3 Internet providers agree to block child porn

[rsmith6621]

Source: AP



By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer 40 minutes ago

ALBANY, N.Y. - Internet providers Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to block access to child pornography and eliminate the material from their servers, New York's attorney general said Tuesday.


The companies also will pay $1.1 million to help fund efforts to remove the online child porn created and disseminated by users through their services, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said. The changes will affect customers nationwide.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080610/ap_on_hi_te/tec_cuo...

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less stuff for the repukes to see on the WWW....

[crikkett]

1. so I wonder if it'll be complete monitoring of traffic, or narrow and directed spying efforts,

random nannybot trolling or scanning customers' hard drives? Or, simply the cover story for the end of network neutrality?

We won't know until a whistleblower tells us.

[villager]

2. exactly.... does switching away from Microsoft products...

...at least make their "blank check" spying any harder?

[crikkett]

20. Microsoft isn't the problem here

isn't that a strange thing to read.

Your traffic is evaluated outside of your home so it's out of your control.

Learn about proxy servers and freenet to avoid censorship, and protect your privacy by keeping track of what sites you register with. Yahoo and Google can probably tell you more about yourself than even you know. Just hope they don't use your profile for evil.

As far as securing your personal computer, it's easy enough to monitor traffic and prevent intrusion on a Microsoft system. The problem with moving away from M$, honestly, is that I think Linux and Mac, when configured for the novice, are just as vulnerable.

[ogsbee]

3. As long as the guidelines are coming from the justice departments

We need to fight child porn sites, the government should have webcrawlers looking for them all the time. I'm in 100% agreement with that. However, private companies acting on their own approaches dangerous territory. The internet is the new commons. As private companies, ISPs could claim to have the right to allow/disallow any site they wished for any reason whatsoever. I worked for a company that disallowed access to even reading DU (let alone for posting which I would have no argument with). Leaving decisions of access up to private companies is the road to fascism, IMO, even without a fascist governmental structure.

[sui generis]

4. well, I don't have content blocking in my contract with them

Even though I wouldn't even begin to know where to look if I were so inclined and disgusting a human, they've started my new two year contract with a contract violation.

I don't need no fucking content management!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What next?

PLEASE DON'T BABYSIT THE ADULTS.

[sui generis]

6. okay, I actually read the article now

So they're blocking confirmed child pornography NEWSGROUPS and refusing to act as portal to associated links and sites. I am provisionally in support of that, on a site by site and newsgroup by newsgroup basis, with documentation that pops up stating they have direct evidence that a website houses or participates in underage pornorgraphy.

I understand they're trying to do the right thing but fucking hell, just prosecute the criminals?

It is a 100% certainty that they will "err on the side of caution" and interfere with adult entertainment for adults. I am just hoping they're smart enough to realize that only law enforcement should be policing what is certainly a crime, and everything else is not a crime.

So, here is my concern. You are at an adult site. Some bible thumping fucktard comes on and starts pretending to be all for child porn. They shut down the site.

Not into porn? You're on DU. Some freeptroll manages to spike the punch here and get a child porn post cached by google or some other crawler, and TWC blocks all access to DU until they can sort it out.

Hmmmmmm. Maybe I think I disagree.

[OwnedByFerrets]

5. How is this accomplished without

spying on every computer in Amerika??

[KamaAina]

7. Why don't they just report any child porn they find to the authorities?

Unless, of course, they're really just ramping up for wider-scale spying...

[papapi]

8. Another step toward fascism...Somebody should be fighting child porn but....

isn't that the job of the justice department? I don't like the idea of private corps making regulations. Soon they will be choking out sites that offer diversity and no profit for them. Time to start regulating the regulators.

FREE INTERNET ACCESS FOR ALL - IT'S AN EDUCATIONAL DECISION.

[Politicalboi]

9. But you would

Have to wonder are these people really guilty of child porn. Could they plant porn on your hard drive?

[Carnea]

10. From the article

"More than 11,000 images were collected using software that identifies child pornography by tracking patterns in the pixels of the images, Cuomo's office said."

Yeah that sounds infallible.

I'd hate to be the guy in the attorney generals office that has to go through 11,000 pictures of non-hirsute adult females to find the couple of dozen child porn pictures.

