US ISPs Announce Anti-Child-Porn Agreement 613
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that ISPs have gathered together with 45 attorney generals and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to form an agreement to crush child pornography. What does that mean? Probably the same as it meant for RoadRunner, Sprint, AT&T and Verizon customers — the end of the newsgroups." Here's the back-patting press-release from the various parties who signed on (the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the National Association of Attorneys General), though the actual text of the agreement does not seem to have been made public.
Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do I have the feeling that all this will do is block many websites and services that have nothing to do with child pornography, inconveniencing thousands of innocent web users, while the paedophiles find new ways to trade child porn and are barely inconvenienced? I'm all for fighting child porn, but blocking individual websites or newsgroups is clearly not working, and blocking vast chunks of websites and newsgroups is going to result in blocking mostly legitimate content. Would it be too much to ask for these organisations to actually focus their resources on catching the paedophiles for once? I'm not even sure which is worse in society - a paedophile with child porn, or a paedophile who can't get hold of child porn but wants to see naked children...
Why don't they just stop the newsgroups... (Score:3, Insightful)
... that have child porn?
YAUSDFN (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we call this the "Yet Another Useless Stupid Deal For Nothing"
I hate child pornograpy as much as anyone SHOULD, but I know whats a PR stunt that wont solve a thing and will only reduce internet's freedom to share information in exchange for absolutly nothing at all whatsoever.
How can we convey to the public that the internet's value depends directly on ISP's not being able to discriminate traffic by content?
How can we put out there the idea that the internet has all this potential for individual freedom and that any kind of attempt to enforce any kind of legal stuff in it will only hinder the potential it has FOR THE COMMON JOE?
Fucking legislators, fucking ISPs and fucking, unreasonable and plain stupid bible-hugging assholes.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretending to do something is much easier than actually doing something.
Yeah, Get sneaky and clever (Score:5, Insightful)
The ISPs can monitor all your traffic as deeply as they want to, and gather up whatever the local law enforcement needs for a warrant.
And you have no recourse, ever, thanks to the new FISA ammendments, brought to you with help from your pal and mine, Senator Barack Obama.
Hey, Mr Hope himself even supports the death penalty for child sex offenders. That'll be fun.
The good senator will spearhead this witchhunt with truth and hope and change and (bullshit), and all the expanded priveleges of the White House.
Re:YAUSDFN (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the first stage would be to convince the Common Joe that his privacy actually matters to him? People don't seem to CARE about privacy or liberty any more, and I worry that nobody will notice their freedoms being stolen until its too late, as has happened so many times before in history...
Here we go again (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll have minimal impact on the perverts, but no doubt they'll get a chance to tighten the screws on the rest of us. Which is, of course, what it's all about.
And I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with anything the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has its fingerprints on. It's been caught phonying up statistics and acting in a manner that could best be described as "self-serving" on more than one occasion.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, if they solve the problem, they won't have a reason to exist anymore.
They need something to justify their existence (and pay check).
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not even sure which is worse in society - a heterosexual with porn, or a heterosexual who can't get hold of porn but wants to see naked women...
Do you see the flaw now?
As a pedophile, I am sick and fucking tired of being stuck in a corner among the sickest imaginable because of urges I can't control. I didn't fucking ask to like little girls; I just do. It's just one of my idiosyncrasies. I don't kidnap, rape, or molest children, nor do I ever plan to, and I have an entirely constructive relationship with the children I do come in contact with. Surprise! The vast majority of pedophiles are rational human beings, just like you. The man in the white van who offers you candy is a psychotic; the exception, not the rule.
Please, cooperate with me here. The only way to get this demonizing bullshit to stop is by changing the general mindset of pedophile = sick child raping motherfucker.
Net neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
When you announce censorship to stop piracy, everybody gets up in arms about net neutrality.
When you instead use child pornography as your scapegoat, the majority will turn a blind eye to your censorship efforts.
Note that the first thing to go was alt.* on usenet, a large source of piracy. If they had choked off alt.* because of piracy, there would have been much talk about net neutrality. Since they did it because of child pornography, nobody mentions net neutrality.
Stupid and pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
"I commend the nation's cable operators for utilizing the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) to negotiate and collectively enter into a unprecedented industry-wide agreement with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to limit the availability of child pornography on the internet."
