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Wipe their ass in the proper direction? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think the question is, does your balls smell nice; the question is how did check?
Parent
alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Funny)
I have a few ideas..
CompuServe
AOL
Prodigy
What?
Content can be published by companies though. And instead of URLs, we will have a menu system provided with a desktop application.
We could call this application "Information Manager", and lookup information using keywords.
That'd rock! And it could be absolutely porn-free.
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
Who isn't surprised it's lasted this long?
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the first rule about USENET was that you didn't talk about USENET....
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Interesting)
Little by little, in steps of increasing size, the Internet is becoming television. We all agreed that the spam video that came out a few weeks ago of the woman talking about how the "internet will disappear by 2012" was an overreaction and it really wasn't all that bad.
Unfortunately it is exactly that bad. Do you think Slashdot will be part of the Internet if they have their way? I'm betting that if each of us were to list our 10 favorite websites, that 8 out of 10 of them would cease to exist unless strict net neutrality laws are put into effect immediately. What will it take for you to see that the "free market" effects are going to make the Internet just a memory for those of us who lived through the 80's and 90's and saw the birth of such a remarkable phenomenon.
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
1. delaware.net - Can't complain about their service or policies as I was a member for years, but... it's dialup.
2. Comcast.
3. Verizon (they aren't available for me, but if I lived a little further to the north and to the east, I could get it).
4. AOL.
Those are my choices if I want to get online. I'm not going to be so silly as to pull a number out of my ass, but I doubt that I'm in the extreme minority there.
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet in the US, now that it has been taken over as a telecom commodity, is only available to the vast majority of people as "choose one of the following options"...
1 - local cable monopoly (usually the fastest affordable option)
2 - local DSL monopoly (about the same price, but much slower)
3 - local dialup barely eking survival (cost about half 1 or 2, but too slow to matter)
4 - national dialup (about the same as 3, unless you also purchase a line from 1 or 2 as a carrier, increase speed at increased cost)
5 - local telco T# line (very fast, but bend over and grab your ankles for the pricetag)
Very few other alternatives exist anymore, as most were driven out of business. Lately we've been seeing FIOS as a new option, but the valid market segments in the US for people who can see fields and trees outside their home's windows can be counted on the fingers of one hand. For instance, I probably won't have FIOS available in my area until about 2019.
Do I like having Comcast as my provider? Hell no. Do I trust them with my connection? Hell no. Do I have any other options? Hell no.
This complaint has come up several times recently on Slashdot and other sites, and it always burns my ass when people reply with statements like: "Well, why don't you move?"
For an easy thing to say, it's one of the hardest things to do. Maybe those of you that are thinking this can pay for me to buy a new home and move to it. If it's outside of Comcast's influence, since moving that far would make my commute somewhere on the order of 3-4 hours each way, maybe you'd also like to get me hired to a job near my new home so that I can continue doing things I've gotten into habit to do - such as, you know, "eat".
Parent
Re:The real surprise . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Interesting)
When we dropped it, we had exactly two calls to complain. Neither of them canceled because of it. This is out of a couple thousand subscribers.
I was probably the only one who actually cared, and it wasn't that big of a deal for me; Because I work there, I still had access to our upstream provider's news servers which weren't open to our subscribers.
I doubt Verizon will hurt much because of this. If they lose anyone, it may only number in the hundreds, if that. The cost of the bandwidth saved by dumping Usenet will more than make up for the subscribers lost.
There are always independent Usenet providers, too, for a few bucks per month.
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Informative)
They just save on hardware.
Keep in mind, most ISPs only pay the big bucks for their internet connectivity. The network between them and you (and all their customers) is MUCH cheaper, measured only in maintenance costs. The internet lines have the same maintenance cost, plus bandwidth costs, on top of base charges.
Before, they transfered all of the news articles Once, using internet bandwidth once, from their upstream new servers to their own.
Customers could get these all from their news server, which can happen by any number of customers any number of times and there is no extra bandwidth fees to the ISP.
Now, all of their users will be transferring news articles from the internet to them, each one taking their share of bandwidth from the internet pipes.
Parent
Re: alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Interesting)
Ditch that local copy and what happens? Some users will stop downloading these things. But many users would just find another way. For example: other provider's usenet servers, sites elsewhere on the web, P2P programs, etc. I reckon most of these forms would mean traffic from users to random places on the internet, read: much more expensive/troublesome for the ISP than if traffic came from their own servers.
Personally, I would vote with my feet ASAP if my ISP stopped passing on data for anything other than technical or legal reasons.
Parent
Re: alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is, even after crippling usenet, Verizon is still the best in my area - I can either go with them, Comcast, or RCN (cable) unless I want to shell out for a dedicated line. I'm surely not going to vote with my feet over to Comcast, and RCN doesn't have a stellar reputation, either.
