Tag Archives: Topic: Internet

USA Today (Inside Higher Ed): “The California State University at Northridge professor’s site is a one-stop shop for men drawn to the country’s sex tourism industry . . . Some question whether Ng has crossed a gray legal line, however, by advising men on sex tourism. Patrick Trueman, a former U.S. justice department official, notes that there are several federal statutes that could come into play . . . ‘Inducing and enticing? Isn’t that what this guy’s doing?’ said Trueman, former chief of the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in the Criminal Division.”

Christian Science Monitor: “The Obama administration will soon face the first test of its policy toward human rights in China, after American officials announced on Thursday that they would resume human rights talks with Beijing in Washington next month . . . US State department spokesman Philip Crowley said he expected the two governments to have ‘a candid discussion’ of religious freedom, Internet freedom, and the rule of law.”

NY Daily News: “The country’s top financial watchdogs turned out to be horndogs who spent hours gawking at porn Web sites as the economy teetered on the brink, according to a memo released Thursday night.”

TechCrunch: “When questioned about Apple’s role as moral police in the App Store, Jobs responds that ‘we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone.’ Better, is what he said next: ‘Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone.’”

Legalbrief: “Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba said the SA Law Commission had been asked to investigate the possibility of such a ban. Gigaba said the Film and Publications Amendment Act would assist the government in stamping out child pornography, especially during the World Cup.”

Reuters: “Online retailer Amazon.com has filed a lawsuit in a federal court to block the North Carolina state government’s demand it disclose all transaction details, including names and addresses, involving state residents, court documents show . . . ”

Legal Newsline: “The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday will hear the case of whether employees’ text messages sent by an employer-owned device are considered private.”

UPI: “Microsoft said it is deleting from an ad for social handsets a scene critics said promoted ‘sexting’ among teenagers.”

Sierra Vista Herald: “Navajo lawmakers convening Monday for their spring session will consider adding the sexual exploitation of children via the Internet to the list of crimes punishable by the tribe.”

CBS4 (AP): “The lawyer for a Casper man who says a virus allowed his computer to be infected with illegal images plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review his convictions on pornography charges.” | US v. Solon, No. 09-8018 (10th Cir. Feb. 17, 2010)

Christian Science Monitor: “Haystack, an encryption software custom made to help the Iranian opposition evade official attempts to censor the Internet, is giving some regime opponents hope of organizing and making progress online.”

Salt Lake Tribune: “Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, a group created by the adult entertainment industry, also made the case that pornography has become more acceptable over time.
‘Prosecutors are less enthusiastic about prosecuting for obscenity because they realize that our society is becoming more supportive of adults rights to be adults and to access adult materials,’ she said. Robert Peters from Morality in Media says federal agencies are to be commended for going after online sexual exploitation of children, but adds they ‘have for the most part turned a blind eye towards the explosion of hard-core adult pornography on the Internet and elsewhere.’”

AP: “A Chinese court jailed three people Friday who posted material on the Internet to help an illiterate woman pressure authorities to reinvestigate her daughter’s death, one defendant’s lawyer said, in a trial that attracted scores of supporters . . . ”

“Ohio Revised Code § 2907.31(D)(1), which criminalizes sending juveniles material that is harmful to them . . . ”

CNET: “In a brief filed Tuesday afternoon, the coalition says a search warrant signed by a judge is necessary before the FBI or other police agencies can read the contents of Yahoo Mail messages–a position that puts those companies directly at odds with the Obama administration.”

Boston Herald (AP): “Gov. Deval Patrick has signed a bill outlawing the sending of sexually graphic instant messages to minors. The new law closes a loophole in Massachusetts law that led the state’s highest court earlier this year to overturn the conviction of a man accused of sending explicit instant messages to a 13-year-old girl.”

AP: “There are ways to police illegal material on the Internet without resorting to a mandatory filter such as the one proposed by Australia’s government, a U.S. diplomat says . . . ”

Visit the Social Costs of Pornography website. The sites features video of numerous lectures on the topic.

Leonard Link: “A new chapter has been written in the long-running saga of the battle between New York City and proprietors of establishments that sell sexually-related materials, as New York County Supreme Court Justice Lewis York ruled on March 29 that the City had met its “light burden” of showing that the bookstores and video stores operated by the plaintiffs are “adult establishments” subject to a 1995 amendment to the City’s Zoning Resolution (as amended in 2001) sharply restricting the location of such establishments, even though the owners had taken steps to alter their establishments in an attempt to continue operating in their existing locations. For the People Theatres of NY, Inc. v. City of New York, 2010 N.Y. Slip Op. 20108 (Sup.Ct., N.Y. Co., March 29, 2010) . . . ”

NY Times: “The one constant is its growing importance. Censorship used to be the sleepy province of the Communist Party’s central propaganda department, whose main task was to tell editors what and what not to print or broadcast. In the new networked China, censorship is a major growth industry, overseen — and fought over — by no fewer than 14 government ministries . . . That’s not all. Not content merely to block dissonant views, the government increasingly employs agents to peddle its views online, in the guise of impartial bloggers and chat-room denizens.”

