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According to reports published recently, at least two of our major ISPs
are now monitoring usenet for things such as kiddy-porn.
For some reason known only to themselves, neither the DIA nor the ISPs
concerned are prepared to divulge the identity of those participating.
The NZ Herald reports
that the software uses checksums to identify potentially infringing material
so that it can be (presumably) removed from the usenet server.
So why the big secret surrounding which ISPs are involved?
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Updated 2-Dec-2002
The only reason I can think of is that perhaps they're not going to take
down the offending images, but perhaps leave it up and wait for some local
Net user to download it.
By doing this, it becomes fairly trivial to spot anyone who has
an obvious penchant for such material and flag them for further
investigation.
Obviously, if those who would download this stuff knew which ISPs were
using this system, they'd simply change to one that wasn't.
It's only natural that most ISPs don't want their news-servers loaded with
illegal images, nor do they want kiddy-porn traders within the ranks of their
users.
But what about regular erotica/porn?
I'm talking about the type of hardcore images that you'd find in
magazines that can be purchased from any "adult bookstore" or on the tapes
that live in that dark dingy little "adult" corner of your neighbourhood video store.
When I checked XTRA's local usenet newsserver while writing a feature article
a month or so ago I found that there was quite a bit of hard-core porn lurking there.
Although they have pulled most of the "obvious" porn newsgroups, there are
still more than a dozen which remain because they're outside the traditional
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica hierarchy. For example: "alt.binaries nospam.facials"
contains images you won't find in any Beauty School's textbooks.
I didn't find any groups containing kiddy-porn, bestiality or other illegal
material -- but then again I wasn't looking too hard because the very act of
finding some would have placed me at risk of prosecution wouldn't it? The
courts have already shown that they don't consider "news reporting"
or "research" to be a valid excuse for downloading or possessing such
images.
Whether the hardcore porn images found on XTRA's newsserver are something
that should be censored is something that I'm hoping might generate a whole lot of
debate.
Personally I'm very much against censorship -- however,
given that there is no simple way to restrict minors from accessing these
usenet newsgroups, I find it a little disturbing that eight or nine-year-olds
could easily be browsing this stuff. If you're a parent who has young kids
using the Net, you should be worried.
And maybe XTRA (along with dozens of other ISPs) should be worried too...
After all, isn't it against the law to make unclassified or obviously R18
images available to minors? Given that any kid can download, install and
use a usenet client -- and within a few short minutes have a PC loaded
with hardcore images, isn't XTRA risking prosecution?
Perhaps they could argue that they have "carrier status" and can't be held
responsible for content that flows through their network -- but it very much
appears that luxury is about to be taken away from ISPs. Besides which,
by removing the obvious porn groups, XTRA has clearly shown that it *does*
exercise control over this type of content -- and therefore must take
responsibility for it as well.
What do you think?
Should ISPs that carry "legal" porn newsgroups provide some way of restricting
access by minors?
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