Giganews quietly removing newsgroups?

[altpdend]

I read this on another forum can anyone with giganews tell me if there is any truth to it.


Well, without going into details..
I have had a few "Adult" newsgroups disappear, that held IMHO legal to view images. (NOT KIDDIE PORN, or anything like it!!!)
There have been several other groups that have disappeared too, with "nudist" in the name, so you can draw your own conclusions...

By disapeared, I mean that you get an error message that the newsgroup is not available when you try to get new headers

[MrFredPFL]

guilty conscience on the part of the OP? i would really love to know why they felt compelled to ask this question, but couldn't be bothered|were too paranoid| were too embarrassed to go into details. if there is nothing wrong with the groups involved, why not name them? my guess is that while they SAY that in their opinion, the images were legal, they don't really believe it.

20 bucks says they'd die of shame if anyone who knew them IRL found out what they were downloading.

[SleepyOne]

Slyck posted about this in June.

http://www.slyck.com/story1694_ISP_News ... ternatives

88 newsgroups were excluded from Giganews and various other providers due to partly or fully containing childporn.

[MrFredPFL]

sleepy - that story is about access to certain newsgroups, if not all, being removed from ISP news servers, not giganews or any other NSP.

[SleepyOne]

It's related to the same thing.

Many newsproviders and isps removed the same 88 groups.

And a lot of isps get their feed from Giganews... so when GN removes groups... it trickles out to the isps that gets their feed from them.

I do realize that the article doesnt specifically mention GN, but its all part of the same "program".

It doesnt really matter either way tho. The groups OP is asking about was removed due to childporn. Its that simple.

[MrFredPFL]

do you have any evidence giganews removed any groups? or is this an assumption?

[MrFredPFL]

follow up: giganews refuses to comment about this, and refers all questions about it to the new york AG's office, so this would appear to be a valid assumption. but again, if you have any concrete info to add, please do so

[Paladwyn]

Frankly, the removal of child porn groups doesn't effect me in the slightest..sad to see that they are getting their foot in the door for removals, but to remove child porn is a good thing. And to complain about these groups and how you can't get into them raises some interesting questions.

[altpdend]

Frankly, the removal of child porn groups doesn't effect me in the slightest..sad to see that they are getting their foot in the door for removals, but to remove child porn is a good thing. And to complain about these groups and how you can't get into them raises some interesting questions.

it's not about child porn if they are just removing cp and nothing else good but well it stop there. whats to stop them from getting rid of barely llegal porn people my not like it but it is still legal. Whats to stop someone from riaa and mpaa from uploading cp. to big groups like bonless and then reporting it to get the group removed thats the issue.

[Paladwyn]

Frankly, the removal of child porn groups doesn't effect me in the slightest..sad to see that they are getting their foot in the door for removals, but to remove child porn is a good thing. And to complain about these groups and how you can't get into them raises some interesting questions.

it's not about child porn if they are just removing cp and nothing else good but well it stop there. whats to stop them from getting rid of barely llegal porn people my not like it but it is still legal. Whats to stop someone from riaa and mpaa from uploading cp. to big groups like bonless and then reporting it to get the group removed thats the issue.

That's what I was getting at, they now have their foot in the door..if it just stops there, which it won't.

[altpdend]

Frankly, the removal of child porn groups doesn't effect me in the slightest..sad to see that they are getting their foot in the door for removals, but to remove child porn is a good thing. And to complain about these groups and how you can't get into them raises some interesting questions.

it's not about child porn if they are just removing cp and nothing else good but well it stop there. whats to stop them from getting rid of barely llegal porn people my not like it but it is still legal. Whats to stop someone from riaa and mpaa from uploading cp. to big groups like bonless and then reporting it to get the group removed thats the issue.

That's what I was getting at, they now have their foot in the door..if it just stops there, which it won't.

Sorry i misread what you wrote I believe that the nsp are not stupid they will not remove big groups just the images themselves thats all they have to do by law. giganews prob just removed groups like alt.jr.high.pics i mean there is really noway they could justify not removing the group. I do have another queastion how do nsps update there group list is it mostly manual addd or automactly? whats to stop some from creating a new group with almost the same name as the removed group. where do the nsp's get the group list i guess is what I am asking.

[Curmudgeon]

So much confusion on what news "groups" are.
Think of them as folders on your hard drive,you can C/P stuff
into any folder you want.
It's just convenient if that folder has a useful name.
Nothing is stopping you from putting your pics of "Fluffy" the kitty cat
in the folder labeled pics from my wild vacation.

As for creating a group,there is a process to it,Google it.

[Paladwyn]

See Curmudgeon that's just precisely it...

You could put those pics of kiddie porn in any group... any group...
See where I'm going?

