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Leaked Letter Shows UK ISPs and Government At War Over Default Filters
An anonymous reader writes, quoting the BBC: "A letter sent to the UK's four leading ISPs from the government has made them very cross indeed. The letter comes from the Department for Education but it sets out a list of demands from Downing Street, with the stated aim of allowing the prime minister to make an announcement shortly. The companies are asked, among other things, for a commitment to fund an 'awareness campaign' for parents. They're not particularly happy about promising cash for what the letter concedes is an 'unknown campaign' but it's the next item on the menu which is the source of most of their anger."
That next item is making and marketing Internet censorship filters as "default-on" rather than "active choice": "'It sounds like a good idea until you think it through,' said one industry source. 'There are three reasons why it doesn't work. First it may be illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers. Then there's the fact that no filter is perfect, and finally kids are smart enough to find their way around them.'" From the sound of it, it might just be newspeak vs newspeak. The entire letter is included in the article.
Rude Britannia!
Britannia on the net!
Children might still find bad things yet!
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
That brings back memories. 14 or 15 years ago, when I was still living in the dial up age, my father decided to implement a 1 hour/day limit on my Internet access (AOL parental controls, I believe.) he worked until the evening so I could do whatever I wanted without supervision for the 4 or 5 hours between the end of school and him returning home. One of the very first things I did was search for a free dial up ISP that displayed ads, and I found one! All was great for a month or so until the phone bill for $900 came in... Turned out it was dialing some ISP in the Ukraine... Oops!
This is what you got when a nation-wide filtering system is created in the first place. Not satisfied with merely blocking the pedo-porn they went after the pirates and now they want to go after everything not whitelisted. It only gets worse from here guys, kill the national filter system dead before it grows, kill it before it grows.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
(of course, elventy million would nuke my karma to a crisp, but doing as the topic says would end the damage to various citizens caused by these leaks)
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Like our crazy spying program here in the US, this could be used for much worse things secretly by other administrations in the future.
Having a system put in place that can do real-time packet inspection and traffic editing should simply be illegal for ISPs, not required. I'd also favor banning traffic logging and non realtime inspection.
Let me guess: all good and dandy until some parents will sue the ISP for "having their kids accidentally exposed by a hole the filter" (as in "letting the kid find a way to bypass the filter and try get some money from the ISP").
Then the idea of "default-on filter" will be busted for good (or, alternatively, the Internet as seen by UK will look like a puny list of white listed sites, all the others censored).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I know why they want these filters. GCHQ is getting flooded with porn. The filters are for the good of the country boys. Dog save the Queen.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The country that wants to block porn by default?
Sounds like a dream country for this guy!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It'll start out banning porn, or so they'll claim, but pretty soon things like Wikileaks will be included on the blacklist with the general public never noticing.
No automatic filter works better than actual parenting...
So, he's trying to get the ISP's on board to a law before he's state what the law is, or before Parliament has discussed it.
WTF. Seriously is that how bad its getting in the UK?
They didn't leak the letter, it never had a right to be kept secret, it's a Parliamentary reach around, he doesn't have the power to make secret laws.
When the government filters only that which the government approves of is unfiltered. Intelligent and responsible parents can decide for themselves what is and what is not appropriate for their children to view.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
You need someone's cooperation, so you send a letter demanding they do a bunch of things you know they object to on short notice and then demand money at the same time? Good luck with that.
First it may be illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers. Then there's the fact that no filter is perfect, and finally kids are smart enough to find their way around them.
Of these three points only the first one is of any substance, potentially. The rest is just a re-hash of the old 'we don't want it because it isn't perfect' - ie. just empty rhetorics. Nothing is perfect, we already knew that; the real question is, does it make things better - and how much? And what do we understand by better?
As far as I can see, this scheme essentially means that there will be some filter and you teach people how to turn it off if they want to. That makes a lot of sense to me - many (probably most) people don't want to get into contact with what they see as filth, and they don't want to have to learn something they find difficult. And this scheme doesn't affect the freedom of those who want it - they just have to make a bit more of an effort. What's not to like about it?
