UK ISP Filter Will Censor More Than Porn

The UK's on-by-default censorship, as you might expect, presses with a heavy thumb: coolnumbr12 writes "The Open Rights Group spoke with several ISPs and found that in addition to pornography, users will also be required to opt in for any content tagged as violent material, extremist and terrorist related content, anorexia and eating disorder websites, suicide related websites, alcohol, smoking, web forums, esoteric material and web blocking circumvention tools. These will all be filtered by default, and the majority of users never change default settings with online services."

Comments

Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

So will it also block cult sects like scientology and other major religions like cristianity? How about homeopathy?

Re:Esoteric material?

[SuricouRaven]

It'll only block cults that are too small to sue in retaliation.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are starting to make me think that it is a good thing...

Re:Esoteric material?

[dintech]

extremist and terrorist related content

No doubt opting in for porn will get you on the 'special attention at MI5' list.

Re:Esoteric material?

[nosfucious]

"You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it."

"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him"

I think it's very easy to make this all unworkable. Every and any website, publication, speech or media appearance of a supporter of net cencorship should be analysed to death. Any remote measure that would fall under the terms of the ban should be reported. Make sure the supporters of this ban are the first to feel its bite.

Most religious sites are easy game. Not one of the backers of this legislation will be pure as the driven snow and there has to be a reason for them to be banned. Then it is so easy to show inconsistencies and favouritism that the whole lot will be abolished because the responsible minister will look like an idiot.

I give it less that 12 months from the day of implementation until its fall.

Re:Esoteric material?

[gadget junkie]

extremist and terrorist related content

No doubt opting in for porn will get you on the 'special attention at MI5' list.

No. it will mark you as "normal", but with a less than ignorant approach to technology. Expect a movement to help people opt out of the filter altogether tough. If it happened here, I'd start one myself. Where in the world, except in the book "1984", the government decides what I am allowed to see? it only decides the media, anyhow: child pornography or else will not stop because Joe Soap does not see it by default. And the reasoning by which access to an uncontrolled internet is the fountainhead of social problem is beyond moronic, it's deceitful.

Re:Esoteric material?

[AmiMoJo]

You don't even have to submit a lot of material. Just leave comments arguing in favour of having sex with 9 years olds (because Mohammed did it so it must be okay, endorsed by God and all that). Then submit the site for blocking due to the comments. Should be possible to get most many pages on the BBC and various newspaper web sites banned that way.

Re:Esoteric material?

[jaseuk]

Known Child Porn is blocked by all or most UK ISPs anyway. There is no opt-out of this.

Jason.

Re:Esoteric material?

[lightknight]

It may look like incumbent interests, right or, as usual, wrong, are working to carve up the public's attention so that they can remain in power...because they are.

If you tell them that normal people don't need 'their protection'...well, they manufacture circumstances where a public outcry occurs to prove you wrong. In short, they are people who need to feel needed...by taking care of someone else, preferably seen as less capable / intelligent than themselves, so that their selfless nature (need for attention) may be more publicly seen. Lol, I remember when they taught Christians to do good acts, and tell no one, so that God would have something nice to inform others of when they came to lampoon you...I suppose that went out of style at some point, or perhaps the culture has become so political that not walking around proclaiming that you have done something 'selfless' that day for someone else is grounds for others gathering stones.

It's almost as if these types do not see any inherent worth in themselves...nor do they understand the damaging effects of their actions, the false prison they've placed themselves in, or that they must, at some point, let the children make their own decisions and abide by those consequences...much like how their parents, and their parents before them, sat them on the proverbial throne (or behind the steering wheel of dad's priceless Mustang), guided their hand as needed, but let them understand that this is what it's like to be in charge (it's going to be scary, you're going to have to grow up, and you will, in time, have to make a lot of decisions which, love it or hate it, you will remember and wonder for the rest of your life if there wasn't a better way). The first time you get into a car accident, no one is Mr. Cool...not your parents, not your grand-parents, etc. The fifth time you get into one it will still be nerve-wracking ("Am I cursed?"), but you will at least be able to get the appropriate information out of the glove box, and move your car out of the way of oncoming vehicles...before accessing the realistic damage to the car (sheet metal looks bad, but cleans up strangely well with a rubber hammer....things look worse than they are...usually).

Re:Esoteric material?

[SuricouRaven]

Be fair to him: It was a political marriage, and he did manage to postpone the sex - she was six or seven when they married. By the standards of the time, eleven wasn't shockingly young - people didn't live as a long, so there was a lot of pressure to start breeding as soon and as many as possible.

He'd be a pedophile by the standards of our time, and we'd lock him up for at least a few decades. But by t his own culture, this was really nothing exceptional. Political marriage to children was a common practice, and girls/women were generally considered ready for breeding at their first period - the point at which they were known to be fertile.

It is true that in many Islamic countries, Aisha and the 'if Mohammed did it' argument are used to justify very low age of consent laws. Egypt was discussing a proposed law that would have reduced the age of consent for both sex and marriage for girls to 9 (or 11, it wasn't decided) in line with Aisha, until recent events left their legislative processes on hold.

Re:Esoteric material?

[oobayly]

I would say most, otherwise I'd be able to take my ISP to court for fraud. Their other page is worth a read too.

Re:Esoteric material?

[gweihir]

How about filtering out psycho-cults like the current British government? Now that would be an advantage!

Re: Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. My ISP told me at the time of the Wikipedia / Scorpions incident that they could lift the Internet Watch Foundation filter on request. ...I then got sheepish and said "Er nah, you're all right..."

Note: my ISP was the prime mover behind the IWF's creation back in the day. It is however historically business-oriented, so I expect that filter had been found wanting too and customers had made a stink about it hence the opt-out option.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course that argument could be used in other cases too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_sexual_assault_trial_of_2004), but the question of the argument being *accepted* is subject to a consistent double standard based, seemingly, on race and / or religion.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were in the UK I'd probably use them. Thumbs up!

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Uk government is sticking big brother's dick (i.e. prism, blarney, ... and now internet censorship) democratically and gradually into people.

So what were the western democracies about?

Re:Esoteric material?

[AmiMoJo]

When I opted out of being watched by using a VPN I also opted out of the Cleanfeed system.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Patch86]

Indeed, young marriages were common in Medieval Europe far later than Mohammed's time. Mohammed died in 632 AD. Take this list of marriages from some random website:

Bianca of Savoy, Duchess of Milan was married aged 13yo (1350), and aged 14yo when she gave birth to her eldest son, Giangaleazzo (1351).
Theodora Comnena was aged 13yo when she was married King Baldwin III of Jerusalem (1158).
Agnes of France was 12yo when, widowed, she was married to Andronicus Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor (1182).
St Elizabeth of Portugal was aged 12yo when she was married to King Denis of Portugal and gave birth to three children shortly thereafter.
Caterina Sforza was betrothed aged 9yo, married aged 14yo, and gave birth aged 15yo.
Lucrezia Borgia was married to her first husband aged 13yo and bore a son within a few years.
Beatrice d'Este was betrothed aged 5yo and married aged 15yo.

And that's us "civilised Christian folk". Racism is a subtle creature...

Re:Esoteric material?

[augahyde]

No doubt opting in for porn will get you on the 'special attention at MI5' list.

Of course it will because you're opting to be able to view terrorist materials. Either you're with us or against us.

Re:Esoteric material?

[AmiMoJo]

Sure, I wasn't actually making any comment on Mohammed's behavior, merely pointing out that religious and historical texts will end up being banned by ignorant prudes.

Fir what it's worth I don't think historical context is a justification in this case. At the risk of Godwin'ing the argument historical context does not excuse the actions of soldiers committing war crime because "everyone else was doing it too". A lack of intelligence or moral sophistication is not an excuse either. Mohammed's actions were wrong and should be condemned.

Of course with filtering in place we couldn't have this debate without requesting access to it first.

Re:Esoteric material?

[pla]

By the standards of the time, eleven wasn't shockingly young - people didn't live as a long, so there was a lot of pressure to start breeding as soon and as many as possible.

This counts as half true.

Having a marriage arranged at that age - Not rare (though not common except for "important" people who couldn't leave things like the inheritance of titles and land holdings to chance).

As for reproduction, though, quality of diet directly affects that. In the 20th century, access to sufficient calories has brought the age of menarche down to 12-14 in most of the Western world (and food laced with hormones has dropped that to as low as 9ish today, but that simply didn't happen except as a freakish rarity prior to modern times); And in the absence of a proper diet, particularly among the poor, menarche could historically happen as late as 17.

So, Aisha, as the daughter of a Abu Bakr, Caliph of Rashidun, most likely had a sufficiently high quality diet that we could expect her to reasonably gone through puberty as early as 12.

9 < 12. Take that as you will.

Re:Esoteric material?

[nurb432]

Sure there is. Just not from the government.

Re:Esoteric material?

[AmiMoJo]

Just to be clear I was only using Mohammed as an example, not least because he has God to back him up. You shouldn't read more into it than I wrote.

Will you apologize for implying that I am a racist? I'm actually half Asian so it would be a bit weird being biased against half of myself.

Re:Esoteric material?

[UnknownSoldier]

As a mystic I was wondering the exact thing: How does a layman decide between exoteric and esoteric when they have no valid frame of reference to even understand the difference?

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

move your car out of the way of oncoming vehicles...before **accessing** the realistic damage to the car

And than you call you're ensurance compony? MAROON!

Re: Esoteric material?

[sal_park]

yea, same ISP as I use (A&A ISP) and I picked them for having *exactly* that kind of an attitude. Oh yea and they understand the word 'linux' and provide really proper support :)

Re:Esoteric material?

[I'm New Around Here]

Where in the world, except in the book "1984", the government decides what I am allowed to see? it only decides the media, anyhow: child pornography or else will not stop ...

So you are saying you watch adults have sex with children, but only in a live setting?

Honestly, I don't know how else to parse that particular statement.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Patch86]

Please do accept my apologies- it wasn't really a comment intended to be at you (the commenter) specifically. Just the general (and pervasive) "Mohammed was a paedophile" thing, which continuously winds me up.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

12 months?
Just turn on MTV or any station that broadcasts music videos no older than 20 years, and you'll see so much nudity, 9 out of 10 will be blocked in the first half hour if it works as advertised. Youtube will be full of cats doing cute things, but otherwise barren (not really a bad thing). What about games? I often see lots of videos with people playing RPG's with their characters in their underware.

You know? When I see an artist that can promote his/her songs without displaying anything other than the skin of their hands and face, I'll agree piracy is a bad thing. Until then, they DO NOT have the right to judge the morality of piracy.(which is the only thing they can do, because they still can't prove it's illegality) .

Then again, why should I be surprised? Thousands of years of recorded history and we have yet to accuse a politician of showing intelligence or at least common sense.

Anyway, I think I should watch again "V for Vendetta", since the mood fits perfectly. I'll even download a pirated copy for extra mood points.

Re:Esoteric material?

[morcego]

It'll only block cults that are too small to sue in retaliation.

Or to buy and have their own Members of Parliament...

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

Life was much harder back then, and as a result people matured much much earlier. But that's besides the point, until recently women had NO rights. Anything said and done was on paper or just theory. Still is in a lot of places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights#Convention_on_the_Elimination_of_All_Forms_of_Discrimination_Against_Women
Just bellow, you'll see "2011 study of status by country", where UK doesn't even make the top 10.

And to be fair .. us "civilised Christian folk" are the ones moving forward and changing for the better. The others ... not so much.

Re:Esoteric material?

[dcollins]

"people didn't live as a long, so there was a lot of pressure to start breeding as soon and as many as possible"

Common misconception. Lots of young people died (in childbirth or as infants), bringing down the average life expectancy. But once a person reached adulthood, the maximum lifespan was about the same as it is today. Bible Psalm 90:10: "Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away" (as written ~500 BC).

http://biblehub.com/psalms/90-10.htm
http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/parallel/paral18.cfm

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

Child pornography is blocked in Norway as well. The block is a web-page telling you that the requested page is on a list of thought to be illegal content. You are however provided the option to continue to access the page if you really want to.

Re:Esoteric material?

[ExRex]

The primary definition of esoteric is things that are known only to a small circle, i.e., things that most people don't know about.
That's what the Internet is for, learning about things you don't already know.
Except, I suppose, for those people who only use it to look at pictures of kittens.

Re:Esoteric material?

[rysiek]

It is beyond moronic and deceitful, but the general public will not see it that way. They will see "porn" in the same category as "terrorist content" and once they hear about a friend or relative "opting-out" of the filter, it will paint a picture for them. And somehow I am not convinced it's not by design. This is what we get when the unwashed masses get their information from Daily Mail and do not receive proper schooling in topics like democracy, personal freedoms, etc.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

If ACs could mod up, I'd mod this comment so hard.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Shark]

Hey, I look at pictures of kittens that I haven't seen before!

Re:Esoteric material?

[Nerdfest]

It has nothing to do with race, but rather culture. Most cultures improve, some don't, and some get worse.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have rows of sexy female agents, ready to take responsible for "the special attention."

Re:Esoteric material?

[cusco]

Also blocking "web forums, esoteric material". Participants of web forums are traditionally the most politically active people online, and many of them are also the most politically active people offline as well. It makes me feel as though the PTB are nearing their 'end game', whatever it is, when they barely even pretend to be censoring in the public interest.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but that does not make them all right now, today such things are definitely unacceptable, not a good showing for someone who is supposed to represent a perfect and objective mortality which does not need to change or be improved.

Even in the past where some young marriages might have been necessary an early betrothal or a non sexual marriage for a longer time may well have been the moral option. The early age of first child could probably be coincided immoral or at least recognised as harmful by people with a proper grasp of ethics even at the time. Young pregnancies are more dangerous both to mother and child and with an average lifespan in the medieval era was around 30 for Britain(for example) you would expect more surviving children on average if you postponed till after 14 at least as well as a better survival rate for the mother.

Re:Esoteric material?

[AmiMoJo]

Thanks, accepted.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt opting in for porn will get you on the 'special attention at MI5' list.

"We've got the place surrounded, you've nowhere to go."

"I've got a penis and I'm not afraid to rub it!"

