Cleanfeed Canada - What Would It Accomplish? 211
Bennett Haselton has another article on offer for us today, this time looking at the implications of a Canadian initiative to protect children online. Bennet writes: "Cybertip.ca, a Canadian
clearinghouse for providing information to law enforcement about online
child luring and child pornography, has announced that a
group of major ISPs will begin blocking access to URLs on Cybertip's list
of known child pornography sites. A Cybertip spokesperson says that the
list fluctuates between 500 and 800 sites at any given time." Read on for the rest of his analysis.
The system is named after a similar
filtering system used by service provider BT in the UK. It is also
reminiscent of a law passed in Pennsylvania in 2002 requiring ISPs to block
URLs on a list of known child pornography sites; the law was struck down in 2004 on First
Amendment grounds. Although child pornography is of course not protected
by the First Amendment, the law was struck down partly because the ISPs
were blocking entire servers and IP address ranges, hundreds of thousands
of non-child-pornography sites were also being blocked.
Under the implementation of the Cleanfeed system, representatives from Sasktel, Bell Canada, and Telus claim that only exact URLs will be filtered, not sites hosted at the same IP address. (Although conventional Internet filtering programs sold to parents and schools have also made the same claims, only to turn out to be filtering sites by IP address after all, so we'll have to wait until the filtering is implemented before we know for sure.) The other difference of course is that the Cleanfeed system is not the law, so there's nothing to "strike down" in court. Cybertip did acknowledge that this means customers can get around the filtering for now by switching to a non-participating service provider, although they are encouraging more providers to sign up. Cybertip declined to say whether any providers had simply refused to participate. But of course it's much easier than that to get around the filter, since filter circumvention sites like Anonymouse and StupidCensorship will not be blocked.
So, if it's that easy to circumvent, does it do any good? Even respected Canadian academic and columnist Michael Geist, hardly a friend of censorship in other forms, has spoken out in favor of the plan. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it doesn't accomplish anything meaningful, and may set a horrible precedent that could make it much easier to block other content in the future.
First of all, it seems that it obviously won't stop anyone who is deliberately looking for child porn. Empirically there's no way to tell -- we don't whether systems like Cleanfeed in the UK have prevented people from accessing child pornography on purpose. Even if the providers are counting the number of blocked accesses to known child porn sites, nobody knows what people have been looking at instead through proxy sites like Anonymouse. All we can do is ask, logically, whether it is likely to work. I think purely logical arguments are frustrating when there is no empirical data to act as a referee, but let's face it, users are not going to self-report on their success at finding child pornography, and there's no way to see what users are accessing through encrypted circumvention sites. Logic is all we have.
So, consider people who are deliberately looking for child pornography. Such people are likely to be resourceful to begin with (since real child porn -- remember, non-sexual pictures of naked children do not count -- is vastly less common than regular porn; Cybertip claims after all that they "only" have about 800 sites on their list, compared to millions of regular porn sites). Virtually all such people would be aware of circumvention sites like Anonymouse, or of peer-to-peer networks, which Cybertip says they have no plans to block. So nothing is blocked from people who want to get around the filter.
The only scenario where the filters could make a difference is the case where someone accidentally accesses a child porn site. Now when I first read the Cybertip press release announcing that the filter would aim to stop "accidental" exposure to child porn, I thought that was just a tactfully sarcastic way of referring to the people who get caught accessing child porn and claim it was just a mistake. But Cybertip.ca claims they've received over 10,000 reports since January 2005 from people who accessed child porn by accident. Even though that only works out to about 15 per day, I have to concede in those cases it almost certainly was a bona fide mistake, for the simple reason that nobody would voluntarily report accessing a child pornography URL that they visited on purpose. But even so, there's the question: What have you accomplished by blocking accidental exposure?
I would argue that the harm done by child pornography is to the minors coerced into the production of it, not to the people who view it. (This, by the way, corresponds with current U.S. jurisprudence; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that a law banning fake child porn was unconstitutional, even when the viewer can't tell the difference.) Obviously you prevent the most damage by stopping child porn at the production stage, but if it's too late for that, you can try to stop people from obtaining it willfully. This lowers the demand and decreases the incentive for people to produce more in the future.
