Why ISPs' "Stand" Against Child Porn Is Actually Not a Stand Against Child Porn 283
TechDirt has an insightful article on the recent push for ISPs to turn off Usenet access under the guise of fighting child pornography. Unfortunately, the "stand against child porn" isn't actually a stand at all, it seems — more like ignoring the issue while trying to snag some headlines and good will. "Taking a stand against child porn wouldn't be overly aggressively blocking access to internet destinations that may or may not have porn (and there's no review over the list to make sure that they're actually objectionable). Taking a stand against child porn would be hunting down those responsible for the child porn and making sure that they're dealt with appropriately... Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review."
Re:Copyright infringement, too (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm calling Bullshit! ISP shutting down usenet does nothing about anything. Hell, how are they shutting down usenet? Blocking port 119? That is bullshit too.
Shake the google tree for usenet access and see what falls out. You'll get at least half a dozen dedicated usenet providers alone. Most of the offering unlimited access and SSL connections for around 20 bucks a month. All most every one of them offers SSL connections and connections on ports other than 119 just to get around blocking 119. Hell, the one I use even has port 80 and 25 open for nntp. They use SSL connections just so some dumbasses can't see what your downloading.
No this is feel good bullshit that won't even put a dent in kiddy porn.
Thus is Bullshit, I say, Bullshit!
Re:Well DUH (Score:4, Interesting)
I had actually forgotten about that. It's certainly possible the two are related. Time Warner could be telling the truth about their reasons. They could also be using the "suggestion" to stop hosting some Usenet as an excuse / opportunity to stop hosting all of it. I don't know, but I'll freely admit it's a possibility.
I guess I should have been more clear -- it doesn't appear that the "request" was to stop hosting Usenet altogether, but to stop hosting some particular newsgroups.
Unless they want to try to effectively kill off Usenet altogether, I don't see encouraging ISPs to stop hosting it as a smart move, as it could boost the popularity of non-ISP Usenet hosts.
Re:Copyright infringement, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Newgroups are still a great way for spreading (legal, though often disliked by various governments) information as well. That being said. one thing I've rather missed in linux is finding a good newgroup reader that has SSL capabilities. Anyone know of one?
Re:More money for Supernews, et al. (Score:1, Interesting)
You don't think the child pornographers have parents? Do you even recognize their humanity at all?
If you are really happy to shoot them yourself, I'd hazard a guess that you are as bad as they are - or worse.
Child Porn is a Trojan Horse for Corporate Control (Score:3, Interesting)
I made this point in a comment posted to the other story about ISP's blocking newsgroups due to child porn.
The truth is... Its just a trojan horse. Its not at all the real cause. Its a bandwidth issue, and piracy issue. It has nothing to do with protecting children.
Most people are not attracted to children. This may be a shock to the news media, but most adults are attracted to each others sexual appetite and physical appearance. There is nothing attractive about having sex with a child. Its a demented psychological issue that has nothing to do with the newsgroups.
Most people in the newsgroups are trading "of legal age" porn, movies, music, software, emulation roms, linux distros, windows betas, shareware, personal photos, personal videos, knowledge, programming code, user made content for games etc.
Most people are not jacking to children in the newsgroups and we all know this.
To assume that any given network avenue is predominantly child porn oriented is ridiculous when child porn is a very very small minority of civilization. Most adults lust after other adults. Until that is proven otherwise... and i doubt it ever will.... Then how in the hell can we allow this bullshit "anti child porn" movement conquer the newsgroups.
This is a political and economic power play for retaking bandwidth and controlling and eliminating a popular user based distribution system, and communications "forum".
Simply ask this... How much newsgroupd bandwidth is due to child pornography? Then compare it to the amount of bandwidth used by "of legal age" pornography.... and add in all of the .flac, .mp3, .warez, .movies, .divx, .xvid, .mkv, linux, newsgroups.
Child porn is a unmeasurable minute fraction of newsgroup traffic. The majority of it, is in other material, such as the above mentioned.
These companies dont like it, and they're taking a page from the politicians who for years said "Its for the good of our children", as an excuse to destroy and eliminate personal freedoms, and gain politcal power etc. After all, who could refuse the idea of helping children!?... Which if you think about it.. supports my point that most people arent out to fuck children. They never were.
Child pornography is real, molestation is real... but that does not give these corporations and law makers the right, or power to destory everything they deem a threat, under the guise of "its for the safety of our children"... or "child porn".
Its all bullshit, and they will do what they want. But at least we should know the truth of the issue, so we can hate the appropriate government officials and companies for lieing to us like we're stupid.
Are you folks nuts? (Score:4, Interesting)
First off, how does someone "track" the actions of a child-porn downloader? By IP address, you say? Well, ask NewYorkCountryLawyer about how much value there is to an IP address and how much proof there is that an IP address equals a person. So I doubt very much if you can do any meaningful "tracking".
Next would be the publishers. Did you know that it is possible to have a web site that hosts child porn? A web site that is absolutely protected against anyone finding out who the actual "owner" might be. A web site that protects the anonyminity of the "publisher" completely. Its very simple. It might be hard to do in the credit-card happy US but outside of the US it is perfectly legal to use cash. And to do so anonymously. And post any objectionable content you want. Would you want it any other way?