Boston Globe (AP): “A prosecutor has filed child endangerment charges against a Texas man accused of forcing his two daughters to watch online pornography . . . ”

The Aegis: “Harford County Public Schools’ decision to allow access to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Web sites in every public school in the county does not sit well with one local legislator. Harford Del. Rick Impallaria sent a letter March 29 to the school superintendent and board of education members stating he does not approve of the decision to unblock lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Web sites for any reason.”

FRC Blog: “The nation’s largest abortion provider is now administering the dangerous medical abortion regime, RU-486, via Skype, instead of in-person consultations with doctors.”

Wired: “The real question isn’t about having a smart phone or not, the real question is what are you as a parent doing to ensure your child’s security and/or appropriate behavior? Whether parents want to accept this fact or not is up to them, but teens are still children and their security and well-being is the responsibility of not only themselves and their school – but primarily of their parents . . . Parents are the ones who set the tone for behavior, parents are the ones who teach (or don’t teach) responsibility and morality . . . Sadly, a good portion of the current youth populace seems to have little regard for the privacy and personal safety of their peers, as evidenced by the articles linked above. With reckless abandon they have no problem sending a naked picture to everyone in class, disregarding the implications of that action (in some cases unfortunately, suicide.) This is behavior, not technology.”

Daily Globe and Mail: “Canadian researchers have uncovered a vast ‘Shadow Network’ of online espionage based in China that used seemingly harmless means such as e-mail and Twitter to extract highly sensitive data from computers around the world.”

AP: “A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.”

“Military therapists and chaplains say . . . with the explosion of Web 2.0 . . . the seamy side of Porn 2.0 is picking off military marriages and killing promising careers like a shadow army of well-placed snipers.”

Associated Press: “Though he opposes allowing slot machines and casino-style gambling, Gov. John Lynch might support the legalization of online gambling to close a growing budget deficit.”

Citizen Link: “The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is considering establishing a “dot-xxx” domain for pornography . . . Patrick Trueman, formerly chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, said the domain would only increase the amount of porn on the Internet and make it more available. ‘There is no evidence that the public wants or needs this domain,’ he said. ‘There is also absolutely no evidence that any good would come of it.’”

Network World: “Mobile phones should be fitted with porn filters to stop children accessing inappropriate content from their handsets, says Professor Tanya Byron. The government’s internet safety advisor said phones that use a Wi-Fi connection to access the web posed the biggest threat, as kids can bypass any parental control set up on the phone.”

NY Times: “In what appeared to be a coordinated assault, the e-mail accounts of more than a dozen rights advocates, academics and journalists who cover China have been compromised by unknown intruders. A Chinese human rights organization also said that hackers had disabled its Web site for five days in a row . . . the victims of the most recent intrusions included a law professor in the United States . . . ”

Wall Street Journal: “The confusion over a major outage in China of Google Inc.’s search sites on Tuesday spotlights one of the most remarkable aspects of the Chinese government’s Internet censorship apparatus: It is designed to be obscure.”

NJ Ledger Star: “A company should not have read e-mails a former employee wrote to her lawyer from a private, password-protected web account, even though she sent them from her employer’s computer, according to a state Supreme Court ruling today that attorneys said could influence workplace privacy rules across the country . . . ”

Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, Inc. No. A-16-09 (NJ, March 30, 2010)

Hat tip: How Appealing

Breitbart (AP): “Yahoo e-mail accounts belonging to foreign journalists appeared to have been hacked and Google’s Chinese search engine was intermittently blocked Tuesday, the latest troubles in China’s heavily censored Internet market.”

Associated Press: “Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says the filter would block access to sites that include child pornography, sexual violence and detailed instructions in crime or drug use.”

Deseret News: “In a keynote speech, Patrick Trueman, former chief of the federal Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, lambasted the Obama administration for its alleged lack of concern for illegal pornography, which Trueman said can be found in almost ‘every’ publication and video available.”

Salt Lake Tribune: “About 1,000 Utahns were told to join the ‘war on pornography’ Saturday at a conference aimed at teaching them how to protect themselves and their children against it or how to get help if they are addicted. ‘Internet pornography is the sexual revolution times 1,000,’ said Patrick Trueman, former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section Criminal Division under President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush.” | Pornography Harms

CNET: Workers at Internet network operation centers around the world are trying to figure out why traffic to sites such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook was redirected to servers in China this week, giving Web surfers around the globe a glimpse of what Chinese Internet users see when they try to access those blocked sites . . . ‘This was a real world example of the Net security industry’s worst nightmare,’ he said. ‘And last night it happened.’ . . . ‘The wider problems are that it appears that someone in China can disrupt Facebook for someone in California,’ he said. ‘It appears we can no longer see the Internet as a friendly shared resource and that strict boundaries will have to be put in place. The problem is the technology is not really there to make that happen.’”