While you have some valid points, whaffling on and phrasing them like you're a whacked-out conspiracy nut really don't help your cause.
I mean, "sheeple"? FFS...
You know, this could actually be a good thing. With dicks like the NSA trying to spy on everyone, giving kids a reason to - and making it very normal to - learn things like TOR could be a really positive step.
Tl:dr
Zimmerman the lyncher?
Best to stick with your local rag with your inane rumblings. I am sure the editor of the Podunk Journal would appreciate the filler that will help ensure more mutters continue to read his tripe and therefor patronize the advertisers' businesses who are the sole reason for his rag's existence.
Thanks iPod for mutilating my clever reply!
Guys, this is going to happen - Its all about oversight now.
Just legislate and make the filtering rules public knowledge and publicly available through a request for information.
Have any sensitive information publicly accessible and have a yearly forum to challenge the shyte.
Are the oversight controls in control of the people or are they in control of the select few for political gain?
Have a xfunctional technocratic team of 8 people from law, teaching, medical, engineering and 4 artists head up the oversight committee.
Done.
I notice those three things don't include obvious problems like treating every adult like a child by default, regardless of whether there are children in the house, having to prove again you're grownup (yet you were allowed to enter into a contract for service in the first place!), the problems with that proving next to the problems with actually filtering, and, you know, the whole thing being censorship and so putting the UK even more obviously on par with China.
Even more? Yes, the UK already have an overzealous filter, "voluntarily" implemented by every ISP and blacklists provided by the "internet watch foundation". That one is only for shuffling kiddie pr0n under the carpet, which apparently is expected to make actual harm to children go away too. Likewise, here. Can't see it? Must not exist then, guv.
And the problems with that "prove their age/identity" thing? Apart from the obvious technical problems there's the "oh yes do log in to the internet under your real name please". Wider consequences left as an exercise.
As a hint, consider that the IWF filter was promised to never ever be expanded, only ever used for hiding child porn, honest honest fingers crossed, yet has been used as proof that this ought to be feasible too. No expansion ever? Right, and politicians are honest people, the lot of them.
I'm still with the concensus that the UK would make sex illegal if they could.
And everyone has to reproduce via Artificial Insemination.
In fact, it's quite an interesting read, and an insight into 'modern' politico thinking...
Behind the politeness...
"ask for some specific"
" I would be grateful if you could consider this request as a matter of urgency
They're actually 'asking' (i.e. trying to direct) the ISPs specific actions...
"Will the other three ISPs consider making a commitment to adopting this approach [experimental browser intercept] - even before it has been trialled"
Who in their right mind would commit to that? What if it totally bombs; they're still going to implement it?
"The prime minister expects customers to be required to prove their age/identity before any changes to the filters are made"
Why? Is he an internet security expert now?
"The prime minister would like to be able to announce a collective financial commitment from industry to fund this campaign."
Yeah, I bet he would. "Look voters, I screwed some of your cash out of your ISPs in the name of the children!"
"The prime minister believes that there is much more that we can all do to improve how we communicate the current position on parental internet controls and that there is a need for a simplified message to reassure parents and the public more generally. Without changing what you will be offering (ie active-choice +), the prime minister would like to be able to refer to your solutions are "default-on" as people will have to make a choice not to have the filters (by unticking the box). "
Pure spin. The whole thing reeks of micromanagement and backroom arm-twisting.
Plus of course, if the entire thing goes wrong, the Gov gets to blame the ISPs!
So set up a TLD for kids.uk already!
Then set up a registrar that instead of putting domains in .uk, put them in .kids.uk, and be done with it.
Force all "kid safe" browsers to ALWAYS appeand .kids.uk, and police the subdelegation registrar.
