The most popular content on the Web and the Internet was, is and probably will always be of pornographic nature. When the Internet was just released to the public, the first businesses were dial-up bulletin boards offering pornographic content for serious money. Some of the material available was not even that much explicit.
Nowadays it is believed that at least two thirds of all Internet content is pornographic, with a good portion of that material available for free. The legislative body and the Internet community agreed that such content is hugely popular and cannot be banned from the Net. For that reason laws were passed where anyone posting explicit material on the Web has to make sure that no minors can gain access to the material. Plenty of commercial web sites are following the regulations to the letter. But there are still rogue sites offering porn to anybody who has unrestricted access to the net.
Such sites mainly exist in form of community forums, where a perfunctory age check has been implemented. Once the porn enthusiast has verified his age by clicking on a button he gains unrestricted access to explicit material.
Other web sites have organized an adult check system involving credit cards, but this became very unpopular when unsolicited charges appeared on the bill.
Law makers are very strict with this policy in protecting minors, many web sites which were taken down and owners charged with corruption of minors, where access by minors could be established, were prosecuted. Illegal porn sites offering copyrighted material are available very freely; anyone who is savvy enough to remove the Google image filter can get access to plenty of material in seconds.
The problem again seems to lie in the jurisdiction. When a web site hosting illicit content is out of reach for the authorities, then there is no way to stop them from distributing it. Some smart web host providers have found ways to provide hosting for people looking to share illegal content over the Net by putting servers in countries and places outside of the reach of regular law enforcement. There is a host, who shall remain unnamed, who purchased an abandoned oil rig in the Atlantic Ocean and installed serious bandwidth leading to and from the rig, with the sole intention to provide hosting for web sites that cannot get hosting with regular providers, for whatever reason. His prices are just a tad higher, but not extremely so, and since that he is outside of the jurisdiction of any country, he cannot be barred from his activities.
The Internet regulations are from country to country different. Although the Internet was invented by the Americans, the World Wide Web was developed by a British scientist, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland. The Internet law, as such, does not exist as a separate law book or regulation. Moreover, Internet law is buried within many other laws, which were extended to cover the Internet as well. The situation in the UK is no different from the rest of the world.
The enforcement of local Internet law and judicial decisions became evident with in the UK with the Bulger injunction, where in 2001 two minors charged with a murder of a toddler were supposed to be protected by that injunction, their identities kept secret and their whereabouts hidden. None of it worked. Within minutes, on web sites outside of UK jurisdiction any and all information was made available, furthermore, a vigilante group organized a sign-up sheet asking for a death sentence, another similar but less radical web site received 2200 signatures for their petition.
Internet law is flawed, because it cannot be enforced worldwide. On the other hand, it would be more flawed if any country could impose own local laws on people in another country where such laws would not apply. For instance, there is a law in the town of Bournemouth in the UK, where it is stated that “lunatics, idiots, deaf and dumb” individuals cannot run in local elections. I bet you could name dozens of politicians we would not have seen running some of the most important countries. But leaving the fun stuff aside, if the Internet law in the US is based and buried within existing laws, where the laws were extended as it was necessary, where do you start to look if there are law books dating centuries back, extended and amended to this day?
On the other hand, UK is very slow in amending any laws, like a dismissed case in 2005 showed. A teenager lost his job and started a DoS (denial of service) attack against his former boss. He sent five million e-mail messages and broke down the computer network of his former employer. The applicable fifteen year old law, called Computer Misuse Act, has no provisions against such attacks and the judge ruled that the servers were actually there to receive e-mail messages and they cannot prosecute someone who did exactly what he was supposed to do, although in exaggerated manner. The tragic fact is that since then, nothing regarding the change of such laws happened.
To simply define peer to peer technology is almost impossible. It is basically what the Web and the Internet are all about, but more to a sharing level. When Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, his idea was that every user would have an editor together with the browser, whereby he would not only look at the pages, but actively edit and contribute, which is very similar to a peer to peer idea. Nowadays, peer to peer is generally viewed as the file sharing network or capability of the Internet, mostly regarded as illegal and pursued by the law enforcement.
Peer to peer started very early, before the Web was invented, whereby the most widely spread and popular was the Usenet. The Usenet news server system, which is the full definition, was used by peers to exchange Usenet news articles using this system, whereby binary transmission was preferred. To this day, the Usenet is still in operation and the preferred release ground of underground material.
