Re: Access to Porn sites?

[David Eilken <david.eilken () DOMAIL MARICOPA EDU>]

Thanks all for responses on this. Regarding the larger topic of Academic
Freedom, which doesn't make the Internet open and fully accessible.  We all
(users of technology) have to block things - lots of things. As technology
professionals, we all know this. It is simply not practical or ethical to
have a fully open computing environment.  Boundaries are a necessity;
besides your ISP would shut you down at some point.

I like Randy at VA Tech's thoughts that were focused on the technical
controls. Regardless of the content, there are things that are known bad.
We all should be blocking bad things. However we determine what is bad
(different vendors have different kinds/ quality of intelligence), there
will always be false-positives. We still have to draw lines in the sand and
those lines will never be perfect.

Sometimes faculty and other non-technical people may get this confused. We
all already block/ filter bad things, some porn/gambling sites will cross
that line and should be filtered. If you can't draw your lines as clear as
some, with the intelligence sources as Randy noted, it comes down to your
level of risk tolerance. The risks with porn surfing specifically change
daily but generally, we know it to be bad. I personally believe you should
block it and provide exceptions where needed. That is a prudent and
practical approach, as the risks are real and significant, and the actual
permitted use cases for access to it are few.

Dave E


On Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 8:57 AM Valdis Klētnieks <valdis.kletnieks () vt edu>
wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Aug 2019 07:13:39 -0700, Babak Oskouian said:
>
> > Another concern is 18 U.S. Code  2258A.  As you know 18 U.S. Code  2258A
> > explicitly requires all Internet providers to report any and all digital
> > viewing, downloading and possession of child pornography to the National
> > Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Very stiff penalties ($150,000
> > first incidence, and $300,000 second incidence) are imposed on any
> provider
> > for failure to report.  Do you think (or has your legal counsel
> explicitly
> > assured you) that your institute is exempt form this law?
>
> This is well into very tricky legal territory indeed, because it's a field
> where writing the laws to avoid unintended consequences is very difficult.
> 18 USC 2258A only requires reporting child pornography that you're aware
> of.
> If you don't know about it, you don't have to report it.  This means that
> the ISP
> is better off not searching user datastreams for it, especially in
> combination
> with...
>
> Meanwhile, at the state level, possession of child pornography is usually a
> 'strict liability' offense, meaning there's no mens rea (state of mind)
> component to it. This means that if a user accidentally downloads some CP
> because it was labeled "Pirated Copy Of This Year's Top Movie.mp4", they
> have
> an *extremely high* DIS-incentive to report it, because they now have child
> pornography on their computer.  And since consideration of intent is
> prohibited, that means that the fact you had no intent doesn't matter - you
> downloaded it, you have it (or had it) on your computer and that alone is
> sufficient to make you guilty of possession yourself.
>
> Who is going to report accidentally discovered child pornography when you
> have to take it on faith that the police and district attorney are going
> to believe
> that it's accidental? (See other post regarding porn sites that don't do
> their
> due diligence regarding 18 USC 2257 record keeping....)
>
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-- 
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DAVID EILKEN MA MBA CISSP-ISSMP CISM CRISC C|CISO
MARICOPA COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Information Security Officer | ITS
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david.eilken () domail maricopa edu
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