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Censorship The Internet

Australian ISPs Required To Report Child Porn 655

Posted by timothy from the law-and-ornament dept.
rolling_or_jaded writes "As of the 1st of March 2005, Australian ISPs and web hosts will face fines of up to $55,000 if they can be used to access child pornography and do not refer the information to the police. Yikes. How on earth are the ISPs (and web hosts -- like my own very small-time and humble company) supposed to enforce this?"
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Australian ISPs Required To Report Child Porn More

Australian ISPs Required To Report Child Porn

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  • With vaporware (Score:5, Funny)

    by surefooted1 ( 838360 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:11AM (#11752963)
    How on earth are the ISPs (and web hosts -- like my own very small-time and humble company) supposed to enforce this?
    With vaporware!

    • Re:With vaporware (Score:2, Interesting)

      by The0retical ( 307064 )
      I remember something vaguely about the ISP that I work with having to keep a list of know kiddie porn sites on a list and block those sites through some sort of firewall or IP filtering system on our network. I think this was some sort of mandate in the state I worked in. I am not sure if it was actually ever enforced or not but this may be something similar.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @03:51AM (#11753513)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Don't demonise them (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @05:51AM (#11753904)
          Look at what defines child porn.

          US: Sexual acts depicted on women under the age of 18
          UK: Sexual acts depicted on women under the age of 16

          So it's sick if you bang a 17 yo in the US but fine and healthy to do it in the UK.

          Also, the US proposed a law saying that child porn would include poses by adult women dressed up as underage girls (no dressing up as a tarty schoolgirl!).

          Legally, kiddie porn is banging a young woman. According to what is used as the reason for all the draconian laws and rights removal, kiddie porn is screwing six year olds.

          In several cases, the molester (not always male!) was assaulted as a child. They've been fucked up in the head and now, to prove they are grown up, they do what grown ups did to them.

          Sad, but not sick.

          Personally, I don't recognise kiddie porn. I recognise rape. I understand that even consentual sex may not be correct if the situation is such that consent is not informed (rape drugs, retarded adults, young children), but that is only loosly correlated with age.

          Think about this: it used to be absolutely fine and dandy to marry at nine (especially if you were royalty). Now we say "you must be 16" or 18, or 21, or 14... The fact that the age of consent changes shows that there is a band where it's not right, but it may not be wrong.

          For these reasons and more, I will not demonise people accused of child abuse.

          • Re:Don't demonise them (Score:4, Insightful)

            by sgant ( 178166 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @06:50AM (#11754090) Homepage Journal
            Also, the US proposed a law saying

            Proposing a law isn't the same as MAKING a law. This proposed law was struck down almost instantly...there is currently no law stating that a grown woman can't dress as a teen...or vice-versa even.

            In several cases, the molester (not always male!) was assaulted as a child. They've been fucked up in the head and now, to prove they are grown up, they do what grown ups did to them.

            For these reasons and more, I will not demonise people accused of child abuse

            Having it done to you as a child does not mean anything. ANYTHING. You grow up, you're making decisions now that YOU are going to abuse/rape a child...then that's totally on you. You cannot blame your past. For instance, my parents used to beat me with a belt...but I've never once hit or spanked my child and he's almost 12 now. Was I suppose to spank him and if I did I could just use "well, it happened to me as a child so it's ok for me to do it to my child". No...I have a brain...I can think for myself. I made a conscience decision to NOT do something.

            So yes, I WILL demonize people accused of child abuse. They are making a decision, they are doing it. They could have broken the cycle...but no, they have to blame it on what happened to them, and it seems with enablers like you, they have an easy out. We are NOT locked into a behavior just because it happened to us as a child.

            • Re:Don't demonise them (Score:4, Insightful)

              by minimunchkin ( 838824 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @07:00AM (#11754116)
              "So yes, I WILL demonize people accused of child abuse."

              I hope that you will at least wait until they are convicted.

            • Fuck You (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Anonymous Coward
              I was going to sit here and make a post about the emotional trauma one goes through after being molested.
              I was going to state that now as a man, it is hard not to think back to what happened. On how 14 year olds look cute and I have to resist looking for child porn sites.
              I think its completly disgusting.

              However, sir, you are a complete moron who tries to state facts of a subject you are completly ignorant of.
              Sexual molestation haunts you the rest of your life and can seriously affect sex drive.
              It take

              • Re:Fuck You (Score:5, Interesting)

                by sgant ( 178166 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @10:06AM (#11755298) Homepage Journal
                I'm 21, male, and was molested by two different people from 2-12 years old.
                Don't you dare tell me that we are NOT locked into a behavior because of what happened to us as children. It is very, very difficult to overcome your sexual erges.