Re:Esoteric material?

[cusco]

I had to read TFS three times before I could really believe that it said "web forums, esoteric material". The Brits may as well wave goodbye to SlashDot, NASA, pretty much every decent university's science department, the government's own science and economic web sites, etc. The two biggest draws to the Internet for me, and the British want to eliminate them. Yikes.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you go from a perfectly reasonable biblical reference to taking the position that everyone is a terrible driver? Fifth accident? I don't know many people who can relate to this metaphor.

Re: Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

the average life expectancy was lower, but if you survived chilhood you were likely to live about as long a a modern human. A common misconception.

Re:Esoteric material?

[BitterOak]

Known Child Porn is blocked by all or most UK ISPs anyway. There is no opt-out of this.

Jason.

Yes, there is. The opt-out is the web blocking circumvention tools described in the article which are now themselves blocked by default, but you can opt-out of that.

Re:Esoteric material?

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Perhaps the slippery slope isn't a logical fallacy after all? This all started with child porn, now all porn, and now almost everything that somebody can find objectionable.

I expected this out of Iran or China...but England?

Re:Esoteric material?

[b4dc0d3r]

I'd feel much better about believing you if your source material wasn't well known for being, shall we say, exaggerated at times?

While there is no solid answer, you are arguing the wrong thing. Maximum age is not the same as "people not living as long". Lots of people died in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, making the few who lived to the natural old age death were few and far between.

Here is an article which is attacking a Live Science article, and hopefully you can make the distinction. It argues your point, more or less. Evaluating both articles should prove enlightening.

The statement still stands - people didn't live as long. If you like, take a hypothetical population of 100 people, assign the life expectancy to each member of the group, and see when they die. Count the number of years lived, and you have fewer total years in the lower life expectancy group - despite similar maximum ages.

I will say that it wasn't so much pressure to breed - that is probably overstatement. But the accepted age of motherhood certainly was younger when lifespan was shorter.

Re:Esoteric material?

[iJed]

They will never block homeopathy due to our health secretary believing in homeopathy: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100179258/jeremy-hunt-health-secretary-thinks-homeopathy-works/. Yes the man put in charge of the National Health Service, once the greatest health care system in the world, believes in magical healing. Hunt isn't only a criminal (see his dealings with Rupert Murdoch) he is also a nut job.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

This won't work. They already filter 'child porn' (and of leaked lists there is political stuff on them that clearly isn't). This new additional filtering might better hide the fact they are censoring political speech. Now they just add the news sites which are reporting on it and those companies will quickly learn to censor themselves. If they get accused of anything the system will just say it was a mistake, unblock it, etc. But in reality even a day of censoring that site will have a significantly negative effect on the companies income that they won't post politically objectionable material again.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Be fair to him: It was a political marriage, and he did manage to postpone the sex"

For a few moments there, I thought you were referring to Cameron and Clegg.

Re:Esoteric material?

[carou]

I'm convinced that he only got that job because Hunt and Health start with the same letter. There was an Embarrassing Incident in his previous role as Culture Secretary.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! When I get back to the UK, I know which ISP I'm signing up with.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's quite a difference between the 9 lunar years of Aisha (8 of our solar years) and 15 in developmental maturity. Furthermore, the age difference of Mohammed (54) to Aisha is much larger than between a 15 year old and someone in their late twenties. Aisha's exploitation was abnormal (although not unheard of) for the time - even Abu Bakr objected to it - but could not refuse the brutally insane Mohammed his wishes.

Please also note that Mohammed used to suck on the tongues of young boys (eg. his nephews) and do what he wanted with his slaves. I'm sorry, portraying Mohammed as anything except a colossal pervert just shows how little you know of the hadiths and Sira. Then trying desperately to find an equivalence with medieval European marriages with girls nearly twice Aisha's age (and of course, more than twice in developmental terms) is apologetics for evil. The other thing is that Sharia today legitimizes marriages to nine year olds, and there are nearly a million Iranian children in marriage and lots of horror stories happening *today* in the Islamic world. The rest of the World has moved on in morality, while Islam remains a brutal desert barbarian culture (which cannot change due to its dogmatism preventing reform). Examples of the horror that you should be familiar with:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7_TKgw1To [this 11 year old Yemeni child can see with a moral clarity that Islamic apologists cannot seem to see]

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/05/8-yr-old-afghan-bride-who-was-brutally-killed-by-her-mullah-husband-on-the-first-night-of-her-weddin.html [8 year old killed on wedding night in horrific circumstances, but wedding permitted by Sharia]

Please also watch the testimonies of Wafa Sultan on YouTube, and how Islamic marriages destroyed her cousin.

Please stop trying to make a false "moral equivalence" between European medieval society that is now utterly rejected by civilized society and evil Sharia as it is practiced *today*. I hope that you follow the links I have provided and learn the actual harm being done to children due to Sharia marriages. It is not ok to defend this barbarity. Please do the research yourself - if you do then I'm sure as a moral person you will also draw the conclusion that Sharia marriages to children must be stopped by civilized men, and never ever defended on places like Slashdot once you know the truth about this evil.

 

Re:Esoteric material?

[readin]

You don't think MI5 already knows whether you're looking at porn?

Re:Esoteric material?

[rtb61]

Now of course you get the real idea of what they are really censoring, 'POLITICS', that's what it is all about, nothing at all to do with porn, just you typical right wing censor anything that threatens their ability to manipulate elections in their favour. Especially anything that expose the hypocrisy and corruption of politicians.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Yvanhoe]

The truly hilarious label there is "extremist". What is extremism? Anarcho-terrorism? Anarchism? Communism? Syndicalism?

Note a single time has there been a "porn filter" that did not include highly political sites in its black lists.

Would you censor LGBT movements? Would you censor FEMEN? Would you censor news article talking/showing pictures of FEMEN activists? Hey, would you censor anti-censorship webste explaining how to circumvent your filters? Would this make you censor EFF or pirate party?

NEVER accept censorship, even if it advances under the cover of something that seems acceptable (like fighting against pedopornography or terrorism) because selective sensible censorship is not a stable state. As soon as a censorship mechanism exists, very high pressures will abund to extend it.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Cederic]

Mohammed wasn't Asian, and Asians can be racist too. But I don't think you were being racist anyway, so ignore the idiot.

Re:Esoteric material?

[doccus]

Opting in for *anything* will get you on the list.. that's how it works.. Either you meekly accept the blocks (which may include blocking "disturbing, graphic" news reports of government DHS cop atrocities, so as not to "offend" sensitive psyches), or you get targeted as a "potential terrist" which puts you in the path of these DHS cop atrocities...

Re:Esoteric material?

[doccus]

I don't actually know what the UK calls it's version of DHS, which is why i used that term..

Re: Esoteric material?

[Leofcwen]

If it wasn't for the bandwidth cap I'd switch to them.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Leofcwen]

I don't as a rule like the idea of censorship as it's a slippery slope to very wrong places. This being said, I don't know what people could posisbly want to access things like that for, other than the authorities when tracking down these monsters, but even then it should be under controlled conditions to prevent their exposure.

Re: Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

Make religion illegal and porn compulsory.

Re: Esoteric material?

[TangoCharlie]

I have a BT Mobile Broadband dongle. I have found that BT blocks searching the Internet Archive www.archive.org. I'm guessing that the BT anti-porn filter is simply based on the domain, and can't "see" the page. Try searching for www.bt.com on the Internet Archive! I think the UK ISP porn filters are likely to cause significant issues.

Re:Esoteric material?

[RockDoctor]

No doubt opting in for porn will get you on the 'special attention at MI5' list.

No. it will mark you as "normal", but with a less than ignorant approach to technology.

And being less than ignorant will get you flagged for special attention.

Re:Esoteric material?

[gadget junkie]

Known Child Porn is blocked by all or most UK ISPs anyway. There is no opt-out of this.

Jason.

same in italy.

Re:Esoteric material?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Mohammed died in 632 AD

There is very little reason to believe that Mohammed and Islam's origin story are real but is merely political propaganda (see Mao's Red Book) established when indigenous Arab tribes expelled the Byzantium occupation from Palestine in the 7th century. There is some evidence that these were a mixture of Christian/Jewish arabs spawned the history of both Mohammed and Islam to establish a long term spiritual legitimacy.

Some information of note:
* There is no mention of Mohammed till at least a century after his death, this includes inscriptions and minted coins
* No mention of either of Islam, islamic practices (i.e. prayer) or Mohammed by contemporary Greek/Byzantian historians and bureaucrats after the arab invasion of Jerusalem
* There is no historical mention of Mecca, considering that neighbouring coastal towns have been well documented by Greek merchants, travellers and historians

We might as well be discuss the the Lords of the Rings here (much more interesting).

Disclosure: I am an apostate

Figured this might happen

[Goose In Orbit]

Though most people are still too busy cooing over the royal baby to notice...

Re:Figured this might happen

[Godwin O'Hitler]

I'm not sure royal babies are rich enough in content to keep a whole nation cooing for long.
I'm sure most people probably won't even notice or care anyway regardless.

When I was with O2 in the UK five years ago these things were already opt-in.

Nanny state. Pan. Water. Frog. Heat.

Re:Figured this might happen

[gweihir]

Most people are stupid. That is what budging totalitarian regimes usually ride in on. The Nazis, for example, promised jobs (and did create them) and everybody besides the few that were actually looking at what these guys stood for was happy. The British government now promises a "clean" Internet and everybody is happy, besides those that actually understand what censorship is and how hugely dangerous it is. But people remain stupid, despite ample examples from history. And the enemies of freedom use that and move in slowly.

Re:Figured this might happen

[Anonymous Coward]

... despite ample examples from history

Why do you think they've been progressively dumbing down the education system that the plebs are subject to.
History to most of them now, is naught but the name of a TV channel..

Whilst the functional moron brigade are cooing over the birth of another royal parasite, the Oxbridge mafia slip this sort of shit through, ah well, that's me marked for thought crime..

Re:Figured this might happen

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Most people are stupid.

Duh, have you seen the distribution of the IQ in a large population set???

50% are below average. They are easily swayed by fancy words and shiny objects. Yet they are allowed to vote

Re:Figured this might happen

[gweihir]

Well, I have abandoned TV 9 years ago, it was just to brain-melting stupid. But yes, dumbing down the education system to the bare essentials is certainly part of the plan. The US is an even better example.

Re:Figured this might happen

[gweihir]

I don't agree that this is the problem. (And 50% are always below average in a Gaussian distribution, so I am not sure whether you intend to be funny...) With a solid education and keen insights into their own limits, people with average or below average intelligence are not stupid at all. Yes, they may have to ask to have things explained to them until they can be sure they get it, but most will be able to.

Re:Figured this might happen

[Anonymous Coward]

...people are stupid. That is what budging totalitarian regimes ...

Did you mean, "burgeoning" ?

Re:Figured this might happen

[fyngyrz]

With a solid education and keen insights into their own limits, people with average or below average intelligence are not stupid at all.

No. Just... no.

Re:Figured this might happen

[Mathinker]

> 50% are below average. They are easily swayed by fancy words and shiny objects.

LOL. As if not being tricked has something to do with intelligence or education. Human brains, because of their corner-cutting design via evolution, are easy prey for being tricked --- for example, by professional magicians. To a lesser extent this also applies for advertisers, and propagandists.

Look at the material that the skeptic community publishes and you will understand your own vulnerability, which can somewhat mitigate the reality.

Re:Figured this might happen

[Xest]

I changed phone provider recently for the first time in 11 years and so the filter went on on my new provider by default.

Turns out I was blocked from looking at pictures of Lego sets on my phone.

God damn that abusive violent terrorist Lego.

But seriously, it then made me wonder - turns out a quick search on Google was all that was required to find real actual porn that wasn't blocked by the filter.

It's a complete and utter waste of time, money, and effort with no actual benefit and only detriment.

Opt in??

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how you do it, but I "opt in" by sending a page request in the form of a URL.

Humanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are stupid little creatures aren't they.

Re:Humanity

[Anne Thwacks]

They are made out of meat!

"Web forums"

[eexaa]

...seriously?

On the other hand, more stuff they block, more users will opt out. I guess it can easily become a "traditional first thing you do with Internet", like removing IE and installing fox/chrome is now.

Re:"Web forums"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need anything more than Facebook, you're suspicious. Conform or Die!

Re:"Web forums"

[Anonymous Coward]

You could argue that Facebook is a kind of "web forum".

Re:"Web forums"

[SuricouRaven]

I'd argue that Facebook is many times more dangerous to children than pornography.

Re:"Web forums"

[mwvdlee]

I know that you meant that as a joke, but by lumping in "violent material, extremist and terrorist related content" with the porn, they are making it very easy to say that anybody that opts in to porn also opts in to terrorism and is to be suspected.

Re:"Web forums"

[Anonymous Coward]

and get added to the pervert list and later a new law demands that everyone in the pervert list can't be near children

Re:"Web forums"

[Zemran]

Anyone that uses Facebook must be a terrorist and should burn...

We will start with a simple test where we tie their hands and feet and throw them in the river. If they float they must be a terrorist and we must burn them. Simple.

Re:"Web forums"

[AHuxley]

...seriously? I think most govs see forums as a gateway.
Post enough and a user becomes liked, builds trust and the same interests gets strangers chatting. A useful person who is respectful or productive might get invited into darker time limited/ or "alphanumeric" chatrooms where they are further tested..
Beyond that is encryption and historically hard to track, invites into user generated chatrooms that last hours with very few members.
So from the govs view, stop the meetings, stop the easy entry, stop the introduction chats, stop the sites using the First Amendment to push the limits of 'art', 'politics', 'food', 'war', 'sex', 'faith', 'computing'...citizen journalism
Or the long term exposure to "thoughtcrime" material thats upsetting to new gov/mil staff exposing the actions, corruption, deaths, theft, lies ...of the organisations they entered.

Re:"Web forums"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not later, now!

Cameron has already stated that the list should be available to police and Social Services.

Social Services have said they would like to use the list to determine custody of children.

Re: "Web forums"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no. Go RTFA. In fact just go look at the picture in the article. Violence, et al, is in the same group of settings as porn and the others but it is not one opt-in for all the categories listed in the summary. Each category has its own opt-in.

