what's to stop the paedos paying $8 a month to Giganews (or any of hundreds of other providers) for uncensored access?

shouldn't the FCC view the blocking of all usnet groups ala at&t, the same way that they view the blocking or throttling of bit torrent?

In California, comcast has not done news group in 3 years . So who's to say Comcast was not going to get rid of news groups any ways

Shutdown usenet. Stop all p2p, close all file sharing sites, disband all postal services from all nations.Shutdown Fed-Ex, UPS et al. Stop all email services. Stop all file transfer on IRC and block all ftp traffic and maybe just maybe a noticeable impact may be made on the distribution of child porn. Finally set up CCTV in all public places and look for people exchanging brown paper bags or envelopes. Even with these measures child pornographers will still find a way to disseminate their images.

Is it really impossible to track down those who post to newsgroups, other than those who hijack wifi or use unmonitored Internet cafes? Surely it would be better to let child pornographers post away and try to find them, rather than forcing this kind of activity further underground.

Ever since the Soviets disappeared kiddie porn has become the de facto political weapon of first resort

"From LA in the west to London in the east a moral curtain has descended across the internet, behind that line lie uncountable piles of pron which if viewed..."

...if all that acres of porn the lying twat is on about is anything more than the usual dodgy spam every group gets.

Shut down Usenet bits at a time just because of a few spam pix, thats just great.

Surely, the way to catch the pornographers is NOT to shut down their lines of communication. Just quietly follow and track them and when you have enough evidence jump, really hard and fast.

I can't imagine anybody who uses Usenet to access binary groups actually using their ISP bundled feed anyway, most of them are very poor in comparison to even the cheapest premium service.

I would much rather ISP's drop bundled newsgroup connections and knock a couple of quid off their subscription charges instead, the majority of punters have no idea what Usenet is, and those that do use it for access to binary groups generally end up paying for an account with a premium news provider anyway.

There are 88 kp usenet groups? That seems like an awful lot... Or maybe they are censoring a bit more than just kp, you know, today kp tomorrow the political opposition.

Not that it matters, if you can get to usenet then just use group hopping encrypted appends in non-moderated groups... need to evade the deletes spewed from pwners of personal servers with axes to grind though.

Why not usenet?

It's a very old system and perhaps it's outlived its usefulness.

I used to be quite active on Usenet, but the level of discourse finally fell to such juvenile levels I totally stopped using it 5 years or so ago. For discussions, there are endless web-based fora, though these have had the effect of balkanizing many topics. Mailing lists are still a very viable means of distributing discussions, esp. if there's a firm hand on the moderation tiller.

For pr0n, it's a little trickier, but not an insuperable obstacle, to distribute it. I rather suspect that the hardcore lovers of kiddy pr0n do not use newsgroups.

Well, a National Geographic style usenet group that shows naked native children will be considered kiddie porn now and a nudist family with a naked child in the group shot will be kiddie porn also the proud parents group with a naked shot of a new born will be kiddie porn now so it easy to see that 88+ groups will exist.

What we need is clothing standards set for kids, like the standards that were set for bathers in Victorian times. (neck to knee)

And any parent that allows their kid to see with more flesh showing than proscribed amount be immediately hauled off to the big house. (especially the evil, guilty male parent)

As far as I know, none of the ISPs involved have blocked NNTP traffic. They've just shut down servers that they control.

(Tiscali in the UK seems to block all NNTP traffic, for maybe a third of the day, as part of their traffic management, apparently at "peak times".)

But now, if you pay for a Premium Service which still happens to carry the 88 alleged child porn newsgroups, are you going to be a target for another Operation Ore?

*puts on flame proof jacket and hat*

I have to ask this but how exactley do they think that removing images of the internet will help children where being abused before the camra was invemnted so stoping pepol documenting and then distrubatig thses images will not help yes these pictures are prob illagle and depict illagle acts but the all out efort to remove them is not realy goign to help 1 child 1 little bit

Surly the only important aspect here is: "What does Barack Obama think?"

That is all that matters in the US right now isn't it?

I'm sure that if he made an announcement that he was against child porn, the problem could be solved overnight.

I didn't even know Usenet still existed.

