[IP] The Dangers of Backbone IP Blocking
Begin forwarded message:
From: GLIGOR1@xxxxxxx
Date: September 15, 2005 1:18:40 PM EDT
To: vinton.g.cerf@xxxxxxx, dfarber@xxxxxxxxxx, mslynn@xxxxxxx,
Dennis.Jennings@xxxxxx, fuchs@xxxxxxxxxx, kmk7@xxxxxxxxxxx,
lhl@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: The Dangers of Backbone IP Blocking
The Dangers of Backbone IP Blocking How a Canadian telecom giant
blocked a union website in a labor dispute -- and blocked over 700
other sites in the process. By Michael Geist.
Admin, The 37th Parallel [The 37th Parallel] | POSTED: 09.09.05 @08:15
Internet service providers always seem to get the first call when a
problem arises on the Internet. Lawmakers want them to assist with
investigations into cybercrime, parents want them to filter out
harmful content, consumers want them to stop spam, and copyright
holders want them to curtail infringement. Despite the urge to hold
ISPs accountable for such activities, the ISP community has been
remarkably successful in maintaining a position of neutrality, the
digital successor (in spirit and often in fact) to the common carrier
phone company.
Adopting a neutral approach has always required strict adherence to
one cardinal rule: that ISPs transport bits of data without
discrimination, preference, or regard for content.
The danger in veering away from that rule became apparent in a recent
Canadian incident involving Telus. Canada’s second largest
telecommunications company actively blocked access to Voices for
Change, a website supporting the Telecommunications Workers Union.
Telus has been embroiled in a contentious labor dispute with the
union, yet its decision to unilaterally block subscriber access to
the site was unprecedented.
The company argued that the site contained confidential proprietary
information and that photographs on the site raised privacy and
security issues for certain of its employees. Nevertheless, the
blockage of the site was completely ineffective since it remained
available to anyone outside the Telus network. Moreover, those within
the Telus network could access the site with a bit of creative
Internet surfing.
By first unilaterally blocking the site, Telus raised a host of
challenging legal issues. The company argued that its subscriber
contract granted it the right to block content. While that may be
true for its roughly one million retail subscribers, the blockage
occurred at the Internet backbone level, thereby blocking access for
other ISPs (and their customers) that use Telus as their provider.
For example, Prince Rupert, a small city on the northwest coast of
British Columbia, has established a community ISP to provide its
citizens with municipally supported Internet access. Since their
connectivity is provided by Telus, the entire community found itself
unable to access the Voices for Change website.
Moreover, the OpenNet Initiative, a joint University of Toronto and
Harvard University project, investigated the unintended consequences
of the networking blocking and found that by singling out the union
website, Telus blocked an additional 766 websites that shared the
same IP address. These included a breast cancer fundraising site, a
Colorado-based electronic recycling company’s site, and an Australian
alternative medicine site.
Blocking network traffic at the backbone level has raised similar
concerns in other jurisdictions. The best-known instance occurred in
the State of Pennsylvania, which enacted a law several years ago
requiring ISPs to block subscriber access to child pornography. While
the law was later struck down on constitutional grounds, the State
Attorney General targeted WorldCom, a major ISP backbone provider,
with its first application of the law.
Irrespective of the legal situation, the website blockage was
stunningly bad policy. IP blocking, particularly at the backbone
level, raises significant legal issues as the blockages often include
“collateral damage”, with third party sites, many located outside the
local jurisdiction, getting caught in the middle.
Michael Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce
Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at
mgeist@xxxxxxxxxx and is on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca.
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