The Dangers of Backbone IP Blocking

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: GLIGOR1 () aol com
Date: September 15, 2005 1:18:40 PM EDT
To: vinton.g.cerf () mci com, dfarber () cs cmu edu, mslynn () mac com,  
Dennis.Jennings () ucd ie, fuchs () mellon org, kmk7 () cornell edu,  
lhl () cs wisc edu
Subject: The Dangers of Backbone IP Blocking


The Dangers of Backbone IP Blocking How a Canadian telecom giant  
blocked a union website in a labor dispute -- and blocked over 700  
other sites in the process. By Michael Geist.
Admin, The 37th Parallel [The 37th Parallel] | POSTED: 09.09.05 @08:15

Internet service providers always seem to get the first call when a  
problem arises on the Internet. Lawmakers want them to assist with  
investigations into cybercrime, parents want them to filter out  
harmful content, consumers want them to stop spam, and copyright  
holders want them to curtail infringement. Despite the urge to hold  
ISPs accountable for such activities, the ISP community has been  
remarkably successful in maintaining a position of neutrality, the  
digital successor (in spirit and often in fact) to the common carrier  
phone company.

Adopting a neutral approach has always required strict adherence to  
one cardinal rule: that ISPs transport bits of data without  
discrimination, preference, or regard for content.

The danger in veering away from that rule became apparent in a recent  
Canadian incident involving Telus. Canada’s second largest  
telecommunications company actively blocked access to Voices for  
Change, a website supporting the Telecommunications Workers Union.  
Telus has been embroiled in a contentious labor dispute with the  
union, yet its decision to unilaterally block subscriber access to  
the site was unprecedented.

The company argued that the site contained confidential proprietary  
information and that photographs on the site raised privacy and  
security issues for certain of its employees. Nevertheless, the  
blockage of the site was completely ineffective since it remained  
available to anyone outside the Telus network. Moreover, those within  
the Telus network could access the site with a bit of creative  
Internet surfing.

By first unilaterally blocking the site, Telus raised a host of  
challenging legal issues. The company argued that its subscriber  
contract granted it the right to block content. While that may be  
true for its roughly one million retail subscribers, the blockage  
occurred at the Internet backbone level, thereby blocking access for  
other ISPs (and their customers) that use Telus as their provider.

For example, Prince Rupert, a small city on the northwest coast of  
British Columbia, has established a community ISP to provide its  
citizens with municipally supported Internet access. Since their  
connectivity is provided by Telus, the entire community found itself  
unable to access the Voices for Change website.

Moreover, the OpenNet Initiative, a joint University of Toronto and  
Harvard University project, investigated the unintended consequences  
of the networking blocking and found that by singling out the union  
website, Telus blocked an additional 766 websites that shared the  
same IP address. These included a breast cancer fundraising site, a  
Colorado-based electronic recycling company’s site, and an Australian  
alternative medicine site.

Blocking network traffic at the backbone level has raised similar  
concerns in other jurisdictions. The best-known instance occurred in  
the State of Pennsylvania, which enacted a law several years ago  
requiring ISPs to block subscriber access to child pornography. While  
the law was later struck down on constitutional grounds, the State  
Attorney General targeted WorldCom, a major ISP backbone provider,  
with its first application of the law.

Irrespective of the legal situation, the website blockage was  
stunningly bad policy. IP blocking, particularly at the backbone  
level, raises significant legal issues as the blockages often include  
“collateral damage”, with third party sites, many located outside the  
local jurisdiction, getting caught in the middle.

Michael Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce  
Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at  
mgeist () uottawa ca and is on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca.


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