As others have pointed out, those who are determined to see something like alt.binaries.pictures.sex.gay.male.prepubescent will still get their rocks off somehow; as for the rest, well, we've got more sense than to go to the stake over Comcast users being able to view kiddy porn.

The Comcast move "bad news for Usenet", according to the strap-line. Whoever dreamt up that strapline, perhaps the police ought to view HIS home computer.

As a former Telewest employee in UK we had very little problem keeping or news servers free of this stuff. Theres a list issued by someone (can't remember where) of dodgy groups which we didn't carry and our user base was very good at letting us know if a group was becoming infested with paedo stuff. We'd just drop the group.

Not difficult and certainly theres no justification for dropping all binaries.

Mmmmmm neck to knee is my thing mmmmm and big victorian pants.

Or not - but whatever you do it'll turn someone somewhere on.

Any decent investigator or police officer is cringing at this.. it just makes their job of catching the pedophiliac scum harder by driving them further underground...

Morally righteous politicians make some of the dumbest moves...

Dead Vulture because this political moron just made law enforcement roadkill.

We just need Dateline's Chris Hanson to get involved and this would all go away...

Why don't you have a seat over there?

Insert knee jerk answer readers again....

Just leave it open...then we can track....blah blah blah....

What's to stop them using a paid for service, blah blah blah..

Is this a site the the technically stupid?

1. Why not just trace them What when they could be based in the Ukraine (then what?), or are using internet cafes, or open Wifi connections, mobile clients etc etc.

2. What's to stop them using a paid for service? This is what the police want you muppets.

Let's see. Open Wifi, check! Anon proxy, check! remove any ID tags's, Check! Now just enter my credit card info and I'm away. Anyone see the weak link here?

3. So will it stop it? No of course not, only an idiot thinks so. But it may stop. " Hey Mr X, any chance you can get some pics of you doing xyz with your daughter?" Therefore, fueling both the viewers level of excitement and the person commiting the crime. Most abuse is carried out by friend and family, but the levels of abuse can increase when they know others are getting thrills from it, an ever decreasing cirlce.

As I have several friends working in child protection, unlike most assholes here, I actually know what really goes on in a peados mind and it isn't pretty.

The real problem is that even if a peado know he is doing wrong, but gets his kicks from it, where does he go to get help. Until THIS is addressed, the closing down of sites is the only little defence available.

Oh as a footnote, Micheal, can you buy a new keyboard, think yours is knackered.

my keyboard is fine my brain is knackered

Sane, logical ideas? PAEDOPHILE!!! YOU SUPPORT THEM YOU ARE NO BETTER!!!!!!

...to think this is actually about "Child-Porn"..?

I suppose nobody remembers that the RIAA (ET AL...) actually, specifically, declared "war" on the Usenet several months ago (because of "rampant", "unauthorized file-trading").

And, I guess that nobody remembers that when, the very-same RIAA was publicly-attacking "P2P", the exact-same "Child-Porn" excuse was used (by the RIAA) as the reason Congress should ban ALL "P2P".

And, surely, no corporation would dare to use "Child-Porn" as a smokescreen for expanding their ability to curtail, various, -undesired- consumer-actions.

And, Im positive, no politician would use "Child-Porn" as a rationalization for greater "Voluntary cooperation" (I.E. behind-the-scenes government-control of the Internet) ...from the big telecoms.

...Nor, would any politician, actually, merely USE "Child-Porn" for political-coverage/gain.

NO... NO... Of course NOT... So... Lets all just keep talking about the red-herring... ERRR... I mean "Stopping Child-Porn", and "protecting children"..!

Besides... its not like (the newly-converted) Comcast, was basically in the middle of being let-off, with a slap-on-the-wrist, by the U.S. Government... for any anti-consumer actions... is it..? And, AT&T certainly isnt being allowed to reassemble its illegal-monopoly... after various illegal (but, now, immunized) cooperative-operations with the current administration... is it..?

So... these actions (by the telecoms, and various politicians) MUST ALL simply be a matter of "social" concern, and responsibility. Right..?

Theres an additional problem with USENET & that is innocent posters get Porn, Child Porn & just plain Vulgarian porn emailed to address after postinG in any USENET Group. They also sell pirated software & HIT Police Establishment with some real spicy Viruses, enought to shut down AOL SetTop Boxes entirely.

USENET is Mistake, Top to bottom.

Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.