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Archive for the ‘child pornography’ Category

BBC NEWS UK: Police admit child porn mistakes

Police admit they “could have done things better” after telling a landlady to destroy thousands of pages of child pornography she found in a flat.

TechDirt commentary on the ongoing New York initiative for ISPs to block access to newsgroups carrying child pornography.

Andrew Cuomo Threatens To Sue Comcast If It Doesn’t Sign Up For His Plan To Pretend To Fight Child Porn: “Last month, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo made some news by pressuring a bunch of ISPs to agree to block certain sites in a totally misguided effort to fight child porn. It will actually do the opposite, because it merely hides the issue, driving it further underground, rather than attacking at the source. At the same time, it opens up a very questionable door: having ISPs blocking any content that they feel is ‘objectionable’ in some manner. It’s not hard to predict where this goes, in terms of ISPs blocking other types of content as well.

Comcast was one of the companies that agreed last week to a similar proposal with a bunch of state attorneys general, but apparently that’s not enough for Andrew Cuomo. He’s now threatening to sue Comcast within five days if it doesn’t sign the more stringent ‘code of conduct’ that Cuomo wrote up. Apparently Cuomo doesn’t think last week’s agreement goes far enough.

Of course, what’s odd is that nowhere does Cuomo explain how Comcast’s actions violate the law. He just threatens to sue over it — and even makes a veiled threat that the lawsuit alone will be damaging to Comcast, because Cuomo will position it as Comcast protecting child porn:

Comcast’s unwillingness to sign the code of conduct and purge its system of child pornography puts Comcast at the back of the pack in the race to fight this scourge, and would likely be surprising to Comcast’s millions of customers across the country.

The reason Cuomo doesn’t explain what the legal rationale for any lawsuit, is because there isn’t one. Comcast as a connectivity provider is not responsible for what content goes across its network. Cuomo (one would hope) knows this — and is bullying Comcast into signing his ‘Code of Conduct’ by threatening to paint the company as protecting child porn. That’s a rather sickening abuse of power — and the end result will only be to make it more difficult to stop child pornography, while opening the door to widespread content blocking by ISPs.

(Via Techdirt.)

NCTA Members Take Stand Against Child Porn - 7/17/2008 12:45:00 PM - Multichannel News: “NCTA Members Take Stand Against Child Porn
Cable Broadband Providers Serving 112 Million Homes Sign Pact with NCMEC, NAAG
– Multichannel News, 7/17/2008 12:45:00 PM

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association Thursday announced that 18 of the nation’s largest cable and broadband Internet service providers have agreed to block access to any Web sites known to host or distribute illegal child pornography files.

By signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU), these cable operators serving 87%, or more than 112 million homes, of Internet service subscribers will work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).

In addition, the member companies will also report any instances of child pornography they unearth to the NCMEC CyberTipline and, where appropriate, revise their policies around other potential sources of child pornography such as newsgroups and other online bulletin boards.

‘Building on our strong commitment to online safety, the cable industry wants to help combat child pornography and exploitation,’ Kyle McSlarrow (pictured), president and CEO of the NCTA, said in a statement. ‘By signing the NCMEC [memorandum of understanding], cable Internet service providers are reaffirming their strong commitment to online safety and Internet literacy for all American families.’

The cable operators that have agreed to execute the memorandum of understanding within 30 days include: Comcast Corporation; Cox Communications; Charter Communications; Cablevision Systems Corporation; Bright House Networks; Suddenlink Communications; Mediacom Communications; Insight Communications; Bresnan Communications; Midcontinent Communications; Broadstripe; GCI; Harron Communications; US Cable Corporation; BendBroadband; Eagle Communications; and Sjoberg’s, Inc. Time Warner Cable has already signed the MOU.

On behalf of NAAG and the 45 Attorneys General who have signed a letter in support of the NCTA-NCMEC MOU, Rhode Island Attorney General and NAAG President Patrick C. Lynch commended NCMEC and NCTA on the agreement.

‘Although NCMEC has recently signed similar agreements with individual companies, this agreement is notable as the first such agreement NCMEC has reached with an entire sector of the nation’s communications industry,’ Lynch said in a statement. ‘The NCTA agreement with NCMEC will limit the ability of predators to store and exchange images of exploitation of those who are, by definition, among the more vulnerable in society. We congratulate the cable industry for taking a strong stand in support of child safety.’

All 18 cable companies have agreed to use NCMEC’s list of active Web sites identified as containing child pornography, to ensure that no such site is hosted on servers owned or controlled by those companies.

NCTA officials said the agreement with NCMEC will provide cable broadband service providers with ‘an invaluable source of information to help them enforce their terms of service, all of which forbid the hosting of such illegal materials on their servers.’ The information provided by NCMEC to cable service providers will also help them identify instances of child pornography, facilitating their reporting of such material to NCMEC as required by federal law. This, in turn, enables NCMEC to refer these cases to law enforcement for investigation and prosecution.