But how would it lower demand if you block people from accessing it accidentally? If those people weren't going to proceed to buy or download more pictures anyway, then they're not fueling the demand. You can block them from accessing the pictures, but the pictures are still out there, and the people who really are fueling the demand can still access them.
So it seems that by blocking someone from accidentally viewing child porn, all you've really accomplished is to avoid offending their sensibilities. Now I don't mean that mockingly, I'm certainly not disagreeing with anyone whose sensibilities are offended by child porn. But there are lots of graphic pictures on the Internet that could offend someone's sensibilities, which are outside of Cleanfeed's mandate. Consider a photo of a 16-year-old having sex, versus a photo of an adult woman fellating a horse; even though the former is illegal to possess and the latter isn't, I think most people would be more grossed out by the second one. (I would even argue that there was more harm to the participants in the making of the second one, and in this case the law's priorities are a bit screwed up. Poor horse!)
So, why block 1% of the content that would offend someone's sensibilities, when 99% of the content that would still offend that person would still be out there? The fact that the 1% is illegal doesn't answer the question; even if it's illegal, you don't have to block it, so what have you accomplished if you do?
Possibly law enforcement is sick of people using the "I accidentally clicked on it" excuse when they get caught accessing child pornography, and wants to remove that as a defense. But couldn't someone just as easily claim that they "accidentally" accessed child pornography through a circumvention site like Anonymouse? They could claim that they thought they were accessing a regular porn site, they were using a circumventor to protect their privacy, and they didn't know that the site carried child porn and didn't find out until they'd already accessed it. So it doesn't seem like the filtering would remove the "accidental" defense.
So, I don't think the filtering accomplishes much at all, but it could set a very bad precedent once the filters are in place. Once Internet users have accepted the precedent that ISPs should block content that is "probably" illegal, what's to stop organizations and lawmakers from demanding that ISPs block access to overseas sites that violate copyright, for example, as the RIAA did in 2002? The technical means will already be in place, and more importantly, people will have gotten used to the idea that legally "questionable" content should be blocked. And with lobbyists claiming that 90% of content on peer-to-peer networks violates copyright laws, wouldn't it follow logically to block peer-to-peer traffic as well?
In a legislative climate where lawmakers have proposed everything from jail time for p2p developers to letting the RIAA hack people's PCs for distributing copyrighted files, we should resist any kind of content-based blocking that would let them get their foot in the door. That includes even well-intentioned efforts like Cleanfeed.
In Canada, ... (Score:2, Informative)
Lame. (Score:2, Insightful)
What freedoms are you giving up? (Score:3, Insightful)
What freedoms are those, again? If I don't want to see you internet access to a given site, well, that's my right under free market principles. If you don't like it, find another provider. If I want to simultaneously limit my corporate liability and improve my public relations by actively preventing people from committing a crime (deliberately accessing illegal content), well, that's my right.
If you want to set up yo
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Re:What freedoms are you giving up? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want to set up your own ISP in Canada without those restrictions, go ahead. If you want to set up an ISP that only shows web-pages about cats, or muffins, or religion, or science, or whatever, go ahead... it's not illegal.
Actually, it might be. Check section 36 of the Telecommunications Act (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/LEGAL/TELECOM.HTM [crtc.gc.ca]). Here it is: 36. Except where the Commission approves otherwise, a Canadian carrier shall not control the content or influence the meaning or purpose of telecommunications carried by it for the public.
Personally, I don't like the project. I admire the goals, but as the article suggests, there are issues. Is is really going to put a stop to browsing child porn on the internet, no way. I don't think anyone believes that. Will it stop those who want to view child porn... probably not most, if any. There are too many ways around the whole idea to make it worthwhile. Also, under Canadian law, possession of this list of sites is also illegal, though its unlikely that Cybertip or any of the ISPs would every be prosecuted for having the list.
Finally, comes the issue of privacy. I've been told that the system does not track which IPs are attempting to access which sites, but I have to wonder if it really does, and if not, how long before this "feature" is added in.
