BB FANS

UPI
Aug. 29, 2005 at 4:14PM

Finland was gearing up Monday to block its Internet users from getting access to foreign Web sites containing child pornography.

The government will give telecommunications service providers lists of sites to be blocked, Helsingin Sanomat reported Monday.

"In all child porn scandals uncovered in Europe, the Internet has been used almost without exception," said Harri Pursiainen, Finland's director-general of Transport and Communications. "The use of the Internet for these purposes is a major problem."

He said blocks placed on Internet users in Norway prevent 6,000 visits to child pornography Web sites each day.

This marks the first time Internet service providers in Finland will legally be allowed to block any kind of foreign access to Internet sites, Helsingin Sanomat said.

Yey!! This is great news. I was just discussing this with my sister last weekend; I hate it when the government, media etc. patronise people (for example all the beeps and blurs on tv), but this is a totally diffrent issue. No-one needs to see these sites, they shouldn't even excist and if there's a way to deny access, I say do it.

I don't see how they are going to do this properly though. The worst sites are those that won't be indexed by search engines, or will let you link to them because they exist as parts of rings, known only to people within the ring. Most of them hide behind legitimate-sounding sites too, and access is account-only.

Whilst it's a good idea in principle I think it's only scratching the surface.

It does make it harder for non-account holders to access accounts.Even with sentinels you can type the most innocent thing into a search engine and pull up some pretty graphic sites:eek:

I just can't see why the police can't just go surfing the web for them. If they need an account to join one of them, then join them. Then, when they are a member of one of these sites, get them prosecuted for it then. Unless it's against the law to go around deceiving people on the net, even website owners. I came across a child porn site, this was through, oh how shall i put it, getting programs for free site Anyway, i saw this link at the bottom, so i thought to myself, i'll be a bit nosy and curious. Whilst surfing some of the sites in this link, i couldn't beleive my eyes I just sat there thinking to myself, oh no. I then promptly emailed the webmaster of the original site and he got this website took down Either that, or he just cancelled their account. Thinking back on this now, maybe i should have phoned the cops about this. If i did phone the cops, i might have got someone female round, and what the hell would i have told her. Oh, i found it because there was a link to porn sites at the bottom of the page, i just thought i'd go browsing

Liisi - I agree!

I think in a situation like that your embarassment would prob have gone out of the window ZX. Besides, a grown-man going on an adult website is the least of her worries. It's not the 'adult' sites she's interested in. Well done you for getting it shut down anyway

I typed in 'Japanese translator' some years ago when I was looking for a job and came up with a load of 'Japanese transexual' porn sites

.I think it's good that Finland are doing this but I don't know enough about it to know how successful they will be. What bothers me is that if they can do it why can't we? Why can't the states? Maybe if it's a success it can be done world-wide? Lets hope so

but what purveyor of child porn is going to let his site be indexed by search engines - you certainly wouldn't submit your site to search engines for listing. you're not exactly going to advertise the fact and you wouldn't make it part of the world wide web. If you were going to, you'd hide it behind an innocuous portal and do all your own hosting. Me thinks this is just a ruse to make the public feel safer but in reality it's iceberg tip-touching.

I don't understand how the WWW can be anonymous tho. Surely there must be some way to trace people who make web-sites? Sorry to be thick but I barely scraped through my Computing HNC and I don't understand how it is that they don't leave a 'trail' that can identify them?

Oh I agree....the most innocent urls hide some of the worst stuff I've seen and that not needing an account
I just stupidly tought some regualtion might try and force those with appetites for this 'stuff' to domains that cannot be accessed by innocents.It's niaive to think your sentinels will protect your child(sadly) and hopefully thats what we're all working towards

You can get keyloggers, these are applications that record every typed letter on your keyboard. If this was placed on hard drives of suspected pc's, then if they just waited for intended victim to type out the address of said website, there you have it, caught in the act. But, with there being laws out there that protect even people like this, i doubt the police would be able to do something like this.

(included to the post above) I suppose some ISP's may know about their customers activities. Maybe they should get the ISP's to hand over the details if it comes up that one of their customers has visited a site like this a few times, and not just once. Once meaning they might have just come across it by accident, a few times is purposely done. And, i'm also talking about the same site here, if they come across another site like this ONCE, then fine, but, if they visit the same site a few times, then this means purposely in my book. Honestly, when some great technology like the internet comes out, there's always people that have to spoilt it with all sorts of stuff. I have to say, i love the internet, there is just so much to explore, but it's when you come across something that you don't particularly want to see (not neccessarily talking about child porn), it just reminds you of how much the net has been spoilt for the rest of us. My point after all of this, when there's something like the net comes out that can make loads of money, you can guarantee that this will be exploited in every way possible.

Actually now that I think about it I think this action is more symbolic than a way of really preventing the whole scene from spreading. The thing is that these people will find ways to spread and view the material in question anyway. When the society closes a window here, they'll make another one there. It is better than doing nothing, even if it is just the tip of the iceburg.

the 'internet' is only a method for allowing computers to be linked electronically and the World Wide Web is only part of the thing we call 'the Internet'. I could set up my own web if I wanted to and only connect computers that I wanted to share access with. No one else could have access to this web. The best example of this is the corporate LAN (Local Area Network) which may or may not connect with the outside world.

did you learn anything in your HNC, Molly!

Yes..or an intranet system.I can speak to some on the intranet but only they have access to it