Child Pornography On Usenet - News Reader Level

The celebrated case in 2008 initiated by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in coercing the five biggest ISPs in America—AOL, AT&T, Sprint, Time Warner Cable and Verizon—to curb access to numerous newsgroups or even the entire Usenet society had practically maimed this already gasping online community. The goal was to stamp out child pornography, a thorny and convoluted issue that affects legitimate Usenet activity. Of course, Usenet traditionalists block this extreme measure, and many of them have migrated to the web. For Usenet to forsake its unsavory repute caused by a minority it has to police itself. Filtering keywords employed by its users is a good step, and to ensure more stringent rules, a filtering process is imperative at the reader level.

Many types of software are in place in filtering specific keywords to weed out undesirable content. The same principle must also go with Usenet to create a bottleneck against child pornography. When the data leave the server, it remains encrypted and must be decoded by a newsreader. At this juncture, the content and header information must be redirected to the newsreader, and a purpose built keyword database filter could be utilized here. As a result, it makes the illicit content impossible to view once returned to the user’s computer, even though the content ID originated from the Usenet server.

While the intention is good, this system of filtering could result in a blanket ban. Standalone filtering programs are deficient of the facility to discriminate between the context of innocent words and terms with guilty intent—e.g. by striking out the word ‘sex’, all allusions to the word such as ‘sextuplets’ and ‘Sussex’ (an English city) are also barred. At this point, the human eye needs to aid this Usenet keyword compilation venture.

Virtually no system in place anywhere you look is foolproof. To eradicate child pornography on the Usenet, proper education and parental care need to complement online efforts such as rigorous keyword filtering. Studies say that children who get ensnared into child pornography tend to have a need for love and guidance from an adult. Parents and guardians need to be with their children most of the time and guide them about growing up properly. The bottom line is they need to be role models for them, so these children will possess a stronger sense of self-worth.

A UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) report in 2009 warned that around 750,000 pedophiles worldwide are constantly lurking the Internet to come in contact with an estimated 10,000 and 100,000 child pornography victims. This is big business that rakes in a depressing $3 billion to $20 billion annually.
Keyword filtering is the only measure at the moment to combat this online scourge. Until better and more efficient measures come in the horizon, vigilant observation and regular content updating are the best defenses we have for Usenet right now.

Many newsreaders already have filters to hinder illicit content and you as part of the audience can include other filter words that you have been aware of, and add them by hand in your own newsreaders. More importantly, a filter keyword database warrants being mandatory and regulated to finally stop child pornography online.

By: JV Valdez

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JV Valdez writes about technology--its development and innovations, and how people respond to them. He also writes about travel and political affairs.
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