[Curmudgeon]

What group were you going to put your collection in again?

[venussuz]

See Curmudgeon that's just precisely it...

You could put those pics of kiddie porn in any group... any group...
See where I'm going?

Short of getting rid of all newsgroups - not all binaries are posted in the alt.binaries hierarchy - there's no way Giganews could get rid of the threat of "illicit" pictures altogether. Definitely not in favor of child porn, but it's being suggested that hentai is a form of child pornography, even though the characters are animated. I've downloaded supposed celebrity pictures only to find pictures of young looking girls - could be 14, could be 18 - instead. Spammers for Russian and other "young" sites put those pictures on any group that's likely to have interested parties, not just groups specifically labeled alt.binaries.lolitas.

Giganews won't shoot themselves in the foot by removing all binaries, but they have been quietly removing groups that were clearly "wrong" (alt.pictures.erotica.preteen-f**k is one I recall seeing briefly and thinking "oh shit! that is SO wrong!") for years now.

[Paladwyn]

It's a really tough call, I'm sure there are some groups that are specifically used for them..

[EvilWizardGlick]

First, and let's be totally clear, this is ALL about control. Kiddie porn is the new Boogey man that will be used to close first newsgroups then those hard to nail torrent sites.
If they can't be closed due to legal protections create an end run around those protections. We all hate kiddie porn right?
Here is the funny part IF there is kiddie porn posted it MAY have been posted from countries with a LOWER LEGAL AGE OF CONSENT. Albania is FOURTEEN. Bolivia FOURTEEN for females and sixteen for males. Burkina Faso THIRTEEN! Denmark FIFTEEN. Sixteen in MOST of the US.
http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm
Can you tell a sixteen year old from a fourteen year old? A fourteen year old from a twelve year old? A fifteen year old from a twenty one year old?
What about these poor bastards
http://www.glennsacks.com/blog/?p=2235

2 Men Go to Prison over Teen Girl's Lie--and More on the Way
May 31st, 2008 by Glenn Sacks

From Man Sentenced To Prison After Girl's MySpace Page Lies About Age (WFTV, 5/21/08):

"A 13-year-old girl's sexual shenanigans have put a second man behind bars. Morris Williams, 22, told the judge he thought the girl was 18-years-old, but he found out Tuesday that ignorance is not a defense.

"Morris Williams' mother wailed as he went off to jail. The judge asked for media not to show 13-year-old Alisha Dean's face in court, but her pictures are all over her MySpace page and they portray a sexy, 19-year-old divorced woman.

"'She told me she had just turned 18,' Williams said.

"Williams said Dean picked him up on the street and after a few conversations they had sex. When he heard she was not 18, he went to her father.

"'He was like 'well, she's 13,' Williams said of a conversation with Dean's father.

"Williams said he never did it again, but Dean has done it before with 24-year-old Darwin Mills. Mills was sentenced to five years in prison."

OK, Morris Williams and Darwin Mills are idiots, but this is ridiculous--six years of prison between them and the only person they "harmed" is the person who victimized them. And I love the way the reporter refers to it as "a 13-year-old girl's sexual shenanigans." "Shenanigans"? Ha ha, it's a real riot.

One of the Worst Fathers I've Ever Seen

The worst person in this whole story is the girl's father, Jerry Dean. Williams came to him when he learned the girl was not 18, and what did the father do? Turn him in, apparently. Then he has the goddamned gall to "want Williams to join Mills" in prison!? Yet this creep's 13-year-old daughter is out having sex with adult strangers, advertising herself to them and luring them into a trap--and he apparently has nothing to say about it. (The article doesn't mention the mother but I strongly suspect she's of the same caliber as the father.)

And get this--"Dean's family admits Alisha still stays out late and has yet to delete her misleading MySpace page." As Williams' stepdad says:

"I guess we just sit back and count how many after this."

Explain to me how a single state in the US is allowed to set policy effecting the rest of the world?
Could it because big business wants that backdoor into filesharing archives they can not legally enter today?
If you think otherwise well good luck.

[Fartingbob]

Kiddie porn is the new Boogey man that will be used to close first newsgroups then those hard to nail torrent sites.

Claiming something has Kiddie porn has always been a no-questions asked way of getting whatever you want stopped.

[EvilWizardGlick]

Notice how Andy C has no problem with goods derived from CHILD LABOR. It can be argued that child labor is much more devestating than child pornography because it destroys far more children.
http://hometown.aol.com/munmei/labor.html

Fifty-nine years after Congress outlawed child labor in its most onerous forms, underage children still toil in fields and factories scattered across America.

The poorest and most vulnerable among them start working before other children start kindergarten. Many earn wages below the legal minimum, often in exhausting, or even hazardous, jobs.

