ISPs and Usenet, part 94

Sunda writes: "An Norwegian ISP, Tele2, has been fined 350,000 Nkr (near 40,000 US $) after beeing held responsible by Norwegian Police for child porn beeing accesible through their News servers. In a statement Okokrim (the part of norwegian police dealing with computer crime) says that the case is made more serious by the fact that child porn has been accessible through the news servers for a longer period of time (they've been working on this for more than a year). Okokrim claims that "...this could have been prevented by internal control at Tele2". Tele2's lawyer Erling Lyngtveit argues that controlling all material running through their news servers would be an almost impossible task. He further says that Tele2 feel betrayed by the police since they for a long time have cooporated with both police authoritys and volunteer organisations to prevent the spreading of child porn through the internet. Okokrim, on the other hand, have not reported their findings of child pornography to Tele2. Lyngtveit says that if Okokrim had made Tele2 aware of their findings, the company would have been more than willing to remove the material and help tracking the users who's posted the material. Tele2 have refused to pay the fine, and the case will now be brought to court."

Typical

[Rupert]

Why can't people see how simple this is?

Production of child pornography => Death sentence
Using child pornography => Electric shocks to the nadgers until you don't like it any more
Transmitting child pornography => just doing your job.

--

Re:Typical

[LocalH]

It's the same argument used against Napster - people are doing illegal things using your service so you are responsible. That line of reasoning would make Burger King liable if someone set up a drug deal while eating a Whopper in the restaurant.

There should be two possibilities for businesses like this: police everything and you are responsible for what you don't catch, or don't police anything and the responsibility falls on the user. Of course, that's what 'common carrier' status is. The phone company has it, why not ISPs? They serve a similar but decidedly different service - providing a means of communication between people. ISPs just allow broader communication than the phone company.

And following that (absurd) line of reasoning, why not go after the telco, too? After all, people downloading kiddie porn used phone lines to connect to the ISP where the kiddie porn was accessed from.

Keep in mind I'm not arguing against you, but rather with you. :)
_______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT

Re:Wrong Analogy

[LocalH]

• Perhaps the better analogy would be that a perp buys a Whopper(r) sandwich, inserts poison, and kills a person by presenting that Whopper(r) sandwich to the victim. Burger King would be an accessory to murder by providing the medium used to pass the poison -- the above-mentioned Whopper(r) sandwich.

You're right, I've always been bad with analogies :) Same basic concept, though, behind both of them - a party that doesn't condone what some of their customers do, being responsible for their customers' actions.
_______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT

Re:Typical

[L-Train8]

I would disagree with the implied condition that your argument is based on, namely, that providing internet access==transmitting everything on the web. The concept of common carrier status, where the ISP is only providing access to the internet, not providing the content, is applicable here.

Should the phone company be responsible for every phone conversation that involves criminal activity? If a terrorist filled a backpack with explosives, took a bus to a government building, and blew it up, is the bus company guilty of terrorism? Providing a service that can be used for good or evil is not inherently evil. It's the people that use the service for evil that are the problem.

It seems that this ISP was making efforts to curb the porn being accessed through them. If that is not good enough, I don't see any other option than to close down internet access in Norway. And close down any phone service going outside of Norway, because it could be used to access an international ISP and "transmit" porn.

So, Telco is always guilty?

[loncarevic]

So, if someone using phone threat or abuse Telco is responsible for that? Something is rotten in land of Dan... Norway ;)

Wrong Analogy

[satch89450]

That line of reasoning would make Burger King liable if someone set up a drug deal while eating a Whopper in the restaurant.

Perhaps the better analogy would be that a perp buys a Whopper(r) sandwich, inserts poison, and kills a person by presenting that Whopper(r) sandwich to the victim. Burger King would be an accessory to murder by providing the medium used to pass the poison -- the above-mentioned Whopper(r) sandwich.

Common carriers are in the same situation as the above-mentioned fast food chain is in. It makes just as much sense to fine the ISP as it does to charge the restaurant for accessory.

My thoughts

[evanbd]

It seems to me that the ISP should have common carrier status. Maybe that doesn't exist for ISPs in the netherlands, but I think it does and certainly should in the US. I think that the appropriate response for the ISP is to say that they won't remove the porn, because that creates a percieved ability for them to police ALL stuff flowing through their servers, so who knows what happens next time. I think it would be cool if all the major ISPs (and minor ones too) got together and announced that unless the gov't gave them the legal right to do their job with common carrier status, then the only way they could comply with the law would be to shut down. And produce a deadline. And kill the net when the gov't failed to respond. I know it won't happen, I just like to fantasize. Now back on topic:

create harsh sentences for anyone who makes child porn, with REALLY harsh sentences for the sick folks who then go out and have sex with kids. But don't hit the ISPs and (being really controversial here...) don't have penalties for use, because some people whose brains are wired wrong so they get off on children are responsible enough not to do anything to children, but need a way to get those fantasies out of their system or whatever.

UK Solution.

[Martin Spamer]

WOW that's bad! I thought the UK Solution was bad enough, If it provides unfiltered feeds, it classed as a common carrier and is usually in the clear. If the ISP performs any filterning or access control it's classed as an editor, and accepts responsibility for the content.

Re:Typical

[Rogerborg]

Production of child pornography => Death sentence

Sure, and all we need to make that workable is a global court, a global age of consent, and a global definition of what constitutes pornography. What shall we do after lunch?

A Slippery Slope.....

[Armand28]

If they can bust that site in Norway for transmitting child porn, can they bust a cellphone company for being an accomplice to a drug deal by transmitting the deal details? Whatabout E-Mail. For them to censor they would first need to be spying on it, so all your email will be first ready by your ISP before being forwarded to you? After all, your Email is being temporarily stored on THEIR servers, so they are liable right? What about this one: I use the Community Bullatin Board at my local Police department to distribute kiddie porn without them knowing about it, then turn them in. After all, the ISP didn't know the kiddie porn was there, why not apply the same rules to this situation?

Censorship, my friends, is a slippery slope. Busting an ISP for 100 of the 100Trillion bits of data on a server and claiming that they should have "policed it better" is rediculous, and if let stand will lead to your ISP reading your email and possibly your IM's and other communication methods.

Re:Give that man an Atlas!

[TikkaMassala]

He must be American.