Google and Facebook blocked by the Danish child pornography filter

[u-Bob]

... .

in the morning of 1 march 2012, about 8000 websites, including google and
facebook, were blocked by the danish child pornography (cp) filter. When the
customers of the affected isps, siminn denmark and tele greenland, made
google searches or accessed their facebook pages, they were met by the stop
page for the danish cp filter. The stop page warns people that they are
trying to access websites with cp content, and that even viewing such
content is illegal under the danish law.

The danish cp filter is implemented using dns hijacking (dns redirection).
The participating isps (which are all mainstream isps with private customers
in denmark) receive a list of domains to be blocked from the danish police,
and the isps implement this list in their dns resolvers. This is done in a
completely automatic process, and the isps believe that the danish police is
responsible for the domains on the blocking list (although the police
usually claim that they are merely simply providing a "service" to the isps,
so the legal ramifications of who is responsible for what remain unclear).

The police made a serious error when they added the 8000 legitimate domains
to the blocking list, including google.com and facebook.com. The error only
affected two smaller isps in denmark, because they were the first to do the
daily cp list update on their dns resolvers, but this was sheer luck. It
could just as well have affected tdc, the largest danish isp. The vigilant
technical support staff at siminn denmark immediately alerted the danish
police about the error, so that the blocking list was not pushed to the rest
of the danish isps.

The danish police have issued a public statement about their error and made
some comments to journalists. A police officer was investigating a number of
websites, and by accident he copied the list with 8000 legitimate domains to
a file directory that was used for updating the cp domain blocking list. The
human error combined with sloppy procedures escalated into something that
can almost be described as a "kill switch" for the internet in denmark.
Attempts to censor the internet always create an artificial single point of
failure.

...

[lucas131]

yeah, there we go, censorship because you have no skills to block the problematic content, so block everything ... ill stupids

[Markul]

Not true.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by Markul

Not true.

which part?

[Markul]

Wait. That did happen, but only for people in certain parts of the country.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by Markul

Wait. That did happen, but only for people in certain parts of the country.

Yes, as I explained in OP the staff at one of the ISPs that updated their list first caught the problem and this way they prevented the problem from spreading to other ISPs.

[u-Bob]

Danish police apologizing: http://www.politi.dk/da/aktuelt/nyhe...kortvarigt.htm

[AdultEUhost]

It's pretty clear though that while everyone was enthusiastic about the internet at first, more and more people are seeking ways to regain control as they realize it's not always in their favor. Things ranges from download tax to country wide firewalls to shutting down websites or seizing domain names. Welcome in 2012

[Markul]

Originally Posted by u-Bob

Yes, as I explained in OP the staff at one of the ISPs that updated their list first caught the problem and this way they prevented the problem from spreading to other ISPs.

Yea I remember having a laugh at the office, we weren't affected. Amateurs.

[MPGdevil]

Shit happens. At least they are very active and one of the leading countries when it comes to catch the real criminals.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by MPGdevil

Shit happens. At least they are very active and one of the leading countries when it comes to catch the real criminals.

http://ak-zensur.de/2010/09/looking-away.html

In 2010 AK Zensur thoroughly examined 167 internet domains that were blocked in Denmark and Sweden. Only three domains contained CP pictures, and two of those were found on the Danish CP list leaked to Wikileaks in 2008. This means that the websites had been on-line for more than two years, despite the fact that the Danish police had investigated the sites and put them on the Danish CP block list in 2008 or earlier. AK Zensur was able to take down the three CP websites by sending a few emails to the hosting providers. If the Danish police are just adding domains to the CP block list, without taking any further action, they are providing a "valuable" early-warning system to the organized crime organizations that are behind the distribution of CP content.

[rowan]

Originally Posted by MPGdevil

Shit happens. At least they are very active and one of the leading countries when it comes to catch the real criminals.

How is blocking a site to prevent "consumers" accessing it catching a criminal? Blocking a CP site in one small country is not going to make one bit of difference to the children who are abused in order to create the content, nor does it do anything about the guys that distribute it...

Given that it's a discover-add model I would guess that there's a large number of sites which haven't been blocked, and of those that are blocked, they were probably online for months before anyone realised they existed.

It's a flawed model. Go after the root cause, rather than band-aiding over the result as soon as you become aware of it.