The next most popular peer to peer network and perhaps the most well known was Napster. The invention of Napster actually started the whole copyright infringement hunting craze by many agencies and IFPI, BSA and MPAA in particular. Recognition that copyrighted content was freely swapped between private persons, like they used to do with cassette tapes and video tapes before, raised a red flag to recording industry and movie industry behemoths, who under the guise to help out poor copyright holders with limited money income welcomed raiding 80 year old grandmothers and underage teenagers hoping to add another billion to their mind boggling fortune. As usual, the artist and composer see almost none of it. Instead of using such an advanced technology to exploit it legally by striking a deal with the inventor, the companies chose to ruin it for everybody. Well not really, they ruined it only for themselves, because other peer to peer networks almost immediately took over.
While the Internet law regarding peer to peer is still undecided, limited only to such copyright infringement cases, the very technology has proven to be very helpful and interesting. Bit Torrent, the latest “in” peer to peer network system, very popular and filled to the brim with illegal copyrighted material, provided breakthrough technology to such important widgets like Podcast and TVUPlayer.
In conclusion it should be noted that a co-existence would be more fruitful to all participants then a simple crackdown. But perhaps then the record companies and movie producers would have to come up with more quality material, whereby nagging about diminishing sales seems to be cheaper than scouting and paying for real talent.
The Internet expanded into this large behemoth of interconnected computers and servers where almost any information can be found. The presentation of the Chinese government showing to the American public how secret files can be easily found and accessed on the Net is still the single most embarrassing moment for America’s intelligence agencies. It is not surprising to learn then, that there is extensive material available in regards to the law, in particular to the internet law online.
There are many Internet law libraries available online, with the most prominent American outlet provided by the Law Library of the Congress. An inquiring mind can not only find all possible court cases, law provisions, decisions, rights and law definitions but also contact to the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN), the Multinational Collections Database with international jurisdictions and law regulations in the original languages. There is a Global Legal Monitor with news from around the world and a Guide to Law Online where links and resources can be found pointing to virtually everywhere your research may lead. A link will lead you to a download page, from where you can download whole U.S. Codes as ISO images.
Internationally, there are plenty of resources with full law libraries, Germany offers electronic reprints in http and pdf formats of all the active law books, most universities in Europe have complete law libraries online and accessible via regular http protocol. Most government web pages in civilized world provide access to latest and current law regulations, some less developed countries, where the Internet is very scarcely distributed or extremely filtered, like in most Muslim governed countries, provide as less as possible information, therewith almost no legal resources. China has also restricted internet access to international sites for their citizens, but also filters traffic going inbound towards China.
A dedicated law library on the internet providing information related to legislation pertaining to the Internet and Internet related cases is not available. Some lawyers advertise with such provisions, but their sites have no resources. Internationally, most Internet laws are not within a separate law book, but integrated in telecommunication regulations and laws. Such laws are provided freely on the relevant web pages for download or online browsing.
General Law information on internet law and internet piracy issues is made available by the RIAA and MPAA as well as other associations like IFPI (music related), BSA (software related), IIPA and SIIA. Interpol has an intellectual property crime division, which lately is focused on Internet piracy and provides relevant law information on their web site. There is an International Intellectual Property Crime Database (DIIP) available directly on the web site.
The Internet expanded into this large behemoth of interconnected computers and servers where almost any information can be found. The presentation of the Chinese government showing to the American public how secret files can be easily found and accessed on the Net is still the single most embarrassing moment for America’s intelligence agencies. It is not surprising to learn then, that there is extensive material available in regards to the law, in particular to the internet law online.
There are many Internet law libraries available online, with the most prominent American outlet provided by the Law Library of the Congress. An inquiring mind can not only find all possible court cases, law provisions, decisions, rights and law definitions but also contact to the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN), the Multinational Collections Database with international jurisdictions and law regulations in the original languages. There is a Global Legal Monitor with news from around the world and a Guide to Law Online where links and resources can be found pointing to virtually everywhere your research may lead. A link will lead you to a download page, from where you can download whole U.S. Codes as ISO images.
Internationally, there are plenty of resources with full law libraries, Germany offers electronic reprints in http and pdf formats of all the active law books, most universities in Europe have complete law libraries online and accessible via regular http protocol. Most government web pages in civilized world provide access to latest and current law regulations, some less developed countries, where the Internet is very scarcely distributed or extremely filtered, like in most Muslim governed countries, provide as less as possible information, therewith almost no legal resources. China has also restricted internet access to international sites for their citizens, but also filters traffic going inbound towards China.
