Feasibility of censoring and jamming pronography and racism in informatics
Ulf Möller
3umoelle at informatik.uni-hamburg.de
Fri Aug 29 16:25:58 PDT 1997
A European parliament study evaluating `Feasibility of censoring and
jamming pronography and racism in informatics':
"SUBSCRIBER PROTECTION: In this scenario [...] it would be necessary
for access providers to use firewall and PICS technology (in some
instances implemented with in proxy applications) to implement a
management regime consistent with provisions for protection of society
as in other media, ie media parity. Implementation on this basis would
be necessary to ensure subscribers could not tamper with management
settings. The impact of implementing the necessary technology on the
operating economics of access providers appears to be small. That
technologies of these types have already been employed by access
provider organisations [...] could potentially be considered to
confirm this."
From: kris at koehntopp.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Kristian_K=F6hntopp?=)
Newsgroups: de.soc.zensur
Europarl: STOA Homepage
http://www.europarl.eu.int/dg4/stoa/en/default.htm
Europarl: STOA Publications
http://www.europarl.eu.int/dg4/stoa/en/publi/publi.htm
Europarl: STOA Workplan 1996
http://www.europarl.eu.int/dg4/stoa/en/wp96.htm
A. Information and telecommunications policy options
A.LP.2 INTERNET AND MULTIMEDIA IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY (In
cooperation with the specific research programme of
DGIV: REX/Internal Market/New technology/STOA)
Sub-projects:
(iv) Technical feasibility of jamming or censoring
pornography and racism in informatics - Civil
liberties
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STOA
European Parliament
* Batiment Schuman
Bureau 4/82
L-2929 Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Phone: +352 4300-2511
Fax: +352 4300-2418
* Batiment Eastman
Bureau 113
B-1047 Brussels
Belgium
Phone: +322 284-3747
Fax: +322 284-9059
Email the STOA Team in Luxembourg at _STOA at europarl.eu.int_
Email the STOA Team in Brussels at _ksercu at europarl.eu.int_
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This document is a working Document for the 'STOA Panel'. It is
not an official publication of the STOA.
This document does not necessarily represent the views of the
European Parliament.
Feasibility of censoring and jamming pronography and racism in informatics
***DRAFT*** Final Report
Luxembourg, May 1997, PE number: 166 658
<del del del>
7 Conclusions
7.1 Technical Feasibility
7.1.1 The central question posed to this study is whether it is
technically feasible to use the content managment
technology to censor and jam pornography and racism on
the Internet.
7.1.2 It is concluded that available technology does no and is
not likely to provide any satisfactory means for
automatically classifying such material. Such judgements
will therefore have to be made by humans.
7.1.3 Once such judgements are made, however, technology
provides for these judgements to be distributed and used
by content managment systems to make the following
content managment actions feasible (in principle) to a
high degree:
- subscriber choice, in that individuals can choose the
extent to which they permit or exclude such material on
their own behalf or on behalf of others for whom they
have responsibility;
- subscriber protection, in that precautions against
unintentional or unsolicited exposure to such material
can be implemented as defined by statute or other form
of code or regulation;
- prevention of Internet abuse, in that it is possible to
detect the exchange of such material within closed
groups of offenders to a very substantial extent;
- detection of offenders, in that offenders can be
identified when offences have been detected or notified
involving sites and services where the user has
explicitly authenticated identity;
- flexible and multi-cultural implementation of content
management, in that content management policies can be
defined:
- to meet the requirements of very small subscriber
groups, eg. selected subscribers or a selected group
of terminals;
- differentially for different types of Internet
service, eg Web access and e-mail;
- to meet the needs of one culture with respect to the
material originating from another without the
cooperation of the originator;
7.1.4 The principal technical limitations in these capabilities
are:
- automated content classification systems can not,
because of the complexity of legal definitions, identify
Internet content to be racist, pornographic, illegal or
harmful - hence this classification must be made by
human judgement;
- the potential flexibility and coverage offered by the
technology can not be achieved in full, at present,
because
- currently implementations of the key technology
(PICS) in Internet applications is incomplete and
hence the ratings information can not yet be used to
manage all types of Internet content explicitly;
- ratings databases are currently incomplete in terms
of the types of service they consider and the full
range of Internet services available;
- it can not be absolutely guaranteed that Internet
anonymity services can not be used to frustrate
detection of offenders in certain circumstances.
7.1.5 The principal practical issues involved in implementing
these technologies are:
- defining rating systems which are sufficiently explicit
regarding content managment requirements to allow
automatic content management whilst still being:
- practical to apply to large volumes of information;
- meaningful outside the culture in which they are
originally applied;
- funding the large effort required to categorise the
huge and growing volumes of Internet content.
7.2 Implications of policy scenarios
7.2.1 The study investigated the following policy scenarios:
Subscriber choice
7.2.2 In this scenario, essentially the status quo, subscribers
would either coose to exercise explicit controls over
their Internet experience, eg through the use of parental
control software, or not. Potentially, subscribers could
elect to implement management regimes consistent with
privision for protection of society as in other media, ie
to provide media parity, but this could not be enforced.
7.2.3 Currently, the technical capability of these products is
increasing as vendors invest in the development of new
facilities. In the longer term, however, it is not clear
that the current subscriber uptake of such tools (on a
purely discretionary basis) will sustain their
development or the maintenance of databases upon which
they depend on a long term basis.