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Then, I also do not like this 21th century moral trend to overprotect the children of any single thing, dismissing parental authority completely in the process, and goes against the wrong targets. As the post suggested, as long as you do not prevent production of child pornography, laws like that will have no effect than tempting the curious, as the curious kind is always attracted to things that are forbidden.
It was t
And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place (Score:4, Interesting)
The goal being de facto censorship by pressuring all ISPs to filter. If an ISP won't filter, you organize a boycott coupled with a shame campaign so that not only do they lose the people who actively boycott, but also people who don't want to be labeled as a pervert for staying. That leaves just the perverts. And then once you have all the perverts using one ISP, you hit it with a raid, seize the user records, and bust all their users, wiping out that ISP.
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The one flaw with ISP blocking is that the block lists are pretty course-grained sometimes. It's not uncommon for crackers to stash files on a box that aren't referenced by the primary page content, then pass around the undocumented URL's in a "dark net" to share the content. Providers need to have a chance to clean up their infestations and security to get off the block lists in a timely fashion, and the site owners should ALWAYS be notified if their site is accused of illegal content or UCE/SPAM.
Of c
Yes but... (Score:2, Insightful)
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You'll be giving up your children's freedom, too. Is that the choice you want to make? Do you want your children growing up in a world where the government is what teaches them good from bad, instead of you? Once we acknowledge that it is appropriate for the government to tell us what is OK to look at and what isn't, we've given away the very rig
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No, YOU'RE talking about that. Nobody would support what you're talking about, which is precisely why you must belabor the point - it's indefensible and so you feel it makes you right. But, I think you're the one who needs to step back and realize this:
What I am talking about is that bills like this one are the sort that grant permission to the government
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Ummm... no. Culture is the ideals, traditions, and knowledge passed from generation to generation. Government is an artificially created body designed to protect the populace and uphold the law. I think you already knew that though, cause of your statement that "then obviously there is something wrong with our government. Why? Well, our culture is what dictates our laws, and our culture believes in the freedom to wear what you want on your face."
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I didn't say otherwise, you did. You said they're one and the same. Now you're saying "in part." I merely mad
Oh boy (Score:2)
This has ALWAYS happened to be so during the course of world history. And it certainly did not change a year ago.
The excuse for erecting up a control mechanism is child porn today, which is chosen because it is something that public will not be able to resist and object. Not something else.
Once the mechanism is in place, it is in place. Can be used to meet whatever end.
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This is social mechanics. It doesnt differ from time to time. Only methods and excuses differ. In 1200, there was religion and divinity which were used to justify practices that were in fact an extension of the power of the ruling class, then in and after 18th century it became nation's interests, now there are other excuses as religion and nationality no
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What we have at hand, the greedy elements in a society/group exploiting delicate issues to control/manipulate the public is not something that is a matter of belief or not.
In any society which is comprised of members that are less than utopic quality, it is a given that persons/groups that are willing/intent on manipulating the public to their varying needs will be present.
Theres no utopic quality grade society on the face of the earth as of now. as a result, it is be
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Didnt governments of u.s. and u.k. abuse their power ? Russia ? There have been many attempts in canada to restrict people's freedoms too, but so far they failed. Who knows what will they attempt in future and succeed ?
Politicians are accountable ? Pinochet ? Stalin ? Nixon ? How many politicians do you know that have given an account for his/her misdoings ?
Governments dont abuse power. Governments are just empty mechanisms that elected/appointed people fill. If a mal-intent party wins
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Those people are dead now, but they died peacefully, and many of them died at the end of their reign, and their reign only ended with their death.
"Checks and balances" - no such thing exists. Well, maybe only the balances part in that, any party trying to abuse power to a higher extent needs more powerful excuses - religion earlier, nationalism later, now, stuff like morals, values, traditions, child protection and such.
The only difference of now with medieval times is that, it is a much mo
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I'm sure the same was said in 1936 by many parents in a land we shall not mention when laws were being passed to make their nation safe. Ironically, in 1945 many of their children had died in due to the war that was waged to "protect" them.
Yes, it is a natural instinct to give something up for you children, but freedom should not be one of them. In fact, the most altruistic behavior would be to give up your p
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"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
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No you wouldn't. That is a complete and utter lie.
