FC: Thai police demand info from US server, Geocities to yank site

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

> The Nation (Bangkok, Thailand)
> November 27, 1999
>
> Headlines
>
> Porn swoop worries Net advocates
>
> WHILE the Police Department has identified the suspects responsible 
> for superimposing the photographs of Angkana Timdee and other 
> actresses on to nude images and putting them up on the Internet, 
> questions are now being raised over the authorities' move to block 
> public access to the websites with the pictures.
> The question is whether the authorities have the right to censure the
Internet.
> Police Col Yanaphon Youngruen, of the Police Information System 
> Centre, told The Nation that while the culprits behind the website 
> displaying doctored photos of the Thai actresses had been identified, 
> the law required far more evidence before an arrest can be made and 
> for charges to be pressed.
> So far, cooperation from the Maryland server in the United States has 
> been extremely limited. ''They have deleted the website from their 
> server but when asked to give the IP address used to upload the files 
> to the server, they fell silent,'' Yanaphon said. [...]
> Yanaphon said: ''We have used various techniques to identify the 
> website owner. Banner companies, e-mails and even bank accounts need 
> to be checked to see who the guilty person is.'' [...]

> In another development, Yanaphon has already asked Geocities, a free 
> web host, to shutdown a site authored by Pulo terrorists, a 
> separatist group aiming to divide the four Muslim southern provinces 
> from Thailand.
> ''It is a pity that the Americans are unaware of the true nature of 
> this terrorist organisation. It is not a freedom movement and they 
> are involved in criminal activity and I am in the process of sending 
> a more detailed explanation to Geocities on this,'' Yanaphon said.
> Public reaction has, however, underscored concerns over the request 
> by the Crime Suppression Division's directive to the 17 Internet 
> Service Providers (ISPs) that they block access to websites featuring 
> pornographic pictures of models whose faces have been superimposed 
> with those of well-known Thai actresses. [...]

> BY NATEE VICHITSORASATRA
> The Nation


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