Lauren,
In addition to what is at that location, I would point out that the
organization that is associated with our (Canada) firewall just got a
massive federal investment.
You can find the details at,
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/media/bk/2005/bg20050124-eng.aspx . It has
also been bragged about repeatedly in the house of commons and can
mentions be found in hansard.
/"$3.5 million over five years was committed to fund *Cybertip.ca*,
Canada's national tipline for reporting the sexual exploitation of
children on the Internet. This initiative fulfills the Government of
Canada's commitment, made in the February 2004 Speech from the Throne to
do more to ensure the safety of our children. The Strategy is supported
by the reinstatement of child protection legislation, Bill C-2, on
October 8, 2004, which will help reduce the risk of child sexual
exploitation of children. Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Canada is leading efforts to implement the Strategy."/
I still find it questionable whether or not this monitoring system is
consistent with our privacy and telecommunications acts, as I am not
aware of any review by the privacy commissioner or specific
authorization by the CRTC (an arms length, independent, regulator) which
is arguably required for any system that interferes with traffic under
s.36 of the act.
To my knowledge, the only time the CRTC was asked to authorize the
blocking of these types of sites, they declined to permit their
voluntary blocking. Some details @
http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/95518
As for the technical details, these systems appear to work by using
something similar to a dnsbl, wherein if the subscriber tries to access
an ip on the list, their traffic will be further scrutinized for
blocking. They claim to have the ability to block at the url level, but
that not all urls are monitored. Details of exactly how these systems
work or what exactly they block is nearly impossible to scrutinize and
this lack of transparency, and oversight has lead to a lot of criticism
of the firewall. In recent months, they have taken a number of steps to
address these criticisms, including better integration with law
enforcement and the judiciary.
Hope that helps add to the background,
Kevin McArthur
Lauren Weinstein wrote:
------- Forwarded Message
________________________________________
From: Seth Finkelstein [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 4:39 PM
To: David Farber; ip
Subject: libertus.net - ISP Censorware "Voluntary" / Mandatory
ISP "Voluntary" / Mandatory Filtering
http://libertus.net/censor/ispfiltering-gl.html
"This page contains information about ISP-level filtering systems
implemented, by various ISPs in various countries, to prevent
accidental access to child sexual abuse material on web pages/sites.
It has been researched and produced in the context of the Australian
Federal Labor Government's 2008 "plan" to mandate that Australian ISPs
block access to a vastly larger type and quantity of web pages."
- --
Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer http://sethf.com
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php