On the plus side if this finally leads to the arrest and conviction of people who post pictures of their kids I'm all for it. (Not child porn per se just actual pictures of little Suzie in the bath. You know who you are. Up against the wall Grandma)

[flashl]

11. Net Providers to Block Sites With Child Sex

Source: NY Times

ALBANY — Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to block access to Internet bulletin boards and Web sites nationwide that disseminate child pornography.

The move is part of a groundbreaking agreement with the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, that will be formally announced on Tuesday as a significant step by leading companies to curtail access to child pornography. Many in the industry have previously resisted similar efforts, saying they could not be responsible for content online, given the decentralized and largely unmonitored nature of the Internet.

The agreements will affect customers not just in New York but throughout the country. Verizon and Time Warner Cable are two of the nation’s five largest service providers, with roughly 16 million customers between them.

Negotiations are continuing with other service providers, Mr. Cuomo said.

NY Times

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/nyregion/10internet.h...

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Interesting, NY AG sets policy for ENTIRE Internet?

[Taverner]

12. Their Data Centers are based in NYC

[whistle]

13. Say, who will head up that task force?

[endarkenment]

14. And everyone will lockstep fall into place agreeing to this.

And so the infrastructure will be put into place and the bureaucracy established to lock down our internet just like the other modern industrial fascist states. And who can oppose this? Who can stand to be accused of supporting child pornography? Nobody, and thus it always is, this is how they take away your rights and set up new mechanisms of control.

[tridim]

15. Just one step away from, "Net Providers to Block Sites With Democratic ideas"

[sui generis]

16. so if you want to shut some place down

post some fake child porn there. Great idea!

[vinylsolution]

17. We all agree that child porn is a horrible thing, but....

.... this is now being used as an excuse to begin the slow strangulation of the web.

Another one of those radical right wedge issues, just in time for the election.

Watch how it will gobble up hours of corporate media air time. *sigh*

[DaveJ]

18. Wouldn't this assist pedophiles?

Just a thought.

I mean, if a criminal sees that material is blocked they will be forewarned that someone is onto them.

This is more like a move to develop systems to monitor ALL of the the information we exchange with one another.

[crikkett]

21. think about how they've been trying to kill bittorrents

"This is more like a move to develop systems to monitor ALL of the the information we exchange with one another."

Yep, that's my suspicion too.

[DaveJ]

23. The move is definitely funding the technology

It will be tested, up and running, and ready to go when the time is Right.

I'm also concerned that controlling and spying on our exchange of information gives corporate entities unfair advantage in the marketplace.

[jzodda]

19. I am all for free speech but...

I can't see the reason people would want to visit


alt.sex.children and such disgusting newsgroups anyway! This is newsgroups people, not websites first off. There are important differences. Next the filter just stops people from being able to visit. It does not monitor who tries to go there or the content. It just blocks people from getting there. I read that some ISP's already block access to a whole range of newsgroups already, going back almost 10 years.


I MUST question the effectiveness though of such measures. People who want to visit such sites would have to use proxies. So the determined pedophile will just spend 5 minutes on the web, find a usable anon proxy, put it into the web browser of their choice and go there anyway.

[DaveJ]

22. It would probably be easy to encrypt images too...

This is sort of beside the point, but it's my understanding they are blocking the transmission of images, not the groups. Since the server spyware will scan pixels in images being transmitted, I wonder if using file compression or changing the extension name would also work. People might also learn to put patterns in the photos that trick the scanning software.

I guess I can see your point. It helps prevent people from committing crimes rather than having to invade their homes to arrest them. Authorities will probably still obtain the images for investigation so they can find the criminals who took them. I didn't look at it that way. You're probably right.

[Festivito]

24. Who decides? What return message? How to rebut a decision?

Who? I'd suggest a jury.
Return a message saying that site so-and-so is found to be involved with child pornography. If you wish to contend this decision, please contact Concerned-Citizens-Contra-Porn.com.

Or, is suspected of...

The question I'd have is will they use this to de-encrypt everything sent, such as my banking.

Who will do that? Will they be bonded?

Without a lot of controls, this becomes just another well-intended road to tyranny. If you think freedom isn't free, try pricing tyranny.