Re: Congress may require ISPs to block fraud sites H.R.3817

[Jeffrey Lyon <jeffrey.lyon () blacklotus net>]

Net neutrality suffers another blow. I liked Congress when they had no
idea what the internet was, now they've progressed to "still have no
idea but like to pretend."

Jeff

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Steven Bellovin <smb () cs columbia edu> wrote:
> On Nov 5, 2009, at 7:44 PM, Richard Bennett wrote:
>
> > I think the idea is for the government to create an official blacklist of
> > the offending sites, and for ISPs to consult it before routing a packet to
> > the fraud site. The common implementation would be an ACL on the ISPs border
> > router. The Congress doesn't yet understand the distinction between ISPs and
> > transit providers, of course, and typically says that proposed ISP
> > regulations (including the net neutrality regulations) apply only to
> > consumer-facing service providers.
> >
> > If this measure passes, you can expect expansion of blocking mandates for
> > rogue sites of other kinds, such as kiddie porn and DMCA scofflaws.
> It's worth looking at hhttp://www.cdt.org/speech/pennwebblock/ -- a Federal
> court struck down a law requiring web site blocking because of child
> pornography.
>
>                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb



-- 
Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team
jeffrey.lyon () blacklotus net | http://www.blacklotus.net
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