Posted on 07/18/2008 1:00:39 AM PDT by Swordmaker
The national Internet service providers, AT&T and AOL, signed an agreement with state government to eliminate child pornography from the Internet, announced the office of state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, New York, on Thursday.
As part of the agreement signed with Cuomo, the two Internet access providers agreed to work towards eliminating certain newsgroups that distribute child pornography online. A similar agreement was signed with Verizon Communications, Time Warner (News - Alert) Cable, and Sprint Nextel on June 10, 2008.
The decision on making the service providers sign the agreement came after Cuomo’s office identified 88 different newsgroups that contained 11,390 lewd photos of prepubescent children.
“We are attacking this problem by working with Internet service providers to ensure they do not play host to this immoral business," Cuomo had said in a statement released after he made the landmark agreement with Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint Nextel (News - Alert) in New York. "I call on all Internet service providers to follow their example and help deter the spread of online child porn."
As part of the agreement, AT&T would disable all addresses starting with "alt.binary," a common exchange platform for child pornography, said Marty Richter, AT&T spokesperson, in a statement. However, he added that all such groups do not have child pornography.
AOL on the other hand, agreed to block all Usenet newsgroups that allow downloads of stolen software and porn. AOL had already stopped giving member access to Usenet groups in 2005 because of some legal issues and poor implementation of the group.
Both companies have agreed to extend their support not just for New York but also for the entire nation. They plan to act against other newsgroups that supply child pornography over Internet.
The five companies agreed to delete porn contents stored in their servers by customers. This was in accordance with the federal law, which criminalizes possession and distribution of pornography. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, along with Cuomo’s office, will soon release a notification of servers or newsgroups that need to be eliminated.
ISPs can't "drag their feet when it comes to protecting our children and instead must quickly purge child porn from their servers," said Cuomo in a statement.
The new Web site http://www.nystopchildporn.com, released by Cuomo’s office, contains the details of Internet service providers that have signed the agreement to tackle child pornography.
Prior to this, Cuomo had adopted measures to stop pornography over Internet by forcing the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook sign an agreement to protect their users from online sexual predators.
The Alt.binaries heirarchies also included such pornographic newsgroups as Alt.binaries.aviation, Alt.binaries.NASA,photos, Alt.binaries.animals, Alt.binaries.antiquecars, alt.binaries.anti-virus-info and other such really dangerous newsgroups. The agreements have basically blocked access to ALL the video, sound and photography newsgroups on the Usenet for all AT&T broadband customers.
The really funny part is most of the CP appearing in the alt.binaries.* groups is spam anyways. Why not do the world a favor and go after the spammers and put them in jail? I guess that won’t happen because it would require someone to do work...
Sadly, no.
From what I've seen, the users of those groups do a pretty good job of self policing and eliminating objectionable spammed material. AT&T, Verizon, AOL and others are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Gee, how hard is it to just start posting to any other group? maybe alt.pictures. or even some of the foreign groups such as es.alt.binaries.
Typical political pandering - offer a non solution to a real problem that, to most of the sheeple, sounds like it will cause the problem to go away.
Nobody should be fooled by this nonsense.
Cuomo, AT&T, AOL and Verizon may be hiding behind the whole “it’s for the CHILDREN” mee-mee, but the actual agenda is to begin dismantling and shutting down Usenet for good.
So what if they identified ‘88’ newsgroups with child porn? If they eliminate access to those newsgroups, child pornographers will just start using other newsgroups! And how will Commandant Cuomo and his crew respond to that?
Well of course: they’ll have to shut down access to THOSE newsgroups too. And at the end of the process? “Oops, looks like Usenet had to be shut down to “protect the CHILDREN!”
Now how do they know that other websites (like FR?) aren’t using their private email systems to transfer and trade illicit images? What’s up with all those Viking Kitty photos? You know, “kitty” is a synonym for other nefarious terms...?
Cuomo may be patting himself on the back, but he’s done nothing to cut down on child porn at all, what he OUGHT to be doing is going after his former boss, disgraced ex-Governor Elliot Spritzer and his notorious black socks.
I think this is mainly a cover to eliminate the MP3 groups. Without notice my isp eliminated alt.bin back in March. Blaming it on child porn is a shield from the trouble this would have otherwise generated.
These ISP would block access to these newsgroups from their customers?
Wow, it’s only about 17 years over due.
Screaming “porn!” is definately the digital equivalent of “it’s for the children!” when it comes to censorship. It’s also a lie.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.