That's a different question all together, not about criminal ISPs, which
[...]
No, not necessarily. Given that there are Tier 1 ISPs, Tier 2, etc.,
so you can certainly have some small-ish ISP colluding with criminal
activity, in effect, by ignoring it or claiming ignorance.
However, it's kind of hard to plead ignorance when, say, people
continually alert them to the issues and they persist.
That's just one example... I can come up with more.
I don't know of any ISP that regularly (i.e. more than once) refuses to
obey lawful orders of authorities in the relevant jurisdiction to take action. There are disputes about what is the correct jurisdiction, and what is a lawful order.
I predict in a month or so, someone else will be ranting about ISPs
censoring their "First Amendment" right to do something.
There are lots of laws around the world, lots of courts, and lots of law enforcement agencies. Somewhere in the world, there seems to be a law against almost anything. People make lots of complaints about all sorts of stuff that may not be illegal. The FCC receives hundreds of thousands of complaints about television and radio programs frome people who have never seen or heard them. The number of complaints isn't proof.
On one hand, there are the pundits that claim ISPs will never be able to
stop whatever favored activity is prohibited by law in a jurisdiction: VOIP bypass, copyright infringement, encourging public disorder, etc. How
long was The Pirate Bay shutdown after authorities seized their equipment, but didn't arrest the people?
On the other hand, there are the pundits that claim ISPs are ignoring whatever disfavored activity: indecency, defamation, blasphemy, fraud, etc. Should ISPs be responsible for the network stuff (traceability, disruption of service, etc) and let the appropriate authorities enforce the laws of each jurisdiction?
Is the complaint about ISPs, or about some the lack of law enforcement
resources in some jurisdictions?
I don't know of any ISP that regularly (i.e. more than once) refuses to
obey lawful orders of authorities in the relevant jurisdiction to take
action.
No disagreement there, but take a look at the wording. "orders of
authorities". Inference: It's ok if someone I'm leasing bandwidth
to is spamming, sending out DoS attacks, child pornography. I don't
have any subpoenas, therefore I won't take any actions.
The number of complaints isn't proof.
Should ISPs be responsible for the network stuff (traceability,
disruption of service, etc) and let the appropriate authorities enforce
the laws of each jurisdiction?
Scenario:
I run silsdomain.com which is leasing facilities in donelanNetworks.com
My infrastructure consists of insecure servers which have been
compromised and are now:
This is basically the clause for terminating service which may "damage
the reputation" that several bloggers found objectionable last
week in some ISP's terms of service. You can propose many provocative statements, groups which murder unborn children, engage in illegal drug trafficking, corrupting the morals of youth, and so on. As I said before, I expect next month some group will be protesting that an evil ISP blocked their activities.
If you want to turn the Internet into a broadcaster style environment, where only content the network owner considers acceptable to their
reputation is allowed, that's probably not the Internet anymore.
Just because a particular group uses an ISP to transmit something
doesn't mean the ISP approves of the activities of that group or
its content.
In the UK, ISPs helped create the Internet Watch Foundation to block "illegal" material on the Internet. BT blocked those web sites from
all its downstream networks. That didn't stop the biggest child porn group in the world to date operating from the UK, and it took the Canadian RCMP to crack the case since UK law enforcement apparently wasn't aware of the group operating in the UK. Arresting the members
of the group was needed, because the network "blocks" simply made it
harder to find.
In the USA, the Wire Act allows law enforcement to issue orders to
disconnect gambling operations. Several other countries have filed
international complaints against the USA for blocking their countries'
gambling operations. The US has also arrested the executives of several
gambling operations, and companies that assisted those gambling operations.
Out of sight, out of mind may help politicians show they are doing something because the voters stop complaining. But trying to suppress
communications usually isn't that effective at stopping criminals.
On the other hand, what can we do about the victims?