                If this is legit, then I'm sorry for what happened to you...but you are NOT locked into your behavior. You do NOT have to go out and molest a child. You DO have control over yourself. You're coping out and are a complete coward if you really think like this.

                The FACT is that you are in complete control of what you do. If you molest a child, then YOU did it. You made a conscience decision to molest that child...and for that you should be punished. NO EXCUSES! I'm so sick of this bullshit of "oh, don't blame me, blame the guy that blah blah blah blah"...sorry pal, rationalize this all you want, but the fact is it's on your shoulders.

                It's a tough road I'm sure. I'm sure you have really bad feelings and yes, it will haunt you the rest of your life...but think about the kid that you may molest. Do you want to condem him or her to a lifetime of horror?

                Sexual urges are one thing...ACTING on those urges is another. Seek help and GET help...it's ok to get help you know. We all need a little help in our lives. And do not act on your urges. I wish you well.

            • Re:Don't demonise them (Score:5, Insightful)

              by arkanes ( 521690 ) <arkanes.gmail@com> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @09:43AM (#11755084) Homepage
              It can be harder than you think to break that cycle (it's not just child abuse that's involved in this sort of thing, it's just one of the more extreme examples). You aren't breaking it, after all, you're just reacting. That said, it's a reason and not an excuse. I believe that people should be given the opportunity to get help in breaking those kinds of cycles, although that shouldn't excuse them from responsiblity. We take a very visceral no-tolerance view of child pornography, which is kind of wierd in view of our much more lenient (as a society) views of plain old non-sexual abuse, and I don't think it neccesarily helps. Address causes, not symptoms.

              That doesn't mean, of course, that you should ignore child abusers, nor that they get free passes, nor that they get away scott free.

            • Re:Don't demonise them (Score:5, Interesting)

              by gimpboy ( 34912 ) <john.m.harroldNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @10:32AM (#11755534) Homepage
              So yes, I WILL demonize people accused of child abuse.

              I heard that sgant likes to molest children. So now anyone can demonize him/her.

              Really though. When I was 16 I was accused of molesting my sisters. The time when these sick things were to have occured, I wasn't even in the same state. It's fortunate that I was out of town. A friend of mine and I were taken into custody and questioned without our parents or an attorney present. We were asked questions like:

              "Are you sure you and your friend didn't smoke a little weed and decide to have a good time?"

              My mother was out of town that week on business and my father (whom I was visiting when the alleged acts occured) lives in another state.

              It turns out the people in daycare got it in their heads that my sisters had been molested. My sisters were taken by the police and questioned. Medical exams, preformed on my sisters without the consent of or even informing my mother or their father, showed no such abuse.

              During the questioning, they never asked me where I was when these acts were to have occured. This all came up later. In the absence of any physical evidence and going on the coerced word of 4 and 2 year olds, they turned to the only other man in the house. They then started accusing my mothers boyfriend (my sisters father). Now I have a pretty low opinion of the man, but he's not a child molester.

              See none of these facts mattered. I had been accused of molsesting children in a small town. That was enough to demonize me in the eyes of some of the parents of my friends. One of which was a juvenal probation officer who believes to this day that I'm a child molester.

          • Re:Don't demonise them (Score:5, Funny)

            by Ligur ( 453963 ) <ligur DOT jakin AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @06:56AM (#11754106)
            Look at what defines child porn.


            US: Sexual acts depicted on women under the age of 18
            UK: Sexual acts depicted on women under the age of 16

            So... If I paint a pornographic picture on my 17yo girlfriends belly, that's childporn?
            *ducks*

          • Your Opinion Doesn't Count (Score:4, Insightful)

            by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @08:42AM (#11754617)
            Your opinion doesn't count.

            You may not want to demonize child abuse, but I do, as well as its apologists, which you certainly appear to be.

            Arguing that child porn isn't evil or doesn't even exist because different legislatures have used different age categories when codifying its prohibition is inane and specious. Different locations have different speed limits, too. Would you argue, then, that speed limits do no exist and should not exist?

            The ame applies to your attempt at historical analysis. The legal age for marriage has always varied, and still varied, from one society to the next. This is because the "legal age" for marriage is not, and should not be, synonymous with the age at which we come to sexual maturity.