No agreement is, or ever was, necessary for any ISP to proceed forth to fight child pornography. The fact that some kind of mutual agreement is in place suggests something else is going on behind the scenes. Would NCMEC have prohibited ISPs from fighting against child pornography without an agreement? I doubt that. Maybe these ISPs knew all along they were part of the problem with child pornography? Or is NCMEC trying some more extensive shake-down tactics?
The big question will be just to how far will these ISPs go in the name of protecting children? Just how many will use it as a false excuse to shut off internet resources that have nothing to do with child pornography and were not even the victim of spammers of such content?
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:4, Insightful)
Egg collectors in the UK (an illegal activity in this country) used to correspond to each other through the snail-mail system, referring to each other as No.2, No.7 etc.. Music fans would exchange bootleg tapes of concerts. Anyone trading digital files will probably end up exchanging memory cards/sticks under the guise of an mom'n'pop shop.
Make all the internet child porn laws in the world (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, I really commend for having the balls to come out and say that. A bunch of my irc buddies are pedophiles/lolicons, and they would love to see this post.
And, yes, you're right. while there is some intersection between pedophiles and child molesters, it is nowhere near a majority. If you want to see how ridiculous this seems, replace 'pedophile' with 'straight male' and child with 'woman'. You end up with "straight male = sick woman raping motherfucker". Sure, some straight males ARE sick woman raping motherfuckers, but that doesn't mean they all are. It's normal for someone to have strange urges and desires; there's nothing inherently wrong with liking little girls. It's not until you destructively act on those desires that it becomes a problem.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
not quite sure where child porn is defined as naked children in your quote? Each list item ends with "engaging in sexually explicit conduct"
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
You and about 12% of the male population in North America according to the only study I've ever read. I don't sympathize personally, but we've already spent the better part of human history demonizing men who like other men and women who like other women. Those obviously couldn't be consensual either. Even consensual anal intercourse between a man and a woman is or has recently been illegal in many states.
How is that relevant? Knee-jerk reactions to issues based on a gut feeling are not always the best way to determine legal outcomes of peoples' thoughts or feelings.
Good studies have shown time and again that there is no definite link between the viewing of underage pornography and the abuse of children by that viewer, but because they get turned on by something we lump them in as molestors.
Here's one that really gets me -- technically a pedophile is only someone who gets aroused by pre-pubescent children, but viewing of 17 yr olds who are supermodels (yes, many professional adult looking models are under 18) engaged in sexually explicit conduct qualifies as viewing child pornography.
So next time you all say 'think of the children' remember these laws are about you when you were 17 checking out that picture of your naked 17 yr old girlfriend. Yes, that's child pornography too.
PS look up Genarlow Wilson.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
What's worse is redefining "child porn" to mean "naked children".
No what is even worse is the fact that they don't even have to be children and it can still be considered child porn:
(B) such visual depiction is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct;
If I understand correctly it is enough if the person in the film happens to look too young and whilist I agree that intentionally trying to make a film look like child porn is a bit weird it still shouldn't be a crime if every person in the film is an adult.
Besides in my oppinion it's still preferable for somebody to watch "fake" child porn than the real stuff and having this fake stuff available legally could even cut down the number of those who want to watch real child porn.
A sneaky way of blowing away "net neutrality" (Score:5, Insightful)
The FCC admonishes Comcast for their P2P traffic management techniques.
Never fear. Now major ISPs can start blocking P2P altogether in the name of a cooperative effort with government (45 attorney generals), to crush child porn.
The FCC can't oppose a measure "to crush child porn".
It's a very crafty political technique.
There are a lot of people who want to see child pornography crushed. It's a popular political position to take.
ISP entirely blocking access to an IP, just because some of web pages served from it may include 'undesirable' content (for ISP's definition of the day for 'undesirable'), is definitely non-neutral.
There aren't that many of the general public who understand what "network neutrality" means, or the harm it will cause when ISPs start blocking sites for arbitrary reasons.
I'm sad to say, that Network Neutrality will probably be the first casualty of this cooperative.
It will start with "child porn" illegal stuff, but it won't stop there.
Yes, all of Usenet, or all of alt.* may die, even with all its perfectly legitimate and legal content and discussion areas.
Will the general (uneducated) public hear about it, or lose any sleep over it? Probably not.
First Usenet, then P2P, then IRC, then Youtube, then most of the web (other than major content providers' and business' sites).
Re:Common carrier (Score:2, Insightful)
Why are people hanging onto this myth? ISPs do not, and have never had, common carrier status.