Gizmodo: “Dell’s said to be joining Google in fleeing China in search of a ‘safer environment with [a] climate conducive to enterprise,’ potentially taking the $25 billion it spends on equipment and parts in China to India . . . ”

NY Times: “. . . censorship had become more than a human rights issue and was hurting profit for foreign companies . . . The fallout from China’s restrictive Internet policies widened on Wednesday when a Internet services company, the Go Daddy Group, said it would halt registration of Chinese domain names.”

Wall Street Journal: “Behind Google Inc.’s dramatic decision to shutter its China-based search engine this week was co-founder Sergey Brin’s change of heart about the compromises required to do business in a land that was increasingly reminding him of his native Soviet Union . . . ”

One News Now (AP): “Google’s attempted detour around China’s Internet censorship rules was met with countermeasures Tuesday by the communist government, which blocked people on the mainland from seeing search results dealing with such forbidden topics as the pro-democracy movement . . . ”

Boston Globe (AP): “. . . Beijing ‘should seriously consider the implications when one of the world’s most recognizable institutions has decided that it’s too difficult to do business in China.’”

AP: “An Internet company run by one of Asia’s richest men said Tuesday it has ended its affiliation with Google Inc. as the American search giant stopped censoring the Internet in violation of Chinese regulations . . . ”

Gizmodo: “The Chinese government regulates the Internet according to laws and will improve its regulation step by step according to its own needs. It is a pure internal affair.
Regrettably, Google’s recent behaviors show that the company not just aims at expanding business in China, but is playing an active role in exporting culture, value and ideas. It is unfair for Google to impose its own value and yardsticks on Internet regulation to China, which has its own time-honored tradition, culture and value.”

LA Times: “With negotiations at an impasse in the high-profile showdown that has escalated tensions between China and the United States, Google Inc. has begun to redirect users of its Chinese-language search engine to uncensored results on its Chinese-language service based in Hong Kong.”

AP: “China’s state-controlled media intensified criticism of Google on Monday, accusing the U.S. company of playing politics by threatening to shut down its China-based search engine.”

“The New York Times just ran a story on a year-old paper written by two Chinese researchers which documented a more efficient way to create a cascading failure on the Western power grid of the U.S. The focus of the article by John Markoff and David Barboza wasn’t on the research itself, but instead it focused on the atmosphere of paranoia surrounding the U.S., China and the power grid.”

Telegraph: “All internet providers in the United Arab Emirates have been ordered to block the unnamed user behind the site, after he alleged his claims were supported by verses of the Koran . . . After dozens of complaints about the Arabic-language site, titled ‘God and Prophets’, the country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced this week it would ban the user from holding an internet account.”

Chicago Tribune: “Offenders would not face criminal charges, but would get juvenile court supervision that could result in counseling or community service. The bill doesn’t address youths who send or receive racy photos if they don’t distribute them.”

Public Information Office of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: “The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will offer remote viewing of en banc court proceedings scheduled for March 23-25 at the James R. Browning U.S. Courthouse here.” Hat tip: How Appealing

Supreme Court Office of Public Information: “The Web address for the site will change from www.supremecourtus.gov to www.supremecourt.gov but either address will
provide access through July 1, 2010 . . . ”

Christian Post: “As the Federal Communications Commission seeks out more broadband space, the agency is being asked to consider possibly the largest group that would be affected by the move – that is, churches. Churches across the country that use wireless devices have already been affected by FCC’s 2008 decision to auction off rights to the 700 MHz band. But their new push for even more spectrum is sure to create more losses and interferences.”

‘What’s ironic about this case is the district attorney got penalized for being too nice . . ‘

C-SPAN Video Library: “The Video Library offers 160,000 hours of political events covered by the C‑SPAN Networks since 1987. C-SPAN records, indexes, and archives all C-SPAN programming for historical, educational, research, and archival uses by individuals. Programs are accessible to view through this online database.”

USCourts.gov: “The Judicial Conference of the United States today approved key steps to improve public access to federal courts by increasing the availability of court opinions and expanding the services and reducing the costs for many users of the Public Access to Electronic Court Records (PACER) system. At its biannual meeting in Washington, D.C., the Conference voted to . . . ”

Jelani Jefferson Exum, Making the Punishment Fit the (Computer) Crime: Rebooting Notions of Possession for the Federal Sentencing of Child Pornography Offenses (February 5, 2010). Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1568352

“This Article adds to the current, heated discussion on what is happening in the sentencing of federal child pornography possession offenses, why nobody is satisfied, and how much the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are to blame. At the heart of this Article are the forgotten players in the discussion – the computer and the internet – and their role in changing the realities of child pornography possession. This Article argues that the computer and internet are important factors in understanding both the victimization of the children portrayed in the illegal images and the formulation of appropriate punishment for those who view and possess such images.”

