Here's what the CFD&T has to say about the law and their challenge. If they're correct about how it's being handled, then I think it's wrong, too. It sounds like PA is issuing a court order to block off portions of the Internet, trying to insulate the state.I'd consider myslef an ISP expert seeing as how I'm the Lead Tech at one. Mind reposting the info about the blocking?
You might be interested in the full report that we issued -- you can find it at http://www.cdt.org/speech/030200pennreport.pdf. Our web site has other information (including the text of the Pennsylvania law) at http://www.cdt.org/speech/ . Thanks again for your input.
ISP's should not be held liable for what it's users post on thier websites unless their doing this knowably which can be hard to prove. For a smaller ISP if some guy comes in and signs up for the domain naked-kiddes.com we'd show him the door. If the same guy came in and wanted hosting for his domain widgets-n-gidgets.com no problem but I'm sure at some point soon we'd be checking out his site just to see it's working.I guess the question is whether laws requiring that ISPs block child porn sites are feasable. Would it be possible for any scheme like PA's to work? After reading the description, I don't think so. It appears they're asking all the surrounding ISPs to block particular blocks of address numbers, in order to block child porn sites from the PA area. In doing this they're also blocking other large segments of the Internet.
Smaller ISP's have more control over thier networks and should be held more liable if thier hosting child porn. National ISP conglomerates automate everything and therefore would be less likely to know about and porn hosting.
Even less liekly to be detected is pornographic files in the useres folder on a public webserver. It's there and easily linked to in private but can't easily be spotted by an ISP of any size.
That's my two cents on the responsibilty of the ISP now what was your question again? :)