Idaho Legislature to Stop Internet Porn—Yeah, Right

By Sharon Fisher, 2-26-08

In an effort reminiscent of Idaho Representative Bill Sali’s bill to repeal gravity, the Idaho House passed yesterday a joint memorial calling on Congress to use a technological solution to fight Internet pornography.

The bill, which carries no force of law, does not specify exactly what that technological solution might be, but from the rather disjointed explanation from introducer Representative Peter Nielsen, R-Mountain Home (“a port is something like HTTP; you subscribe to it and it comes into your computer”), it appears that what’s being referred to is an effort known as CP80, which started in Utah.

The web site for CP80 doesn’t explain it all that well itself, but what it boils down to is defining specific Internet ports – not the hardware ports on your computer, but “a virtual data connection that can be used by programs to exchange data directly, instead of going through a file or other temporary storage location” – as “clean” ports, without pornography, and other ones in which pornography is allowed, with penalties for groups that put pornography on “clean” ports.

Such a method, Nielsen said, would work around previous efforts to eliminate pornography, which had been protected as free speech. In this election year, the bill garnered a huge pile of bipartisan sponsors.

The only problem is, it’s unlikely that it will accomplish anything.

Aside from the standard questions about trying to control Internet pornography – What is it? Who defines it? How can you track down the provider? What authority does the U.S. government have over the provider if it is outside the U.S.? – the specific CP80 solution has its own problems.

“The purported solution incorporates both legal and technical elements,” said Derek Bambauer, fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, on a blog sponsored by the Harvard Law School. “My analysis: it’s not only a terrible idea, but it won’t work on either front.”

Problems with the CP80 proposal include the following:

- There is no standard for port numbers.

- Bambauer rattled off a whole list of ways in which a determined child could get around the proposed system, including port redirection, proxy servers, anonymizers, and peer-to-peer networks such as Bittorrent.

- “CP80 also believes that consumers should be able to request ISPs to block traffic from all IP addresses in countries that don’t implement this type of legislation,” Bambauer added. “That’s going to cut off a lot of the Net.”

- The law would also require passwords on all wireless networks, meaning open free wifi would go away.

Okay, let’s say it gets implemented and a vigilant parent finds out that some nefarious smut peddler is using a “clean” port and exposing his kid to pornography. What’s the process then?

“If consumers find such content on the Community Port, they can notify a federal agency, which verifies whether the content is unlawful; if so, it issues a compliance order demanding that the material be removed from the Community Port, and can also issue a “Right to Sue” letter allowing the complainant to sue the content provider (paras. C-D). ISPs would have to track which IP addresses they issued, and to whom (para. G),” Bambauer explained.

Meanwhile, the kid in question has graduated from college and is raising kids of his own.