Parent
Re: alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
The free services came and went on a weekly basis, and every couple months I'd have to blow another afternoon looking for another service.
So I ended up ponying up for a pay newsgroup service that carried all the groups, for an extra $20/month I felt my ISP should already be giving me. The service was metered, and once you'd downloaded your monthly limit, you were done until next month. But they did have good speeds and almost 100% of the available groups with at least 2 weeks retention.
Although cost-cutting and censorship are both being blamed here, I don't think that's it. It looks more like a company taking the path of least resistance. The ThinkOfTheChildren tag seems most appropriate. People exercising extremely poor judgement and foresight that result in a massive net-loss in public benefit, under the guise of some holy cause, the only real purpose of which is to shut up a few whiners.
Parent
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Insightful)
Dropping the entire alt tree is an overreaction but it will save them money in server administration and bandwidth - I'm willing to bet 95% of their users have never even heard of usenet (and half of the remainder call it 'google groups').
Parent
Competition? (Score:5, Funny)
Logical progression: (Score:5, Insightful)
Child pornography has also been found being shared by approximately 0.5% of users on peer-to-peer networks. Verizon will be shutting down access to this service immediately.
Ahh, nothing like feeling protected. Pretty soon you'll find you can receive the same level of service and "protection" AS Verizon provides by cancelling your internet service entirely and save yourself $40/month in the process.
Re:Logical progression: (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
quick... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:quick... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Where can we go with their logic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we apply the same logic and standard to New York's population. If the state has any areas/counties/towns with a
What about other crimes? After all we are talking about everyone's well being. If NY's overall crime rate is greater than
Democrats are obsessed with Child Porn (Score:4, Insightful)
If you thought GOP was bad in these past 8 years wait until Democrats assume the wheel with supermajority to push whatever nanny-state bullshit they can think of in the name of the "children"
Video games and the internet seem to be the useful idiots for Democrats. Just blame it on violence and child porn to shut things down and generate talking points for the next election cycle. Oh yeah, do that in between paying lip service to net neutrality proponents.
the problem with filtering (Score:5, Insightful)
follow me, on this. right now, the network is *mostly* unfiltered and for many users, they do get a clean unfiltered net feed (home, work, whatever). and so if laws are broken (say you illegally download something), the own-ness is on you. the carrier or the authority policing the carrier isn't at fault since its not them who are guaranteeing a '100% legal internet feed'. they clearly can't say that all things you could pull down are legal and they are just a common carrier. I know that CC status is magical and not all real CC's have it but that's just because our laws in this area are not well fine-tuned yet. any reasonable person knows that an ISP is a service provider just like the water department, electric department or the phone company.
but say that they now have the job of regulating the legality of all things you could net-access. then, if you -do- find some song or other 'illegal content' and you do manage to download it, you SHOULD be free and clear. right? afterall, there is now a policing layer (a 'great firewall' if you will) between you, the user, and the ISP or upstream service provider. if they take on the job of filtering and 'ensuring a clean and legal net experience' then ANY bad deeds you do by downloading files is not your problem anymore.
I don't think they want either side, to be honest. they don't want to be in the regulation business because once you do that in an above-board manner, you should be liable for any faults in your so-called filtering algorithms. if you tell some grandma that 'the net is now safe' and she finds something she does not like, she SHOULD be able to sue your damned ass.
its sad to think that the ISPs are not thinking far enough in the future to see where this leads. they must insist on common-carrier status and all that that implies. the net is like a water pipe (cue the infamous senator quote about 'tubes!' here) and it should not be filtered or mangled by some well-meaning (cough!) government moran.
responsibility belongs AFTER the demarc point, so to speak. NEVER EVER before it!
Re:the problem with filtering (Score:5, Insightful)
Common carrier does not necessarily demand you service anybody. A common-carrier truck line can only service two major cities (say, Portland OR and Seattle WA), or only be able to provide services with a 14-foot van.
Similarly, Verizon can choose to not carry a wide swath of net.news, provided their reasoning for not carrying it fills a technical requirement. All they have to say in front of a judge is that it is increasingly difficult to operate and maintain a news server to carry those groups, and any potential lawsuit is over.
If it even sees the inside of a courtroom. Last I checked, Verizon subscribers are tied to binding arbitration.. so good luck with this ever being seen by a judge.
Parent
Re:the problem with filtering (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not go after the people who MAKE child porn? You know the ones ACTUALLY HURTING kids? Oh wait, that's because this requires actual police work, which is DIFFICULT. The prosecutors and lawmakers need someone to blame, so they blame the people who possess and distribute simply because they are easier to find.
It's laziness combined with a need to point a finger at someone. And it really stinks.
Parent
Actual Verizon Business Discussion: (Score:5, Funny)
John: Cocks?
Suit: Yeah, Cocks. The network for the ballsiest.
