UK Gov. Wants IWF List To Cover 100% of UK Broadband

wild_quinine writes "The UK government stated in 2006 that they wished to see 100% of UK consumer broadband ISPs' connections covered by blocking, which includes images of child abuse. 95% of ISPs have complied, but children's charities are calling for firmer action by the government as the last 5% cite costs and concerns over the effectiveness of the system. According to Home Office Minister Alan Campbell, 'The government is currently looking at ways to progress the final 5%.' With a lack of transparency in the IWF list, firm government involvement, and blocking that only 'includes' (but may not be limited to) images of child abuse, it looks like the writing is on the wall for unfiltered, uncensored Internet connections in the UK."

Comments

Why block?

[PatDev]

Maybe I'm missing something here. I've always wondered why there was a rush to block images of child abuse like this. As long as these sites are up, there is still a possibility for authorities to identify the guilty parties through the websites.

If every ISP blocks 100%, then not even cops can get an unfiltered connection. That means that they have stopped trying to catch the child pornographers, they just want to pretend they don't exist.

These are real children being abused. Their abusers are handing the police evidence. Why the rush to ignore it? Why not just monitor them? Keep track of who visits www.kiddieporn.com or whatever.

Who is the 5%?

[ActionJesus]

Can let me know who the 5% that arent signed up are so I can transfer over to them? If i wanted censored internet, Id move to China.

Re:Hold your horses

[h4rm0ny]

I'm a regular and long-term supporter of Barnardos who do a lot of great work. I'm sorry to see them on the list of signees for this charity and I shall write to them about it in due course. NSPCC I am not at all surprised to see on the list as they are an organization primarily focused on fear and shock tactics. They do little more than terrify adults from the very idea of having contact with children for fear of being suspected a child abuser.

Re:Hold your horses

[Ed Avis]

Same here. I would never give money to the NSPCC but I'm happy to support Barnados. I hope we can get them to change their mind on the subject - or at least, recognize that political lobbying is not one of the functions of a children's charity.

I was pleased to see that my ISP, Zen Internet, is one of those refusing to bow to the IWF. I will continue to recommend them to friends and family as a sensible, human-run provider.

It's more nuanced

[igb]

I was at the meeting at Portcullis House at which this was announced yesterday (the media coverage was the usual pre-event trailing). John Carr was there but didn't speak, but the minister made a decent speech. The basic position seems to be that industry agreed to use the Cleanfeed system on residential links in exchange for there not being legislation, but some of the industry is saying no on the grounds of cost and effectiveness (not, notably, on any cyber-libertarian position, although that may be their underlying motive). Those parts of the industry which have followed the Cleanfeed line voluntarily are annoyed about cost and complexity that they are shouldering which their competitors aren't.

My position is that, given that we're not going to be able to avoid the basic problem, legislation is actually not necessarily a bad thing. It would plave the IWF on a legislative footing, which would alter the governance and the contestability in potentially a good way. But people I have immense respect who know a lot more about this stuff disagree, and think the upside (judicial oversight) would not be worth the downside (ministers making positions).

Sadly, it seems that a huge part of the e-crime agenda is being devoted to child porn, which is only one past of the issue and one where the end users aren't the victims. Fraud and other issues are being subsumed.

Re:Tackling the root causes

[Sobrique]

The thing is, making the images difficult to access might actually be counterproductive - I mean, making them in the first place is already illegal.
But think of the person who acquires that sort of thing? The person who does, for whatever reason, find 'underage' to be sexually attractive. This person is ... well, is faced with having to repress their desire, because society deems it wrong, and it's illegal too.
(I could perhaps draw the parallels with homosexuality, although granted that this is more one sided)
Anyway, is it better for this person to be viewing porn, or is it better for them to spend their lives sexually frustrated to the point where they might just 'snap'?
Mostly though, I think censorship of ... anything ... is undesirable and oppressive. So fits in quite nicely with the current emergent dynamics of the UK government. 25% of the CCTV cameras of the world. Yeah baby.

Re:Absurd!

[DangerFace]

I agree wholeheartedly. I know a guy in Manchester who ran a website - just one of those collections of offensive jokes, pictures of mutilated corpses, all that crap. Needless to say, they didn't take it very seriously and neither did anyone else - I mean, these guys trolled on their own forum. Well, one day dawn broke to the sound of their door, which was also broken thanks to the police battering ram. No, they weren't hosting pictures of child abuse - they had some hentai on their site and had neglected to state clearly that the individuals portrayed as being chopped in half while being tentacle raped were 18. Eventually the case was dropped when the police realised they had no case, and to this day those guys use stolen police evidence bags as baggies for weed - possibly the most ironic thing I have ever encountered first hand. Last I heard it was a year after the police had dropped the case and they still didn't have the domain, or even their PCs, back.

Re:Absurd!

[Ed Avis]

It's a shame nobody has put the IWF list on Wikileaks by now...

Re:Am I being naÃve?

[shinier]

I would much rather they got their kicks jerking off to CP, than taking it out on a child... This just delegates your child abuse to the person producing the videos. You'd have to be pretty utilitarian to suggest that forcing a small number of children to be abused on camera is better than a larger number being abused in private.

"Child Abuse Images"?

[Brian Ribbon]

As soon as you use those words, you have lost your argument in the eyes of the general public. Studies have shown that most illegal images of children do not involve sexual abuse. Data from Garda (linked above) shows that the most serious image possessed in 44% of "child pornography" cases in Ireland (whose child pornography laws mirror those of the UK) decpited no sexual activity whatsoever.

Pictures of naked children, which presumably comprise the majority of blocked images, should not be called "child abuse images". That term is just newspeak designed to justify the vast powers of censorship and funding which are handed to the IWF.

Re:Hold your horses

[hairyfeet]

You wanna hear the most ironic part? According to my buddy at the state crime lab the hardcore child molesters and Cp rings aren't actually using the Internet at all, at least not for anything other than non-sexual "first contact" kind of stuff.

According to him once you are "in" the bunch, most likely by sending someone who is "in" some encrypted CP they haven't seen before with the key, they then pass all further content by the mail of all things. That's right, good old snail mail. They pass it by using heavily encrypted DVDs for which the keys are sent by avenues like coded emails or letters. He said that they have caught a few because of children they have molested and found dozens and even hundreds of encrypted DVDs sent from mail drops all over the place, but since these guys are looking at 400+ years good luck getting any of them to rat.

So while the governments of the world Big Brother the hell out of us "for teh childrens!" the actual sick child raping bastards will keep right on swapping thanks to the good old world wide mail system. I just find that ironic as hell.