A dedicated law library on the internet providing information related to legislation pertaining to the Internet and Internet related cases is not available. Some lawyers advertise with such provisions, but their sites have no resources. Internationally, most Internet laws are not within a separate law book, but integrated in telecommunication regulations and laws. Such laws are provided freely on the relevant web pages for download or online browsing.
General Law information on internet law and internet piracy issues is made available by the RIAA and MPAA as well as other associations like IFPI (music related), BSA (software related), IIPA and SIIA. Interpol has an intellectual property crime division, which lately is focused on Internet piracy and provides relevant law information on their web site. There is an International Intellectual Property Crime Database (DIIP) available directly on the web site.
The Internet expanded into this large behemoth of interconnected computers and servers where almost any information can be found. The presentation of the Chinese government showing to the American public how secret files can be easily found and accessed on the Net is still the single most embarrassing moment for America’s intelligence agencies. It is not surprising to learn then, that there is extensive material available in regards to the law, in particular to the internet law online.
There are many Internet law libraries available online, with the most prominent American outlet provided by the Law Library of the Congress. An inquiring mind can not only find all possible court cases, law provisions, decisions, rights and law definitions but also contact to the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN), the Multinational Collections Database with international jurisdictions and law regulations in the original languages. There is a Global Legal Monitor with news from around the world and a Guide to Law Online where links and resources can be found pointing to virtually everywhere your research may lead. A link will lead you to a download page, from where you can download whole U.S. Codes as ISO images.
Internationally, there are plenty of resources with full law libraries, Germany offers electronic reprints in http and pdf formats of all the active law books, most universities in Europe have complete law libraries online and accessible via regular http protocol. Most government web pages in civilized world provide access to latest and current law regulations, some less developed countries, where the Internet is very scarcely distributed or extremely filtered, like in most Muslim governed countries, provide as less as possible information, therewith almost no legal resources. China has also restricted internet access to international sites for their citizens, but also filters traffic going inbound towards China.
A dedicated law library on the internet providing information related to legislation pertaining to the Internet and Internet related cases is not available. Some lawyers advertise with such provisions, but their sites have no resources. Internationally, most Internet laws are not within a separate law book, but integrated in telecommunication regulations and laws. Such laws are provided freely on the relevant web pages for download or online browsing.
General Law information on internet law and internet piracy issues is made available by the RIAA and MPAA as well as other associations like IFPI (music related), BSA (software related), IIPA and SIIA. Interpol has an intellectual property crime division, which lately is focused on Internet piracy and provides relevant law information on their web site. There is an International Intellectual Property Crime Database (DIIP) available directly on the web site.
Law enforcement agencies and task forces all around the world work in a more or less coordinated manner to prevent cyber attacks by terrorists and other global threats perpetrated by individuals or organisations. But not only terrorists are target of cyber police, criminals nowadays use the Internet to unlawfully enrich themselves or create mayhem for no actual financial gain.
There are several priorities of such task forces; some are created with just covering one area of cyber villain activities, for instance, the special task force created within the Department of Homeland Security, US-CERT, or United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team. This team started out in 2003 as an Internet task force to prevent cyber terrorism, later it developed into a co-operation of US-CERT and some public as well as private enterprises and sectors to fight cyber crime in general. Constant up to date information and vulnerability information, security alerts, tips and bulletins are available as well as possibilities to report incidents, phishing and vulnerabilities. Even Microsoft is participating.
United States Department of Justice has a separate cyber crime division called Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section, where not only information is available about what happens in the world of cyber transgressions, but also legal issues are being handled, information provided how to report cyber and IP crime, as well as intellectual property offences.
United States Secret Service has several sub departments handling cyber infractions, like computer fraud, electronic crime branch and several task forces.
Worldwide there are several important law enforcement agencies and most important is the INTERPOL financial and high-tech crime division with IT crime and information security and crime prevention departments. The UK has an Internet Watch Foundation, which started out as means to battle child pornography distribution per Internet, but currently is expanded to cover criminally obscene and racial hatred content as well. Virtual Global Taskforce is dedicated to assist fighting online child abuse and consists of police forces from all over the world.
Several countries use their Internet police not only to safeguard and protect their people, but to enforce censorship, manipulate the public opinion, and engage in pro government propaganda. Most prominently, China engages task forces to erase all content which is against Communism, enter forums and bulletin boards, manipulate people directly and create a government guided public opinion.
In Russia, special security services have teams which are called cyber brigades and who manipulate and create a controlled public opinion.
There are also several non-profit and non-governmental organizations engaging in fighting computer and internet crime, like the Computer Crime Research Center, which although independent, has close ties to law enforcement.