The overwhelming majority of child abuse is committed by a parent. If you are actually willing to give up your personal freedom to keep your child safe, you should be perfectly willing to give up your child and/or incarcerate yourself, as it's far more likely that they'll suffer abuse from YOU than anyone else in the world.
Unless you've already given up your c
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what you DO NOT have the right to do is give up MY rights... or HIS rights to protect you children.
Big difference.
Stew
Freedom vs. safety... again... (Score:2)
I would gladly give up my own personal freedom and well being to make sure my children grow up safe.
Then give up your OWN freedom. Don't mess with everyone else's freedom.
And oh, by the way, this isn't about the "freedom" to look at child porn. 'Coz you know good and well that it won't stop there.
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And here is unfortunately the exact problem. Banning online child porn and stopping access by whatever misguided and impossible methods is not going to stop sex predators. Ever. It's nothing but a boondoggle provided by shortsighted politicians who can't come up with anything better to make things safer. Because that would actually require work, insight and study.
Only your freedom ? (Score:2)
censorship is a trigger happy thing.
it means preventing acccess to some information. what information ? who to decide ? a few 'non-profit' organisations and government agencies. based on what ? public opinion. how long ? not too long.
censorship always starts out to satisfy public sentiment so that public can accept it. step by step it turns to a controlling mechanism for those who can use it to their ends.
you are not giving up YOUR personal freedo
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Who here doesn't know of somebody underpaid and easily corruptable that works at a big ISP?
This thing sounds like a godsend to people who want to get access to this kind of stuff.
Am I missing something here?
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Of course, I think this whole plan is not-very-well thought out, so I suspect that every ISP will get a copy of the
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Are you now going to suggest that I should move to another city/province/country, perhaps? Obviously, the knee-jerk pat answer is not always very insightful, is it?
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This leads into a story that was on slashdot a month or two ago about a canadian ISP who was shut down by their upstream provider for hosting sites that "discuss pedophilia openly". They were reviewed by the FBI and RCMP and found to be totally legal and protected by free-speech (so the government could not shut them down), however, none of the backbone providers in the entire province (Quebec) would host them. This is a canadian corporation... an ISP... last i heard they were left wi
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Statistics reveal there is only a small statistical coorilation.
Studies that show otherwise are usually taken from clinical (mental hospital) or incarcerated (long jail sentences) populations.
When you use actual "population" samples such as college and/or random area samples, there is little coorilation. However, the media is not smart enough to recognize that and folks like Nancy Grace (plus, people who get funding by claiming this for whatever reason) still spout it as gospe
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Good maybe (Score:2, Interesting)
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As it was explained to me this cleenfeed system is mainly for dealing with countries that don't really care to do anything about the problem.
It's a slippery slope... (Score:3, Informative)
It is only a matter of time before the police will block sites they disagree with that has nothing to do with child pr0n...
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And the beauty of the censorship is that the very act of checking to see if they're blocking unrelated sites is in itself a violation of the law.
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The police is very selective when it comes to enforcing laws. For example, laws that guarantee civil liberties are giving very short thrift; police will routinely violate those laws by conducting illegal searches through deception, counting on people not knowing their rights, outright lying or simply with brute force.
Isn't this what Slashdot has been doing? (Score:2)
As the summary says, the blocking will be trivial to circumvent. So, why not make the blocking available? It sounds like a value-added feature that will be great marketing fodder. You can either advertise ``safer surf
Making life harder for no-blocking ISPs' customers (Score:2)
So, why not make the blocking available? It sounds like a value-added feature that will be great marketing fodder. You can either advertise ``safer surfing'' or ``no blocking,'' depending on whether you implement it.
And watch the safer-surfing ISPs decline to renew peering arrangements with no-blocking ISPs, forcing no-blocking ISPs to pay extra for transit to customers of safer-surfing ISPs. And watch the safer-surfing ISPs route mail from the no-blocking ISPs to junk mail folders. And watch both the local cable ISP and the local DSL ISP in a given town become safer-surfing ISPs.
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Slashdot has never blocked URLs based on content. There have been a couple of posts removed due to legal pressure, but every single goatse post in the history of this site is available for your viewing pleasure.