In June 2007, NCTA launched its PointSmartClickSafe online safety initiative under which cable ISPs pledged in a code of conduct to support law enforcement in its efforts to ensure online safety for American families. “

UK fails to bar internet access to child porn: Jamie Doward, The Observer, Sunday July 20, 2008

Almost a million UK households could access websites known to host images of child sex abuse despite a government pledge made two years ago to stop access to paedophile sites.

Last night a coalition of leading children’s charities, including Barnardo’s, the NSPCC and National Children’s Homes, described the situation as ‘completely unacceptable’. They have written to the Home Office minister in charge of crime reduction, Vernon Coaker, urging him to take immediate steps to ensure all telecom companies offering internet access block customers from being able to see images that in some cases show children as young as a year old being sexually abused.

Around 5 per cent of consumer broadband connections can access the images because their internet service providers (ISPs) chose not to subscribe to a scheme introduced by the Internet Watch Foundation to bar known paedophile websites.

The list is available to all ISPs and companies such as BT and Vodafone have signed up to take it. Updated twice daily, it contains between 800 and 1,200 live child-abuse websites at any one time. But the revelation that some internet companies are refusing to sign up to the list undermines a key government pledge to tackle paedophile material on the internet.

In May 2006, Coaker said he hoped all internet companies would sign up to the scheme and that, if there was not 100 per cent take-up by the end of last year, the government would look to compel the industry to ‘face up to its responsibilities’.

In their letter to Coaker, the children’s charities said it was now time for the government ‘to draw a line under this issue’ by getting 100 per cent compliance from the industry.

ISPs Nationwide Unite in Attack against Exploitation: “ISP-based newsgroups have taken a beating in the last month, as New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s initiative against child pornography has forced many of the more popular newsgroup hierarchies offline. Verizon, Sprint, RoadRunner, and late last week, AT&T, have all acted on the Attorney General’s recommendation. Today, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) announced a ‘historic’ agreement where all member companies have entered into a MOU (Memoradum of Understanding) with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) to attack child pornography on their servers and networks.”

(Via Slyck.com File-Sharing News And Information.)

House of Commons debate on Internet Regulation, 4 June, 2008

Column 893
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Watts.]
7.32 pm

John Robertson (Glasgow, North-West) (Lab): I am pleased to have the chance to discuss internet content and internet service providers with my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, not least because I have been trying to secure this debate for several months. I know that, like me, many of my colleagues regularly receive correspondence from constituents who are worried about internet content, and I have been especially keen to discuss those matters following the Byron review, but on several occasions I have been told by the Table Office that there is no Department appropriate to field such a debate. The strategy of representatives of each Department that we tried to assign it to has been to hold up its hands in affront and deny any responsibility for the matter.

My worry is that that is an allegory of the current situation relating to responsibility for internet content, and that the excuse is, sadly, endemic. ISPs claim to be mere inanimate conduits; search engines plead their neutrality; Ofcom has intentionally been denied any remit for content; other UK Executive and regulatory bodies, including the police, have powers over only a tiny minority of websites; and the Internet Watch Foundation is limited in the subjects it monitors and by the international nature of the internet. As a result, the various initiatives that have been implemented are piecemeal and inadequate, and the internet stands out as an anomaly against similar media as a place where, essentially, anything goes. It is a paradox that the efforts of ISPs to deal with illegal content are a strong argument for regulating them, as we see that the tools they have are the most effective method of controlling material online.

(more…)

Verizon offers details of Usenet deletion: alt.* groups, others gone: “

Verizon Communications confirmed on Thursday that it will stop offering its customers access to tens of thousands of Usenet discussion areas, including the alt.* groups that have been a free-flowing area for discussions for over two decades.

Eric Rabe, a Verizon spokesman, said only a subset of discussion groups, …

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(Via The Iconoclast.)

N.Y. A.G. says AOL will curb access to Usenet. It already did: “

It’s no secret that politicians tend to churn out press releases touting their accomplishments, no matter how mean or insignificant. But it is still possible to be surprised on occasion, which brings us to today’s announcement by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.

In his press release, …

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(Via The Iconoclast.)

City Room: AT&T and AOL Agree to Fight Child Pornography: “AT&T and America Online have agreed to eliminate access to child pornography on newsgroups and their servers.

(Via NYT > Technology.)

ZA - New website to expose child pornography: “(BuaNews)
Members of the public can now anonymously report any images of sexual abuse discovered on the internet through a newly launched website in South Africa. The website, www.fpbprochild.org.za, which is available 24 hours, seven days a week was launched in Johannesburg by Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba. Mr Gigaba said the website service will afford members of the public an opportunity to report any incidences of child pornography online and remain anonymous. ‘Our internet content analysts will assess the contents of any reported website and will forward a detailed report to the law enforcement agencies in South Africa for further action. The Film and Publication Board fully supports the initiative Other stakeholders in the fight against child pornography included the South African Police Service, SABC and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa.”

(Via QuickLinks Update.)