Source, please.
Re:Going too far (Score:2, Insightful)
1) ISPs getting rid of a service that a small minority of their users use and saving themselves money on bandwidth, which is somewhat shaky, most of the people that use Usenet would find a 3rd party solution anyway, so the bandwidth savings would probably not be as large as expected.
2) ISPs are actually concerned with this content moving to other areas of Usenet if they block only the groups known to contain it, so they are essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Cliched, I know, but accurate. Or:
3) ISPs are doing this to appease corporate interests by getting rid of the offensive material along with everything else that could possibly constitute copyright infringement. It's already been said here a few times, but from what I can see, it's the most likely scenario. The public thinks they're great for fighting the perverts, while corporate interests think they're great by closing off an area of mass piracy. Again, see point 1, because the people that use it will go to external providers, and I have a feeling they may be next on this hit list.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Troll much? A pedophile is one who is sexually attracted to children. Where does it say "views movies of other people raping little children"? I'm a heterosexual man and I like to view naked women. Does that mean I want to watch one get raped?
You are what you do, not what you think about. Please chill out with the prejudice.
Don't Bother Asking for the Blacklist... (Score:5, Insightful)
Owner of www.example.com: "Uh, yeah, I want to see the child porn blacklist. I think you might have blocked my site by mistake."
ISP: "Hey! This guy is trying to view the child porn blacklist!"
Police: "Oh hey, website owner. We're arresting you under suspicion of possessing child pornography."
Owner of www.example.com: "Wait, what?"
Police: "You asked for the list of sites, and on top of that, you tried to visit www.example.com, which was on the list. Clearly you wanted to see child porn."
Re:This doesn't affect much..... (Score:3, Insightful)
"From what I gather, this is only the ISPs that have their own servers that are affected, and not independent usenet providers themselves (like Giganews)."
How long do you really think it's going to take for this to trickle over to premium USENET servers, if in no other way than to have their traffic as closely monitored, and potentially throttled, as that of P2P users?
*Any* time it's "for the children", you can be damn well sure that they'll be last on the list of those being served.
I smell herring, red, and believe this is far from a "flash in the pan feel good law". It will in time be seen as odious as the DMCA and others of like ilk.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:4, Insightful)
Making it easy to hook up also makes it easier to catch them buggers. Forcing all the paedophiles onto Tor will just make 'em harder to stop...
Re:YAUSDFN (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, they care as soon as it is THEIR "privacy" that is infringed. Just like they care if it is THEIR "free speech rights" or THEIR "liberty" that are infringed.
You have the right to privacy as long as you don't have anything to hide. You have the right to free speech as long as you don't say anything that will offend me. You have the right to liberty as long as you don't do anything that offend me.
And what always fascinates me the most is how so many people can't see what is wrong with the previous paragraph.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
I am no expert in this, but my take on it is this:
if the magazine bills itself as showing girls who are of age ("legal") and shows girls who look too young, but ARE of age, than it "appears" legal.
however if the magazine uses those same girls, who ARE of age, but CLAIMS them to be too young, then they "appear" illegal.
basically, as long as you don't claim anywhere that the people portrayed are too young, and there is nothing in the picture to imply it, and you DO claim visibly that they ARE old enough (and they in fact are) then all appearances are satisfied.
I think that is more what the law is addressing. it allows them to prosecute where there is no way to determine the age of the person in question, but where it is obvious that things are not intended to be legal.
Back on the main topic though, my concern with such things isn't the blocking of child porn (personally I think that would be a very good thing), it's the possibility of "collateral damage" to innocent sites, and worse yet, "feature creep" where they decide that once they have child porn they'll block pirating, then normal porn, then anyone having a cigarette in a photo, then anyone who disagrees with them on any grounds, etc... (classic slippery slope) and once you get to that point you can't fight any of it without being labelled as a lover of child pornography.
Re:Usenet is dead. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Check out the alt.binaries.pictures.erotica hierarchy sometime -- there are some groups with very suspicious-looking names. (alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.child? Gee, I wonder what that could contain?)"
I agree... it likely contains "thousands of SPAM messages".
Do you honestly believe that pedophiles are that open about their openly illegal activities?
YOU are off you rocker if you believe that child porn is a "problem" in our society.
While certainly repugnant, I don't see how BANNING all the .alt.binaries newsgroups is going to help stop child porn.
I've been on Usenet for well over a decade, and I also have never seen child porn.