            Your argument boils down to the same kind of childish, petulant, arrogant and ultimately unconvincing argument so abundantly produced by the adolescents who post here.

            If the Australian government wants its ISP's to block sites carrying illegal material, it ought to supply ISP's with a list of IP addresses to block. If the law doesn't provide for that, then it needs to be fixed. End of story.

            • Re:Your Opinion Doesn't Count (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Knara ( 9377 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @11:47AM (#11756382)
              The ame applies to your attempt at historical analysis. The legal age for marriage has always varied, and still varied, from one society to the next. This is because the "legal age" for marriage is not, and should not be, synonymous with the age at which we come to sexual maturity.

              This is an interesting point, but I don't think it is objectively as cut-and-dry as you seem to make it.

              After all, what definition of sexual maturity should we use? Physical? Do we go by onset of puberty, some span of time after onset, some general guess as to the end of puberty? Somewhere in-between? If we want to get even more ridiculous, we can talk about mental maturity with regards to sexuality (which some people never achieve in their entire life).

              Additionally, your example of speed limits isn't entirely appropriate. Some States (and I use that term to mean soverign governmental entities, not just US states) have no speed limits at all, for example. Apparently they need not exist at all. For that matter, child pornography laws have a very young history. The original intent, no doubt, was to prevent exploitation and abuse of children. A laudable goal to preserve the continuance of society. However, it is rather obvious that applying the same laws to 8 year olds as compared to 17 year olds, based on the idea they they have the same mental capacity and sexual maturity (as if the latter is consistent from person to person) is dubiously supportable and the assignment of ages has been arbitrary (in fact, the original reasoning for age-of-consent laws was not to protect children, but rather to protect the virginity -- and value -- of female children; it had little, if anything, to do with protecting kids for emotional or psychological reasons).

              What it really boils down to is that human development, criminality, and sexuality are complex topics. Sexual crimes, in particular, while easy to think of in black-and-white terms, frequently result from complex mental problems in the offender. It's not as simple as someone waking up one day and deciding to start up a child porn ring for shits and giggles. Human adults are geared biologically to be sexually attracted to other human adults. I'd be interested to find out what exact intentional thought process you think people voluntarily engage in that results in the pre-empting of a biological imperative, to the detriment of the individual involved (similarly, people satisfied with their existence and with sound mental capacities don't tend to go out and become crack dealers, prostitutes, or rapists of the adult variety; yet none of those even approach the scorn that crimes against children offenders receive).

              Our society (and similar ones) choose to make sexuality between a person above one age and a person below another age a legal anathema, this is true. In fact, there are sociological arguments to be made in favor of such prohibitions. However, don't fool yourself into thinking that its always been that way, or that there's an independant value system that every society eventually syncs up with. Keep those brain cells moving, it'll do us all a lot of good.

              • Re:Your Opinion Doesn't Count (Score:4, Insightful)

                by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @11:59AM (#11756529)
                The point is that simply because people and societies have different opinions on when people stop being children and become adults does not mean that child abuse does not exist.

                In other words, silly debates about defining and quantifying the margins of something have no bearing on its actual existence.

                Child abuse is whatever a society says it is. Unless an individual can convince his society to go along with him, his opinion is irrelevant.

                None of this has anything to do with the health of my brain cells (thanks for the gratuitously condescending remarks). And I discovered a long time ago that there is no "independent value system" with all the ansers. That's why the collective opinion of a society count for everything and the individual opinion of one person count for very little.
                • In other words, silly debates about defining and quantifying the margins of something have no bearing on its actual existence.
                  • They have everything to do with it. Until you can define exactly what qualifies as child porn, you can't have child porn. Likewise until you decide what qualifies as a child, you can't define child porn. The law, if you've ever bothered to read any of it, defines all this stuff as part of the law. Everything _MUST_ be defined and the margins defined, otherwise the law will en

    • Re:With vaporware (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:21AM (#11753007)
      nope - just set up an email address 'reportchildport@myisp.net' that forwards to 'postmaster@police.gov' and put it on your front page

    • Re:With vaporware (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jgardner100 ( 559892 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:24AM (#11753022) Homepage
      Stop the world, I want to get off as there is no sign of intelligent life here.

      As an asside, they are planning to ban parents from taking photos during school swimming carnivals soon here in Australia for fear of pedophiles taking photographs.

      People are trying to look like they are doing something even though their proposed "solutions" make no sense.

