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This can be problematic and annoying for users when the databases aren't correctly updated. A case in point: the Internet Watch Foundation maintains a database of child porn / other obscene URLs so that ISPs can take that list (hashed, so the URLs are not revealed) and block them.

Recently, a popular imageboard at http://img.4chan.org/b/imgboard.html has been added to that list for reasons unknown. Several UK ISPs, including BT Internet and NTL, have blocked that URL. Complaints to either the ISPs or the IWF from both the users and the site admin have gone unanswered. I am personally quite annoyed by this as I'm a regular user of that board.

It's this sort of unaccountable censorship of the Internet that makes me suspicious of such 'helpful' databases.

http://www.iwf.org.uk/documents/20050826_consultat ion_on_extreme_pornographic_material.pdf

Be sure to keep checking regularly, lest matters change.

Like it or not, the Chinese have a point. The UK, for example, has British Telecom with its CleanFeed technology, with a list of "illegal" sites fed to it by the unaccountable and self-important Internet Watch Foundation -- keeping the web safe from "potentially illegal content". Chilling, ain't it. No oversight... lots of corporations involved in deciding what British internet users get to see.

Not the same in the UK any more - recent amendment changed definition of "child" wrt. child porn law, upping the age from 16 to 18.

Age of consent remains 16 though - so you can f**k but not take photos.

See http://www.iwf.org.uk/hotline/uk_law.html.

Oh no, it's much more complicated than that. See
http://www.iwf.org.uk/hotline/uk_law.html.

As of 1 May this year they raised the age from 16 to 18, but with several complex exceptions. Not sure how it applies to archive material - since the inital act of making / distributing the image was legal at the time, they probably won't go after that, but since possession can be illegal and possession is current...

Politicians paint the issue as black and white in public and equate porn with abuse - to quote the IWF - "child abuse images (often referred to as child pornography)". But looking at the laws they make it is clear they are desparately trying to work around the blatant contradictions - eg. an older man has sex with a 16yo girlfriend, fine, but if she emails him a topless photo of herself, he's a child abuser.

Unless of course she moves in with him so he can abu^H^H^H have sex with her more often, in which case he might be able to prove that they were in an "enduring family relationship" (or married, which would be easier to prove but doesn't appear to count as "enduring"...).

Hmm, did we say defendant has to prove, oh dear another burden-of-proof reversal, how did that sneak in... but never mind, we are talking about nasty child abusers (or at least, people who have sex with other people over the age of consent, but same thing really...) after all.

While it's hard to imagine a better way of getting a list, it's also easy to see that it won't work. It should be possible to DoS any site with that submission form. With enough zombie machines hitting that submission form, you could eliminate everything not on some kind of a white list.

I don't want to even think about what kind of software is sitting on the desks of people who run that organization. I'm 90% certain that it's the same OS that's generating all of those other malware and "accidental" hits. That would be unfortunate, as malware on one of those desks would have the same power as the member of the organization, the arbitrary power to block a website to all of BT's subscribers.

So, the number of hits is nothing but evidence of censorship to me. I have no proof that any of those 10,000 contains child porn, nor do I want any. I all I now is that there's a real chance that the majority of those hits is innocuous material and that real child exploitation will go on through other channels.

Essentially the IWF provide a hotline for the public to report their inadvertent exposure to illegal content on the internet and then they work with law enforcement agencies at home and abroad to have the content removed and the potential offenders traced.

At the heart of the work of the IWF is the operation of the hot-line. Staff receive and investigate complaints about alleged illegal content. This may be a Web site, a newsgroup or indeed online content posted to various areas of the internet. The IWF proactively monitors particular newsgroups which are known as on-line venues for paedophiles. Currently the hotline processes some 400 reports a week.

If potentially illegal content is found to be hosted in the UK then the IWF issue a 'notice' to the hosting ISP to 'take down' the content and the police are invited to investigate the individual(s) responsible for posting the content.

The blacklist is generated by the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation, www.iwf.org.uk) which is an industry funded body which takes reports from the public of 'potentially illegal material' checks it to see if it is so. If it is illegal and on a UK ISPs machines they're alerted so it can be taken down, and by the sounds of things they're now producing a list of kiddy porn sites for BT to filter on.

Generally the IWF does a good job though they tend to err on the side of block block block! if it even hints of something illegal and are in bed with the childrens charities who would be glad to see an ISP go out of business for "providing access to illegal material" as an example to all the others and force the blocking / filtering of sites they want blocked.

So there you have it. We have a media which is currently in the middle of a massive deviancy amplification spiral, and this frankly fucking stupid move by BT is just an upshot of that.

And along with this comes advice that is somewhat disturbing:

Young people must re-learn the old stranger = danger messages in a new context and use the anonymity of the Net to hide their real location.

I'm all for caution, but this "stranger = danger" advice is not a particulary helpful attitude to instill in children, if one wants to help brigde gaps between different groups.

Contain images of child abuse, anywhere in the world.

Contain adult material that potentially breaches the Obscene Publications Act in the UK.

Contain criminally racist material in the UK.

Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT retail, said the company was blocking access to hundreds of sites which had been identified by the Internet Watch Foundation.

Websites assessed by the IWF as "illegal to view" under the 1978 Child Protection Act were targeted by BT.

The IWF keeps a real-time live database which is updated every time an illegal site is found.

i haven't checked out how the IWF work, or ever heard of them before now, but on the face of this this has some credibility. anyone know otherwise? notice also they would appear to be blocking racist material also. interesting.. what were those comments about slippery slopes last time this came up? seems you (plural) may have been right..

• Contain images of child abuse, anywhere in the world.
• Contain adult material that potentially breaches the Obscene Publications Act in the UK.
• Contain criminally racist material in the UK.

This last is a major issue. It's similar to the "hate speech" issue on college campuses. It would be a great excuse for, say, blocking Aljazeera. (They have cool anti-American cartoons, in Flash. Some of them are anti-white-people.)

In the UK, delivering a newspaper which you knew to contain defamatory remarks would indeed be illegal. Yes, our libel laws really do allow the libelled party to go after the distributors, if the distributors know that they are distributing libellous material.

See http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey2 .htm for more details.

IANAL, but I can at least read the facts of the case; I would urge other posters to do likewise.

I addressed the question about nuisance complaints in another posting. We had a similar fuss in this country about obscenity on Usenet a year or two back; it's long since been something of a non-question, thanks to the efforts of the IWF. All we need now is a similar structure for dealing with claims of libel (and if done right it will benefit both ISPs and victims of libel).