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Re: Center for Democracy and Technology



Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 02:13:30 +0000
From: "L. Bird" <pkeets@hotmail.com>

...it looks
to me like they're complaining about the way ISPs handle sites on their
servers.  They group the site numbers and can't block just one, but have to
block a whole groups.  Any ISP experts here?  George?  Is there a way around
this, or are the ISPs only bellyaching because they don't want to a) lose
the $$ and b) change the way they do things?

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.
Here's the relevant bit:

. The orders issued by the Pennsylvania court (and Attorney General)
result in the blocking of web sites that have nothing whatsoever to do
with child pornography, simply because those web sites use web hosting
services that share a single Internet IP address among multiple web sites.
This blocking of fully lawful websites - often in secret - is a blatant
violation of the First Amendment.
Inadvertently, I trust, you significantly misrepresented the CDT's position paper. This doesn't say they group Website *numbers* (IP addresses), as you say above, it says they group multiple Websites under the SAME SINGLE number...which in turned is assigned to a single physical computer. And yes, anyone blocking access to that one computer's number (NOT a "group" of numbers as in your summary) would automatically block access to all sites stored on that computer, innocent or not.

Here's two more relevant bits:

. Moreover, the effects of the Pennsylvania blocking orders are felt far
beyond the confines of Pennsylvania, as the orders ultimately block
access by Internet users all around the country. Under First Amendment
and Commerce Clause jurisprudence, lawmakers in one state cannot
impose their views and values on citizens of another state.

Compliance with the law will carry potentially significant technical risks for the
ISPs' networks, and the Internet in general. The routers and routing tables that
direct the flow of content on the Internet were not designed to handle the kind of
blocking envisioned by the statute. If Pennsylvania's blocking orders continue, the
stability of the ISPs routers and routing table will be threatened, risking broad
service failures.
Both of which are telling philosophical and technical points against the proposals.

I worked for an ISP for nearly two years, and they have a strong ethic of free and open interchange of information PLUS maintaining customers' privacy. Are ISPs aware when they're hosting porn sites? Sure, if for no other reason than that those sites use a huge amount of bandwidth and generate a lot of revenue (which simply means they're meeting a high demand). But that doesn't mean the ISP should be expected to root around in the depths of a porn site trying to find a well-hidden child section. If someone wearing a badge knocks on the door with a court order, then full cooperation should be expected from any ISP. Short of that, I wouldn't get near an ISP which claims to monitor its customer's Websites or e-mail for objectionable content.

Bottom line: it's simply impossible to commit enough resources to monitor the Websites one hosts, even if an ISP should want to, the more so as the ISP becomes more successful and hosts more and more Websites. Legislation trying to mandate this would simply A) be unenforceable or B) force the ISPs out of business.
Cheers,
--
Alan
"That's unbelievable, if that's true."
--Howard Stern, 5/25/00