7.2.4 The principal social objection to this policy scenario is
that it does not in any way act to reduce abuse either on
the Internet or in the 'real' world. The principal legal
issue which arises is that it does not provide for media
parity.
Subscriber protection
7.2.5 In this scenario, subscribers would continue to have the
option to exercise management controls accordings to
their preferences - potentially including screening
unsolicited communications from 'strangers' or anonymous
sites. In addition, however, it would be necessary for
access providers to use firewall and PICS technology (in
some instances implemented with in proxy applications) to
implement a management regime consistent with provisions
for protection of society as in other media, ie media
parity. Implementation on this basis would be necessary
to ensure subscribers could not tamper with management
settings.
7.2.6 The impact of implementing the necessary technology on
the operating economics of access providers appears to be
small. That technologies of these types have already been
employed by access provider organisations (without
discernible impact on end-user charges) could potentially
be considered to confirm this.
7.2.7 The principal legal issues which arise in this scenario
are:
- the liabilities of those who apply labels to content
provided by others;
- the liabilities of those who are charged with
implementing content management on the basis of labels
applied by others;
- the potential for content labelling providing a legal
obstacle to free trade.
7.2.8 These legal issues potentially have substantial social
impact in that:
- if liabilities are potentially large, those who accept
them, either through compiling ratings databases or
providing Internet access service, are likely to be
very conservative with respect to the material with
which they will deal;
- international e-commerce in certain services may be
compromised by nations exploiting differences in
ratings procedures as a pretext for blocking material
originating from other countries.
Preventing Internet abuse
7.2.9 It is concluded that only implementation of the most
intrusive surveillance technology could be exspected to
impact heavily upon abuse of the Internet on committed
offenders (because of their ready access to strong
encryption and covert communication technologies). To
enable this policy scenario, it would be necessary for
access providers to constrain the equipment used by
subscribers to access the Internet to be such that:
- no content could be removed;
- all content and processing could be subject to
automatic and manual surveillance.
7.2.10 The technical and economic feasibility of the necessary
technology is evidenced by the emergence, with purely
commercial motivations, of technical systems which privde
the basic facilities required to implement the necessary
measures. It is notes that this coincidental emergence of
such systems may raise siginificant privacy issues
outside of the scope of this study. The economics of
manual surveillance, however, can not be assessed.
7.2.11 This technical approach is, however, completely
non-specific in the terms of the subject of censorship
which could be implemented and in the scope of
(potentially private) material to which surveillance
access would be required. It therefore seems highly
unlikely that, when the commercial implications, legal
obstacles and social objections are considered,
application of this technology in this way can be
considered a proportionate general response.
7.2.12 Finally, it seems highly probable that the principal of
impact of implementation of these measures, if they were
to be implemented generally and were found to be
effective, would be to displace abuse to other
communications means.
Detecting offenders
7.2.13 If access providers and service providers maintain
proper subscriber authentication systems and system
management environments, offending actions at the site to
which the subscriber authenticates can be traced to the
offender. Detection of offenders committing offences 'at
a distance' (ie a subscriber in a country committing an
offence in another), however, would require:
- access and service providers to take steps to ensure
subscriber identity information is carried in their
transmissions;
- monitoring of services provided on the Internet to
prevent subscribers misusing anonymity services to
remove such information.
7.2.14 Whilst a variety of means exist to attach identity
information, detection of anonymity services is not
straightforward. However, monitoring such services would
be exspected to limit the number available for overt, eg
to transmit offensive material to innocent parties,
offensive use.
7.2.15 Legally, handling offences detected through voluntary
authentication would be relatively straightforward as the
offending subscriber would be resident in the country
where the offence was committed. However, offences can
only be detected through forced identification, ie those
committed 'at a distance', would currently be subject to
extradition arrangements and it is not clear that new
opportunities for prosecution would arise in practice.
Meanwhile, it may be that the social implications of
forced and general identification of Internet subscribers
would leave subscribers open to a variety of forms of
intrusion on privacy and discrimination.
7.3. Options for action at Member State level
7.3.1 It is concluded that, in technical terms, Member States
could implement combinations of the technical measures
identified in this report according to their own
perceptions of harm and proportionality of response in
accordance with principles of media parity. This could,
technically, be achieved without the cooperation of any
external party and provide for different levels of
content management according the
requirements/vulnerabilities of individual subscriber
groups.
7.3.2 The principal potential implications for a member state
adopting measures at variance with international norms
would be:
- obtacles to free trade, including possible infringement
of Single Market requirements;
- reduced availability of Internet content;
- having to bear the costs of maintaining classifications
of Internet content alone.
7.4 Options for action at European level
7.4.1 It is concluded that cooperation at the European level
could mitigate the implications of uni-lateral action by
Member States if action were taken to establish a common
content management system. This would comprise:
- technical standards in the definition of rating systems
to minimise costs of researching Internet content and
spread them over the largest possible population;
- regulations for harmonisation in the application of
agreed standards to ensure that their use did not lead
to artifical obstacles in trade;
- technical standards in the implementation of content
selection mechanisms in Internet applications to ensure
that ratings information can be used in a consistent
and appropriate way.
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