These children live in a world apart from most Americans, hidden from consumers and even the companies that buy the products of their labor. Yet those products can sometimes be as close as the local mall or the corner grocery.

.... EDITED by SlyckTom due to unnecessarily long quotation. The entire article doesn't need to be reposted. Thanks...

ConAgra's Hunt-Wesson unit, which makes Rosarita salsa, contacted its chili supplier and was ``very comfortable that they were addressing any issue that might be there,'' said Hunt-Wesson spokesman Kay Carpenter.

Pillsbury checked with its supplier, said company spokesman Rob Longendyke, and was told children had been in the New Mexico chili fields with their families but were not working.

``If you have evidence otherwise,'' he said, ``we will take action.''

My fucking god KIDDIE LABOR IN THE BIG APPLE! Right the fuck under Andy's nose.
But he doesn't give a shit about those abused exploited ruined children.
Nope business as usual for old Andy.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2007/10/09/2007-10-09_girl_who_came_to_us_for_school_busted_at-4.html

Instead, the 16-year-old girl wound up working 10-hour days in a waterfront factory, sewing labels onto knockoff NFL, Polo, Izod and FUBU gear - for $50 a day.

She was the youngest of the 11 workers arrested in last week's NYPD raid at the College Point factory - a bust experts call the first of its kind in New York.

Jung Ryu and his wife, Ji Young Ryu, the Korean couple who owned the bootleg business, lived comfortably in a $1.5 million home in Melville, L.I.

They had $500,000 in accounts when they were were arrested on felony charges of trademark counterfeiting and possession of forgery devices, prosecutors said. Each faces up to 15 years behind bars.

Leticia's 50-hour weeks far exceed the 28-hour workweeks allowed under child labor laws - and her hours kept her from going to school, her relatives said.

She, like all the workers at the factory, were being paid below minimum wage, police said.

[stashy]

IT was the Attorney General of New York who spearheaded this drive to "clean up" ISP Newsgroups, shortly followed by the Attorney General of California, who helped organize the movement by recruiting other states to join in this crusade.

The music recording industry is headquartered in New York. The movie industry is based in California.

Mere coincidence?


It was several months ago, long before the news broke of the NY AG pressuring ISPs to clamp down on newsgroups, that payservers quietly removed the groups with CP-suggestive names. This happened at roughly the same time at both Highwinds and Giganews, which suggests that there may have been a common source acting behind the scenes that sparked that enforcement action at both companies simultaneously. Predictably, this measure did not go unnoticed by their customers, and there was a flood of complaints about the removal of multiple news groups, notably at Highwinds-owned Easynews's board.

Highwinds and Giganews control most of the American market, either from outright ownership of the major companies such as Newshosting, Usenetserver, Easynews, Supernews, etc, or by supplying the resellers. The few remaining independent US back-end providers will likely be pressured into submission soon. The Dutch usenet providers are, as far as known, still completely uncensored.

[stashy]

It seems that American newsgroup providers are being pressed to follow 18 U.S.C. 2257 which prohibits

"any image using a model or models under the age of 18 years whether the models are partially clothed or unclothed"

So that would presumably include all nudists, naturalists, and lost Amazon tribes. Even the 1969 Blind Faith album cover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Faith_(album)
EDIT: fixed malformed link

[multivariable]

Not to mention this one.

[Downloader]

Instead, the 16-year-old girl wound up working 10-hour days in a waterfront factory, sewing labels onto knockoff NFL, Polo, Izod and FUBU gear - for $50 a day.

We have a similar thing in Australia, its called McDonalds.

[Curmudgeon]

It seems that American newsgroup providers are being pressed to follow 18 U.S.C. 2257 which prohibits

"any image using a model or models under the age of 18 years whether the models are partially clothed or unclothed"

So that would presumably include all nudists, naturalists, and lost Amazon tribes. Even the 1969 Blind Faith album cover.

As I understand 18 USC 2257 it applies to sexually explicit material and is for record keeping.
ISP's and NSP's are covered under safe harbor anyways are they not?
If they are suckered into playing E-cop they may lose that protection I suppose.

http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/a ... r0019.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Prot ... cement_Act

The administrative law that has been created by virtue of the Act to guide and aid its enforcement, 28 C.F.R. 75 (also known as the 2257 Regulations), specifies record-keeping requirements for those wishing to produce sexually explicit media, and imposes criminal penalties for failure to comply. This is intended to ensure that no person under the legal age is involved in such undertakings.

[Paladwyn]

That is a good point, when they start to pressure the ISP's to control data flow on the internet, then the ISP's won't be able to sit back and go "We don't have any control, so don't sue us too"