It's total knee jerk emotional hysteria, and you sir are are being used as a "tool" to censor the internet.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Something like 10% or 25% of males are attracted to extremely young girls based on genetics. I forget the figure; it's something lowish but not negligible like 1%.
Walk down the street one time when school's getting out and just glance around. Notice there's lots of young girls? ... Notice they're young, curvy, smooth, and--best of all--bleeding youthful playfulness from every pore? Yeah, they're 13. They have tits, among other things. Oddly enough, the health and sexual energy of sexually matured youth attracts males-- come on, would you trust your 10th grade high school boy with the 8th grader next door, who you could swear is 16...?
Sorry, the game's stacked against us. We got testicles, and they're not magically pretty the day they turn 18. Mind you, just a couple hundred years ago we were marrying 'em and making babies around... what, 14?
I stay the hell away. The day you turn 18 you're on my radar.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
But it wouldn't protect any children, it would just make their plight less publicized. The children that are in child pornography pictures are being abused (obviously)The people abusing them are not the one viewing them on the web, but are the people taking the pictures. It is the children that we are trying to protect here isn't it? Ending the distribution of pictures does nothing to stop the real life abuse. It's just sweeping the problem under the rug. Attacking distribution instead of production shows that the protection of children comes second to the punishing of the pedophile. While protecting the actual children being abused would seem to be a higher moral priority, it isn't as media savvy/lucrative as simply chasing the pedophiles. Look at things like "To Catch a Predator" or the FBI's fake hyperlinks. [imod.co.za] Did they save a single child? No there was never any actual child danger. How often do you hear about an actual child being saved from sexual abuse vs hearing about the arrest of someone with downloaded kiddie porn? Yes the two crimes are related, but shouldn't we be focusing on the root problem (child abuse) instead of just treating the symptoms (online kiddie porn)
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:2, Insightful)
But in reality, "straight male" = "male who will probably have sex with one or more women during the course of his life". So, continuing your analogy, "pedophile" = "person who will probably have sex with one or more children during the course of his lifetime".
The problem with that is that having sex with a children constitutes sexual abuse that will damage them for the rest of their lives, and is always rape. And that is why there is a very justified "prejudice" against pedophiles.
This is not a wisecrack. Try actually reading the grandparent message by the AC you so admire. While denying any wrongdoing, he explicitly admits to having "urges" he "can't control". And in spite of that inability to control himself, he doesn't stay away from children: he claims to somehow have a "entirely constructive relationship" with the children he comes in contact with. Gotta wonder what that means... constructive to what exactly? His uncontrollable sexual urges maybe?
And of course our brave AC "doesn't kidnap, rape or molest children". After all, children have sex with adults perfectly voluntarily. NAMBLA says so, so it must be true.
God damnit, this makes me sick to my stomach. I know too many victims of scumbags like this personally.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
He was saying he doesn't have any desire to actually have sex with them, you fucking jackass. He's honest with people. The flaw in your statement that "straight male" = "male who will probably have sex with one or more women during the course of his life". So, continuing your analogy, "pedophile" = "person who will probably have sex with one or more children during the course of his lifetime" has one fatal flaw: most men only have sex with women able to give proper consent. There are such things as half-decent pedophiles; some of my best friends on the internet fall under this category. You know what the difference between a pedophile and a child molester is? Restraint. Sure, the pedophile might fantasize about that stuff, but the molester MAKES it happen, regardless of the law or the wants and needs of the child. Don't ever think that just because someone is attracted to children that that makes them a scumbag.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:attorney generals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking personally, I am so fed up with the censorship, fear and repression taking place in our society in the name of fighting child pornography; that I would personally prefer to see an internet half full of child pornography before I see any more rollbacks of freedom along the lines this "Agreement".
The child porn excuse has long since lost its ability to outrage me into accepting even quite minor restrictions on liberties. Unfortunately, the general public seems so eager to become apoplectic that media outlets have essentially created an industry around giving people their daily outrage "fix". It's like Soma [wikipedia.org], except instead of making them happy all the time, they just get angry/outraged.
The effect is the same however, as people allow their emotions to overcome their reason, and we lose all ability to object or hold any kind of reasoned debate. It's like a Mass Panic, but in slow motion. Best to run with the herd, lest you get trampled.
The face of P2P's real executioner (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:2, Insightful)
Come on, you are seriously misinterpreting what he said. All he said is he can't control having these urges, but that he can control his behavior.