Damn problem solved already, with dumbass legislation that mandates industry to develop technology that it's impossible to make foolproof -- and which most technologists capable of implementing it, think is a stupid idea that shouldn't be implemented in the first place (like DRM, which is why DRM is never implemented in a foolproof way).
Prediction: It will all be down by private corporations and their filters will be 'protected private commercial property', so politicos and corps can bounce problems between them until complainants get tiered and go away.
To make it clear, anyone who believes this filter will stop at porn or to protect children is on cloud 7.
This push is not about that. It is to apply a filter to content that the government can not control. The filter is here the goal. And any means is just to get popular opinion to support it.
Once this filter is in place the scope will increase incrementally, with every new legislation round. Copyright holders will push to include sites like ThePirateBay, never mind TPB is listing a lot of legal torrents; it will include radio streams that somehow slipped paying the PPL;
Later of course the filter will include "terrorists sites". And more later any critics and articles on the government politics and programs, that are deemed crucial "national security", like the Snowden leaks.
The press like the Guardian have rights like freedom of the press. But the Internet does not have any rights. There is no right to Twitter or to Blog.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
China has definitely become the role model with regards to internet policies.
So, did this happen before or after the trolls?
She is the one that caused this, that arrogant ignorant fuck is the one that wants everyone else to take care of her family for her so she can continue being an obnoxious moron to everyone else.
How the hell she got in to government is beyond me. Her position there is about as explanatory as Lydia Winters in Mojang.
There needs to be a minimum IQ and knowledge test before people get in to government. She would fail it hard.
Surely even conservatives are annoyed at her stupidity?
Complain, complain your ass off. Every MP, every petition site, just complain like hell.
Get her kicked out of government for being a complete moron. She is telling ISPs to straight up LIE to people now.
I remember I thought she was just being overly paranoid at things.
"oh no, that big bad internet, gotta lock it down for everyone!"
Then I saw her in an interview on TV. Holy shit.
She really is terrible. She is ignorant, argumentative, forceful and generally just seriously annoying.
Take care of your own damn family and get internet filters for your PC.
Don't like that? How about you sit the hell down and talk to your children for once and explain things?
Don't like that? How about you UNEXIST and stop bothering us with your mistakes!
Of course they're at war. This is one of the most incompetent and scientifically illiterate governments in living memory. It's packed full of lunatic ideologues like Ian Duncan Smith and Teresa May who sideline professional academic advice time and time again in favour of their own prejudices stupidity and ignorance. I just wish their misguided, harmful and plain unworkable policies wouldn't wreck this countries social and political fabric for generations to come. It would be funny if the human cost wasn't so high
And you know what? In spite of this, the main opposition is still unable to differentiate itself as a better alternative than this shower of charlatans, bigots and liars.
I despair at this country. I really do.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
Indeed. And in general far more adjectives than is ever needed.
Or just fight it because if Snowden's leaks have told us anything in the UK it's that even when the government pretends to be transparent it's not.
For example, they claimed they needed the Interception Modernisation Programme to be able to keep up to date with modern spying requirements. Two successive governments involving all three main parties in fact have pushed exactly this but each time the public has said no way.
It turns out GCHQ has been doing it anyway and the so the legislation was being pushed to legalise what was already being done illegally.
So given that, why would we trust them on filtering? Even if they said it's going to happen and offer transparency on what's blocked we can't trust that they wont block anything else as they've already proven themselves untrustworthy. Better to fight the law altogether and even produce and distribute tools that make it a one click operation to bypass the filters (very easily done).
Ironically though if you read TFA you'd see that it's actually not going to happen anyway, basically Claire Perry the retard behind this along with her ultra-religious hard right media fanaticists like The Daily Mail has been defeated but is asking ISPs to pretend that she hasn't by pretending what they're offering is something that it isn't.
First it may be illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers. Then there's the habit of government to censor any unflattering truths, and finally kids are smart enough to find their way around them.
What.. you mean one of the millions of web proxies around the world? It sounds like they will be spending millions one something that can be circumvented with a single Google search.