Re: "Web forums"

[gl4ss]

No, no, no. Go RTFA. In fact just go look at the picture in the article. Violence, et al, is in the same group of settings as porn and the others but it is not one opt-in for all the categories listed in the summary. Each category has its own opt-in.

that's actually much worse. profiling.

Re:"Web forums"

[AmiMoJo]

Facebook's minimum age for signing up is 13, so there is a pretty good case for adding it to the list of blocked by default sites. At the very least there is a vast amount of hate material and pornography on individual pages which could be submitted.

Re:"Web forums"

[AmiMoJo]

Looking at the image in TFA it appears that Facebook, MySpace, Instagram, G+, LinkedIn and all the other social networking sites people seem to love will be blocked by default. Presumably very large numbers of people will opt-in to seeing them, and hopefully at the same time untick all the other boxes as well. Unfortunately the fact that their choices are logged will probably discourage them for deselecting everything.

Re:"Web forums"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd question how, rationally and with a sane mind, pornography is *at all* dangerous to children.

I have yet to see a sane answer not based on oppressive tactics invented by churches to perform eugenics on religious schizophrenics. (Who gets to have or even think about sex and who doesn't: Only those "married" do. And only if the church approves it, is it "marriage". At least that was the plan. And since everything else that's sex-related is a "sin", everyone is a sinner, and everybody has to "repent". Aka obey or be punished.)

Hell, I know of tribes where big sex orgies in the village center were a regular occurrence used for all kinds of reasons, much like parties are in the "western" world. And kids would run around the outskirts, and playfully imitate the grown-ups.
Am I the only one who thinks that's cute and so stunningly natural and healthy?

I mean, who else, apart from a religious nutjob who repressed his sexuality, to the point of being basically a compulsive predator, would think of child abuse in that situation?

Re:"Web forums"

[Idetuxs]

Web forums are the heart of the Internet, seriously. If you're looking for info about a subject, I have no doubt that you'll find a forum, within seconds, full of users talking about that and willing to give you more information, tips and tricks.

From TFA: "The company argued that porn filters will not solve the problem of child pornography and will only create new problems." I don't think that kind of pornography is in the 'open' web, but buried in parallel networks. That move is obviously for other reasons.

Re:"Web forums"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you are. Like pretty much all of you Americans / Religitards. FUBAR.

Re:"Web forums"

[dlingman]

So when exactly did the Usenet Cabal get into British politics? Who else would want the end of web forums, and be subtle enough to slip it into the middle of a list of bad stuff?

Re:"Web forums"

[dinfinity]

The article isn't very trustworthy and that image is quite misleading. The image is of an optional filter that has existed for a while ( http://www.talktalk.co.uk/security/homesafe-demo.html ).

The original source is this: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/sleepwalking-into-censorship
In that article this is said:

After brief conversations with some of the Internet Service Providers that will be implementing the UK's "pornwall" we've established a little bit about what it will be doing.
[...]
The essential detail is that they will assume you want filters enabled across a wide range of content, and unless you un-tick the option, network filters will be enabled.
[...]
EDIT NOTE: the category examples are based on current mobile configurations and broad indications from ISPs
[...]
The precise pre-ticked options may vary from service to service.
[...]
We can't say precisely what categories each ISP will provide – but they will be (as I say something like this above.

The key is the first screen, with the pre-ticked "enable parental filters" box: you will be encouraged to walk through to enable filters across a range of content, not just porn."

I imagine the 'brief conversations with some of the ISPs' went like this:
- "So how are you going to implement the porn filter?"
= "Well, I guess we'll make a webpage where people can opt out of the filter."
- "Something like TalkTalk Homesafe?"
= "Yeah, something like that."

Re:"Web forums"

[fustakrakich]

Repression of sexuality is necessary for crowd control. Anybody who rebels is tagged as a pervert, so a docile population is the result.

Re:"Web forums"

[Shark]

I haven't looked at studies but I have a feeling that a sexually repressed population would tend to be more violent.

Re:"Web forums"

[Anonymous Coward]

It works with food and other basic human instincts too, by the way.

Re:"Web forums"

[fustakrakich]

Yes, but it also makes them more subservient, which is a good combination in the wrong hands.

Re:"Web forums"

[Xest]

You joke but I think it almost certainly will be blocked. I couldn't even access Flickr on my new mobile contract the other day before I got the filter removed, presumably because at some point in time something pornographic has been posted there.

Re:"Web forums"

[AmiMoJo]

Actually I wasn't joking at all, not sure why I was modded that way. When the filters go live if Facebook isn't blocked I'll submit it on day one.

Re:"Web forums"

[Xest]

I'm going to every "Web 2.0" government site with user submitted content and submitting "offensive" material and reporting it too, starting with the blogs of every Tory MP!

What a surprise

[El_Muerte_TDS]

And in the future years it will also include sites critical of the government, large corporations, etc.

Re:What a surprise

[boorack]

Content critical of the government, banksters and corporations is already included in this list as "esoteric material".

Re:What a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question is:

Who decides what is to be considered extremist?

Re:What a surprise

[cheekyjohnson]

That's far from the only question; much of what they're trying to block is ambiguous. I guess some think that subjectivity simply doesn't exist and everything is set in stone, or more likely, everything that they personally disagree with will be blocked so they simply don't care.

Re:What a surprise

[TheBogBrushZone]

Given that they are keeping the blacklist secret surely WikiLeaks is already going to be on said list.

Re:What a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

A group of 95 year old ladies.

Re:What a surprise

[Savage-Rabbit]

And in the future years it will also include sites critical of the government, large corporations, etc.

The UK introduced the European Convention and it's freedom of expression guarantees into it's Human Rights Act. Then they added a whole legion of exceptions to freedom of expression such as:

• - Threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior.
• - Causing alarm or distress or causing a breach of the peace.
• - Sending somebody an object deemed indecent or offensive with the intention to cause distress.
• - Inciting racial or religious hatred.
• - Inciting and encouraging terrorism.
• - Possessing information likely to be useful to a terrorist.
• - Imagining the death of the monarc.
• - Advocating the abolition of the monarchy.
• - Sedition.
• - Obscenity and Indecency.

So with all these exceptions the conservatives do not seem to be stepping outside of any legal framework here. Many other European countries have at least some of these exceptions on the books as well as ones on trade secrets, copyrighted material etc. but It is pretty rare to see a government in a democratic western country actually implement across the board opt-out censorship of most or all of the things listed above. They usually content themselves with a subset. Regulation of many cases of things like indecency and obscenity usually happens on a case for case basis through the courts when somebody feels the line has been crossed. Other things on that list seem unenforceable, such as 'imagining the death of the monarch' (seriously?) and 'advocating the abolition of the monarchy'. I know a whole bunch of Britons who'd love to abolish the monarchy and are not afraid to advocate it. Basically the conservatives are testing the limits of the exceptions in the Human Rights act and are using porn as an excuse to get censorship in place. It will be interesting to see what happens if this gets dragged into the UK supreme court. It's also interesting to see the conservatives, who usually can't shut up about how they represent liberty and the free market and how the political left represents the nanny state, turn around and do something like this. I can't imagine many things that you can do that stink more strongly of the nanny-state than this which makes the tories guilty of a massive hypocrisy. Even more interesting is that TFA points out that the HomeSafe system singled out by Cameron is actually operated by Huawei, I take it that I don't have to explain to people here why this is also a massive hypocrisy. The only thing that remains is what to call this thing? Cameron's firewall? Limes Ignis Britannicus?

Re:What a surprise

[gweihir]

Indeed. And soon after "terrorist" material, subject to prosecution by secret courts using secret laws and imprisonment in secret prisons. And then people start vanishing, and everybody will be far too afraid to say anything...

Re:What a surprise

[spacepimp]

They already block these.... Terrorist related/extremist. America take note of what happens when you allow even the slightest amount of censorship to occur.

Re:What a surprise

[ninlilizi]

Probably the same person who decided that any weapon more elaborate than a kitchen knife, can be legally classed as a weapon of mass destruction.
Or terrorism now being most of the way thru a transition to being able to be determined at the prosecutors descretion for a simple, non-issue pubic order offense. Where currently going thru in the uk. Is a law to make saying anything that /may/ offend or cause offense to anybody else. A public order offense. Dissagreeing with a politician would count. As the politician /could/ be offended. And as a public figure is seen as needing the most protection.

All this put together. The UK is only a few steps from any kind of dissent or political activism. Regardless how soft and gentle. Can arbitrarily become a crime of terrorism, at somebody elses discretion. Without any checks or balances once the T law is invoked.

Re:What a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

- Advocating the abolition of the monarchy.

I think not.

Re:What a surprise

[Anne Thwacks]

its done by an AI program!

Which languages can the AI handle? Will I have to learn the names of various body parts in some really exotic language? Woot! This could lead to the revival of some nearly dead languages!

Re:What a surprise

[BobTheLawyer]

That post is not remotely correct.

Some of the items on the list are laws enacted after the Human Rights Act, but they are not exceptions to it - the Human Rights Act has priority.

Others - sedition and advocating the abolition of the monarchy - were criminal offences two hundred years ago, but there have been no prosecutions in recent times and the courts have acknowledged that the idea any prosecution would survive an HRA challenge is "unreal" (see Lord Steyn's judgment in the ex parte Rushbridger case).

Re:What a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a citation for the monarchy stuff?

Re:What a surprise

[dcollins]

Weirdly, if on Wikipedia you search for "Hadrian's Firewall", you get this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Firewall

Re:What a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

You can say whatever you like, as long as they are good.. happy thoughts!

Re:What a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Create such as site and see if it gets blocked.

Re:What a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a citation for the monarchy stuff?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom

These laws are on the books, they have were apparently tested as recently as 2003 but are outweighed by the human rights act and the various international human rights treaties the UK has signed so the law is unenforceable.

Re:What a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Weirdly, if on Wikipedia you search for "Hadrian's Firewall", you get this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Firewall

Whatever mistakes Hadrian may have made he doesn't deserve this.

Re:What a surprise

[BobTheLawyer]

You are an idiot. There are plenty of sites advocating the abolition of the monarchy, and plenty of sites advocating the end of Parliamentary democracy and its replacement with fascism, communism, anarchism, Trotskyism, take your pick.

The courts have spoken and they disagree with the previous poster. What they say counts, and if you can't be bothered to read the judgment I referred to that's your problem.

Re:What a surprise

[mpe]

And in the future years it will also include sites critical of the government, large corporations, etc.

Only if you have taken a very large dose of the potion described in the short story "The New Accelerator", by a certain Mr Wells.

Re:What a surprise

[2fuf]

And the list will going to be on WikiLeaks as well :-)

Just like 1984.

[bejiitas_wrath]

The ministry of truth will define what is allowable content and which is not. This using the Royal baby as a distraction to implement totalitarian control of the Internet. Just waint until they start blocking all "unwanted" content.

Re:Just like 1984.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait until it's not possible to opt-out anymore.
Give em finger they will byte off your whole hand.

Re:Just like 1984.

[Anonymous Coward]

The ministry of truth will define what is allowable content and which is not. This using the Royal baby as a distraction to implement totalitarian control of the Internet. Just waint until they start blocking all "unwanted" content.

Allow me to continue the flow of cliches:

• Who will filter the filterers?
• First they came for the child molesters, then they came for the porn addicts, then they came for the environmentalists, Xbox mod-chippers and the moslems and I never spoke out. By the time they came to take me to the KZ camp for downloading information on "liberalism, atheism and freedom of speech" there was none left to speak out.
• The tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of Internet users and ISP filtersystem administrators. It is it’s natural manure.

I don't mean to trivialise this draconian policy but let's not start making up gutter-press headlines quite yet. I'll be surprised if this survives a trip to the UK Supreme Court and if they fail to strike this down there are EU level courts that deal with this type of censorship and restriction of freedom of speech. That's assuming people can be bothered to take an active interest in squelching this sort of thing at birth. At the very least it should be possible to force a change from opt-in to opt-out by default.

Re:Just like 1984.

[Anonymous Coward]

How long will it be until the opt-out option is no longer available.

Re:Just like 1984.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a conspiracy theorist.

It is a curious feeling when conspiracy theorists dominate the moderation on Slashdot.

Re:Just like 1984.

[spottedkangaroo]

[quibble: You may be shocked to find that you have your its and it's backwards...]

Re:Just like 1984.

[mpeskett]

UK Supreme Court

We don't have one in quite the same sense as the US. There's a "court of last resort", but it can't overturn laws as passed by Parliament.

Powers could really stand to be more separated. As it stands, we have a powerful Prime Minister (chief executive type) selected by being the leader of the largest party in Parliament (legislative), and normally with a safe enough majority to pass whatever law they want. The judiciary is independent but can't change the law.

Re:Just like 1984.

[redalien]

Well, given they seem to be thinking of doing this without a new act of parliament, the supreme court can indeed overturn it.

Re:Just like 1984.

[gweihir]

Perfect! The US Governments had to work long and hard to corrupt their Supreme Court. No such need in the UK.

Re:Just like 1984.

[SuricouRaven]

With conspiracy theorists you must remember that, occasionally, they are actually right.

A year ago it would have looked like paranoid rambling if someone claimed the US government was secretly tracking every phone call and email, and could intercept any communication they wanted at will without any warrant or accountability. Turned out, the conspiracy theorists were spot on. They just didn't realise the British and French governments were helping.

The idea of announcing something very unpopular on a day when an event of great media coverage is certainly established. That trick has been used many times before. I don't know if it was deliberate in this case, but it's certainly possible - there is no evidence the filter speech was scheduled more than one day in advance, and Cameron must have read the opinion polls and know his filtering is actually quite unpopular.