So you say that such illegal material should be prohibited. What about torrent trackers for copyright movies? How about links to bomb-making instructions? Abortion doctors home addresses? How about instructions for making sarin or VX gas? Where exactly do you draw the line for "objectionable" materials? And where do you require people to give up their anonymity?
Sorry, this is the Internet we're talking about. If you aren't incredibly stupid, it is almost impossible to track a "downloader" and connect up the actions that take place on an ISP account with an actual individual. Fortunately, most criminals are really incredibly stupid. So they brag about their exploits and what they have done - almost always to the wrong people. Which then gets them convicted, sued and whatnot.
How are you going to stop child porn really? You aren't going to stop it by making it illegal - there is way, way too much money in it. You aren't going to be able to track it down on the Internet because of the basic protections that web hosting providers and registrars are more than happy to provide to their customers. You aren't going to track downloaders because you will find grandmothers, 9 year old girls and dead people getting hauled into court - such are the perils of believing an IP address means anything at all.
Yes, child porn is a problem that involves at least 50% of all computer forensic technicians today and probably 30-50% of all law enforcement and prosecuters today. But no, I seriously doubt you are going to stop it any time soon. Millions of dollars change hands on a weekly basis because of child porn. Might as well just license it and tax it like drugs.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment.... (Score:5, Interesting)
But don't use misleading attributions. The first sentence is Hitler, from Mein Kampf. It was speaking on the view that the duty of the people is to produce healthy children and not burden society with the support of children. Not to protect the children, but to have useful children. A disturbing sentiment when considering how extreme Hitler took things like this, but orthogonal to this discussion.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin is the person who actually wrote that quote, putting the totalitarian twist on it to link it to an excuse to curtail liberty. It's insightful, but not directly linked to Hitler's strategy for totalitarianism. He wasn't nearly so subtle as that.
Interesting comment from TFA (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone commented thusly following TFA:
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1) Usenet is not the problem by anonymous coward on Jul 18th, 2008 @ 10:45am
I always suspected that child pornography isn't nearly as invasive as people say it is, and now I know for sure that's the case.
I have been involved in Usenet for 10 years, and have at times decoded the entire newsfeed, including all of the alt.pictures.erotica groups. There is no child porn there. Even on the newsgroups that supposedly feature it, there is a very small amount, but most is just ads for porn sites and random legal porn that people are cross-posting.
In truth, Usenet is one of the worst places to put illegal images. There is zero privacy, there is no private clubs where you can make sure your illegal activities are viewed by only a few. And there is little anonymity, because almost all ISPs keep logs of Usenet posting.
One wonders if the anti-piracy people are really behind this somehow. Piracy, unlike child pornography, is rampant on Usenet.
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GP had a legit point (Score:3, Interesting)
I do both, just like most guys. BUT - I know I'd grudgingly just watch porn and never again touch a woman if fucking women was illegal and could get me thrown in the pen for the rest of my life.
Isn't that actually the choice that pedophiles face?
Actually, come to think of it, if that was my choice I'd probably just kill myself. Life wouldn't be worth living.
I guess it's no wonder that most pedophiles are supposed to suffer from depression.
Re:Copyright infringement, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Or we could go back to the old days when Usenet was a true "store and forward" application, with people forwarding posts instead of everyone acting like leaf nodes. Just use NNTP or some new protocol instead of UUCP.
Re:Copyright infringement, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: USENET:
I wouldn't trade Usenet access for BitTorrent in a thousand years.
With ten simultaneous feeds to a body of material that has been posted by recognized characters, and 'peer-reviewed' (a la "avoid this", etc) on the balance of big posts, and no worries that all the 'seeders' have the same 98% of the file, and we're gonna have to wait for some schmuck in the Ukraine to flip his box on to get the rest...
My Giganews account will saturate any number of feeds. No waiting for all the p2p horseshit. You can have BitTorrent. (and any other 'p2p' formats and apps out there, too).
I'm all for sharing, sure. That's what uploading to Usenet is for. But the 'sharing' aspect, and 'distributed' hosting aspect of BT (et al) sounds way better in theory than it works out in practice. Why? Because the p2p users can fuck up with anything, and there is no threaded commenting on posts, so bullshit can sit right along better versions of similar files. It's a crapshoot, and with the stupid prices and caps of shiity American bandwidth today, I can't afford to take big gambles on DVD-sized (38-CD sized, etc) downloads. The Usenet people know what to do with pnn files, so even in rare cases of partials mixed in with complete segments, it's all retrievable/reparable.
I DO like the idea of BitTorrent. Sharing is good. But the de facto situation with it, and adding in ISP (Comcast, etc) interference with packets, and for me it's a no-go deal. Do I think others should abandon BT because 'flipper' doesn't like it? Hell no. It's just not for me, that's all.
And I'm glad the ISPs are dropping their not-even-half-assed Usenet coverage. Hopefully we'll see fewer of the noobs with their "This post is incomplete on my server" (After which, glancing at the post 'details' we see it's from yet-Another verizon, comcast, whatever user).
So, hooray for getting Usenet off the ISPs, back in 'the dark' where the people who use it, understand it, and contribute, can do what we've always done: understand, use, contribute.