What a pile of garbage. I would definitely get a legal review of a request like that before blocking any of my customer's traffic. -- Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team jeffrey.lyon@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net Black Lotus Communications of The IRC Company, Inc. Look for us at HostingCon 2009 in Washington, DC on August 10th - 12th at Booth #401. On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:

For anyone who cares, IMEGA released the letter from the state of Minnesota:

http://www.imega.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ab001dd4.pdf

2009/4/29 Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com>:

...

Hi there,

I am just wondering if anyone knows any more about the attempt by Minnesota to block online gambling companies other than what's publicly available (e.g. http://www.gambling911.com/gambling-news/minnesota-regulators-try-block-acce... Such as a list or the letter to the providers?

Thank you!

Ken

Not withstanding the legality of such an order, how would one operationally enforce that order? Does this order force carriers into transparent proxy so that L7 filtering can be done? Is the carrier also required to go through geolocator matching any given IP address with 'Minnesota' so that the filtering can be selectively applied? Tim Peiffer Network Support Engineer OIT / Networking and Telecommunications Services University of Minnesota / NorthernLights GigaPOP

...

On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:

...

For anyone who cares, IMEGA released the letter from the state of Minnesota:

http://www.imega.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ab001dd4.pdf

2009/4/29 Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com>:

...

Hi there,

I am just wondering if anyone knows any more about the attempt by Minnesota to block online gambling companies other than what's publicly available (e.g. http://www.gambling911.com/gambling-news/minnesota-regulators-try-block-acce...

Such as a list or the letter to the providers?

Thank you!

Ken

-- Tim Peiffer Network Support Engineer Office of Information Technology University of Minnesota/NorthernLights GigaPOP

So is this going to become like the great firewall of China eventually? You can see in the letters that they are "going to see how it goes and then maybe start blocking more stuff" if they are successful. I can see a big nightmare heading this way if ISPs start caving in to requests like this. 2009/5/4 John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>:

...

Not withstanding the legality of such an order, how would one operationally enforce that order?

The order has a list of IP addresses, so I expect the ISPs will just block those IPs in routers somewhere.

Since offshore online gambling is equally illegal everywhere in the U.S., the ISPs have little reason to limit the block to Minnesota customers, giving them a lot of latitude in where they implement the block.

Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 10:53, Ken Gilmour <ken.gilmour@gmail.com> wrote:

So is this going to become like the great firewall of China eventually? You can see in the letters that they are "going to see how it goes and then maybe start blocking more stuff" if they are successful. I can see a big nightmare heading this way if ISPs start caving in to requests like this.

Isn't this akin to a state legislature mandating that the DOT block drugs at the state's border? Also, why is the order to block sites rather than monitoring and arresting Minnesotans who are violating the law? Sort'a looks like the MN legislature is trying to hide the bad behavior of it's citizens. ;-) -Jim P.

From a strictly operational perspective:

The only concern that I had with that request was with the v4 address blocking. That ought to be rethought in the grand scheme of things i.e. v4 exhaustion. There's a reasonable case to make regarding not tainting hosts or specific blocks in this manner. Creating "less usable" v4 resources as we approach exhaustion is not helpful, IMHO. Best Regards, Martin

2009/5/4 John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>:

...

...

Not withstanding the legality of such an order, how would one

...

operationally enforce that order?

The order has a list of IP addresses, so I expect the ISPs will just block those IPs in routers somewhere.

Since offshore online gambling is equally illegal everywhere in the U.S., the ISPs have little reason to limit the block to Minnesota customers, giving them a lot of latitude in where they implement the block.

-- Martin Hannigan martin@theicelandguy.com p: +16178216079 Power, Network, and Costs Consulting for Iceland Datacenters and Occupants

On May 4, 2009, at 11:53 AM, Matthew Black wrote:

Instead of huffing and puffing your libertarian perspective (you called the AG's letter garbage), you might make a quick Google search of "18USC1084(d)," which provides a wealth of information on the legality of such enforcement actions.

http://openjurist.org/325/f2d/148

But the Seventh Circuit specifically refuses to rule on any Constitutional issues surrounding the statute, instead choosing to rely on the district court's order that the defendants activities did not violate the law under 18 USC §1084(d). The statute, as applied by Minnesota, could very well be unconstitutional and unenforceable in the manner that Minnesota seeks. In this case the First Amendment may be applicable because this seems to be a prior restraint on speech. Additionally, it is content based because it seeks to restrict speech due to its transmission or reception of gambling information. This means that the courts will apply a "strict scrutiny" test to it, requiring that the government have compelling reason to restrict the speech, and that they are applying the least restrictive method of controlling the speech. This is usually a difficult burden for them to sustain. In this case, the gambling issue seems much like the pornography issue. In _Center for Democracy and Technology v. Pappert_, 337 F.Supp 606 (W.D. Pa. 2004), the Eastern District of Pennsylvania looked at a Pennsylvania state law that looks much like this federal law and required ISPs operating in the state to block based on a letter from the state attorney general. In trying to determine whether the law provided the least restrictive method, the court looked to the types of blocking that the ISPs could employ. Specifically they examined DNS blocking, IP blocking, and URL filtering. The court decided that DNS blocking wasn't particularly effective and would require ISPs to deploy additional equipment. Additionally, URL filtering was impractical because of the deployment costs as well. The only practical alternative the court recognized was IP blocking, but they said that because it could severely overblock (because of name based virtual hosting) that it wasn't narrowly tailored enough block to pass Constitutional muster. The situation in _Center for Democracy_ seems remarkably similar to what Minnesota seems to be trying to do with the federal statute. There's certainly the chance that the federal district courts in Minnesota, or the appeals courts will disagree with the Western District of Pennsylvania's assessment of the situation, but as long as the strict scrutiny standard is applied, and there's a danger of overblocking, then I would expect the Supreme Court to uphold any as applied challenges to the statute. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, you should hire a real lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction.

matthew black speaking only for myself and not my employer california state university, long beach

-- Jeremy McDermond Xenotropic Systems mcdermj@xenotropic.com