The idea that the filter could be subject to 'scope creep' is also quite plausible too. After all, there are many things that various parties would like to see censored, for entirely well-intentioned reasons. Once the filtering is in place, it would be quite easy to pass a new regulation requiring blocks also be applied to sites giving instruction on suicide techniques, for example. Again, it would be justified as 'protecting children.' It should also be remembered that even if the current government is to be trusted, there is no assurance it will still be in power in ten or twenty years - Hitler came to power democratically via his political skill, and it could happen again in any country, so even a well-intentioned and well-administered filter could potentially be abused for political oppression in the more distant future. Note that China, known for their extensive political filtering operations, justify their 'golden shield' by claiming its first purpose is to protect public morality against the dangerous influences of pornography.

Re:Just like 1984.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes yes, that's lovely, you don't want to actually be a parent and would rather let someone else do your job for you. We get it.

If these filters were opt in very few people would care about them. Most ISPs already offer opt in filtering, in fact. You can install software that performs opt in filtering. Not an issue.

What people are pissed about is that this is opt out. Once again the "We know best" attitude of UK politicians has kicked into gear and we're now all going to be treated like children, despite the fact that Cameron and the technically literate MP who's been pushing for this haven't got a scooby how it'll be implemented and why, in fact, it wont work.

Re: Just like 1984.

[Anonymous Coward]

You lose all credibility when you start a sentence with "I'm all for (insert idea here) and the idea is qualified with but.

We as parents are responsible for our children. There are many free or low cost products available to censor their internet usage if we deem that appropriate. No one should have to opt-in for access to information that would otherwise be available.

Re:Just like 1984.

[tmosley]

Lately they have been a lot more right than wrong. In fact, our governments have become so secretive and authoritarian that really EVERYTHING THEY DO or are even involved in becomes a conspiracy.

My question is: when did conspiracies become out of the question? Those in power have ALWAYS employed conspiracies to extend and preserve their power, since the scribe caste of Egypt invented an overly complex writing system to prevent competition.

Re:Just like 1984.

[tmosley]

Let me be the first to say "fuck your God-blasted brats". You are allowing the creation of a totalitarian state in their name. When they grow up, they will be publicly vivisected for speaking out against the state, and it will be all your fucking fault.

Re:Just like 1984.

[brickmack]

Having 2 young girls also makes it your job as a parent to do this, not the government. This "save the children" shit is getting really irritating

Re:Just like 1984.

[Anonymous Coward]

lol kill yourself you dumb troll. nobody could possibly be that stupid.

Re:Just like 1984.

[marcosdumay]

So, I for one, when asked by my ISP, will enable this filter, to help protect my children.

Your ISP won't ask, and will push the filter into everybody that doesn't complain... And will certainly mark the ones that complain, for further studies.

Now, do you get what's wrong with it? By my part, as a father of a young girl, I want she to inherit a society that is not completely fucked up... Not that I care about what you do there at UK, but I can not share your perspective.

Re:Just like 1984.

[TangoCharlie]

That's why they've employed HUWAEI to run the new porn filter. They have a very good track record of blocking other content types too, such as political decent, etc.

Re:Just like 1984.

[Anonymous Coward]

[quibble: You may be shocked to find that you have your its and it's backwards...]

"There never was a golden age in which the rules for the use of the possessive apostrophe in English were clear-cut and known, understood, and followed by most educated people."

  -- The Oxford Companion to the English Language.

I for one

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new goverment overlords

Re:I for one

[c9brown]

Well I thought this was funny, AC.

Of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt anyone who thought about it expected anything else. Give someone the power to censor one thing with near impunity, and they'll censor everything that they don't like. This is what happens when the government mandates that 'offensive' things be censored.

Why yes! I WOULD like to opt in!

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to opt in to block all ads, spam and popups!

What do you mean no?

I find them offensive!

The terrorists!

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone who now opts-out will be held as a terrorist if they should ever enter a court of justice, now.
Or a pedo.
Or a suicider, or criminal, or mass anarchy organizer, or unsuitable as a parent because they consume porn.

America, please take back your lobbyists and religions zealots.
It is those people that are leading the entire thing. These people should be kicked out of government for corrupting the process.

Remember when government used to be the tool of the people, the will of the people, to do their bidding on a larger scale?
Long gone are those days. It is now a separate entity.
It may as well be a 2nd genesis of life living in amongst Life As We Know It since it is so autonomous and separate from what We The People actually WANT done.

Re:The terrorists!

[cheekyjohnson]

Remember when government used to be the tool of the people, the will of the people, to do their bidding on a larger scale?

No. In some ways, I think society has gotten better; in other ways, I think it has gotten worse. Really, the 'good old days' where we had a government that largely listened to the people and respected people's rights largely didn't exist.

Re: The terrorists!

[Anonymous Coward]

That maybe true but governments were also convieniently handicapped by their lack of communications and technology.
Compare how fast it took news to travel 10,20,30,50 or 100 years ago.
Modernity has enabled governments to tip the control balance more in their favour over the citizenry.

Re: The terrorists!

[cheekyjohnson]

Yes, I think that's an example of how things have gotten worse. I do not, however, remember a time when governments were sweet little angels...

Plausible deniability

[Hentes]

I just opted in cuz I wanted to read some forums, Mom!

Re:Plausible deniability

[moderators_are_w*nke]

Well yes. The more they filter, the more people will opt out.

Re:Plausible deniability

[LihTox]

Mod parent up. It will be a lot easier, psychologically speaking, for people to opt-out of the filter if it's not just about porn. Also more people will be inconvenienced by it, and more people will get pissed off over it. So this is actually good news, in a perverse sort of way.

Yes please, I'd like to view terror training vids.

[Anonymous Coward]

What!? Why don't they just put a "Drop me into some hellhole and throw away the key." check box on the form?

yes, but will it block the important ones?

[Anonymous Coward]

will it block access to pr0n, h4xX, wrz, TPB, Goatse, Rick Astley and cat videos?

Re:yes, but will it block the important ones?

[brickmack]

pr0n: yes, that's porn h4xX: probably wrz: copyright infringement. So yes TPB: Same Goatse: porn Rock Astley: copyright infringement Cat videos: cat = pussy = porn

Only a matter of time

[next_ghost]

How long until the filter includes "fringe political content"? Reply with your guess.

Re:Only a matter of time

[aaaaaaargh!]

0 days

and if not from the beginning sites like Wikileaks will probably be on the list very soon, too...

Re:Only a matter of time

[SuricouRaven]

That's what the 'extremist' in 'extremist and terrorist content' means.

Re:Only a matter of time

[next_ghost]

Sure, from the viewpoint of the establishment, it's the exact same thing, but let's define the terms from the viewpoint of average Joe Citizen. Joe Citizen can usually tell the two apart.

Re:Only a matter of time

[Carewolf]

Especially because they are not blocking just extremist and terrorist content, but extremist and terrorist relatedt conten. That can be anything. Other than that web forums can pretty much covers anywhere you can exercise free speech.

Re:Only a matter of time

[AHuxley]

They could do it in a very quick way.
Your "fringe political content" link would be flagged to say wikipedia and would not be displayed in the UK. A point would be added to your isp's tacking database
So the actions of big pharma, UK mil, UK gov, agribusiness, oil, countries the UK loves, organ harvesting, deaths would be blocked/protected as "a matter before a court" can be now.
Citation needed would be an invite to memory hole.
In a very short time, interested/trusted parties could delink any historical or political or news reports/sites.
More news would be locked behind pay walls, sites could be blocked per 'page' by 24/7 global sock puppets.
Your "ability to link" is reduced to freedom to speculate in the UK.
Return to work after clicking too much on a site over the weekend and you get the "violent material, extremist and terrorist related content, anorexia and eating disorder websites, suicide related websites, alcohol, smoking, web forums" chat.
Your isp reported to your local gov who informed your boss again.
Too many chats and your job is gone, security clearance gone and your on some community protection list for life.
What the Soviet Union and China had/have to ban, the UK gov can shape with private sector "community standards".

Re:Only a matter of time

[Patch86]

"Extremism" says it all. Presumably they mean "Islamists" at the moment. But there's nothing illegal about Islamism- personally I think it's a horrible political ideology, but banning peoples' political parties because they don't seem very nice to people in other political parties seems very, very wrong.

How long before we had the Communists and the Fascists to the list of "extremists"? What about the Anarcho-Syndicalists, and the Libertarians? Separatist Nationalists? Hard-line Socialists? Parties-to-the-Right-of-the-Tories and parties-to-the-Left-of-Labour? Usually I hate "slippery slope" arguments, but yeah- slippery slope...

Re:Only a matter of time

[Calydor]

But is the list of blocked sites written by the establishment or the average Joe Citizen?

Re:Only a matter of time

[PapayaSF]

"Extremism" says it all. Presumably they mean "Islamists" at the moment. [...] Usually I hate "slippery slope" arguments, but yeah- slippery slope...

They're already a ways down that slope. Britain’s bar on anti-Muslim activists travelling to the country could do more harm than good. In the UK today, a Muslim cleric calling for jihad in Syria or the imposition of sharia in the UK is more acceptable than American writers who warn against the dangers of such people. I.e., advocating totalitarian Islam is OK, but opposing it is "extremist" "hate speech" against a religion.

Did I told you so?

[devent]

In the news of http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/07/16/0030227/leaked-letter-shows-uk-isps-and-government-at-war-over-default-filters
I have prophesied that it is not about porn and that the filter will expand beyond porn.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977245&cid=44294083

Re:Did I told you so?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not very prophetic, since they did exactly the same thing in the past (see bottom half of page 7).

Re:Did I told you so?

[devent]

Of course not since there are no true prophecies that have come true. I use prophecy as the second definition: 2. a prediction or guess. My guess was based on earlier experiences in other countries and the overall opinion I have of politicians.

Re:Did I told you so?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me rephrase: that wasn't exactly a very wild guess/hard prediction, since they did exactly the same thing in the UK in the past (see bottom half of page 7).

Re:Did I told you so?

[Charliemopps]

Yes you're a genius... none of us ever thought this would happen... lol

Who will make the list?

[aaaaaaargh!]

Huawei or another private company, or a government "ministry for cencorship"? And who controls the people who make the list?

Just curious...

Re:Who will make the list?

[AHuxley]

Violent material some expanded films and videos, computer games, publications and 'web' gov classification team.
Extremist and terrorist related content - police/MI5/6
Anorexia and eating disorder websites, suicide related websites, alcohol, smoking - Medical teams.
Add in the public–private partnerships and faith based groups, business, foreign diplomats, multinationals, legal teams, NGO's... contractors..

Re:Who will make the list?

[wabrandsma]

The net filtering system praised by David Cameron is controlled by the controversial Chinese company Huawei, the BBC has learned.
UK-based employees at the firm are able to decide which sites TalkTalk's net filtering service blocks.

Initially, TalkTalk told the BBC that it was US security firm Symantec that was responsible for maintaining its blacklist, and that Huawei only provided the hardware, as previously reported.
However, Symantec said that while it had been in a joint venture with Huawei to run Homesafe in its early stages, it had not been involved for over a year.

TalkTalk later confirmed it is Huawei that monitors activity, checking requests against its blacklist of over 65 million web addresses, and denying access if there is a match.
The contents of this list are largely determined by an automated process, but both Huawei and TalkTalk employees are able to add or remove sites independently.

This is the fucking Nanny state

[vikingpower]

Are people so bored, and mentally so obese from their consumption patterns, that they actually take this crap without protesting ? If this happened in the country I live in, I would be nagging MPs, protesting loudly and write mag / newspaper articles. How can Brits just take this silently ?

Re:This is the fucking Nanny state

[Godwin O'Hitler]

How can Brits just take this silently ?

Whoa, at least give us a day or two to react.

Re:This is the fucking Nanny state

[peragrin]

How can the people of the USA stand idly by while the NSA snoops through their personal files by the minute?

How can the people of the USA stand idly by while the TSA has the authority to search your car while your not there.(see Rochester NY about a month ago)

How can the people of the USA stand idly by while the Border Patrol are allowed to randomly inspect and any within 150 miles of the border at any time without a warrant?(again in NY)

All those things have been done in the USA in the last two years.

Re:This is the fucking Nanny state

[cheekyjohnson]

How can the people of the USA stand idly by while the TSA has the authority to search your car while your not there.

Well, they also grope you or scan you with invasive scanners if you try to get on a plane.

Oh, and free speech zones and protest permits. Can't let people who say things we don't like be heard, now can we? If it's to keep us safe, I'll accept anything!

Re:This is the fucking Nanny state

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa, at least give us a day or two to react.

A day or two? Have they already blocked your Facebook and Twitter services? You're already back in the dark ages of the Internet. You may need to rely on the Royal Mail to organize your resistance. May Sir Tim Berners-Lee have mercy of your souls

Re:This is the fucking Nanny state

[painehope]

NY sucks, just admit it. I loved NYC when I was a kid - drugs, violence, urban chaos. Then they got all nit-picky and I simultaneously grew up. Now I hate NY, damn near all of it. And flying anywhere North of the Mason-Dixon is a damn nightmare. I've gotten stuck out in several major urban cities by airlines that either overbooked or couldn't coordinate connecting flights. The fact that this has never happened in my hometown, which has a huge airport run by morons, amazes me, but it's true. Also, the TSA security is that much worse up North as well. But then again, only in Texas do many airlines have to actually maintain a separate lane for people checking guns and explosives. I guess that gives a sense of perspective to the average TSA goon.

And while I couldn't agree more about the U.S. losing it's Constitutionally-granted rights (not privileges, but rights), one thing about the UK that has always creeped me out? CCTV. They tried traffic monitoring lights in Houston, and I know that I was one of many people using a high-powered pellet rifle to blow the things out (I don't have a front license plate, so good luck finding me after I blow out the camera at 2am and then run the light) until the program got discontinued due to mismanagement and funding problems. Meanwhile, the UK has by-and-large accepted surveillance of every move they make and everything they say in public. Creepy as hell.

Re:This is the fucking Nanny state

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't the first time somebody shot at that camera.

So... The hidden camera behind you that you didn't see got you.

Re:This is the fucking Nanny state

[Anonymous Coward]

How can the people

Ooh, simply. They have nothing to hide. Yeah.

Re:This is the fucking Nanny state

[painehope]

Nope. The contractors that deployed the red-light cameras were too cheap and stupid to think of something that simple. I've been using things like traffic lights and construction barricades as target practice and for controlled demolition since I was about 14. Never been caught once.