Do you know the difference between a straight male and a sexual harrasser? Restraint. Just because you're attracted to someone does not mean that you're eventually going to try to have sex with them, or molest them.
Hell, I've successfully worked right next to women I would *love* to jump into bed with, but somehow despite not being able to control the feelings, I could control my behavior. Amazing, isn't it?
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
The urge is uncontrollable. Acting on it is not.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
If is my understanding from way too many bad movies, internet chats, television shows, and some thinking on my own that maybe we're defining an age as something meaningful. Is a 21 year old capable of drinking safely? Is he more safe to drink at that age than any other? When is a human ready to make the choice to engage in sexual activity with a person of their choosing. In Maine, my State, you can have sex with a 16 year old female. All day long. You can't take a picture of her nude, she can't live with you and send out a lewd picture of herself using your computer, if she sends you nude images you're committing a crime, and more... Who is the judge? The law that suddenly went out and said that 18 is the magic number?
The worst part about this is the media instilled phobias now, "Oh he's looked at children nude online. Studies show he will be jumping out of trees and raping toddlers with a baseball bat, so we'd better ban him from being within however many feet of a place where a child live or plays or go to school so that we keep them safe." (While they're forcing them to live on the outskirts of town, has limited access to the services he needs to prevent becoming a recidivism statistic, or forcing him to not register at all and then become an unknown risk.)
I have a daughter who was molested by an older cousin. Trust me when I say we have no love for child abuse in our family. (She was five, he was 17.) There are some obvious cases where a child is harmed. Can we successfully make a person wait until the magic age of 18 before having sex? No? Why not? How about because they are naturally curious. Can we stop a man from liking a well developed teen aged girl? Of course not and I don't care HOW much you want to lie to me (not you personally parent post) you too are going to appreciate beautiful females. When you see a fantastic looking woman while out shopping, when you get close enough so that you can see she is even more beautiful, when you get there and see by her face or mannerisms that she is probably underage you do not (I suspect) suddenly feel awful. I suspect you get a few more thoughts about innocence, beauty, and
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
What's disturbing here is that they include "computer generated images." For every computer generated image or drawing of child pornography that is taken away, actual child pornography will be made to replace it. Artistic expressions depicting child pornography should most certainly not be considered illegal. If you don't like it, don't look for it - but as long as no children are harmed in the making of it, WHAT THE FUCK IS THE PROBLEM? The very next step is to consider artistic depictions or negative views of our beloved corporations and/or government to be illegal.
Another one of my pet peeves: I hate when people and groups (*cough* religious groups) try to enforce their ideals upon others. God forbid they would use words, instead they always try to twist the government's arm to enforce their ideals upon the world. This is taking place within this argument, but also can be clearly seen with video game/movie ratings, abortion, and drugs. I have my own ideals and my own concious. I can decide for myself what I think is right and wrong. If you disagree, that's fine. If you can convince me to change my mind on a matter (drug use, abortion. I invite you.), that's excellent. When you are an old fuck who has nothing better to do then enforce your uneducated oppinions on others through violence (that would be allowing the police to raid one's property and seize whatever they need), here's a big FUCK YOU to you. Have a nice day.
Re:attorney generals? (Score:3, Insightful)
What are we really talking about here? The few ISPs left in the US that still have news servers? Blocking NNTP? What? All these guys predicting the end of Usenet don't seem to have the vaguest idea how it functions, and seem to assume that if some big-time ISPs shutdown their news servers that the whole edifice will come crashing down.
Give your heads a collective shake. Usenet's not going anywhere. It may mean that those few people who still get a free ride from their ISPs will have to pay, but so the fuck what?
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
"engaging in sexually explicit conduct"
And how is that defined/redefined?
Does anyone else feel this is.. (Score:2, Insightful)
A easy way for government to get rid of P2P sharing as well. I mean, if they can put the lock down on usenet and newsgroups what is to stop them from saying "P2P is a way to share child porn".
I feel this has bigger implications than most think.
Re:attorney generals? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny: if you replace the words 'child pornography' with 'Scientology documents', you can roll this line of reasoning right back to when Helena Kobrin tried to rmgroup alt.religion.scientology. (I really recommend look up the newsgroup on Wikipedia, it's fascinating Internet history.)
