CyberLaw Blog

Archive for December 22nd, 2008

Oz net censorship apparatus to target BitTorrent: “

Peer to government filter, and then possibly to peer

The national web censorship apparatus being built by the Australian government will also include technology to restrict peer-to-peer traffic, according to the minister responsible for the plan.…

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(Via The Register – Comms.)

The Associated Press: Child porn cartoon conviction upheld in Va.Child porn cartoon conviction upheld in Va.

By LARRY O’DELL – 20 December, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Child pornography is illegal even if the pictures are drawn, a federal appeals panel said in affirming the nation’s first conviction under a 2003 federal law against such cartoons.

Dwight Whorley of Richmond is serving 20 years in prison, convicted in 2005 of using a public computer for jobseekers at the Virginia Employment Commission to receive 20 Japanese cartoons, called anime, illustrating young girls being forced to have sex with men. Whorley also received digital photographs of actual children engaging in sexual conduct and sent and received e-mails graphically describing parents sexually molesting their children.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld his conviction.

Among the arguments in his appeal was that cartoons are protected under the First Amendment because they do not depict real children. He also claimed the statute is unconstitutional because text-only e-mails cannot be obscene.

Two judges rejected those arguments. A third agreed with Whorley on those issues but joined the majority in affirming his convictions on the counts pertaining to photographs.

Judge Paul V. Niemeyer noted in the majority opinion that the statute under which Whorley was convicted, the PROTECT Act of 2003, clearly states that ‘it is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exists.’

Rob Wagner, the federal public defender who represented Whorley, said he was ‘very disappointed’ with the ruling and that he would ask the full appeals court to reconsider. If that fails, Wagner said he will petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

A Virginia jury convicted Whorley of 74 counts including receiving obscene materials, receiving obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children, receiving child pornography and sending and receiving obscene e-mails describing the sexual abuse of children.

Whorley, 55, is serving his sentence at the Gilmer Federal Correction Institution in Glenville, W.Va.

He previously was sentenced to 46 months in prison for a 1999 child pornography conviction.

(Via TorrentFreak.)

Spanish ‘Pirates’ Share Files on Government Doorstep

Sharing copyrighted files on filesharing networks such as BitTorrent is a serious offense, according to the entertainment industry lobbyists, that is. This is also what these groups try to convince lawmakers of, with some success.

In an attempt to prove the opposite, however, a group of Spanish free-culture supporters organized a demonstration on the doorstep of one of the leading political parties in Spain. The two groups, Compartir es Bueno (Sharing is good) and Hacktivistas (Hacktivists) gathered in front of the headquarters of the socialist party yesterday, where they fired up their P2P clients and started sharing copyrighted material. The police were notified beforehand about the demonstration, and were present. No arrests have been made though, as expected.

The demonstration, which was covered by several of the leading news outlets in Spain, was organized in response to the growing propaganda and power of entertainment industry lobbyists. Like many other countries, Spain is mulling a three-strikes proposal that would give the entertainment industry the right to disconnect alleged sharers of copyrighted material. This, despite the fact that sharing copyrighted material for non-commercial use is not against the law in Spain.

Previous court cases have confirmed that this is the case. In 2006, a judge ruled that a man who downloaded and shared copyrighted music was not breaking any laws since the man’s intent wasn’t to make money. More recently, a court ruled that a site providing links to P2P downloads is operating within the law.

The protesters proved this once again by sharing copyrighted material on the doorstep of the socialist party, in front of the police. The demonstration was successful, as Hacktivistas report on their website ‘We have shown it once more: downloading copyrighted files from a p2p network is legal in Spain, as long as it isn’t done for profit.’

(Via TorrentFreak.)

Australian Internet Filter Will Target BitTorrent Traffic

The proposed Australian Internet filter is causing quite a lot of controversy at the moment. Part of a package of measures designed to inspire citizens with confidence as they operate online, the ‘Cyber-Safety Plan’ includes proposals for filtering HTTP and HTTPs Internet traffic, ostensibly for the protection of minors.

However, up to now it was thought that the scheme would not be extended to other protocols and methods of online communication, such as those carried out via P2P. Today, however, that illusion is gone, as news surfaces BitTorrent will be targeted.

In a blog post entitled ‘Promoting a civil and confident society online’, Australian Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy responded to criticism from a user who posed this question: ‘Internet filtering won’t stop peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic—so why bother?’

The Government understands that ISP-level filtering is not a ’silver bullet’. We have always viewed ISP-level filtering as one part of a broader government initiative for protecting our children online.

Technology is improving all the time. Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial.

Stephen Conroy

The filtering scheme has many dissenters, including the chief of one of Australia’s largest ISPs, iiNet, who called it ‘ridiculous‘, and branded Stephen Conroy ‘the worst Communications Minister we’ve had in the 15 years since the [Internet] industry has existed.’

Of course, no decent person wants minors exploited or to see evidence of such online, but as a user of BitTorrent for many years, I have never, ever, come across anything that remotely resembles such material. Although it would be naive to say that it does not exist, BitTorrent is probably one of the last ‘places’ online people would visit to gain such material and, as such, i’m hugely disappointed it is to be included in this filter.

However, filtering BitTorrent is not as easy as Mr Conroy might have us believe, as will quickly become apparent when the results of the live pilots come in.