Safe Netting

The blogs were already buzzing the morning after the announcement that Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to begin blocking child pornography sites and content from their systems.

Could this possibly be the beginning of a trend we have been pushing and
advocating since 2000? If you go back and read our 2002 “ISP Initiative” you’ll find
that the basis of the initiative was for major ISPs to voluntarily block IP owners known for spam, phishing and online crime. This effectively cuts off any access to the domains and makes them invisible to the ISP’s users. We are seriously hoping that the other big players in the world will follow suit. If others like COX, Comcast and Earthlink jump on the band wagon, then this insidious faction of the internet may well shrink to oblivion. Of course, as we might suspect, it could also be merely pie in the sky dreaming.

What most people don’t know, or care to ignore, is that fact that distribution (any kind) of pornography (any kind) to any minors, is a class 1 Felony. It’s been part of the code for decades. Why did it take so long for any ISP to wake up to this? Technically Verizon, Sprint, Time Warner Cable and any network could be brought in under this Federal code.

To our amazement, Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley said “As soon as we were made aware of the issue … we took steps to correct.”

Yet, Time Warner Cable (as well as all the big 5 ISPs) have known about the issues for at least ten years. Tens of thousands of complaints have been registered each year, which the ISPs chose to ignore — probably for financial reasons. The pornography business brings millions in revenue to these ISPs each year.

If the announcements are for real, this will be a major step in the overwhelming task of cleaning up criminal activities on the web.

MICHAEL GORMLEY Associated Press Writer :

Cuomo’s investigators found more than 11,000 images in the newsgroups using software that identifies child pornography by tracking patterns in the pixels of the images.
Cuomo said the companies acted immediately when told of the concern. He said too many people posted the pornography to prosecute them individually, so he worked to shut off the “faucet” they were using to share the illegal material.
“People are very creative and there is a market for this filth,” Cuomo said at a news conference. “We have to work together.”

This Associated Press story is carried by Wired News

Our suspicions verified

Yesterday however, Yahoo News’s Mona Charen wrote:

Undercover agents from the attorney general’s office first posed as subscribers and complained to Internet providers about the availability of child pornography. The companies ignored them. Only then did the attorney general drop the mask and switch to intimidation mode, threatening the companies with charges of fraud and deceptive business practices.

So, it would seem the ISPs are not genuinely interested in “self-regulation” but rather staying out of hot water. Now, the others become targets and perhaps will fall into line after all.

Charen closed with this reflection:

Andrew Cuomo is to be commended. It’s a little shocking that he has not yet been excoriated by the ACLU or the editorial page of the New York Times.

While the ACLU and others like to spout off anytime something like this happens, this time they’re keeping quiet, for the time being. Probably because speaking out against these actions could be unpopular. After all, one only has to ask: “Who does not want to see child porn blocked?”

What is most interesting is how entities find themselves immune to certain trends. (Charen’s story appeared in Yahoo — probably one of the more likely purveyors of a substantial portion of child porn on the web!)

We encourage you to read Mona Charen’s editorial — it shares a great deal of wisdom.

(There are many other news sources covering this story, and you can follow along here)