      • there is no sign of intelligent life here

        On Monday [abc.net.au] this was demonstrated in no uncertain terms as faced with an evacuated terminal, a bank up of empty Virgin Blue aeroplanes on one side and a bank up of intending travellers on the other, nobody had a wit to try to find a way to get the passengers onto their planes by a route which bypassed the terminal.

        Virgin seem to have already forgotten that it is still only two and a half years since they moved out of the hastily developed "domestic express" termina

      • As an asside, they are planning to ban parents from taking photos during school swimming carnivals soon here in Australia for fear of pedophiles taking photographs.

        Thanks for giving us Americans one more reminder that there are indeed other countries even more fucked up than us.

      • Re:With vaporware (Score:4, Interesting)

        by garwil ( 841790 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @05:43AM (#11753879) Homepage Journal
        Most schools in my local area (Essex, England) have banned parents from taking photos/videos at school plays/sports events etc. for the same reason. That's all well and good but the cost of buying videos/photos from the school is prohibitive for a lot of parents (especially in big families), plus there's the fact that for most of these events, only the parents can buy tickets anyway.

        Meanwhile, back on topic, if I knew that someone was downloading child porn, my first point of contact would be the police, not their ISP. The fine also seems pretty pointless, considering that its such a small amount. If its a major company like BT or NTL, they would probably make that sort of money in the time it took you to submit the report.

    • Re:With vaporware (Score:5, Informative)

      by Danious ( 202113 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @04:19AM (#11753615) Homepage
      OK, people, reality check here. In all fairness to the luddites up in Canberra (for whom I did not vote), the law only requires ISP's and hosts to report child porn to the police when it is brought to their attention by a 3rd party.

      They are NOT required to go looking for it.

      They are NOT required to pre-screen content before allowing posting/hosting.

      They are NOT required to take preventative measures.

      They are NOT required to implement filtering or blocks.

      Get the message?

      All the law says is that they are NOT allowed to turn a blind eye when someone complains about child porn hosted on or transmitted through their facilities. Then all they have to do is forward the complaint on to the police for action.

      This is no worse than doctors being required to report signs of child abuse in their patients.

      John.

      • Yet another act of pointless legislation *sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)

        by @madeus ( 24818 ) <slashdot_24818@mac.com> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @05:52AM (#11753905)
        Alas, it seems to be yet another act of entirely pointless legislation (sadly all to common all over the world) and a waste of tax payers money and parliamentary time.

        All the law says is that they are NOT allowed to turn a blind eye when someone complains about child porn hosted on or transmitted through their facilities. Then all they have to do is forward the complaint on to the police for action.

        I would assume it is illegal for them not to report it to the police in Australia, although I don't know what the legal situation is there I'd wager they already legally bound to report all criminal activity (and I'm sure possession of child pornography falls into that category).

        What is it with politicians and trying to push through redundant legislation for causes in the public eye?

        Surely it's more efficent and appropriate to ensure we are enforcing the appropriate laws we do have - and if they are unenforceable, amend them appropriately rather than create an unfathomable myriad of narrow 'crime specific' laws (especially ones like this which will almost never be used, and merely serve to justify bureaucracy).

      • Re:With vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)

        by rben ( 542324 )

        No, this is worse. As I read it, if I were in Australia and someone who didn't like me called up my ISP and said I had child porn on my site, the ISP would be required to report me to the police, even if I don't have any such thing on my site. This makes it easy to harass innocent people.

        It's quite possible, since I haven't read the text of the bill, that the ISP is required to verify the complaint, but that seems like it's forcing the ISP to play the role of investigative agency.

        Finally, this law would

  • it's simple (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fo0eY ( 546716 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:12AM (#11752968)
    just enable the evil bit of course

    • Re:it's simple (Score:3, Funny)

      by sllim ( 95682 )
      You got it backwards.
      You DISABLE the evil bit. Enableing the evil bit allows people acess to things like child porn and naked pictures of Oprah Winfrey and the like.

  • New jobs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by wannabgeek ( 323414 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:13AM (#11752970) Journal
    Does it mean they're going to hire people to go through all porn and judge which is legal?! Where can I send my resume?!?!

    • Re:New jobs? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:42AM (#11753117)
      Does it mean they're going to hire people to go through all porn and judge which is legal?!