Like filtering Bittorrent, a real reason for dropping the alt.* hierarchy is doubtless bandwidth. When I last looked some years ago, there were over 70,000 alt.* newsgroups, most of which had no traffic except spam, and some of which were meerely names to create ASCII art in the list of newsgroups. And the binary groups with the most traffic tended to be porn. So since people can download porn on their own fairly easily now, why should the ISP's take responsibility for such an expensive resource to maintain? Blocking child pornography hasn't been an excuse for over a decade, since 'NNTP-Posting-Host' became a de facto required field from all NNTP service providers.
Most of the ISP's I've seen mentioned are only dumping alt.*, not all of Usenet, which still has a lot of useful discussion groups. The Google archives of such groups are wonderful for obscure technical help, and some of the groups remain quite useful for technical discussions or social networking. Dumping those freely created and awkward to flush newsgroups, as a matter of policy, seems to make good business sense and needn't be burdened with the excuse of child pornography.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
> "feature creep" where they decide that once
> they have child porn they'll block pirating,
I'm pretty sure that the reason for this offensive is exactly that.
Otherwise, why not just drop the offending groups?
Or why not use them to track the people posting / making the stuff (and thus get the kids away from them)?
Probably because NNTP is a really effective method of distributing content, especially HD content. Plus it's one which is hard/impossible for the *AAs to track (without compromising the servers themselves).
Re:attorney generals? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of our country's laws are based off Christianity. I honestly don't see why they don't just ratify the Bible and get it over with.
As a Christian I can tell you that no, they're not really.
People pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to pay attention to (e.g. Leviticus 18:22) and which parts they want to ignore (e.g. Matthew 18:22).
Re:attorney generals? (Score:4, Insightful)
Prostitution isn't a victimless crime. It could be, and sometimes is, but the general case is that it's gross exploitation and if you're looking for a victim, the prostitute is it. Sometimes a student or someone will make a money by selling themselves for sex. That's their choice. But for most prostitutes, the circumstances are so bad that you can't really apply the word "choice" any more. The reality of prostitution is a grim one and more complicated than someone making a decision to trade sex for money - it's surrounded by and part of a whole mesh of other crimes and abuses. I don't know about the USA, but the plight of immigrant girls from Eastern Europe forced into prostitution not just in countries like Turkey (where the slang term for prostitute is "a Russian") but even here in the UK, is widespread and as nasty as it gets.
We can debate the nature of the laws on prostitution, as well as how and when they are applied, but to consider prostitution to be a victimless crime and that the objection to it is founded in Christian puritanism, is except in a few cases, wrong. It may be that the puritanical attitudes that accompany Christianity and Islam make the situation worse for prostitutes in defining it as a shameful activity, but, although I think trading your body for money is usually damaging for reasons far more fundamental than any religion our species has evolved, it's a separate debate. If you want to see the victim in prostitution she (or he) is right there in front of you.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Ineffective at best, slippery slope at worst. (Score:2, Insightful)
This would probably matter more if most ISP-provided usenet feeds didn't have retention that can barely be measured in HOURS to begin with. I imagine the pedocons, like anyone else who has any serious interest in newsgroups in general, and binaries newsgroups in particular, probably pay for premium usenet service. What worries me is what happens when this (As obviously will be the case) does nothing. Will they eventually try to wipe out usenet altogether?
Giganews is up to 240 days retention on all binary newsgroups. If it's out there, anyone who wants it can have at it for $25 a month. But then, so it goes. That's always going to be the case...so where does it end? We start taking pointers from China? From Web 2.0 to Web Good-fuckin-Luck.
Re:attorney generals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bring it out of the back rooms and seedy motels and give the girls some decent protection.
Take the fucking control away from pimps and organised crime and you fix most of the problem.
Re:attorney generals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps one of the many reasons the homicide figure is lower is because they can't kill their hated person twice
Based on the statistics it makes more sense to have a burglary/robbery offender list rather than a sex offender list.
Anyway, putting people on such lists is wrong - once they've done their sentence, you have to let them out.
If a country doesn't have confidence in criminals turning over a new leaf, they should do what China does and execute people for all sorts of crimes - e.g. theft, "hooliganism".
Re:attorney generals? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they remove the newsserver, and the user then switches to bt/http/whatever, that *will* cost the isp upstream bandwidth costs, so from that economic point of view, its cheaper to maintain the servers.