I'll go along with this (Score:2)
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Yes there is a slippery slope, and it starts the day they institute censorship.
Um, distraction, maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe the real intent of this campaign is to keep Canadian citizens distracted from the real issues facing their country. Or perhaps to see just many rights people are willing to surrender in the name of fighting _____________.
I still don't understand the concept behind making images illegal. Granted, someone who wants to look at this kind of stuff might have a really messed up sense of morality, and probably reality as well, but I don't see how this is a legal issue before there is an actual victim. I would think that the kind of depravity which would cause someone to seek out such images would be better handled by the Church than the law, as it seems to me that this is more of a spiritual and emotional problem than a legal one. I just don't see how the threat of jail time is going to fix someone's dirty obsession.
OTOH, this probably does not have anything to do with the question at hand, and is instead a proxy for those who want to control the population by making certain thoughts criminal. This issue would be merely the test bed for effective means of thought control, a legal means of establishing the validity of thought crime. If, by using an emotionally charged subject, they can establish a legal equivalence of the crime, and merely thinking about it, then it paves the way to the extension of making political crimes subject to the same kind of enforcement as well.
If you think about it, the above dialog applies equally well to both child pornography and terrorism.
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That's a legitimate question when talking about simulated images (I don't know what Canadian law is regarding those), but regarding images of real children, surely you can think of whom an "actual victim" might be?
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Yes, I'm sure we all can. Just as I'm sure we can all identify the "actual victims" in video footage of the 9/11 attacks.
The issue here is that some people seem unable to correctly identify the "actual criminals" preforming an "actual criminal act" in one of the two above examples. Hint: it's not the person stitting motionless gazing at an image.
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Re:Um, distraction, maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
If you (or your wife, or your child) are forced to be photographed nude or engaged in sexual activity to which you have not consented, are you not victimized every time those photographs are seen or distributed? Are you really arguing that there's no victim here?
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If a tree falls in the woods, do you care?
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Every time you buy a diamond (ring, necklace, or what have you) you are supporting slave labor and the drawing blood of African children in mines.
If not directly then indirectly by increasing the demand for such items.
Why aren't diamonds illegal? Th
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I still don't understand the concept behind making images illegal. Granted, someone who wants to look at this kind of stuff might have a really messed up sense of morality, and probably reality as well, but I don't see how this is a legal issue before there is an actual victim.
Well, the State (insert your favorite government here) is in the business of trying to tell people what to think. Despite the protections on speech and expression in the United States, the government (and certain religious persuasions) would prefer it if you didn't think about these things at all and don't wish to be subjected to the actualizations of the thoughts of others.
Now, I see child porn as morally reprehensible. Frankly, I think you have to somewhat depraved to enjoy thought of sexual contact w
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But still I don't see how CP, zoofilia and necrofilia can be set equal in the eyes of the criminal law.
But I wasn't talking about law. I was talking about what I find morally reprehensible. I don't condone these acts -- that's my personal belief. I don't expect my personal belief to be made into law. Why should my opinion count any more or any less than that of anyone else? The idea is to find a common ground that can apply to all citizens in the United States (or anywhere for that matter). Maybe there are those that enjoy the "idea" of sexual contact with minors and while I may find that troubling, they d
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I understand that you may find various behaviours morally reprehensible, but your definition of what is moral and what is not is different from other people's definitions and it is different from mine.
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<<Insert Catholic Priest Joke Here>>
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What real issues are facing Canadians that this is attempting to distract us from? As for rights, sorry but no one has a right to child porn. If you think it is your right to view child porn please do the world a favour and take a long walk off the roof of the nearest 40 floor build
Not the issue in my opinion. (Score:2)
As I said in another post, the issue is due process.
If these sites contain child pornography, wouldn't that be a crime in and of themselves? Shouldn'these sites be taken down?
Okay, what if the sites are out of country you ask? Isn't it still a cr
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Child pornography is the rape of a child for the sexual entertainment of an adult.
To claim that there is no victim is sophistry.
How do you even begin to bring peace to a child whose violation was recorded for distribution world-w
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Disclaimer. I do not care about the rights of consumers of child pornography. Period. They have one right: to get a medical treatment that will prohibit any kind of sexual
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Your great grandfather went through several wives who died in childbirth. You marry young when you expect to die young.