Re:This is the fucking Nanny state

[painehope]

I'd say it's more of a mentality. My experience w/ police in the UK is that they aren't as foaming-at-the-mouth brutal and out-to-arrest-everyone-in-sight as the US - not by a long shot. So the average UK citizen/serf sees the coppers as a relatively benign force (historically speaking, I think that's going to be changing radically soon), and thus the CCTV surveillance is acceptable because it helps the cops "protect" them. When in reality you're already half-way to a full-on version of 1984 (an unarmed, fairly docile population under surveillance).

I'm not 100% sure if I'm spot-on w/ this evaluation, as I'm not a UK citizen and I've spent a grand total of maybe 8-9 months in-country (most of which was only in London and the surrounding area) and I was busy working, drinking, and getting all the the wonderful sexual benefits of being a "wild", tattooed Texan (which carries major weight w/ UK women, there's some sort of bad-boy attraction there despite the fact that I'm also a computer geek and an artist [writing and visual arts - painting/collages/etc.] as well as a guy who carries at least five weapons at any time, will fight at the drop of a hat, and is covered in tattoos and scars [everything from about 20 stab wounds and 2 bullet holes to some serious burn marks and a lot of facial scars [I have some fairly impressive scars from soldiering, fighting, and similar violent activities] that have healed well w/ my roguish good looks - or so I've been told - to give me more of that bad-boy mix that women love]; I've noticed that the ratio of women attracted to "bad boy" looks and attitudes are inversely proportionate to the availability of said bad boys...in Texas I'm a fairly average guy for my outside-of-work subculture, whereas in Europe I'm considered to be extremely hardcore and can generally pick up a "bird" at any pub without even really trying).

But I know that if you gave everyone in the UK a gun today, half of them would put it in a closet and forget about it, and the other 50 percent would either use it appropriately (home and self defence) or go get in trouble (even my relatively mild co-workers from the UK go absolutely buck-wild when given a gun; I've brought along some handguns and assault rifles on camping trips into national parks, and once handed a firearm, said individuals would generally empty the entire clip in the general direction of the targets we'd set up, not hit a damn thing, and I'd practically have to pry the gun out of their hands to show them basic things like gun safety, how to aim and shoot properly, etc.).

Re:What one has...

[SuricouRaven]

The USA doesn't have universal health care. What you have at the moment is a system where everyone (almost) will have some level of health insurance coverage - but they still have to get their healthcare paid for by companies that continue to profit by doing everything they can to avoid paying for it.

No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall, when Australia tried the same trick, the filters were even blocking out any site criticising the filtering.

Once politicians start censoring there's no limit.

Re:No surprise

[AHuxley]

Yes AC Australia was big on the eating disorder websites aspect.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/australia-to-become-net-nanny-state/story-e6frfro0-1111117886418

Schools And Universities

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a school governor here in the UK. We will not be in a position to 'Opt Out' of this blocking for our School'. I expect it to be the same for universities. I would also image that Corporate Governance would find it very difficult to opt out too. So just forget the internet at all those places.

Re:Schools And Universities

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. Your students already have Tor.

-- Peacefire

Re:Schools And Universities

[AHuxley]

Cleared academics will have the 'net'.
Support staff and students can make do with the filter as they do at home.
They have all the tax payer funded catalogues, electronic databases and journals for free... why do they need the net?
If a student needs to do research on the 'net' they can do it in the library under the new CCTV.

Re:Schools And Universities

[SomeKDEUser]

This is exactly how it works now in Cuba.

Re:Schools And Universities

[SuricouRaven]

The technical staff will also have unfiltered access. Not officially, because they are smart enough to know that some day they will have to justify their unfiltered access to a board of directors who can't understand why a forum discussion about the latest exploits and countermeasures would be classified as 'hacking.' No, they'll have unfiltered access because they put the exception in the firewall policy that lets them SSH to their home server and tunnel out.

Re:Schools And Universities

[Anonymous Coward]

We will not be in a position to 'Opt Out' of this blocking for our School'.

Why is that?

Checkbox

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll opt in for everything but "smoking". That should make the scratch their heads.

Re:What one has...

[Zemran]

Not letting poor people die of preventable illnesses vs. censorship?

Point one, America is no where near getting the health care options that the UK has. A good free system as well as excellent private options. Or to simplify that, the US does not have any health care options that are not available in the UK but the UK does have health care options that are not available in the US.

Second point, the UK is going to filter it, bad, the US spies on its people and will arrest you for accessing it, worse.

Point two has a lot of scope for discussion but do not start propaganda from Fox News.

How will this be sold?

[longk]

Will they continue to call these connections "Internet" connections? At what point does it really become an "Intranet"?

Re:How will this be sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will they continue to call these connections "Internet" connections? At what point does it really become an "Intranet"?

It's to be known as the Puritanet

Re:How will this be sold?

[JustOK]

And the other shall be the criminet.

Re:How will this be sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

They already stopped calling them "Internet" connections with the advent of ADSL. Now they are just called "broadband". As in "Britain's fastest broadband", or "broadband from £9.99 a month for the first three months". Usually television advertisements using the word broadband say it in a slightly onomatopoeic manner, implying broadness, presumably to instill feelings of warmth and "goodness".

Most dont matter.....

[djsmiley]

but web forum |Yup, that'll kill it.

Re:Most dont matter.....

[djsmiley]

As in....... facebook?

Re:Most dont matter.....

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, the screenshot in TFA refers to "social networks" not "web forums". Second, TFA is talking about an existing filter run by one ISP, not the government's requirements for mandatory filtering. Third, in the example filter in TFA, you can opt into the categories independently: you don't have to affirm "I am a terrorist" to get
porn or "I am a wanker" to get on Facebook.

Talk Talk's option for filtering social-network sites probably suits parents who don't want their younger children broadcasting on Facebook. I doubt it's there because of government pressure.

Re:Most dont matter.....

[Carewolf]

As in any place users can post content uncensored. So all of the internet.

Re:What one has...

[mitcheli]

Actually, I hate fox news. Too biased. But that's not the point. My point was that the US attempted to address healthcare by creating a Universal system. That got turned into something completely different. So if in the future, the UK puts together a firewall for blocking the unacceptable social content (be it porn, or anorexia, or whatever). So then the US says, "we need that too!" And what do we end up with? Seems that every time we decide to implement something that solves plagues within society, we miss the mark. As for the UK friends, I already mentioned to some that I have I wouldn't be surprised if a few years down the road that they get exploited. For instance, say there is a rape and the suspect is unknown. How hard would it be to pull up the list of exceptions of folks who enjoy porn and to start there?

Re:What one has...

[MysteriousPreacher]

And it's a non sequitur.

So France has its gendarmerie, and the United States has the Coast Guard. Although a military organisation, the Coast Guard has scope to enforce Federal laws against civilians. How long before the DHS sends military police out in to the streets to enforce littering statutes, sorta?

Thinking back, this analogy will hopefully not be prescient.

(Un)forseen beneficial side-effect

[HetMes]

UK's citizen becoming experts on web technology, encryption and obfuscation in 3... 2... 1... I mean, take a man's porn away and he'll build a rocket to Mars to get it.

Relax

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just an efficiency measure in order to know which folks' communication to wiretap.

It's only a temporary measure until the capacities for wiretapping 100% are there. Even if they have to give it up after a few months, they will have a lot of profiling data to work with for years.

Opt in on what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the content or also special surveillance?

I see what they're doing

[magpie]

The ISPs don't want to implement this as it will cost them money to run so what they are doing is stymieing it by putting everything that could possibley be non-child friendly on the filtered list. Thus making the net largly usless to the majority of adults, thus getting everyone to opt out and then they can say to the gov, "look we implemented it, infact we went beyond what you asked". As almost everyone opted out they can put most of the kit they had tied up running this to more profitable use.

Re:What one has...

[SuricouRaven]

About 2004: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2004/291004toystore.htm

The DHS enforces patent and trademark law. The official justification is that patents are vital to US economic prosperity, prosperity is part of national security, therefore patent infringement is a threat to national security.

"Opting out"

[Cant use a slash wtf]

Sounds like a free ticket on to several government watch lists.
If you opt out of the filter, you can guarantee all of your internet history will be saved by the government and I wouldn't be surprised if you could find your way on to no-fly lists and such.
I am very, very glad I don't live in the UK right now. Although, living in Australia, it probably won't be too long before my government follows suit.

Retroshare.

[SuricouRaven]

I'm already teaching several friends how to use it. Got a little network set up now. There is porn.

Well, not photographic porn. We're just not into that. It's all explicit artwork and comics.

Between this and the NSA/GCHQ/everyone-else revelations, I'm expecting Retroshare and similar things to grow in popularity a great deal. It's like WASTE, but less buggy.

THIS IS NOT "opt in"

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop propagating the spammish tactics employed in the law(!) where "opting in" (to free, unfiltered access) now means what rightfully is termed "opting out" (of filtering). Are we really that stupid and easily hoodwinked by hysterical pressure groups and their pet lawgivers?

Re:THIS IS NOT "opt in"

[SuricouRaven]

I think the confusion is deliberate. I've heard politicians use both terms to mean both things.

removing of the filtering can be an embarrasment.

[blackest_k]

Opting out of filtering isn't easy,
I use 3 mobile and after several years of unfiltered content began hitting the blocks fairly regularly and not because of porn.

With the rather extended winter in Ireland the traditional start of spring and the gardening calender is 17th of March but this year the cold miserable weather continued through to May. One area I looked into was grow lights and thats where I started to run into blocks, as the greatest source of information on grow lights are cannabis growers. The filter provider, who ever that is, obviously thinks its impossible for an adult to want to investigate grow lights for anything else.

In my youth i might have been interested but as an older adult with little interest in fecking up my life any further not really. I just wanted to have a nice garden.

So then I went to the phone shop for 3 and asked about getting these blocks removed, having to deal with 20 something women and being the typical neck beard geek wanting the porn filter removed it was pretty obvious what they thought of me and what I wanted the filter removing for. Being the type not to give a crap what anyone thinks of me I jumped through the hoops, I had to provide Id they had to get in touch with the area managers office for his/her personal approval and it was something nobody had asked them for before apparently. Eventually the middle aged pervert got the filters lifted on his internet access.

The real problem with internet filtering is the blocking of any and all sites deemed to be unsuitable. I'm an adult I can make my own choices. Is my aged mother going to jump through hoops so she can get an unfiltered connection? I don't think so and who else who cares about their reputation will stand up to these tactics.

The wholesale blocking and censoring of objectionable material is fundamentally wrong because what is objectionable for the censors will never match up with what people being censored want and need to know. Even if 95% of what is blocked we have no interest in its the other 5% which matters.

I would be surprised to think that many people on this site wouldn't have long been aware that we are monitored and censored already, just mostly unobtrusively. It doesn't make a big difference if your not interested in becoming a terrorist or criminal.

Unfortunately the public outing of Prism seems to be not causing a retreat on the states attempt to control our access to information but instead a more overt approach. To be honest there is little we can do about it, we change our political leaders of one shade to another and you'd have to be an idiot to think that the surveillance and censorship ever recedes with a change of office.

Maybe a fringe party might change something if they ever got any power but that will never happen while the majority of people are apathetic to whats going on. Doesn't help that most fringe parties are usually complete loons over some core value which right minded people will never accept.

There is a chance that the "Porn" filters will not hold, there is a more liberal society, we don't twitch behind the net curtains like our parents generation who are long retired. May be enough people will opt out of filtering if they realise that its necessary to resist the decay of our freedoms to think and make our own informed choices. The wisdom of age, tends to be to keep your head down, work hard and don't get noticed but with popular public support from the younger generations the older generations may quietly revolt too.

And more

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been in UK and their porn filter also censors a lot of spanish websites. Regular news sites nothing fancy.

Re:And more

[Anne Thwacks]

The British have considered the Spanish to be pornographic ever since the Armarda. (or is that terrorists? hard to be certain).

Re:And more

[1s44c]

It should be easy enough to figure out who is blocking what. All it takes is a system that loads each site from a large number of countries.

The Law or the Implementation?

[TheBogBrushZone]

The ORG surveyed ISPs on what they will be implementing rather than what the government is asking them to do which (and I think this sets a far more worrying precedent) is not subject to public scrutiny and, given the lack of information even from 'rebel' ISPs, may well be classified under the Official Secrets Act as it is in Australia.

Re:What one has...

[Rockoon]

My point was that the US attempted to address healthcare by creating a Universal system.

Thats just what they told you.

Suppose a universal system was not put to a vote because they knew that it would have failed to get enough votes. In that case, was where ever going to be one?

If there was never going to be one, then what were they doing? Clearly they were trying to do something different than a universal system. It wasn't an "accident." It was on purpose.

Even worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are we focusing on UK? At least, all ISPs there have "smart" systems that are supposed to block only offending URLs, and the whole thing is opt-out.

In Russia, the same things are blocked, with no possibility to opt out, and with most ISPs implementing the block by IP address (together with all other sites that happen to share it), not by URL, (that's why www.dreamwidth.org is completely inaccessible due to one suicide-related post).

A strike is scheduled on the1st of August against additional laws that add more categories of banned content.

Re:What one has...

[blippo]

This is so cynically arranged so it makes me think it was the original intention, and the actual security business was used just to fund the agency.

But I guess it's convenient for the copyright police to have swat teams available...

No porn please, we're British.

[__Reason__]

n/t

So whose advertising will be on the blocked page?

[mysidia]

That's the real question one should be asking.

There will be plenty of people and companies who suffer by this arbitrary government-supported webjacking --- and probably some small number of companies getting a big fat check by this.

Personally; I think it's a very bad thing that the UK ISPs are even looking at traffic headers; let alone performing traffic interception and blocking of sites based on someone's opinion that the site is too violent, or offensive and such and such.

How long before sites that degrade the monarchy or the current government parties or officials, or competing candidates during the election/other politically inconvenient sites get blocked too?

And by asking to be unblocked

[dgr73]

.. you will end up on a watchlist. -- Now that is a guess, but I guess it's not too far out of considering recent events.