PR Newswire: “The Witherspoon Institute released today “The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations.’ The consultation was the first multifaceted, multidisciplinary, scholarly exploration of pornography since the advent of the Internet. The proceedings, research and recommendations are available in booklet form and as a two-DVD set of the actual two-day meeting that assembled leading experts in several fields, including economics, psychology, sociology, and law to present a rigorously argued overview of pornography in today’s society.”

Blog of the Legal Times: “At its closed-door meeting at the Supreme Court today, the Judicial Conference approved measures aimed at making federal court documents and courtroom audio recordings more widely available and at lower cost. The conference, the policy-making arm of the federal judiciary, voted to increase the number of documents members of the public can obtain free through the PACER system . . . ”

NJ.com: “[An] exemplary new report to be issued tomorrow by the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton called “The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations.” Very ably authored by Mary Eberstadt and Mary Anne Layden, this report is a careful reflection on the consequences of the deluge of internet pornography. (The document has been endorsed by a wide and diverse group of impressive scholars.)”

AP: “In that case [if Google stays], however, it would have to comply with Chinese regulations requiring censorship of search results for sensitive material or ‘bear the consequences’ for not doing so, the minister warned. ‘It would be irresponsible and unfriendly for Google to insist on doing something that goes against China’s laws and regulations,’ he added. ”

Law.com (Legal Intelligencer): “Now lawyers on both sides of the issue are urging the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate two recent — and seemingly conflicting — decisions by two different three-judge panels, and to hold rearguments before the full court. Both cases involved high school students who were suspended for creating fake MySpace pages on their home computers to ridicule their principals.” The article links to the opinions in question.

AP: “A global Internet oversight agency has deferred a decision for at least 70 days on whether to create the ‘.xxx’ domain name as an online red-light district.”

AP: “The Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll found two-thirds of those surveyed oppose changing the law to allow bets to be placed over the Internet, and 53 percent oppose allowing bets on the outcome of professional or college sporting events.”

AP: “A global Internet oversight agency is reopening discussions about whether to create a ‘.xxx’ domain name as an online red-light district where porn sites can set up shop away from the wandering eyes of children and teenagers.”

MyFoxTampaBay.com: “The website in question is run by the Spring Hill Fire District and the problem, according to the complaint, is the Fire Rescue Chaplain link on the site where you can find scripture, even buy a bible.”

NY Times: “This technology can make the language barrier go away,” said Franz Och, a principal scientist at Google who leads the company’s machine translation team. “It would allow anyone to communicate with anyone else.”

Related: ZDNet: Google Chrome gets instant language translation, privacy settings

Your4State: “The bill by State Representative Seth Grove (R-York) would make sending nude or inappropriate photos by text message or e-mail a second-degree misdemeanor for anyone between 13 and 17 . . . The bill is expected to be voted on by the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.”

BBC News: “A plan to create an internet domain specifically for adult websites will be resurrected three years after it was rejected by internet regulators. The net’s governing body Icann will reconsider the .xxx scheme on 12 March.”

Rebecca Hagelin writing in the Washington Times: “Your child no longer has to be ‘bound’ at a desk in front of a computer screen to have the world — and everyone in it — at his or her fingertips. Every day, children who visit interactive sites interact with strangers. And, more and more often, homespun Internet porn has been appearing everywhere from the school bus to the back seat of Mom’s minivan.”

TGDaily.com: “Microsoft has updated its rather extensive Xbox Live ‘Code of Conduct’ to allow the inclusion of race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles.”

Daily Tech: “Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says Microsoft has no plans to uncensor its search engine in China, even if Google does so. Microsoft currently owns less than 5 percent of the Chinese search market, while Google owns over 30 percent.”

The Bulletin: “Thanks to the efforts of a former Justice Department official, anyone needing credible, peer-reviewed research documenting the harm caused by pornography can now access an impressive library of information at a new website. ‘PornographyHarms.com is a one-stop location for sound research, news articles and opinion pieces demonstrating the harm from pornography,’ said Patrick Trueman, creator of the site . . . ”

North County Times: “If you place any stock in the veracity of Yahoo search engine statistics, you will discover that close to 50 new Web sites featuring ‘teen porn’ are born on Yahoo every minute of every day, at least for the past month. While this research is strictly unscientific, it speaks to a phenomenon that clearly places people into two distinct camps: those who know that America is awash in teen porn, and those who are firmly in denial.”

PRNewswire: “Parents of teens in the Kansas City metro area need to understand that in Missouri, sexting can result in felony charges, including exploitation of a child and creating, possession and distribution of child pornography.”