      I used to work for a free adult host. One thing I did was write a system to monitor the bandwidth usage of individual users and display the results, sorted high to low by megabits, everyday. The regular users were obvious, you knew who they were and what their sites consisted of. But pretty much everyday, 1 or 2 sites would jump to the top of the list. These sites were always newly created and they were always child porn. I would then go and delete the accounts and the files. The FBI, US Customs and local PD all told me it was illegal to delete, move or even shut down child porn sites. We had to rotate our logs 3 times a day, so by the time the authorities came by (on their own investigations) the evidence was always long gone. We hated the CP for what it was, but it also consumed huge amounts of bandwidth so we couldn't afford to keep it around.

      This shit popped up every single day of the week. I used to roam the CP bbses which advertised the new sites and post stuff like "THE FBI IS MONITORING (the company I worked for.)" It would freak the shit out them.

      Heh, I still have an old file cabinet from that company that is labeled "The PedoFile."

    • PLEASE UPDATE THE STORY (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No, this law only requires that ISPs forward customers' reports about child porn to the authorities. The Slashdot summary is totally incorrect.

  • How do they decide? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JohnnyKlunk ( 568221 ) * on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:13AM (#11752971)
    How do you decide what's child porn and whats good old regular normal porn
    Ok, if we're talking about pre-teens and the like then it's obvious - but how do you know for sure if someone is older than the appropriate age for the legal jurisdiction in which the download takes place?
    Given the wonders of make up and photography and different countries/states may decide that 16 / 18 / 21 is considered under age.

    • Re:How do they decide? (Score:5, Informative)

      by redphive ( 175243 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:21AM (#11753009) Homepage
      I work for an ISP and we recently had a friendly informational meeting with our local police. It was pretty much a get to know you kind of thing.

      In talking, the topic of child porn came up as it would be something we cooperate should that type of investigation land on our networks door-step. The Officer said that they could have found 20 images of a 'child' in various stages of undress, and the last one was an image of a fully disclothed child, but without a clear shot of their face. Out of all of that they would have no way (with out obvious birthmarks and the like) to classify any of the images as child pornography because there was no definitive way to link the final image to the identity of the child.

      Pretty depressing stuff, but that is the reality the poice face when trying to prosecute this kind of thing.

      Imagine the steps ISPs would have to do to come to the same conclusions.

    • PLEASE UPDATE THE STORY (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:48AM (#11753147)
      The law only requires that ISPs forward customers' reports about child porn to the authorities. The Slashdot summary is totally incorrect.

      There are no issues like you mention, because this story is total rubbish.

      Slandering the Australian Government is tradition on Slashdot, but this story really takes the cake.

      • Re:PLEASE UPDATE THE STORY (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ajs ( 35943 )
        It still sounds like a silly law.

        It's essentially saying that the ISP must provide a crime-reporting service for the police. What if I report child porn to my local real estate agent? Why aren't THEY required to provide this service as well?

        Crimes should be reported to the police, not ISPs. If an ISP is made aware of a crime, and they feel the report has merit, they should notify the police, but I don't see a reason to specifically call out one crime and require that all reports must be forwarded to the p

  • Simple solution (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jesus 2.0 ( 701858 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:13AM (#11752975)
    "As of the 1st of March 2005, Australian ISPs and web hosts will face fines of up to $55,000 if they can be used to access child pornography and do not refer the information to the police. Yikes. How on earth are the ISPs (and web hosts -- like my own very small-time and humble company) supposed to enforce this?"

    Easy:

    Dear Police,

    My ISP can be used to access child pornography.

    Thanks,

    Every ISP on Earth

    • Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by anti-NAT ( 709310 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:18AM (#11752994) Homepage

      Couldn't have said it better myself.

      I'm sure the government is now trying to work out how to get the voice telcos to report that their voice networks can be used to arrange child abductions by groups of pedophiles too.

    • Very true. Don't they have common carrier status (and therefore are not responsible for the content on their servers) or is that a U.S. thing? If so, I'm sure us Americans can petition some corporation to lobby Congress into making a treaty with the Australian government. I hear the "Liberal" government is America's crack whore. We ask for rimshot, they bend over. ;]
    • And then set up a cron job to your fax that runs it every hour or so

    • Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sasha328 ( 203458 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:24AM (#11753268) Homepage
      This just shows how "elitist" some of the commenters are; they all pretty much seem to be saying that, the police or the government don't know what they're legislating.
      Of course, some of the regulations can not be fully enforced, but that does not mean they shouldn't be legislated.
      I have worked for one of the top 3 ISPs in Australia, and they do work quite closely with the police. This is mainly in the tracking side of things: threatening emails, spam, etc.
      By the way, you seem to have misunderstood the fines part of the article. The fines are not for using an ISP to access CP, but it is for not disclosing who is accessing CP when they find out. It is essentially an extension of the existing child abuse legislation: if you suspect abuse, you have to report it!