Re:And by asking to be unblocked

[fnj]

So be it. Let the buggers watch me. Let them watch everybody. Let them watch the watchers. Because we're watching you, thugs. Everyone who is not a brain dead sheep is noting this shit.

A scene from The Blue Max comes to mind. The context is completely different, but it works here very well.
Otto Heidemann: Herr General, I see now, I have notions of honor which are outdated.
General Count von Klugermann: Ahh, they're not outdated!
(carefully, tenderly puts away the evidence file)
General Count von Klugermann: Stored. With care, and love, for better times.

Hey! What happened?!?

[tlambert]

Hey! What happened?!?

I ticked the "block intolerance" checkbox, and now I can't reach the web filter configuration page any more!

So basically

[aliquis]

The UK is the first country to disconnect from the Internet?

Well, I for sure wouldn't want to live there with retarded limits like this.

Where's your freedom?

Re:So basically

[GPLHost-Thomas]

Certainly not the first. China, Iran, North Korea, Singapore, Turkey, Vietnam comes to mind. Though in these countries, there's no opt-out option. And I'm sure I forgot many other countries though.

Re:What one has...

[MysteriousPreacher]

Alex Jones needs to improve his signal to noise ratio. He tosses around so many conspiracy claims that I'd more surprised if he never got anything right.

Re:What one has...

[Zemran]

I get the idea that if any ally implements a successful national firewall it will be the end to online gambling in the US...

Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

I'm a customer of the ISP in question, TalkTalk.

I do *NOT* have to individually opt-in to "content tagged as violent, extremist, terrorist, anorexia and eating disorders, suicide, alcohol, smoking, web forums, esoteric material and web-blocking circumvention tools".

I unchecked *ONE* box so that my broadband service is unfiltered. That's all. Those fine grain options become available if *YOU* *CHOOSE* filtering. *YOU* have the control and the choice!

People keep acting outraged and presenting this measure as censorship. This is not censorship. Censorship is when the decision to filter content and the selection of what is to be filtered is *outside of your control*. This filtering is entirely and 100% within the control of the account holder. You can switch it on or off at will.

The people who don't have control: minors, customers using your wifi, house guests, or anyone else who has no business accessing your internet account.

The people who do have control: you (the actual legal account owner), and anyone you authorise/enable to manage your ISP account.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[hjf]

I'd rather not have to check any boxes, thank you very much.

If I were a concerned parent, I'd be okay enabling a filter. But, like its been said, a tiny minority will bother disabling the filter, making it much more easier to track you for whatever reason. What guarantee do you have that this setting will not appear, later, in your credit report? With UKUSA agreements, what guarantee do you have that the US,CAN, AUS will not ban you from entering their countries because you disabled the filter (that blocks for "porn" and also blocks for "terrorism")?

Porn is a great excuse to disable the filters if you're looking for terrorist-related stuff!

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

It has *nothing* to do with tracking. The ISP *already* knows which sites you visit. If they couldn't know this then you couldn't connect, could you? Doh.

How do you know what proportion of people will change the default? Are you claiming mystic powers of foresight?

Why would a credit report note that I did or did not choose to filter, for example, social networking sites or xxx video sites? Credit companies care about financial status, not whether I block access to social networking and gaming sites during homework times. Yours is such a ridiculous assertion that it is unanswerable and meaningless.

US, CAN, AUS might bar my entry because I disabled a filter and might have seen some boobies or some legal xxx or looked at some nasty stuff on youtube? Please get real.

You have resorted to arguments that are so childish and illogical that they go speeding past "reductio ad absurdum" like it isn't even a bump in the road.

Today, for the first time ever, I actually enabled the filter to see how it worked in practice, and did so using its crude "block everything from social media to self harm, drugs and xxx" settings. In use it is actually quite sophisticated and unsurprising. It blocks well known torrent indexing web sites but not trackers or torrent traffic. It allows access to sites that offer help to people who self harm but blocks access to sites where self harmers congregate and encourage each other. Similarly with drugs: I searched for "legal highs" and could read all about them but sites selling them were blocked. It allows access to The Sun "newspaper" but blocks that publication's page3.com soft porn site.

What happens when a page is blocked is that it's replaced with a notice telling you why and actually linking to the page where you can unblock it (assuming you have your ISP log-in details). It's hardly difficult. Anyone with the mental capacity to log in to a hotmail or youtube account will be fine. Clearly this will inconvenience some of the shrieking paranoiacs on slashdot but normal grown ups have nothing to worry about.

I switched the filter off again while composing this reply and within one minute I was again able to access sites that wanted to sell me drugs, xxx movies, help me harm myself and others and so on. Happiness is restored.

*I* decide if my connection is filtered, not you, not the government, nor anyone else. What the hell is wrong with that?

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[1s44c]

It is censorship. Your traffic is filtered even if you opt out but quite possibly you never visit the sites that are censored anyway.

It would be naive to assume that the only sites they are blocking and not telling you about are child-porn and terrorism. Maybe they blocked PETA, the communist party, evidence of UK government wrongdoing, and so on. the UK government does have a history of blocking evidence of its own wrongdoing.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

It isn't censorship. To be considered censorship requires that you cannot opt in or out. Censorship means *compulsion* whereas this is ENTIRELY OPTIONAL. You can opt in or out by clicking a link and checking a box.

This is *not* censorship. I have lived in countries where there is genuine censorship that prevents access to proxies, proxy software or even getting information on using such. Bypassing the censorship got you a prison sentence.

"Maybe they blocked PETA, the communist party, evidence of UK government wrongdoing" Maybe the earth is flat. Maybe the moon is made of cheese. Oh wait, that's all complete nonsense.

How about an actual reasoned objection instead of "Maybe " ?

But let's suppress laughter long enough to consider the "argument" that "maybe" my ISP's optional(!) filter secretly(!!!) blocks the communist party (it doesn't btw): the solution: switch off the filter! Here's how: click click.

Now let's stop laughing for another minute and assume that the wicked ever-so-secret filter (so evil and fiendishly secret that it announces itself when filtering and also tells you how to switch it off!) is secretly blocking PETA (I'm sorry to disappoint you but I checked and it isn't) and I am not the account holder so have no option to change the settings: the filter is on the network, not on my PC/device. There is nothing to stop me using a proxy to bypass the filter. Nothing. There is no block on anonymising or proxying services hosted on the www. With the filter on I can use hidemyass.com to visit piratebay.sx or to get info on proxying, get proxy apps etc etc. I can use ixquick or startpage web search engines and visit sites using their proxy service. And of course I can always run tor from my own machine and not need to bother with proxy websites.

The UK plan is for an *optional* filter. It's not an attempt to stop people at home looking at any of the stuff they can look at now. It's not even designed to stop mildly determined avoidance of the filter by people who aren't authorised to disable it. It's a measure mostly to restore public www space to the kind of social and legal standards we expect *and democratically legislate for* in the physical world, so for example in the same way that a minor is refused when trying to purchase legal highs or porn in a physical shop they will also not be able to purchase the same via the free wifi at the community centre or coffee shop or wherever. Hardcore pornography in the UK is not allowed to shown in public places or regular shops or on regular tv channels but is legally available to adults who want it. The same will be the default on the publicly available internet, while what you do in your own home, on your own account, will remain entirely up to you.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it optional if you always go through the filter? You cannot opt out of the filter you can only opt out of it triggering. So who's to say it won't accidently be locked on no matter what in the future?

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

How is it optional? By being optional. What is so hard to understand. You have options. You can choose. You make the choice. You select from a menu of options. Or opt out. All the preceding words can be found in any English dictionary.

You always go through an ISP and all UK ISPs already filter in order to comply with existing law.

"who's to say it won't accidently be locked" .... is that supposed to be an argument? Who's to say the moon won't suddenly spin out of earth orbit? Who's to say my car won't accidentally explode? Who's to say the Flying Spaghetti Monster will not be angry?

How about an argument or proposition that doesn't involve failing to understand plain English? Or one that doesn't require being in a permanent state of speculative hysterical anxiety as a precondition?

Here's what I would do if my ISP's optional filter somehow got gummed up and stuck (maybe it can get jammed up with virtual sticky tissues and drug paraphenalia?): First I would use a proxy. Second I would call the helpdesk and say "Your filter is all jammed up with the spunky tissues and prozac boxes discarded by anxious slashdot reading pansies. Please fix it, thanks Sanjay."

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[1s44c]

It isn't censorship. To be considered censorship requires that you cannot opt in or out. Censorship means *compulsion* whereas this is ENTIRELY OPTIONAL. You can opt in or out by clicking a link and checking a box.

That's my point. They claim you can opt out of the filtering and it looks like you can, but in reality you can't out out of all the filtering. Load piratebay.org. The site is still there but you can't access it. eztv.it? yify-torrents.com? Those two are also up but blocked from the UK regardless of you opting in or out of the filtering.

They even admit they run all traffic though the filtering system. Why would they if they don't block pages?
'Customers who do not want filtering still have their traffic routed through the system, but matches to Huawei's database are dismissed rather than acted upon.' -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23452097

Once the government has rolled out its blocking infrastructure they will abuse it to limit the information you have access to just like they have been doing with newspapers more or less since they existed.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[Anonymous Coward]

"Maybe they blocked PETA, the communist party, evidence of UK government wrongdoing" Maybe the earth is flat. Maybe the moon is made of cheese. Oh wait, that's all complete nonsense.

Actually the UK government did prevent the media reporting that they funded the Taliban back when the Taliban were fighting the Russians. This story was widely reported by reliable foreign sources but was gag-ordered in the UK.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

You are confusing and conflating an ISP's filtering system with the directive of a court.

Pirate Bay was blocked by order of the High Court. That was a judgement made on the basis of law and in open court. It was unrelated to the current proposals requiring ISPs to change their filtering from default opt-out to default opt-in.

btw piratebay.org no longer exists. The Pirate Bay is now hosted at piratebay.sx

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[hjf]

You, sir, don't understand how the internet works, and you certainly don't understand how REAL LIFE works. I'm not going to argue with you any more. You're obviously a lost case.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

That is complete nonsense and you'd have to be brain dead to believe it. Here is why: the taliban didn't even exist at the time of the Russian occupation. It emerged from the chaos of the civil and tribal wars that followed the Soviet exit.

You are not only anonymous but also an ignoramus.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

You fail to make any reasoned rebuttal or any reasoned proposal but instead offer a couple of weak insults and quit. This is evidence that you are right?

You will never be censored because you have nothing to say.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. The Mujahideen are what is now called the Taliban. Same people, same ideology. UK funding helped turn dysfunctional communism into extremist Islam.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/26/afgantsy-rodric-braithwaite-review

The UK government never acted out of evil, they only wanted to beat Russia back to their borders to make the world more stable. However funding radicals created serious future problems. The same kind of problems that will be created if the UK government fund the radicals now trying to take over Syria.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[1s44c]

How on earth do you think they are filtering piratebay then? They already have partial blocking in place that you can't opt out of. This latest move is an attempt to get ISPs to fund developing the next generation filtering system.

You are really not getting the message. Once the system is in place and has proven itself it will be abused because the UK government works for the UK government, not the UK people. Look at how the anti-terror laws were and are still being abused, you really think this won't be?

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

No, mujahideen is not interchangeable with taliban. Many mujahideen fought the Soviet army and then later fought the taliban. Other mujahideen fought the Soviets and then joined the taliban and fought other mujahideen. Many taliban were born after the Soviets left and were never anti-Soviet mujahideen. You can use wikipedia to read about the northern alliance and Ahmad Shah Massoud and then get someone who isn't a fucking moron (this will be someone who is not a blood relative) to explain it in even simpler terms. Probably they will have to physically beat the information through your thick skull with mallet.

It was never a secret that the mujahideen were funded and supported by the western powers via Pakistan. There was never any mystery about or ignorance of the fact that they had US and UK made weapons, training and political support. This all happened well before the www ever existed and I'm old enough to remember it well enough.

Your assertion that any of this is somehow related to an optional network filter in the UK is still fucking moronic.

You'll never be censored because you're too stupid to be dangerous to anyone except yourself.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

They are not filtering piratebay. If I use my browser to visit Pirate Bay's current address piratebay.sx there is no filter.

But of course don't let facts get in the way of enjoying a self righteous burst of indignation and teenage/mental defective style rebel pose.

Pirate bay is *supposed* to be blocked but that is by public order of a court, in a democratic country, according to law. It is not done on a whim and is not supposed to be optional.

There is already a filter system that attempts to filter out known child porn sites and similar. That is the kind of filtering that is not optional. It is done according to the law of the land.

The ISP level filtering this thread is about is:

ENTIRELY OPTIONAL.

again:

ENTIRELY OPTIONAL.

How difficult is that to understand? You don't like it? click click it is gone. You have some belief that there is some sinister filtering which is being hidden disguised? Maybe you only think you are seeing web pages but actually they have been substituted by a wicked cabal of civil servants, politicians and policemen (famous technology experts all!). So use tor and compare your browsing experience via tor with your browsing experience without any proxy. You know what? I actually did this. I am one of those inconvenient people who likes to check for himself. Doubly annoying for hysterical paranoiacs like you is that I can bring to this discussion something other than groundless anxiety: I can call on real experience and actual facts! Oh noes!

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[1s44c]

Piratebay isn't blocked from talk-talk? It was blocked from every UK ISP I tested from. A quick google search seems to indicate that it was blocked. I'm not sure what's going on there but if they unblocked it it's news to me.

You don't get what I'm saying at all though and because you don't get it you resort to abuse instead of engaging your brain. The same mechanism that lets you opt in or out of softcore porn will be abused to block other things without your consent or ability to opt out. You can pretend it won't happen but that doesn't change the fact that it will happen. The UK is a world leader in libel tourism and has a long history of corporate and government cover-ups and media gag orders. Google a bit and you will see it's true.

Like you say access to softcore porn is 'ENTIRELY OPTIONAL' but I'm not talking about porn here, filtering of various other things will not be optional.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

The single "fact" you asserted was wrong (thepirtatebay.sx is not blocked on my TalkTalk ADSL connection *unless* I enable the filter).

