From declan@eff.orgThu Aug 15 13:08:33 1996 Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 07:34:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh To: fight-censorship+@mit.edu Subject: UK Internet providers plan to restrict cyberporn [Thanks to Stanton for forwarding. This is also a test to see if the fight-censorship+ address will work. --Declan] U.K. INTERNET PROVIDERS PLAN TO RESTRICT CYBERPORN Reacting to pressure from Scotland Yard, the Internet Service Providers Association, representing 60 of an estimated 140 providers in the United Kingdom, will be asking its members to voluntarily block access to sites and services featuring hard-core pornography. An executive of Demon Internet, which has the largest subscriber base in the U.K., dismisses the proposed action as ineffective: "This is not a solution, it is just hiding the problem." (Financial Times 10 Aug 96) [Excerpted from Edupage.] From declan@well.comThu Aug 15 13:08:47 1996 Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 23:17:05 -0500 From: Declan McCullagh To: fight-censorship+@mit.edu Subject: Re: UK Internet providers plan to restrict cyberporn Got a note this morning from a U.K. journalist who spoke with PSInet: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conversation this am with a leading light at a large ISP here (subsidiary of US ISP). Says last week there was a meeting of ISPs with the police, who complained about the pedophilic newsgroups (estimated 20 ngs), and essentially said, either you do something about it, or we'll do something about it. The guy said they'd pulled the groups. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note the ISPs are stressing the newsgroups were "pedophile" areas. But the FT report talks about Scotland Yard pressuring Internet providers to block "hard-core pornography." -Declan From declan@well.comThu Aug 15 13:09:01 1996 Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 13:35:15 -0500 From: Declan McCullagh To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu Cc: mech@eff.org Subject: Re: UK Internet providers plan to restrict cyberporn From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: Re: FC: U.K. Net-companies ban porn; "cybergangs"; 8/31 CDA protest To: declan@vorlon.mit.edu Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 21:36:12 -0700 (PDT) X-EFF_General_Info: info@eff.org X-URL: http://www.eff.org/~mech > of US ISP). Says last week there was a meeting of ISPs with the police, > who complained about the pedophilic newsgroups (estimated 20 ngs), and > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Note the ISPs are stressing the newsgroups are "pedophile" areas. But the > FT report paints the situation much more broadly -- Internet providers are > blocking "pornography." Almost certainly true. It's highly unlikely that there are 20 child pornographic newsgroups. I have side accounts at 3 major ISPs that all have as close to a full newsfeed as is physically possible, I think. They all have almost an identical roster of available newsgroups (other than local ones of course, very few of which anywhere are pornographic in nature.) Out of those, only the following newsgroups would appear to qualify at first blush: alt.sex.pedophilia alt.sex.pedophilia.boys alt.sex.pedophilia.girls alt.sex.pedophilia.pictures alt.sex.pedophilia.swaps alt.binaries.pictures.child.erotica.male alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.child.female alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.child.male alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children alt.sex.children de.alt.pictures.sex.children alt.binaires.pictures.erotica.teen alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.d alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.male alt.sex.pre-teens alt.sex.teens alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.female alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.fuck alt.sex.masturbation.pictures.female.teen alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.female.masturbation alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.lolita alt.binaries.pictures.lolita.fucking alt.binaries.pictures.lolita.misc alt.sex.young [I admit the possibility of missing a keyword. I did a search for "child", "kid", "teen", "lolita", "young", "youth" and "pedo". There might be, say, a "nambla" match, now that I think about it, but obscure keywords like that are unlikely to find enough newsgroups to strongly affect the outcome of this quick examination.] Of these, many can be immediately eliminated, as they are discussion groups, not binaries group, or are typos ("binaires") and ergo not carried by 99% or so of usenet (though available on a few sites like the WELL where the admins allow the automatic availability of every newsgroup known to the system, even ones created just to create a stupid-named newsgroup with no intention that it will ever be used.) This leaves: alt.sex.pedophilia.pictures alt.sex.pedophilia.swaps alt.binaries.pictures.child.erotica.male alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.child.female alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.child.male alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children de.alt.pictures.sex.children alt.binaires.pictures.erotica.teen alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.male alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.female alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.fuck alt.sex.masturbation.pictures.female.teen alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.female.masturbation alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.lolita alt.binaries.pictures.lolita.fucking alt.binaries.pictures.lolita.misc alt.sex.young Now, of these all the "young" and "teen" groups have to be eliminated, since "young" is to vague to mean anything more specific that "younger than middle aged", and teen can refer to 18 or 19 (or even younger legal ages, if the UK is like Australia and sets age of consent at 16 instead of US & Canada's 18). If you actually look in these groups there appears to be nothing but flames, blather, and BBS ads, almost none, if any, of which will be childporn, since that would be a major cop magnet. Lolita.misc and pedophilia.swaps also have be dropped, as too vague to clearly indicate child pornographic visual content. The de. newsgroup is also probably not carried by many sites outside of Germany. (WELL had it, but my other ISPs didn't. Probably WELL is trading news with a site in Germany for some reason - maybe the .de site can't get a decent news feed? I dunno). That leaves: alt.sex.pedophilia.pictures alt.binaries.pictures.child.erotica.male alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.child.female alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.child.male alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.lolita alt.binaries.pictures.lolita.fucking Six likely suspect newsgroups for genuine illegal content in the form of child pornography. It's highly questionable whether real child porn shows up on any such newsgroup with any regularity, if at all. Again, the content seems to consist of flames and blatant BBS ads (though I'm not dumb enough to actually download the material, since that could count as "possession" if some of it is really child porn.) I even recall the creation of a few of these - they were newgrouped simply to piss people off with no intention of actually using the newsgroups. They were instantly rmgrouped, and are unavailable on all sites that honor "official" alt.config rmgroups, which is probably the vast majority of news servers. Much ado about nothing. Also, none of this even touches the question of whether liability adheres to providing access to something that happens to contain child porn simply becuase is *sounds* child pornographic. By this logic, even if is eventually established that an ISP could not be held liable for child porn content in general, absent guilty knowledge, an ISP could be held liable for it if someone posted a message with "child porn" in the subject line, and it actually did contain child porn, regardless of the fact that any message by that name is more likely to be a discussion thread about child porn and the problems it causes, that to be actual child porn. The UK cops are making the mistake of assuming that every label is. first, always accurate, and second, non-ambigious. That's a very stupid set of assumptions. Either way you look at it, this is ridiculous. Either: a) the UK police bureucrats have taken all newsgroup names at face value and have targetted most of the initial long list near the top of this message, even though most are obviously intended to be discussion areas and don't carry child porn itself, or b) they are going after 5 or so newsgroups that are, at least in name, definitely child pornographic, PLUS a buch of others (the rest of the 20) like alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.male, or whatever, that have nothing at all, even in name, to do with child porn, as the article Declan quotes seems to suggest (I think this quite possible, since it's unlikely that many if any UK hosts have this many pedophillic-sounding newsgroups. Only the biggest and most bandwidth rich US ISPs carry them all, so the UK cops probably don't even know about the majority of the newsgroups in the top, large, list.) A and B are *both* stupid and indefensible. The British police would be doing a far better job if they monitored the contents of the newgroups in question and worked to locate those posting any genuine child porn, and prosecute them (with an eye to the fact that its very easy to create fake child porn with modern graphics editors. That may be illegal in Canada, but it's probably not in the UK, or anywhere else, since such a law is truly inane.) -- Stanton McCandlish
mech@eff.org

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Online Activist From j.stokes@student.anu.edu.auThu Aug 15 13:09:34 1996 Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 16:19:47 +1000 From: Jason Stokes To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Re: UK Internet providers plan to restrict cyberporn Stanton McCandlish wrote: [..] >> Note the ISPs are stressing the newsgroups are "pedophile" areas. But the >> FT report paints the situation much more broadly -- Internet providers are >> blocking "pornography." > >Almost certainly true. It's highly unlikely that there are 20 child >pornographic newsgroups. [..] >The British police would be doing a far better job if they monitored the >contents of the newgroups in question and worked to locate those posting >any genuine child porn, and prosecute them (with an eye to the fact that >its very easy to create fake child porn with modern graphics editors. >That may be illegal in Canada, but it's probably not in the UK, or >anywhere else, since such a law is truly inane.) You're forgetting the tortuous British obscenity laws. For example, it's illegal to show an erect penis in Britain. The police are just trying enforce the censorious powers the government has always given them. Cheers, Jason Stokes: j.stokes@student.anu.edu.au