Anyway, they want to be hooked up to our digital cable service. What's the capacity on our system right now?
John: Well we still have 50% of our bandwidth av--
Suit: Sweet Virgin Mary! Only 50%? Who's eating up all our bandwidth?
John: Well it's mostly HD football channels, and then peer to peer, and then Usenet.
Suit: Well, we sure as hell can't get rid of the football, and you were supposed to block peer to peer anyway! What in God's name is Usenet?
John: It's a bulletin board system where people can share files.
Suit: Well drop it! I'm not going to limit quality programming for some godless file sharing faggots.
John: But how do we explain that we're arbitrarily dropping a significant portion of our service?
Suit: What are you, stupid? Just say what we always say: we found child porn. Why do I pay you if I do all the thinking?
in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
RE: Does anybody mind? (Score:4, Insightful)
ISP usenet services are 9 times out of 10 either outsourced, or have terrible retention, spotty coverage, and no propogation.
BitNabber [bitnabber.com] has all my usenet needs taken care of.
Why is this such an issue? (Score:5, Informative)
Taking kiddie porn off net is stupid. Here's Why. (Score:5, Interesting)
Before the Internet, how did they track it down? Huh? How did pervs get their porn? Most likely, they got it through the mail or stores, via porn distributors that put up a legal front, but did some percentage of their biz in illegal material. To bust guys like that, back then, must have taken some effort. You can't just open mail willy-nilly or search store inventory looking for the needle in a haystack.
Now, I'm as much against warrantless search as the next guy, but with kiddie porn on the 'net, you can quietly ask Verizon to monitor a suspect's traffic. They don't have to comply, but if they don't you just get a warrant and then they have to comply. Then, getting all the guy's traffic is as easy as adding him to a list in a file. You don't have to tamper with his mail, which might give him telltale clues he is being watched.
Remove kiddie porn from the Internet, and you remove an electronic audit-trail that might even bring us all the way back to the original source, all in the comfort of the agent's office. Remove it from the 'net and you drive it into a new underground. Most likely it would be retro to whatever was used before. Agents would have to go back "pounding the pavement" more, and with the cost of ga$ going through the roof that's not likely to happen.
In other words, it will just go further and further underground. Pervs are as lazy as anybody else. If it's easy to find on the 'net, they'll find it.
Taking it off the 'net only makes sense if you believe that having it there is likely to "convert" normal users into pedophiles. That's probably as bogus an argument as the idea that having gays in your neighborhood is going to convert people. I don't have a study to back it up though. Do they?
Re:Taking kiddie porn off net is stupid. Here's Wh (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if music piracy is supposed to hurt the music industry, and movie piracy is supposed to hurt the movie industry, then shouldn't child porn piracy hurt the child porn industry? By shutting down child porn piracy, aren't the feds and the ISPs helping the commercial producers of child porn by protecting their business model and intellectual property rights?
(Hee hee, I figure a post that equates the RIAA/MPAA with pedophiles has to get a +5)
Parent
Destroying the Evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
This foolish shortsightedness isn't just prosecutors and cops misunderstanding the newfangled Internet. This is cops and prosecutors failing to understand how free expression is always a benefit, when you understand it enough to use it right. That's a lesson at least 200 years in the making. It's about time Americans forced our "justice" system to get smart about it.
You find what you are looking for (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never, ever, in my life, found a child porn, nor seen it.
It is pretty simple, I think. I have never looked for it, so I never found it.
If a dumb politician thinks that him looking for something and then finding it (and he was looking for nothing less than child porn) is a reason to be upset, well... I feel sorry for the people he represents.
the last time this came up as an issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:so what (Score:5, Informative)
I think the issue for many people is more about being blocked from accessing the alt.binaries.* groups, of which Google Groups doesn't provide access (well, not to the actual binary files at least).
Parent
Re:so what (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Common Carrier Status *poof* (Score:5, Informative)
Just like every single NNTP server out there.
But don't let that stop you from overreacting, though.
Parent
Re:That's all? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:obviously thought through (Score:5, Funny)
alt.verizon-sucks
alt.verizon-sucks.dick
alr.verizon-sucks.ass
Parent
Re:Binary groups (Score:5, Insightful)
Very bad things...
Parent
Re:To protect children... (Score:5, Insightful)
To my eye, looks like it's been pretty successful so far.
Parent
Re:So what do YOU suggest they do? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about just blocking the 88 groups that have been identified as carrying child porn? That's quite doable and they could even include a provision to drop other groups if they had more than X reports of child porn in them as well. That way they only drop groups that are known to have child porn in them but keep the rest for their customers.
I think Cuomo's mostly concerned that they took no action on the groups they reported in the sting. If they did something like the above it would probably satisfy him because they're acting on reports (which they should have been doing anyway).
Parent