A more likely reason is culpability and fear of lawsuits / criminal investigations for hosting illegal stuff- yes, I know safe harbour provisions, but there are arguements that could be made based on individual groups as seperate channels. I don't know if it would stand up, but I bet the ISP wouldn't want to pay their defence attourneys the cost of finding out...
as an aside, I suppose an economic argument could be made based around the usage patterns of heavy downloaders, the typical retention of ISP newsservers ( and the subsequent need for upstream fill servers ), and the relative inefficiency of nntp as a binary distribution protocol ( even with yenc ), but that is really just an argument against having a *bad* isp news server - disc space is cheap.
Re:attorney generals? (Score:5, Insightful)
In Australia child pornography is legal, if you call it "art".
Oh come on, that's total garbage.
A picture of a naked child is not a sexualised image to anyone but a paedophile. All of this media beat up crap about it being "irresponsible" on the behalf of the artist(s) because "of what paedophiles do with such images" is further perpetrating the viewpoint that a naked child is a sexual entity. You can't hold someone as immoral when you're espousing their own position.
Look at it this way: there are some people for whom stuffed toys are their fetish. Should we be calling for the banning of Sesame Street for its irresponsible pandering?
Re:A sneaky way of blowing away "net neutrality" (Score:2, Insightful)
This is all about the free TERABYTES of video and audio available directly from your own ISP who now offers competing media services.
Surprised that it came in the guise of a 'think of the children' argument?
I sure wasn't...
The good side of this (Score:4, Insightful)
Could this be the end of Eternal September? People serious about wanting usenet access can get a pay account to access it and all the spammers and riffraff that have plagued it since the mid 90's will be for the most part gone. Still there are a lot of downsides of this, but I don't think losing a piracy outlet is one of them. Have you seen the retention of most ISP's these days? They don't retain enough of anything to be worth much anymore. Their binary section usually has a size limit which means that unless you are collecting each piece as it comes in, if you log in, you only see about 1/4 of the last uploaded chunks of the file. And don't get me started on how much they throttle the usenet speed (I'm talking sub dialup speeds). Anyone who uses it for binary access is almost certainly using a pay site that has decent retention and good speed. That isn't going to go away from what I understand.
Re:attorney generals? (Score:1, Insightful)
I do not believe that this agreement is for the purposes stated within. I believe they are using a strawman issue (kiddie pr0n) to establish a framework for controling and censoring the internet, something I cannot abide.
By the way, you should look up strawman arguments, since your post is making one. it's a common logical fallacy. so heres one back at ya: remember many of Hitlers "reforms" we're done to protect the children. obviously because you want to protect the children, you must support genocide and racism. Welcome to Slashdot. Godwin's law be damned.
Re:Here's betting it doesn't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Adult-attracted people should understand that the way in which they act upon their sexual orientation does not necessarily correlate with the way in which "minority sexualities" act. This is because the behaviours of sexual minorities are not governed simply by human sexual desire, they are governed by a myriad of deep-rooted ethical, social and legal issues which undeniably affect one's actions.
Most paedophiles refrain from having sex with children for the same reasons that you refrain from raping women. That should not be difficult to comprehend.
NAMBLA is an extreme organisation. They do not represent the majority of paedophiles.
What makes you think that most child molesters are paedophiles? A friend has collected a list of relevant studies [nfshost.com], most of which suggest that non-paedophilic men comprise the vast majority of child molesters.
Your stereotyping of the AC paedophile is disgraceful; you have no right to judge an individual based on the behaviour of others, and you have no right to judge a whole demographic based on the behaviour of its worst members.
Re:Security Theater II - Re:attorney generals? (Score:3, Insightful)
Please explain to me how a PRIVATE company NOT providing a service free of charge ... constitutes an "observable erosion of civil liberties".
This agreement paints all such newgroups, whether or not they contain any illegal content, as probable cause for you to get arrested. I'd say that's a _huge_ erosion of civil liberties. It's illegal to possess CP, not happen to browse newsgroups with 'binaries' in their title. It is absolutely not my ISPs duty or business to record my browsing habits. They're opening themselves up to charges themselves by editing the material they provide access to (they could lose their common carrier status). Much like Slashdot disavows ownership of comments, ISPs should do the same and stay out of law enforcement.
Re:attorney generals? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you'd have to include any European countries whose national health care covers abortions. They're murdering their own citizens too.
Isn't unnecessary spin great? See how we can so effectively snuff any rational discussion by tweaking words just a little bit? What a great technique you discovered!