  • Periodic Hysterias (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Martin Taylor ( 861858 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:14AM (#11752979)
    These sorts of hysterias happen every now and then. People get all up in arms about drugs, child abductions, terrorism, alcohol, $BLAH... and all of a sudden the rules need to be changed to protect us all from the menace that threatens to corrupt our children and anally rape them with a crack pipe.

    Civil liberties mean nothing when you can get a good hysteria going.

    • "Civil liberties mean nothing when you can get a good hysteria going."

      What civil liberties are being violated here?

    • Re:Periodic Hysterias (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It is absolutely histeria. Child porn is a crime and should absolutely be reported if found, because you might help an actual person who is still a child get out of a bad situation. However, under the right circumstances the law might be taken too far.

      I have baby pictures of myself. In one, I'm in the tub, about age 7. Can I be convicted of a crime by having this photo? What if I put it in my personal web page? You can't see much in the photo, because 2/3 of me is under water and suds, but it is clea

      • Re:Periodic Hysterias (Score:3, Interesting)

        by koreaman ( 835838 )
        Nope, your tub pic is not child porn.

        Definition of pornography:

        The explicit depiction or exhibition

        of sexual activity in literature, films
        or photography that is intended to
        stimulate erotic, rather than aesthetic
        or emotional feelings.


        It's not a legal definition, but I believe even the legal definition has something similar.

  • Simple! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Digital Dharma ( 673185 ) <max@zenCOFFEEplatypus.com minus caffeine> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:16AM (#11752983)
    Just bundle Weathercast with the ISP software and let Windows do the rest!

  • simple solution for an ISP... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:16AM (#11752985) Homepage
    Set up a non-transparent firewall requiring everyone to use a web proxy to access the internet at large. Then, whenever someone accesses a file ending in .gif, .jpg, .bmp or .png using their browser, forward a copy of that file to the police along with a note stating that it may be an example of child pornography and asking them to investigate further. That should put you in complete compliance with the law.

  • RTFA (Score:5, Informative)

    by ToshiroOC ( 805867 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:16AM (#11752987)
    From the article:
    Under the new laws, an ISP or ICH will face penalties of $11,000 for the individual and $55,000 for body corporates if they are made aware that their service can be used to access material that they have reasonable grounds to believe is child pornography or child abuse material and they do not refer details of that material to the AFP within a reasonable time.

    What that equates to is if child porn is reported to the ISP/webhost, they have to then report it to the Australian police quickly or face penalties. This isn't some ridiculous content-policing scheme - its just imposing a penalty on those who don't forward child pornography reports to the police at a reasonable pace.

    • Re:RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shark72 ( 702619 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:28AM (#11753049)

      "What that equates to is if child porn is reported to the ISP/webhost, they have to then report it to the Australian police quickly or face penalties."

      Correct. Just as has been the case for several years in the USA.

      When this happened to me -- somebody let me know that a member of my site was using their storage to host child porn, I very quickly called the FBI, who in turn sent me to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children [missingkids.com].

      For me, there was no gray area. I didn't think for one minute of my rights being violated. I didn't think for one minute about losing my Slashdot cred (which, by definition, I must not have in the first place) by doing so. In short, the phrase "your rights online" did not even occur to me; if any phrase came to mind, it was "you shore got a purdy mouth" or some similar one that I envisioned the scumbag hearing sometime soon.

      In short, I think that if an ISP operator is upset by a law that requires them to report child pornography to the authorities once they're made aware of it, then perhaps they shouldn't be running an ISP.

  • Hype (Score:5, Informative)

    by ChimpyMonkey ( 748966 ) * <chimpymonkey@chimpymonkey.com> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:17AM (#11752990)
    The legislation does not require ISPs to monitor customer usage to pick up on illegal use. It is purely there to ensure that when an ISP becomes aware of specific content, that they report it.

    To read an official summary of the legislation, check out this site: http://www.ag.gov.au/ISPresponsibilities

  • Child Abuse (Score:3, Funny)

    by Haxx ( 314221 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:18AM (#11752991) Homepage
    It will also be a federal offence, carrying a penalty of 10 years' jail, for a person to use the internet to access, transmit or make available child pornography or child abuse material.

