[ NNSquad ] Re: ISPs agree to block access to child porn Web sites and Usenet groups

[Barry Gold <bgold@matrix-consultants.com>]

Lauren Weinstein wrote:
> In practice, of course -- as I've written many times -- effective
> censorship of the Internet is impossible.  You can make access more
> difficult or more of a hassle, but in the end censorship efforts --
> even for seemingly laudable goals -- will drive the materials of
> interest ever deeper underground into forms that make them even
> more difficult to track.  That's just the way it is, like it or not.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/nyregion/10internet.html

Ack!
> The agreement is designed to bar access to Web sites that feature 
child pornography by requiring service providers to check against a 
registry of explicit sites maintained by the Center for Missing and 
Exploited Children."

In other words, sites will be blocked based on a blacklist maintained by 
an NGO.  No trial, not even a trace of due process.  If you discover 
your site is being blocked, what is your recourse?  The Center is a 
"private" entity (albeit gov't funded), and so are the ISPs that are 
doing the blocking, hence the 1st amendment might not apply.

Or if you are trying to access one of these sites, you don't get any 
indication of what's wrong, just an NXDOMAIN as if the site had simply 
vanished from the net.  You can't even hit the front page to report the 
problem via "contact us" (if any).

What a nightmare.

From the same article:
> Last year, a bill sponsored by Congressman Nick Lampson, a Texas 
Democrat, promised to take “the battle of child pornography to Internet 
service providers” by ratcheting up penalties for failing to report 
complaints of child pornography. The bill passed in the House, but has 
languished in the Senate.
>
>"If we can encourage — and certainly a fine would be an encouragement 
— the I.S.P. to be in a position to give the information to law 
enforcement, we are encouraging them to be on the side of law 
enforcement rather than erring to make money for themselves," Mr. 
Lampson said.


I wonder if these people have ever heard of a Denial of Service attack. 
 Assume this law is passed, and ISPs (and search engines?) are required 
to report _every_ complaint of child pornography.  How long before 
people start manufacturing bogus reports (millions of them, at computer 
speeds) and copmletely flood the system, bogging down both the ISPs' 
reporting mechanisms and the law enforcement agencies that have to 
respond to them?

Feh!  Idiots all!