Child pornography reaches down to the abuse of infants and toddlers.
There are no limits and there cannot be consent by any meani
It won't work! (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is more about it: http://www.pkblogs.com/thegallopingbeaver/2006/03/ canadian-software-will-breakdown-great.html [pkblogs.com]
Best of all, that very tool is now open source!
Simple answer (Score:3, Insightful)
But even so, there's the question: What have you accomplished by blocking accidental exposure?
Well for one, you're potentially protecting yourself from false accusations of accessing child porn, when you legitimately accessed it by accident by clicking on some link where you didn't know what would come up.
That is assuming of course that the agencies won't be using this proxy and filter list to charge people who are blocked with *attempting* to access the material.
only one? (Score:2)
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Well, no, you're not the only one, but I think that every time I see any tag.
Solution! (Score:2)
End of conversation. You're welcome.
Infrastructure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Child Porn is just a MacGuffin, a universally despised act that is easy enough to strike up paranoia about. Unlike Terrorism, or Drugs, or Global Warming, or other issues, it has universal political support for legislation dealing with the problem.
Here is how the system is going to be expanded in Canada:
1. Block Child Porn Sites (after all, only a filthy disgusting pedophile would be against blocking child porn sites).
2. Block "Hate" Sites (after all, only a filthy digusting Nazi would be against blocking hate sites).
3. Block Political "Advertising" (After all, we don't want people with lots of money advertising on the internet, and corrupting our democracy!)
4. Block Dangerous Information (after all, why does someone really need to know how to build a gun, or a bomb, or manufacture drugs)
5. Block Sites that Compete Unfairly (after all, Google has a monopoly on search engines! Canadians shouldn't use an American monopoly, they should use a Canadian search engine, run by the CBC!)
6. Block Sites that Exploit Women (after all, we don't want women to be exploited... that is why we need to ban the Miss Universe pagent website!)
7. Block 'Bad' News Sites (after all, Fox News or Al Jazeera are highly biased news channels... they could confuse the minds of Canadians with their one-sided programs).
And so on, and so forth. Once the infrastructure is in place, it costs NOTHING to expand the list of blocked sites - and it is always easy enough to come up with some sort of reasonable arguement why certain sites should be blocked. Once this system is in place and works well, every political party will be screaming to have something they don't like banned - and without any real Libertarian minority in Canada, the only arguement will be over what things should be banned.
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This infrastructure has always been
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Whole Internet vs. 800 targets -Technical approach (Score:2)
Bennett's article r
Censorship in Canada is not limited to "the left" (Score:2)
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Yes, DNS is a much easier approach (Score:2)
Don't forget Hacking (Score:2)
HackCanada [hackcanada.com], Nettwerked [nettwerked.net] and RantRadio [rantradio.com] would be some of the first to go. Way too much politically incorrect information
(libertarian? [libertarian.ca])
To answer your question... (Score:2)
Unfortunately the law has very little leeway for accidental exposure, in may places (including Canada) even having these images in your browser's cache could land you in jail for a long time or at least make your life a living hell. Couple with it the fact there are a hell of a lot of people whom child pornography disgusts. We are after-all talking about one of the most extreme abuses of a child, that is enough to turn many people's stomach. I t
Trying hard to understand (Score:2)
First, I think it's ridiculous to block Child Porn from people who might accidentally stumble upon it. If you come across a CP site your free to easily close the window or to register the address and take appropriate measures (report the IP address to authorities or something). I can't think of any other illegal activity where the state is concerned from people accidentally witnessing it while they don't do anything about it.
Second, I assume w
Those who disagree with this law are pedos!! (Score:2, Funny)
As long as this law doesn't breach the rights of law-abiding citizens, then I'm all for it. I believe the canadian government fully reviewed this law so that i
Fear of the Bogeyman and Legislating Morality (Score:2)
Cybertip claims after all that they "only" have about 800 sites on their list, compared to millions of regular porn sites).