    Does this mean you could do 10 years for googling effective ways to spank a child?
    • Joking aside, it wouldn't surprise me.

    • Yes, actually (Score:5, Informative)

      by beldraen ( 94534 ) <chad,montplaisir&gmail,com> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:42AM (#11753116)
      One of the main complaints of current laws is that there is no intent written into the law. It is an interesting age that using your own computer can instantly be a felony should you mis-type a URL, a trojan from an exploit begins pop-ups or Googled more than you expected.

      People seem to think that just because your computer is in your home that you are safe. The computer is a doorway that can let every seedy thing in the world find a way into your house and should be treated as such.

  • enforcement? (Score:3, Informative)

    by scdeimos ( 632778 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:18AM (#11752996)
    From the article: "... and they do not refer details of that material to the AFP within a reasonable time."

  • Slightly misleading (Score:5, Informative)

    by DaCool42 ( 525559 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:18AM (#11752997) Homepage
    From the article, it sounds more like ISPs will be required to notify authorities if they are made aware of a specific instance of child pornography.
    • Why would someone report it to their ISP? the only reason woudl be that they cant seem to figure out where the kiddie porn they are looking at is coming from. So the so the next thing is why not just make it a crime for any web server to not report the porn to the govt themselves in a reasonable fashion. why make an ISP do the work for them?

  • Age of Porno-Consent? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Grendel Drago ( 41496 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:19AM (#11753000) Homepage
    What's the age of kiddie-porn in Australia. I ask because I have faint knowledge of sites like "hush-hush.com", and they're based in Australia with TOS specifying that all models, in accordance with Australian law, are sixteen or older, which is at variance with the American standard of eighteen or older.

    So this law might have significantly different effect there, considering how many sixteen and seventeen year olds own cheapass webcams.

    Damn it, now I sound all creepy. But I really am curious.

    --grendel drago
    • The age of consent for male-female sex is 16, for male-male sex it's either 16 or 18, depending on which state you're in. According to the law, there is no age of consent for female-female sex, go figure.

      I'm not aware of any specifics relating to age of consent for photography, though I've no doubt they exist. I would imagine it depends on which state or territory you're in.

  • Read the law first *then* make comments (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:20AM (#11753002)
    For gods sake read the new ruling first. Then make comments.

    a) It's not a new law it's merely an amedment to the existing legislation

    b) It only kicks in if the ISP is found to know about access to or hosting of child porn. It does *not* expect the ISP to watch for access to child porn. It is merely an incentive for ISP's to actually report access to or hosting of child porn rather than wiping/disconnecting user and pretending it never happened.

    Yes I'm aware of what the media is saying. It's the medias job to beef up things like this and it keeps the "won't anyone think of the children!" brigade happy.

    The law does not force ISP's to do filtering, it does not expect them to block access to child porn site it only ensures that ISP's report known access/hosting to the AFP within a decent time frame. Something just about every sysadmin with a sense of ethics would do in any case here in Australia in any event.

  • it's unclear to me what this actually means (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tiglari ( 834033 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:22AM (#11753014)
    The link, repeated below, seems to say that they only have to notify police if they are made aware of possible access, I suppose it's not so bad if all they have to do is forward the url to the coppers, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was more to it. "Under the new laws, an ISP or ICH will face penalties of $11,000 for the individual and $55,000 for body corporates if they are made aware that their service can be used to access material that they have reasonable grounds to believe is child pornography or child abuse material and they do not refer details of that material to the AFP within a reasonable time."
    • If they know someone can 'access' illegal material, surely it would be just as easy to prevent access and 'firewall' out the bad stuff?

      re hosting, yeah thats an easy one to catch.

      Why doesnt Autralia as a whole have a firewall like China and make those 'dodgy' sites disappear to all.

  • Solution! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:23AM (#11753018)
    1. Find the ISP of every lawmaker who voted on this bill.
    2. Inform said ISPs of this bill.
    3. Point out that it is impossible to monitor SSL for child porn.
    4. Point out that VPN solutions also tend to be encrypted, making it impossible to monitor for child porn.
    5. Watch lawmakers revise bill after their net connections become useless ("I'm sorry sir that your internet banking and investing sites don't work, but we had to disable that functionality because of a bill you passed.")
    6. ??? & Profit!^W^W^W Watch bill be fixed.