You're basing your entire argument on your ability to prophesy the future! And then you're telling me that I'm at fault for "pretending" that your mystical predictions aren't factual. And I'm supposed to take that seriously? On that basis I'm perfectly happy to call you a hysterical and irrational paranoiac, a self righteous egomaniac and a fucking idiot. Please note: the insults are not in place of a reasoned argument and rebuttal, they are merely addenda, and gratis.

 

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[1s44c]

You lack the intelligence to understand the difference between porn, political content, and torrent sites. This discussion can go nowhere.

Rant away dumbly like I care. You clearly have emotional problems you feel the need to vent.

Re:Misleading summary, misleading article

[julian67]

If you don't care then why reply?

You have no argument. Porn, political content and torrent sites can all be blocked by exactly the same method. There is no technical difference. The difference lies in law and execution.

Your core assertion is that you can see the future(!) and that you know it to be a fact that an *OPTIONAL* filter will be used to *SECRETLY* and *COMPULSORILY* censor political content.

To support your assertion you have not one piece of evidence. You have no rational argument. You rest your *entire* position on your own construct of hysterical anxiety and a supposed power of prophecy or foresight.

For the censorship argument to be taken seriously you need to demonstrate compulsion or coercion. You need to be able to demonstrate, either with evidence or by deduction, that the state is engaging in censorship of the global www which we cannot detect or avoid. At the moment you can't even demonstrate that it *can* do so, let alone that it actually does because you can't make this case unless the day arrives when it becomes impossible or illegal to use an encrypted proxy. Unless that situation arises then anyone can check for themselves and see that your assertions are utterly groundless.

That's why I called you a fucking idiot. If you're not an idiot then come back with any relevant, rational argument that survives casual scrutiny.

Need help?

[random_ID]

Feeling suicidal? There are helpful and caring communities on the web who... are blocked.


Theoretically this shouldn't happen, but it will. And I'd bet getting your website unblocked will be hard.

Re:Need help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in the UK makes me feel suicidal.

I have to get out of this country or I'll either have a complete mental breakdown or take my own life.

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[SuricouRaven]

I'm with Vodaphone. I had a similar issue. There is an art site (furaffinity.net) which I use as something of a social hub for messaging, discussion, journals and so on. This site also happens to allow adult artwork, providing it is tagged - you have to have an account and tick the 'show adult content' button to see it, same policy as deviantart. It was blocked as a porn site.

So I tried to have the block removed. Simple enough: You make a payment via credit card to verify age on their website. So I did. Or tried. AFter a few attempts I concluded the site was broken, as it just gave me a useless 'payment denied' error. So I gave the a few days to fix it, tried again, no change.

I did eventually work out the problem: As they are verifying age, they need the payment to be made via *credit* card. But I don't have that - I have a *debit* card. Very close, but not quite the same thing, and debit cards are available to under-eighteens. Thus, no proof of age. I solved the problem by borrowing a credit card from someone else and using that to make the payment.

Is this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... going to censor e-mails? If so, interest groups can have a chain letter (which shows all earlier recipients). The only problem is how to subscribe to the chain letter? Maybe posting the subscription address everywhere will work.

Another way to break censorship is to create dummy emails, dummy forum accounts and post anti-government phrases on them. Every government that implements censorship always silences the anti-government and 'anti-social' voice. By script-kiddies trolling web-sites, that propaganda apparatus will be silenced by its own 'think of the children' machinations.

The 'government interference/over-reach' argument, 'slippery slope' argument, 'faceless men' argument and even the 'Absolute power corrupts' adage have disappeared from the protests against this. The biggest ally to the government seems to be the news corporations who will ensure the 'signal' is not everywhere. But then news reporters have been deciding what citizens will know for a long time.

Cultural Anomaly?

[painehope]

The last time I was working in the UK, I was assigned a small house as my temporary residence. Where I did not have cable TV, yet at almost any time of the day I could find a nude or semi-nude figure of either sex doing something (generally streaking). My coworkers took 4 hour "pub lunches". I spent the nights pub-crawling with them (until I started wandering into the more "dangerous" parts of town to drink and pick up women - to someone from Houston, London doesn't have a ghetto). I generally woke up mildly hungover next to a woman somewhere between 18 and 36 who may or may not have been rescued from a freak show (depending on how much I'd drank). After kicking her out with taxi fair and a half-hearted promise to call, I stumbled over to the nearby Underground station and got a breakfast and cup of tea that, between the two, clogged my arteries to the point of failure and then rocketed everything back into place.

After which I'd go into work for 10 hours. On smoke breaks, I could enjoy the nude girls from the Sun or whatever that had been pasted all over the smoking area. The only time anyone looked at me funny is if I mentioned my firearms collection back home.

How did the British go from a relatively hard-drinking, smoking, swearing, fucking, nude, fighting-in-pubs, generally relaxed culture (I actually had a cop ask me nicely to throw up in a trash can once - in the U.S. I'd have at least spent the night in jail, possibly been in a fight and gotten tasered about four to eight times [it would help if I stayed down, I suppose]) to this? It just doesn't make sense from my experience...

Re:Cultural Anomaly?

[AHuxley]

A new gen of public–private partnerships, faith based groups, business, foreign diplomats, multinationals, legal teams, NGO's... contractors.. see endless tax payer contracts to add the worst sites and keep the tech updated.
MI5/6 and the GCHQ will also see it as one big lab experiment as to who and why people buy into VPN or other methods of circumvention.

Re:Cultural Anomaly?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing the British with the tories. They seem to have realised they are screwed and are setting up timebombs for the next parliament. The backlash from this won't really hit till the end of 2015 a few months after the next election and people will blame that government not this one for it.

Re:Cultural Anomaly?

[Anonymous Coward]

"to someone from Houston, London doesn't have a ghetto"

To someone from the rest of the UK, London is a ghetto.

Re:Cultural Anomaly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the fact that children in schools have been taught to be "good citizens" and not "good people" for the last 15 years or so has a lot to do with it.

Orwell wasn't entirely right. It's not our fears that have penned us in, it's our desires. Desires for an easy life, for welfare, for computer games and easy jobs if you can even be bothered to look for one.

Be a good citizen.

Re:Cultural Anomaly?

[FuzzNugget]

Well, you see, today is different because it's ON TEH INTERNETZ!!!

Re:Cultural Anomaly?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I can see they manage to be in both states at once.

Re:Cultural Anomaly?

[painehope]

So basically all the parasites that have been ruining the U.S. (except for hardcore left-wingers - the U.K. seemed to have a lot of those; NOTE : I'm somewhere in the middle, as I'm fine w/ gays, think people should be able to do almost anything in their bedrooms, pro-choice, and pretty much any other pro-freedom part of the left-wing agenda - on the other hand, I hate the hypocritical welfare state [I've been through a bout w/ a vascular disease that made me unable to work for almost a year, and I couldn't get a damn bit of help from the state or federal government, yet watched them processing a nearly endless stream of welfare baby-mommas and other Black who supposedly can't work yet have no problem procreating; I've seen the same thing w/ a close friend who fought for medical treatment - he was epileptic and had really bad shoulders which prevented him from doing manual labor, which was the only kind of work he could get as an ex-con...after 7+ years of trying to get the funding for the operation to his shoulders and medicine for his epilepsy, he was finally awarded a victory in court. His prize? A 300$ bi-weekly check and no medical assistance whatsoever. And the Federal agents after him wonder why he went back to cooking meth...], think that a trained and armed citizen is the only way you can guarantee freedom, and generally oppose big business, big government, and all aspects of Big Brother) have migrated over to the UK as well? Well, time for yall to start finding out about the BS that we American citizens put up with on a regular basis.

That sounded vindictive, and it wasn't meant that way (I'd rather no one had to put up with that kind of crap). But I also think that it's appropriate that a lot of the countries that have been bashing "gun nuts", "survivalists", and other so-called "paranoid elements" of American society get a taste of what we have to deal with. After a few years of people picketing abortion clinics (and shooting/stabbing people that work there), hiring based not on skills, education, or performance but rather on race and quotas, and a new generation of kids unwilling to learn or do anything other than bounce in and out of prison and on and off the dole, you'll start to understand the how and why of people like me who are seriously ticked off at the current state of affairs.

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an art site (furaffinity.net) which I use as something of a social hub for messaging, discussion, journals and so on.

Nice try there. For the uninformed furaffinity is quite literally the hub for furry fetish folk. It is anything but age appropriate at its best. I oppose internet censorship to my core, unless we're talking about furries. Kill them with fire.

Only Filtering

[Anonymous Coward]

They say its only filtering....

And what happens when they start changing the content - how will we see that?!

Forums include slashdot by the way. This is a good

[serviscope_minor]

When I got 3G on my phone, I had to call them to unblock the porn filters because I wanted to read slashdot. Seriously. It is blocked as a forum and therefore "adult material". I've never downloaded porn on my phone.

Oddly though the mobile ISPs only filtered data being displayed on the phone, plugging it in and having it presented as a CDC modem device and connecting over PPP went through a different machanism and did not cause filtering. That's a curious aside.

The reason that it is a good thing that everything of interest will be blocked is that it massively removes the stigma from getting it unblocked.

While the whole thing is full of stupidity, if it's so stupid then there is less useful information to have on people if they unblock. This (or a massive U turn) is the best we can hope for.

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[Sesostris III]

A few years ago I got a Vodafone PAYG mobile "dongle" for internet access while working away from home. Same issue - to enable access to 'blocked' sites I had to verify my age by making a credit card payment.

And the 'adult' site I wanted to visit while away from home? The National Lottery! I assumed that it gets classified as a gambling site, despite the fact that it is government sanctioned.

It'll be intriguing whether certain NHS sites will also get blocked, like Sexually transmitted infections. Unfortunately I won't know as I'll immediately opt-out of all and every filter!

They'll notice when the population rate declines

[crovira]

while the violence rate goes up. (The limbic centers for violence and sex are right next to each other, and act to produce diametrically opposite social effects.)

This will lead to an increase of "Shaken Baby" syndrome further exacerbating the problem.

Put this in your Red Book of predictions.

Too much restriction - everybody unblocks?

[__aaltlg1547]

Sounds like it's so restrictive that it will push everybody to unblock it. You couldn't read the news under those restrictions.

Re:Too much restriction - everybody unblocks?

[__aaltlg1547]

It sounds from the summary that so much is blocked by default that you really couldn't do much with the internet without unblocking at least some of the filters. And once you get to the unblock page, the easiest thing to do is to unblock everything.

Re:Too much restriction - everybody unblocks?

[1s44c]

Only you can't unblock everything. They give you a few choices so they can pretend this thing is about blocking porn, but really anything they don't like stays blocked.

Remember when the Australian blocklist leaked and it contained dentists and all sorts of silly and innocent stuff?
 

Re:Too much restriction - everybody unblocks?

[1s44c]

Of course they don't want you reading the news! If you actually know what is going on in then you are a danger to the government.

For example the UK government is funding, equipping, and training Islamic extremists in Syria in order to overthrow a government that really isn't that bad compared to the crazies that the UK is backing. If you read the BBC version you get a totally different story.

Slippery Slope

[Somebody Is Using My]

It's "slippery slope", Great Britain, not "slippery precipice". You're supposed to ease people into surrendering their rights; first you take away the pornography (for the children!), then perhaps "terrorist material" (for the nation!) and then work downwards from there. You get much less objection from the proles that way.

Well, maybe they just assume everybody is to bedazzled by the new royal infant (baby!) to notice. Or perhaps they've just given up any pretense of listening to their own citizenry. Which may not be the greatest idea if you take away their porn...

Re:Slippery Slope

[1s44c]

If it's a slippery slope they are doing it backwards. They already introduced indefinite house arrest without evidence. Right now the home secretary can just pick a town off the map and declare every resident a terrorist suspect with zero evidence. These people can then be held under house arrest forever without the right to a trail, the right to work, the right to leave the country, or even the right to know why they are being mistreated.

Internet filtering is a much smaller limitation of freedom than what they have already got away with but it will affect everyone. Well everyone who doesn't know how to use TOR or a VPN at least.

Which brings me to my second point. Every pedo already knows how to use TOR or VPN or they are already caught. The excuse for installing this filtering is unbelievably lame.

Negotiating tactic?

[tverbeek]

This is so wrong-headed and over-the-top that I can't help wondering if it's a negotiating tactic: propose blocking a bunch of extra stuff, wait for the public outcry, then "back down" and just block the porn and hate sites. "See? We aren't censoring!"

Re:Negotiating tactic?

[1s44c]

They don't negotiate. They dictate. There was no public outcry when the government introduced indefinite house arrest without trial for those accused of terrorism. Note accused, not convicted. There will not be a public outcry for this much smaller limitation of freedom.

I don't see how the UK can be fixed unless the government deliberately gives away its powers.

Re:Negotiating tactic?

[Anonymous Coward]

A nuclear strike against London might fix it, or a military coup, or invasion. Otherwise it looks like George Orwell was right.One of the things you always had to be afraid of in '1984' was the gangs of children - one of the first things the government trained them to do was how to spy on the adults and report all 'deviant' activity.
  All we need to complete the picture is a law that puts web cams in every house that stay on 24 hrs a day - turning then off will become a terrorist action..

So what is left?

[nurb432]

Seriously, with that list there would be nothing left, even something as benign as NASCAR would be banned due to alcohol supporters..

All movie and music streaming services would be nixed... everything.

Things have gotten even worse due to outsourcing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Today's budging totalitarian regimes don't even promise jobs anymore. They promise creating tax and regulatory environments that favor job growth, but they know darned well that the jobs are never coming back.

The Fuehrer would be proud of the UK now ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good men fought and died so the people who run the UK now
could build a better world but instead these assholes have built
what amounts to an English speaking police state. Fortunately
the UK is a lousy place to live for many other reasons ( taxes,
bad weather ) so it's not a great loss for most of us.

Re:The Fuehrer would be proud of the UK now ...

[1s44c]

That's the problem with people fighting for freedom. The freedom they win at such a high cost is only ever temporary.

Between this and the police state laws I do agree that the UK isn't a fit place to live. I don't see any way it can be fixed when the majority of voters can't think for themselves.

paranoid?

