There is currently a law in Pennsylvania which requires ISPs to block child pronography sites that are on or which can be accessed through the ISP's network. An ISP that receives a notice from the PA Attorney General and which does not block access to that IP or to that domain, is subject to a $5,000 fine and/or a misdemeanor conviction for a first offense. Subsequent offenses can rise to the level of a felony.
This was discussed at /. recently. What is new is that I am considering mounting a legal challenge to the law, and it would be helpful to have support from other ISPs in Pennsylvania as well as individuals. I have made inquiries in other forums, and I will continue to do so. /. provides a uniquely large audience of potentially concerned or affected folk, however.
I own part of a very small ISP. I am relucatant to put the name up on /. for fear of the /. effect disrupting service to our users (all 2,000 or so of them). I also fear that publicity related to this suit will be damaging to our business and (thereby) the ability to put food on the table for the other owners and our employees.
For the record, I am against child pornography. It is unimaginable to me that anyone could be "for" it. I oppose the sexual exploitation of children vehemently. I am perfectly willing to cooperate with the authorities if one of the users of my ISP posts child porn to one of my servers.
On the other hand, it is disturbing to me that the Attorney General of PA has the authority to cause ISPs around PA to block websites by either IP address or by domain name. Here is why:
1. IP addresses (unique numerical identifiers of computers attached to the internet) are finite and they are a scarce commodity right now. This is a serious concern, and it may lead to the adoption of IPv6, ultimately. As it is, the shortage of IP space requires conservation by users of IP addresses.
ARIN, which assigns IP numbers or "IP space" to internet service providers (ISPs), requires that people use their IP space as efficiently as possible. This results in a practice known as "virtual hosting" whereby one unique IP address has one physical server which has numerous website domains attached to it. ARIN frowns on IP-based webhosting, which leads webhosters of any consequence or size to use virtual hosting.
My personal webserver has one IP address (example: 127.0.0.1) bound to it but using that one number, it hosts seven differently named websites (www.example1.com, www.example2.com....www.example7.com).
Because of virtual hosting, there are servers that have one IP address which host hundreds or thousands of websites. Blocking access to that IP address prevents ISP users from viewing perfectly innocent content on that server at a different domain. Visitors to the non-offending websites have no idea that there may be offensive content at those other sites. A visitor to www.innocentsite.com has no way of knowing whether www.childpornexample.com is hosted on the same server using the same IP address.
The innocent user and the innocent site are prevented from engaging in perfectly legitimate communications through no fault of their own. This disrupted communication could be commercial, recreational, or political. The worst part is that it is unlikely that the parties would be able to understand or find out why they can no longer communicate.
2. Domain names are identifiers made up from common words or numbers, such as aol.com or yahoo.com. Domains can contain webpages of millions of people. Businesses such as Yahoo provide webspace to users for free. These users are permitted to put up websites for a variety of reasons on the website at the domain (i.e. http://www.portalexample.com/userjoeschmo/). If a user puts up a site containing child pornography on that website, an ISP in Pennsylvania may be required to block the entire domain name (or at that IP address, as discussed above). Again, huge amounts of perfectly innocent communications will be disrupted, and the cause will not be apparent.
3. There are ways for individuals to view web content even if a website name or IP number is blocked by an ISP at the request of the PA Attorney General. There are sites which simply serve as intermediaries -- they are often called anonymizers.
An anonymizer works in the following manner: A user visits an anonymous surfing website such as exampleanonymizer.com. The user sees a web-based form at exampleanonymizer.com that looks like a web browser address bar. He enters the website address that he wishes to view. The remote server causes a program to run which fetches the desired content from the remote site and the redisplays it for the user. In essence, the anonymizer program "surfs" to the forbidden site and then makes the content available for the user to see, but there is no indication to the user's ISP that he has retrieved content from a forbidden site.
This sort of service easily circumvents the desired content-blocking goal of the PA law. A PA-based user never has to actually and directly visit a forbidden site in order to be able to obtain access to its content.
Programs to facilitate this sort of remote retrieval of websites are free and easily obtainable. They also completely and totally thwart the entire mechanism of the PA law.
In the meantime, those who seek access to child pornography and those who wish to provide it to others are in no way being stopped from doing so. Admittedly, this law may protect some innocent people from accidentally viewing this content, but even this is unlikely to do much good. Harmful material continues to pour through the internet in the form of SPAM (unsolicited commercial email) which pushes child porn and other horrendous filth into mailboxes of unsuspecting and unwilling recipients.
4. Follow-up on the sites which the PA Attorney General requires to be blocked may turn out to be quite ineffective. It is highly likely that the operators of child pornography sites will move their websites to new web hosting companies frequently. It is standard policy of reputable web hosting businesses to refuse to host illegal sites, such as child pornography sites.
Will the PA Attorney General provide PA ISPs with information that child pornography websites have moved to new hosts and that the old IP address or domain name which had been blocked should now be unblocked? It is illegal for anyone to try to view child pornography sites, so ISP staff are essentially forbidden from checking to see if the offending content is still there. In order to avoid breaking the laws against possessing child pornography, ISP staff would be forced to rely on the Attorney General's office to tell them when it is ok to lift an embargo on a banned IP address or domain name.
In conclusion, I believe that the law functions as an unconstitutional restraint on the free speech rights of innocents. The law is not narrowly tailored to address the concerns that it should be addressing. It is the functional equivalent of having the police throw hand grenades into crowds where they see someone picking another person's pocket -- there is enormous collateral damage that is entirely unnecessary.
The PA law harms innocent parties. Both providers and consumers of perfectly innocent content are being harmed right now by the enforcement of this law, and they do not even know that this is happening. Commerce, access to helpful information, entertainment, etc., are all being disrupted right now, and those aforementioned innocent parties have no way to know why the can no longer reach particular websites.
The investigation, apprehension, and punishment of child pornographers is unquestionably an important goal of society. Unfortunately, the manner in which the PA legislature has chosen to pursue this admirable goal is an irresponsible and dangerous way to approach this problem. It would be more effective to pursue individuals who can be connected to the set up and maintenance of child pornography websites.
Unfortunately from the perspective of the state, this will require international cooperation, actual police work, and money. It is far easier to interfere with innocent communications of wholly innocent people and businesses and to threaten innocent ISP owners and staff with felony charges.
For the record, this law has not been used against my ISP yet, but it might be. I know other ISP owners who have received requests and who have complied with them. This is a current and very real problem right now.
Please consider helping. Please contact the EFF to make a financial contribution to protect electronic speech. Let them know that you are willing to be a plaintiff as well. If you have a VISP with PA customers, you will need to comply with this law. Also, other states will notice this law in Pennsylvania and some will adopt similar versions if it appears to be "working". This is coming to your hometown sooner than you think.
GF.
