CyberLaw Blog

Archive for November 23rd, 2009

Canada Fights Child Pornography: “New legislation is expected to be introduced in Canada this week that would force Internet service providers (ISPs) to notify federal authorities of any sites they host which may link to illegal child pornography (CP).”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)

U.K. Bill Cracks Down on Filesharing: “A bill is working its way through Parliament that would fight illegal filesharing, by in part, cutting Internet access to those engaging in the practice.”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)

Report: U.S. Hosts Bulk of Child Porn: “The Canadian Centre for Child Protection has issued a new report which claims that most commercial child pornography is hosted in the U.S.”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)

Holocaust denier says he’s ‘unbroken’ after prison | JTA – Jewish & Israel News
November 19, 2009

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) — A Holocaust denier released from an Australian jail after publishing material offensive to Jews says he is ‘unbroken’ and ‘unrepentant.’

Dr. Fredrick Toben, the founder of the Adelaide Institute, emerged from three months in a South Australia prison on Nov. 12.

The Federal Court had found him in breach of a 2002 court order to remove all offensive material from his institute’s Web site.

Toben’s site this week carried a message saying that he is ‘unbroken and unrepentant,’ and appears ‘refreshed and relaxed’ after his ‘little holiday.’

The site features three links to video clips on YouTube during which Toben, 65, vows to continue his work ‘demolishing the Holocaust.’ It also carries a banner saying that ‘The days are numbered for the greatest lie in the history of mankind.’

Toben also spent two months in Wandsworth Prison last year as German authorities tried unsuccessfully to extradite him on a European Arrest Warrant for publishing Holocaust denial material — a crime in Germany. Toben was arrested at Heathrow Airport on his way to Dubai from America.

He had spent several months in prison in Germany in 1999 for denying the Holocaust.

Federal government plans to toughen child porn fighting laws: The Conservative federal government plans to introduce new legislation Tuesday forcing Internet providers to alert police if they encounter any host sites linked to child pornography, Canwest News Service has learned.

By Kim Bolan, Canwest News ServiceNovember 23, 2009 1:43 AM

The Internet companies would also be forced to safeguard evidence if they believe a child-pornography offence has been committed using a server they provide, a senior government official confirmed Sunday.

The new bill would also make it mandatory that any tip received by Internet companies about potential child-porn sites be reported to a designated agency.

The legislation allows for fines to Internet providers who do not comply of up to $100,000 for corporations, and up to $10,000 and six months in jail for companies owned by a sole proprietor.

At present, Internet providers are not obligated by law to pass on information to law enforcement agencies, though many do so voluntarily.

Three provinces — Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia — have made it mandatory under child protection laws for Internet companies to call police if they suspect or have knowledge of online child porn.

The proposed law comes just days after the release of a study that found Canada is one of the leading countries in the world for hosting child-porn sites.

The report, released by Cybertip.ca, examined more than 15,000 child-porn websites worldwide and found Canada ranked second behind the U.S. in terms of the number of commercial porn sites featuring children.

Canada was found to host eight per cent of the sites — far behind the U.S., which hosts 65 per cent of the commercial child-porn sites worldwide.

‘As strong as our laws are within Canada, no country is really free from this type of material existing on websites,’ Cybertip director Signy Arnason said. ‘We have 60 countries . . . that were hosting child-sexual abuse content.’

The report also details how child-pornography websites cover their tracks.

In one 48-hour period, Cybertip.ca watched a website cycle through 212 unique IP addresses in 16 different countries — making the specific location of the information very difficult for law enforcement to track.

And a recent report by the federal ombudsman for victims titled Every Image, Every Child, said the number of Internet images of ’serious child abuse’ quadrupled between 2003 and 2007 and that the images are getting more violent and depicting younger and younger children.

The new bill — called ‘An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service’ — is considered to be complementary to two other bills. Those bills — C-46 and C-47 — were introduced last June and are still at the committee stage.

Bill C-46 — the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act — provides police with additional tools to obtain information from Internet providers related to any criminal investigation. The tools include preservation orders to freeze data for up to 21 days, production orders compelling a company to provide a customer’s e-mail or IP address, and tracking orders to require a cellphone company to use its network to assist police in finding a particular cellphone or BlackBerry user.

Bill C-47 — the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act — allows police to obtain information about clients from Internet providers and forces those companies to have the technical ability to allow police to intercept information.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Websites selling child porn based in Canada: WINNIPEG — Dozens of websites selling child pornography are being hosted by computer servers in this country, according to a study by a Canadian organization dedicated to fighting online child exploitation.

By Gabrielle Giroday , Winnipeg Free PressNovember 19, 2009

The report, released this week by Cybertip.ca, examined more than 15,000 websites worldwide containing child pornography. It found Canada ranked a distant second among nations in terms of the number of commercial websites it hosts involving pornographic content featuring children.

‘As strong as our laws are within Canada, no country is really free from this type of material existing on websites,’ said Signy Arnason, director of Cybertip.ca. ‘We have 60 countries . . . that were hosting child-sexual abuse content.’

The national tip line takes telephone and Internet tips on child abuse images and online luring. Arnason said two people prepared the report over the past eight months, based on information collected by the organization between 2002 and March 2009.

The report included a more detailed analysis of 800 commercial websites where pornographic pictures of children were sold. Servers in the United States hosted 65 per cent of those websites, followed by Canada, where servers hosted just eight per cent of the websites — although the photos may have been taken somewhere outside the country.

Other countries hosting the websites included Russia (5.6 per cent), Netherlands (2.9 per cent) and Germany (1.8 per cent), says the report. More than 50 per cent of these websites take credit cards from people wanting to purchase the photos, said the report.

Const. Rosiane Racine of the B.C. RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation or ICE team suggested one reason Canada may have been the second-ranked country in the study.

‘Research shows that Canada is a very connected country. Everybody has access to the Internet here in this country, and maybe that’s why there’s so much (child pornography) on Canadian soil.’

The report also details how child pornography websites cover their tracks. In one 48-hour period, Cybertip.ca watched a website cycle through 212 unique IP addresses in 16 different countries — making the specific location of the information very difficult for law enforcement to track.

The report also analyzed 4,000 pictures on those websites. Researchers found the vast majority of these images — about 82 per cent — featured children younger than 12 and some images involved the abuse of toddlers and infants. More than 35 per cent of the images showed serious sexual assaults — some involving bondage, torture and bestiality.

Arnason said one of the report’s recommendations is to create international standards requiring people making websites to provide more personal information to register their domains.

‘The goal is to get that information to be valid so that when you’re trying to track down who is the originating owner of the site, you have a better chance of finding who that person is,’ she said. ‘There’s no international standard for that.’

The report also calls for more research on specific search terms and words used on child pornography websites to attract customers. The full report can be accessed at protectchildren.ca.

‘A lot of people seem to believe that . . . child pornography only happens somewhere else. I think that this report goes to show that it’s not just somewhere else, it happens right here in our back yards as well,’ said Racine.

‘Every picture of child sexual abuse out there is of a child being abused. When you think about these websites hosting millions of pictures of child sexual abuse, it means there’s a lot of kids out there that need help.’

© Copyright (c) Winnipeg Free Press