  • I fail to see (Score:4, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi@yahoo. c o m> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:32AM (#11753063) Journal
    why the police are *not* being fined thousands for failing to prevent child porn in the first place. Or automakers, computer and camera manufacturers, hotels, schools, parents, politicians, and Ayers Rock for not child porn proofing their products, and not doing all they can to prevent it.

    Computer, camera and auto manufacturers should stop making these items which can be used in the creation and distribution of child porn, hotels house child porn makers and provide a haven for them, schools don't keep the children 24 hours a day, making the children available to pornographers, parents had the children in the first place, obviously leading to child porn, politicans consume most of the child porn, and Ayers Rock hasn't gone and fallen on the pornographers.

    It seems rather clear to me that this still has not been taken to extent it needs to be to prevent all child porn. Why aren't lawmakers doing their jobs?

    And when is someone going to go after the children? They obviously have something to do with it - they're in all of it. Geez, do I have to fix your big fence too? Get some priorities! Go after the problem, not the symptoms!

  • Australian Police: "Dammit, why do people keep sending us links to Google Images?"

    - JoeShmoe
    .

  • A new low... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dantheman82 ( 765429 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @01:36AM (#11753090) Homepage
    when even the editor/original poster have not RTFA in its entirety. It clearly shows that if it comes to the attention of an ISP, then they must (by law) pass it on.

    You know...I heard saw the Slashdot title on "Report Child Porn" in the RSS feed and I seriously was wondering why the editor was asking for links to child porn sites. A travesty indeed!

    Since when has context been important, anyway?!?

  • Huh? (Score:2, Informative)

    by pbjones ( 315127 )
    The reports on other news channels say they must report it, IF they know about it. Not police it. Sounds good to me, unless you support child porn.
  • Not sure about the exact wording of the law, but I think it should be easy enough to deal with.
    1. First, make sure it is very easy to contact you with any complaint from anyone who sees child pornography either via your network or posted anywhere on your system. Make sure that this abuse contact information is easily and publicly visible on your Web pages, email sigs, billing correspondence, etc.
    2. Make sure you have logs and make it clear that any suspected violation of this law will be sent straight to the c
  • If they want you to report all possible kidie porn, the solution is obvoius. Make it not your problem. Give them logs of every recorded accesses from all your users, no matter where they access. Let them decided that its not kiddie porn. I suspect their little windows email server will crash and die under the strain of even a small isp in complaince. Soon the authorties will discover (which we already know) that this is insane, and that there is no way to monitor what people are doing. So just hack up you

    • I don't get your point. How hard can it be to investigate reports of kiddie porn? You already have an abuse desk, right? It's simple: if your abuse desk gets a report of kiddie porn on your host, just take a few seconds to look at the site in question, and if it's kiddie porn, take action.

      Really, this is basic stuff that you should be doing anyway. I don't see how an ISP operator could see any moral value in providing a haven for kiddie porn collectors, let alone justify mailbombing law enforcement as

  • We just had a nut job running around raping everything that moved. It included old women, young women, boys, and girls (and probably some poor dogs that did not move fast enough). ppl like that need to be stopped. While I do not believe in captial punishment (except for treason), I do think that nuts jobs like this should be locked up for life with a bunch of Al Qaeda. They can torture each other.

  • A Reasonable Sounding Law (Score:3, Informative)

    by Gnuosphere ( 855098 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:53AM (#11753364) Homepage
    The author asks - "How on earth are the ISPs ... supposed to enforce this?"

    This question is misguided according to the article.

    "(Liability) if they are made aware that their service can be used to access material that they have reasonable grounds to believe is child pornography or child abuse material and they do not refer details of that material to the AFP within a reasonable time."

    The ISPs are not the enforcers, the police are. Furthermore, it does not state that it is the duty of the ISP to try to track down infringment - but simply forward any reported infringement that comes their way. I do not find anything unreasonable here. It simply says that if the ISP is made aware that such activity is happening through their service they, by law, must report that to the police. It does not state that if such activities are happening then the ISP is liable no matter what. They are only liable if they are "made aware" and then neglect to act. I don't see anything wrong with this.

    I would have to see more specific information on the law to consider it unjust. But from what the article states, I do not understand the author's alarm.

  • How are small-time ISPs supposed to enforce this? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @08:15AM (#11754440) Homepage
    You're not. You're supposed to go out of business leaving more room for the large ISPs. That's the point of laws like this. Screw the little guy, which is ironic if you think about it!

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