"Cleanfeed" - British Telecom to ban child porn site connections

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Seth Finkelstein <sethf () sethf com>
Date: June 6, 2004 4:43:50 AM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: "Cleanfeed" - British Telecom to ban child porn site 
connections

[For IP, if worthy - note "first mass censorship of the web attempted
in a Western democracy"]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1232506,00.html

  BT puts block on child porn sites

  Martin Bright, home affairs editor
  Sunday June 6, 2004

  The Observer

  British Telecom has taken the unprecedented step of blocking all
  illegal child pornography websites in a crackdown on abuse online. The
  decision by Britain's largest high-speed internet provider will lead
  to the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western 
democracy.

  The move, previously thought to be at the limits of technical
  possibilities of the internet and prohibitively expensive, was given
  the personal backing of BT chairman Sir Christopher Bland at a board
  meeting last month after intense pressure from children's charities.

  Known as Cleanfeed, the project has been developed in consultation
  with the Home Office and will go live by the end of the month, The
  Observer can reveal. Other major players in the internet market, such
  as Energis and Thus, which owns rival Demon Internet, are said to be
  preparing to block banned sites.

  Subscribers to British Telecom's internet services such as BTYahoo and
  BTInternet who attempt to access illegal sites will receive an error
  message as if the page was unavailable. BT will register the number of
  attempts but will not be able to record details of those accessing the
  sites.

  A list of illegal sites compiled by the Internet Watch Foundation, the
  industry's watchdog, has been available for some time, but until now
  there has been no way to prevent people accessing them because most
  are based outside the UK.

  The initiative would not have been possible a year ago, but 
improvements
  in computer processing speeds means that the company is now able to
  block websites, offensive pages and even individual images of abuse.

  The move is the brainchild of John Carr, internet adviser to 
children's
  charity NCH, who wrote to Home Office Minister Paul Goggins last July
  urging action on paedophile websites after a successful campaign to
  block internet newsgroups (electronic message boards which paedophiles
  used to share images of children). Goggins approached internet 
providers
  last September to ask them to investigate if it would be possible. At
  first they were resistant, but BT came back to the Home Office last
  month to announce early tests of Cleanfeed had been successful.

  Blocking websites is highly controversial and until now has been
  associated only with oppressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia and
  China, which have censored sites associated with dissidents. But
  many in the field of child protection believe that the explosion
  of paedophile sites justifies the crackdown.

  'British Telecom deserve to be congratulated on this bold move,' Carr
  said.  'I expect every other service provider will now look at what
  they are doing to see if they can achieve a similar result.'

  Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, added: 'You are always
  caught between the desire to tackle child pornography and freedom of
  information. But I was fed up with not acting on this and always being
  told that it was techically impossible.'

           Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf () sethf com  
http://sethf.com
Interview: http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/0526234
Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/

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