And of those 800 sites (the FBI, by contrast, say there's hundreds of thousands!), 'll bet that 99.9% of them contain, at best, questionable content. That is, they offer content that may offend some, may or may not be considered illegal (in any number of jurisdictions), and most definitely do not contain of anyone having sex. The other 0.1% I'll leave aside.
The truth of the matte
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yikes (Score:2)
Due process? (Score:2)
If these sites contain child pornography, wouldn't that be a crime in and of themselves? Shouldn'these sites be taken down?
Okay, what if the sites are out of country you ask? Isn't it still a crime to view them? Instead of blocking them, shouldn't the government be trying to go after people viewing them?
I do not like the idea of an ISP censoring, regardless of how noble it might be.
Well, 4chan can say goodbye... (Score:3, Informative)
Let's close our borders! (Score:2)
Honey Trap? (Score:2)
After a certain threshold of accesses for a single account, pass the particulars to the authorities to take a closer look.
I'm sure that there are legal issues with this idea... but there are also legal issues with trying to censor access, as suggested in the article. At least my
"it won't work" is flawed argument (Score:2)
It is not about sensibilities. (Score:2)
So, yes, the danger is that one might look accidentally at the child pornography and get aroused accidenta
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It's one thing to say "nothing is ever 100%" but to say so in defense of something that solves roughly 0% doesn't help anyone.
Common law and treaties (Score:3)
unfortunately all your legal reasoning is based on American law and not Canadian law.
Extrapolating about Canadian law based on American law works half the time, given that both American law and Canadian law are descendants of British law, and even after the 1776 schism of the common law, several countries have enacted treaties to harmonize aspects of their laws. Even if it falls into the half where it does not work, it's still useful as a way to state that such a measure could never cross the border.
Treating the symptoms (Score:2)
Of course they're treating the symptoms, and not the root cause. We do not even know what the root cause is, let alone have any treatments it. We have no idea what makes a pedophile a pedophile, or how to alter them to no longer be a pedophile. Same for racists, kleptomaniacs, gays, and windows users. Don't you think if we knew how to cure aberrant behaviour, we would?
No, the only thing we can do is make it easier for people to block out
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This is the reason you can still get original prints of Tracy Lourdes videos in Canada (and other parts of the world). S
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wouldn't make it true...
but i could say it.
Stew
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After all, in a free society, our default value is "allowed". You must specifiy an ACL in order to make it explicit "deny".
But arbitrary ACLs can break all of our RFCs....
and when there are no RFCs, everything is borked.
So, emperical data. Prove your point, otherwise its just an opinion... and we know what people say about everyone's op
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Stew is a pedophile, so we must dismiss his commentary about freedom.
Did you miss my ardent discussion of personal liberty in the DCMA threads? What about in the Patriot Act threads?
I just happen to think that 'save the children' "burn the pedos" is the height of moral McCarthyism in our society today so it tends to push my buttons.
But thanks for the personal attack, it was grand.
Stew
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* photographing child abuse (creating child porn) --> a child is hurt
* viewing of a photograph of child abuse --> no one is hurt
* photographing a murder --> someone is killed
* viewing of a photograph of a murder --> no one is hurt
Should possession of a "snuff" film be illegal?
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try selling that argument to the parent or guardian of a sexually abused child and you may learn the real meaning of pain.
it is not a defense to the charge of receiving stolen goods that you were not the one holding a gun to the face of the clerk at the gas station.
it is not a defense to the chatge of possession of child pornography that you did not rape the child, you only paid the rapist for pictures of his crime.
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The whole "if just one...." argument. I frickin hate those.
I don't care what the topic of this thread is, the "if just one..." argument is always bunk.
If just one person is saved by making automobiles illegal, its worth it.
if just one person is saved by outlawing air travel, it's worth it.
if just one child's life is saved by replacing teachers with robots, it's worth it.
Blah...
blah...
blah...
the world is a risky place. I prefer freedom over the complete removal of risks.
"He who would trade te
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It is his job to protect the security of his network.
It is his job to protect his employer from criminal exploitation of network resources.
It is his job to report the crimes he discovers.
It is his job to report a potential threat to minors directly or indirectly under his protection. From the grade school teacher who routes his porn through district accounts.
There is a terrifying sense of arrogance, obsession and recklessness impl