Pennsylvania forces ISPs to block access to porn Web sites
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By Ted Bridis
Feb. 19, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) --
Pennsylvania is forcing Internet providers to block Web sites that include
child pornography, a new legal strategy that technology and civil liberties
experts worry will unintentionally interfere with legitimate surfing.
In a precursor to a possible courtroom challenge, lawyers from the Center
for Democracy and Technology will try to compel Pennsylvania's attorney
general to disclose new details about the state's tactics. They are worried
other states may follow Pennsylvania's practice.
The center, which focuses on Internet freedoms, compared the blocking
technique to disrupting mail delivery to an entire apartment complex because
of one tenant's illegal actions. It said it prefers aggressive prosecution
of those who publish obscene materials to wholesale blocking of Web
destinations.
"It's sort of this weird world where we're not prosecuting the people
producing child pornography," said Alan Davidson, the center's associate
director.
Pennsylvania's attorney general, Republican Mike Fisher, is leading the
state's effort, which already has forced Internet providers to block
subscribers from at least 423 Web sites around the world.
The state's Legislature passed a law last year permitting the blocks and
imposing first-offense fines of up to $5,000 on companies that don't comply.
"It has worked in nearly every case," said Sean Connolly, a spokesman for
Fisher.
Only one Internet provider -- WorldCom Inc. -- has disputed Fisher's
instructions, and a county judge in September ordered it to comply.
WorldCom's lawyers, while saying they abhor child pornography, had objected
that filters placed on behalf of Pennsylvania citizens would affect all
their subscribers in North America from visiting thousands of Web sites
"completely unrelated in content and ownership" to the pornographic
material.
Lawyers for the civil liberties group and some technology experts said the
strategy undermines the Internet's global connectivity by regularly blocking
Web surfers visiting harmless sites that may be located on the same server
computers as sites with child pornography.
They said they will seek information Thursday from Fisher about his use of
the law under that state's open records statute.
In a new study to be published Thursday -- coinciding with the group's move
-- Harvard University researcher Benjamin Edelman determined that more than
85 percent of Web addresses ending in "com," "net" or "org" share
behind-the-scenes computer resources with at least one other Web site. That
is a far higher percentage than previously recognized.
Edelman, who said he analyzed 30 million Web addresses over six weeks, said
some Web sites share a single numerical Internet address with dozens of
other sites. He said this level of sharing, which uses an increasingly
common technique called "virtual hosting," interferes with blocking efforts
by governments.
In one extreme case, a single Web site shared its numerical address with
970,411 other sites.
Connolly, the spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general, said
Wednesday that in such cases involving a Web site with a shared address,
authorities contact the Web-hosting companies and order them -- under threat
of legal action -- to pinpoint and shut down the illegal pornographic sites.
Associated Press
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