[nten]

You say people who claimed the tracking was going on were thought to be paranoid, but everyone I know considered it a forgone conclusion it was happening. Every time someone said "oops better not say that on the phone " were they just passing along a meme they didn't believe? More than anything I am surprised that anyone at all was surprised by any of this. The patriot act passed 98-1 in the senate, if it had been proposed as an amendment it probably would have still been passed. The notion it might violate the 4th amendment is interesting, but at the time it had enough support, or at least indifference, from us that it could have legally trumped the 4th amendment. Like V said, look in the mirror to find the problem. Rule one, assume any power you give the government for purposes from fighting terrorists and pedos all the way to business regulations, that can be abused, will be abused. Rule two, don't vote for anyone who gives the government these powers on your behalf, and tell them of your decision before they vote if possible. We screwed up on the patriot act and it would seem the effects of that spread east. Please limeys, stomp this thing out now for everyone's sake. Vote out every last person who spoke favorably of it, and those who spoke favorably of those people. Have bulimia fests on street corners, refuse to help friends and relatives unblock or work around the filters so that they feel the bite and speak out, speak out civilly to every single person you know. Maybe they will just think you are paranoid, or maybe they will think you are just joking about what the filters could lead to, make it clear it isn't a joke. Its better to be thought paranoid.

I wonder if...

[mindwhip]

...the code from an API for a commercial system we use at work and uses a tree as its primary data structure will get blocked cutting us off from the support documentation and forums. It has frequent use of lines such as...

object.parent.getChildren(0).InsertNode()

which will probably trip some word based filters depending on how strict they are.

Re:I wonder if...

[1s44c]

...the code from an API for a commercial system we use at work and uses a tree as its primary data structure will get blocked cutting us off from the support documentation and forums. It has frequent use of lines such as...

object.parent.getChildren(0).InsertNode()

which will probably trip some word based filters depending on how strict they are.

That is pedo-code and will get you sent to jail.

I'm pretty sure that their blocking is based on the host requested in the HTTP header, not keyword detection in the page.

Re:I wonder if...

[mindwhip]

That is pedo-code and will get you sent to jail.

I see what you did there however it is real VB.Net (ok 'object' was something like activeNode but otherwise its good) but most here will probably declare that it should be illegal because its not a 'real' language. Unfortunately we don't use C# as the programs were migrated from a proprietary variant of VB from our vendor before .Net was around and management wanted to limit the amount of re-engineering and have more bugs as a result.

I'm pretty sure that their blocking is based on the host requested in the HTTP header, not keyword detection in the page.

Probably but they need to generate those lists of blocked pages somehow and scanning for combinations of keywords and phrases of pages previously checked by the filter seems a good strategy so as not to have to index the entire web.

Re:What one has...

[Anonymous Coward]

... companies that continue to profit ...

Those selfish bastards, insisting on a profit at year's end. They should all be taxed an extra 30% to make sure that doesn't happen.

That was quick

[GameboyRMH]

I thought it would take at least a decade to go from "porn block" to "Chinese-style net censorship."

Political change is like a 4x4 trying to climb a muddy hill...it moves much more quickly and easily in the wrong direction.

United Kingdom Breaks The Internet

[1s44c]

That was expected. I read elsewhere that the system can't actually be opted out either. All your traffic passes though the filtering system but you may opt to allow some things they don't object to much. All they give you is the illusion of choice.

Some years ago I discovered that UK ISPs were already doing deep packet inspection on all TCP traffic to port 80. Telnet into your own webserver and request piratebay.org if you want to see this in practice. Monitor the connection from both ends and you can see the TCP hijacking happening.

This latest plan is the UK government trying to control the internet in the same way they always controlled newspapers. They will fail but they will destroy internet access from the UK in the process of trying.

Did everybody skip this part?

[Anonymous Coward]

>...users will also be required to opt in for any content tagged as...web blocking circumvention tools...

Repeat after me, "I am free!"

Maybe it's just me...

[Anonymous Coward]

But couldn't we just ban the UK from reproducing? It would seem like such a better use of time and money.

Will they mess up and block windows update or stuf

[Joe_Dragon]

Will they mess up and block windows update or stuff like it?

the microsoft sites have web forums and tools the can be seen web blocking circumvention tools?

What about questioning the 'Holocaust'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or 'Holocaust denial' as the Jews like to call it. I bet THAT will be censored from the internet, it's not as if the 'deniers' have the FACTS on their side or anything like that...
I mean, Jews would never lie... look at Sandy Hook (Google 'Sandy Hook Actors'), look at the Aurora cinema 'shootings' (yeah, right...), look at 9/11 - 3,000 people allegedly died, yet only HALF of the 'victims' on the CNN Memorial pages have photos, and most of the 'victims' don't have ANY comments from their family members, just comments from strangers. How do you explain that? Where is the video footage of THOUSANDS of people leaving the bottoms of the twin towers on 9/11? There isn't any - because the towers were virtually empty, and wired for demolition.

So yes, Jews LIE and they LIE all the time, and their attempt to censor the ENTIRE internet is so that nobody finds out what it actually going on in the real world.

Re:Forums include slashdot by the way. This is a g

[Jeremy Erwin]

"Natalie Portman, naked, petrified and covered in hot grits" isn't porn? Maybe you just don't have a vivid enough imagination.

Pity the weak british mind

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll flash my dick and cause british women and men to swoon and faint! Hahahahahah!

Re:So whose advertising will be on the blocked pag

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, currently in Britain broadcasting video of British Parliamentary proceeding with the intent to mock or satirize is banned. In fact, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show had a segment one time about the fact that they couldn't show clips of Parliament during the The Daily Show's British broadcast. Stewart wanted to demonstrate the contrast between the informed, articulate manner in which Parliament members conduct debates over issues, with the appallingly ridiculous and near incoherent ramblings of US Senators like Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell. So even though British Parliament was going to appear in a positive light, The Daily Show couldn't show the clips because they're a comedy show.

I have no idea whether the same ban is extended to British humor websites, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[1s44c]

You know you can't enter the UK national lottery whilst outside the UK don't you? Also under UK law if there is a dispute they only have to give you your stake back.

Don't check your numbers from outside the UK, have a friend so it. And don't give him the ticket just in case!

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[Sesostris III]

Yes, I got the warning about being in the UK every time I bought a ticket via the mobile broadband. Fortunately although I was working away from home I was in the UK, so was legit.

And if you play on-line they'll check the number for you and send you an email - so no need to get someone else to check your numbers.

Strangely, the problem of them refusing to pay me the jackpot when I won it because they assumed I wasn't in the UK when I purchased the winning ticket, never arose!

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[Anonymous Coward]

The filter doesn't differentiate pro and anti so yes the NHS site is blocked as are a number of online comics and if you leave on the forum filter /.

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[greenreaper]

Do they block Inkbunny, too? I have to wonder if they can because the host is sent encrypted - they'd have to filter based on IP or on URLs at the entry phase, or do MITM filtering/proxying.

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[greenreaper]

Pfft. Killing us with fire is like trying to use fire to kill a forest - it just grows back stronger the next year.

Re:What one has...

[Pieroxy]

The USA doesn't have universal health care.

Good thing too. In Europe we have it and it appear now that we cannot pay for it. It is basically a money gobbler. Unsustainable.

Elephants in the room

[gmuslera]

With filter or without it, all will still that you read or write will be monitored by them. Is like asking if the hamburger comes with fries or salad, no matter which of those you choose, you agreed on the hamburger.

Saying "you can opt out from the filtering in this categories" don't mean that won't be filters in others that you can't opt out, or that opting out won't put you in the close monitored list.

The full, detailed, list of blocked content or rules probably wont get published or, even if so, updated when change, Any critic to the government could be silenced, and with most having the default filter turned on, you are controlling the population even more efficiently than controlling all radio/tv/cable stations.

And for Americans, other countries of the EU, and maybe most of the other countries of the world, this is just a betatest. If people just accept it it will go to other countries.

I'm a geek.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything I do is esoteric. You might want to redefine that, just a bit.

Orwellian

[Anonymous Coward]

George Orwell wrote about this in 1949 in his book 1984. It actually was 2013 before David Cameron enacted it, 29 years after it was expected. If they had done it in 1984, it would have been so cliché (although to be fair, China has had their Green Dam 'Great Firewall' since 2009, and the US has 'snooped' on electronic information for more than 150 years --telegraph lines were monitored before the civil war). Its sad, and disappointing, but entirely expected.

Re:What one has...

[SuricouRaven]

I just grabbed one of the first hits on google. Alex Jones may be unreliable, but the story was reported by a lot of sites - including Associated Press.

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[SuricouRaven]

Can't MITM without installing a certificate on the client.

If SSL isn't filtered, then it'll result in lots of dodgy porn sites using it to catch the new and lucrative 'dont want the wife to know, so can't take the filter off' segment. In an untended consequence it would penalise the sites that actually make efforts to keep children from seeing by cooperating with filter operators, and instead drive customers to the less reputatable sites that actively aid in evading filters.

If SSL is filtered, it'd have to be by IP. Which is ugly, as it risks blocking legitimate sites as well.

Most likely solution, I imagine, would be to dodge that problem and just block at DNS. Trivial to circumvent, but a whole lot easier to implment, and it'll at least stop the technologically ignorant.

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[SuricouRaven]

Ah, the creepy one. Not their fault. Just difficult timing, happening to open at the same time as the FurAffinity anti-creepy policy change and so getting hit by the exodus of the rejected.

Like they failed with newspapers?

[SmallFurryCreature]

What you are forgetting is that in a country, you don't need to control EVERYONE, you just need to control the majority. Then when the tiny informed minority calls for an uprising, nobody will show up because nobody knows about it. Then when the minority protests they just look like trouble makers.

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[greenreaper]

Well, in fairness it is also run by the former publisher of Softpaw Magazine, one of the mods runs Secretmoon on Taps, most others are cubs, etc. You're right, though, that the objective is to host all genres of furry art, not just that. The tag blocking feature helps a lot - alas, as a moderator, I can't use it. :-)

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[SuricouRaven]

My commitment to free speech requires I tolerate such things. I just wish they'd keep nice and quiet in their ghettos, rather than embrassing us all..

"Filtering" Software

[Anonymous Coward]

Historically such software has been poor at correctly identifying "porn", both letting a considerably amount through whilst incorrectly blocking things with nothing to do with it.
This being the case where there are several pieces of software in competition with each other. With a state mandated monopoly the "standard" is likely to go down!

When it comes to anything remotely political be it "hate speach", "extremism", "terrorism", etc. The actual criteria used is more like "do I agree with it or the organisation involved?" (Maybe with more than one "I".)
Thus you should expect some strange choices to appear (and not appear) in these catagories PDQ. e.g. SHAC to be allowed and WUWT to be blocked.

Re:Forums include slashdot by the way. This is a g

[jago25_98]

In order to unblock porn filtering on GiffGaff you have to use a credit card and link your identity to the sim. In order to unblock you have to make yourself that bit less anonymous

Re:Will they mess up and block windows update or s

[cgimusic]

I wouldn't be surprised. I was recently trying to help someone set up Skype. They couldn't connect and it turned out TalkTalk's default filters were blocking it. Who would even buy internet where the default blocks are more strict than most schools? YouTube, Facebook, Skype and a load of other stuff is just blocked. It is crazy.

You can't know what you don't know...

[SigmaTao]

One of the basic and insidious aspects of filtering is that is comes very possible to prevent all knowledge of an event or idea propagating.
If an event occurs which is filtered across the board, in news networks and media, and now filtering of the Internet itself - how does someone get to know it happened?
It's allows governments to prevent information like the "arab spring" being generally known. How does the populous get to know if something like this happens?
Back in the day, when I used to live in england, there seemed to be a regular series of "sex scandals" where some politician would discovered in fishnet stockings and being spanked before going off to represent his members in the house of commons or lords.
I assume such information, if described in enough detail, is considered porn and therefore blockable. You are then at the mercy of the media which can be ordered or bribed into not publishing or discussing such things. If it is never reported - has it never happened?
If PRISM is considered a national security issue by the government, does that allow them to block it from Internet searches? If such a thing happens and you know that filtering is happening - but not what is being filtered - how do you get to know what you are not being allowed to know?
Is reproducing information of that nature in a blog putting you on a watch list of subversives? Is simply asking these questions doing that? If something is reported in mainstream media in a particular way - and there are dissenting ideas, knowledge and experts - but they are able to be filtered out by the unseen powers that be - how do the people engage in conversations about it?
If something is inappropriately filtered, because something triggers the process or because of human or programmatic errors - how does it get corrected? Is that process not only done - but seen to be done by the people for whom the information that site contains serves.
I am staggered how freedom to privacy and thinking is being systematically eroded by governments across the globe without any apparent reaction by the people they govern. Perhaps the reactions to this are being suppressed and I just don't know it is....

Re:removing of the filtering can be an embarrasmen

[Anonymous Coward]

Using a public webstation once, I politely complained to the director that the Freecycle website was censored, and was answered that if I wanted to watch porn, this was not the place...

So yes, prejudices against any person wanting to opt out are rife.

Pubic Outrage Has Erupted!

[lissnup]

Brit /dotters can show support for unfiltered internet by signing this Do Not Force ISP Filtering of Pornography and Other Content petition. Bonus points if you can sign even though it feels identical to nominating yourself for a secret "British residents who like internet porn" watchlist.

"Esoteric Material"

[Christopher_T.]

I hate these rubber words. Per Bing: restricted to initiates: intended for or understood by only an initiated few abstruse: difficult to understand secret: secret or highly confidential Given the UK's "Official Secrets Act", just about anything, as I understand it, can be declared secret. Given that /. often talks about abstruse subjects, like higher level programming, does that put them on the list? And of course, the Watchers will not be bound by this. Between this and the NSA, I'm getting more and more tempted to just use Tor. Just so they can waste time decrypting the ramblings of a 55 year old burn-out case.

People don't take the time to opt out

[intermodal]

until such a time when they actually get their stuff blocked. Then you can bet your arse they will. Especially if you block alcohol-related websites in Britain.