June 10, 2008
Child Porn Targeted by Top Internet Providers After Pressure from Cuomo
Making good on a campaign promise, State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (pictured) has put pressure on three major Internet service providers to shut down online groups that share child pornography. Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner have each agreed to cut off access to websites and bulletin boards disseminating the illicit images, with a special emphasis on Usenet, one of the oldest computer network communications systems that uses no central server.
According to the Times, the groundbreaking agreement resulted from an eight-month investigation and sting operation in which undercover agents from Mr. Cuomo’s office complained to Internet providers about the availability of child pornography. Federal law requires I.S.P.s to pass such complaints along to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but the investigation found that this rarely happened and threatened to charge the I.S.P.s with fraud.
Cuomo used the I.S.P.s unresponsiveness as leverage to broker the deal, telling the Times: “The I.S.P.s’ point had been, ‘We’re not responsible, these are individuals communicating with individuals, we’re not responsible.’ Our point was that at some point, you do bear responsibility.” The three companies will also collectively pay $1.125 million to fund state efforts to stop online child pornography. According to the Times, a new component of that effort is a library of 11,000 pornographic images compiled during the investigation. Because the same images frequently appear on different sites or bulletin boards, investigators are now using a digital identifier to scan for them, using images “as a homing beacon of sorts to find other pornographic sites.”
Online reaction to the news has been muted so far, but Gawker sees the agreement as the growth of Big Brother and the beginning of the end for adult online porn. And tech reporter Davey Winder agrees that stopping Internet kiddie porn is a Sisyphean task.
| 
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
[ report this ]
This is just dumb. Since he believes the ISPs to be at fault for this in some way, he should go after the United States Postal Service next. They've been spreading kiddie porn around A LOT longer than the Internet.
[ report this ]
As despicable as kiddie porn is, this opens the door for internet providers to block other content that they feel is objectionable (but maybe not illegal). It is a slippery slope.
That being said, blocking the kiddie porn sites will not do anything to curb the disgusting market for it. It will just find other ways to distribute it. Go after the people producing it, not those unwillingly involved through providing internet.
[ report this ]
There must have been a backroom agreement here.. there's no way the ISPs would do this without a waiver of liability. Once they shutdown access to one site, they will be sued for not shutting down access to all the sites (whether that suit would be successful is another question)
Also, your NYT link goes to page 2 of the article. I fucking hate when people do this. Take goddamn 30 seconds to review your fucking articles before you post.
[ report this ]
Now, you see, you've proven Jim O'Connor's point. Linguistically lazy people resort to vulgarities and obscenities at the drop of a hat. Why? Because you need to click on one more link to get page 1 or single-page format for the article? Wow, isn't that unimaginably awful. It's not even as bad as the occasions when there are completely unusable links with no hint of where they're supposed to go.
[ report this ]
Is it just me, or does Cuomo look as sleazy as the guys he's going after?
[ report this ]
I'm ok with it for now, but I feel they will soon make ISP's liable for other content as well.
However, if they start blocking LEGITIMATE porn sites, they're gonna have a bloody revolution on their hands.
[ report this ]
But it wasn't really at the drop of a hat.. it was months of built up frustration from Gothamist's amazingly consistent record of posting articles with errors. And I think I was pissed at something else.. though I can't remember what that was.
[ report this ]
yeah, they are always trying to block subversive thought under the guise of blocking child porn. They have a stipulation where if you have drawings of children or objectionable content it would fall under this guideline. So if you were to draw stick figures giving blowjobs and if someone deems that stick figure to be a pre-pubescent you could go to jail for a very long time. It's one of those things where the government say they'll tap your phones to listen for terrorists but use the information to get you on taxes.
[ report this ]
Without child porn, Verizon, Sprint, and Time Warner's numbers will be off big time in Q3. I would advise anyone to sell down their shares. Time Warner will be particularly hard hit since their veteran 'Mr Creepy Pants', Richard Quest has been sidelined after that little "form break" in Central Park.
[ report this ]
As a longtime downloader from newsgroups (not kiddie porn of course) and a Time Warner customer, I sure hope they don't go crazy blocking groups. If there's a group devoted to kiddie porn then sure, go ahead and block it. But don't start blocking everything that may at one time have had one bad file posted to it. Usenet rocks, BTW. You can scam tons of stuff off there at lightning speeds without having to let anyone else download stuff from you.