An open letter to the Editor of The Observer

[matthew@itconsult.co.uk (Matthew Richardson)]

[I understand the text of the Observer article is available at
http://www.hclb.demon.co.uk/obs.txt]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

I. T. Consultancy Limited

Our reference  L2217

The Editor
The Observer
119 Farringdon Road
London EC1R 3ER

26 August 1996

AN OPEN LETTER � FOR PUBLICATION

Sir,

I read with some interest the article by David Connett and Jon Henley 
in yesterday's edition regarding the Internet and child pornography.  
I was particularly interested as I am a computer consultant advising 
clients on Internet issues.

In my professional opinion, the technical standard of the reporting 
was sufficiently poor as to be both inaccurate and misleading.  The 
purpose of this letter is to clarify certain technical issues which 
might cause your readers to reach unfounded or incorrect conclusions.

It is important to be aware of the various methods by which 
information generally (which can include pornography) is distributed 
around the Internet.  Your article focuses on one particular route, 
namely Newsgroups.  It is Newsgroups which are detailed in the 
Metropolitan Police's letter to Internet Providers and which are 
concentrated upon by your article.  There are several other means of 
distributing information.  I believe however that the Police letter 
lists fewer than the 150 groups referred to by the authors.  
Interestingly enough Newsgroups only offer the means of broadcasting 
information to anyone who wants to retrieve it.

The authors do not appear to have a sufficient grasp of what a 
"remailer" does.  For example they seem to draw a direct link between 
the use of such remailers and people being able to "log on and 
participate in 'live' and 'interactive' filmed sessions".  A lay 
reader would perhaps draw the inference that the remailer is somehow 
involved in any such live participation.  Unfortunately this could 
not be further from the truth.  Remailers simply allow people to post 
messages, either as email to other people or to Newsgroups for 
general reading.  Nothing more.  Remailers are generally incapable of 
being "logged on" to.

Your article also refers to "remailing companies", from which the lay 
reader might infer that remailers are operated for commercial profit.

Such an inference would again be wholly incorrect.  I know of no 
organisation operating a remailer for profit, indeed none of them 
even charge for their services.  They are generally run by 
individuals on a voluntary basis who consider them as a service to 
the Internet community.  Your article appears not to mention any of 
the purposes of such remailers other than in terms of the 
distribution of pornography.  In my view it would be difficult to 
present a balanced article without doing so.

Different remailers take different steps to prevent whatever their 
operators consider as "abuse".  My understanding is that Mr. 
Helsingius' service restricts messages to 48k bytes (or characters) 
and prohibits postings to the "binaries" newsgroups designated for 
images.  I also understand that it only allows 30 messages per user 
per day.  At a technical level these restrictions would make it 
almost impossible to use his service for mass distribution of any 
binary data, not just pornography.

It therefore appears surprising to me that your article should allege 
that Mr. Helsingius' remailer is responsible for handling "90 per 
cent of all child pornography" on the Internet.  I wonder what 
substantiating evidence The Observer has to this effect other than 
the alleged claim by Toby Tyler.  Indeed it appears from your article 
that the words "is supplied through this remailer" may not be a 
direct quote from Toby Tyler.

Your article alleges that "the photographs made available to Demon's 
subscribers through the Internet are supplied anonymously by 
remailing companies".  The lay reader might infer from this that all 
photographs therefore come via remailers.  Again this would be far 
from the truth.  

Finally I hope this letter offers some assistance to your readers in 
clarifying a number of issues which were perhaps less than clear in 
your article.  Given your newspaper's difficulties with technical 
issues, I would be grateful if you would kindly refer any editing of 
this letter to me prior to publication.

Yours faithfully,
Matthew Richardson

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3i
Charset: noconv

iQCVAgUBMiFvEAKwLwcHEv69AQGjIQP+IGR9rhvdYXe7CuCcwPl/tIrIBryikTM2
IVOpygTF2nCPf3WEJ8czRvs1emp9d9d++69XiG1f6QAeP9Jv/h9KzVtV7mjjuqCX
LhlhXBYjLIiGCcxljKZ07zHFlCeZWCzuAmIFnZbz2fNNjqyicheIMlxI2tDrGgjp
dlaGZuAI2XY=
=dkXg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----