Slashdot Mirror
British 'Porn Filter' Blocks Access To Chaos Computer Club
An anonymous reader tips news that the Chaos Computer Club's website was inaccessible for many internet users in the UK after being blocked by the filter set up to block porn sites. Additionally, Vodafone users are unable to access the ticket site to this year's Chaos Commuication Conference. In a post on its website, the CCC said, "Internet filters simply do not work, but leaving technical limitation aside, the CCC's example shows that unsolicited overblocking, meaning wrongly classified websites, is a common phenomenon in large censorship infrastructures. However, it may very well be that the CCC is considered 'extremist' judged by British standards of freedom of speech." CCC spokesperson Dirk Engling added, "We see this as proof that censorship infrastructure – no matter for which reasons it was set up, and no matter which country you are in – will always be abused for political reasons."
When do we start adding UK to the list of unfree states.
You know that the filter is strictly optional, right?
Being opt-out is stupid pandering to the "think of the children" morons who are too lazy to opt in to an opt in system which was present before (surprise! companies offered this service!).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/tech...
The proportions of people NOT opting out are:
* Virgin Media - 4%
* BT - 5%
* Sky - 8%
* TalkTalk - 36%
(Note: TalkTalk offered the service as an opt in feature before the government waded in).
The filter is a stupid and pointless thing to be mandated (as evidenced by the nubmers), but given the number of people opting out (almost all), chicken-littling over being like China is even more stupid than the filter itself.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
games.slashdot.org is blocked by my work filter because "games". While slashdot does not contain any actual games, the word in the URL is enough to trigger the block. It also blocks gaming news websites as "games", despite being a news website. Add on top of that, randomly blocking electronic cigarette websites as "weapons". Filters are broken indeed.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
well, OK, how about London's 33 boroughs* controlling 7,000** cameras between them? Or the 500,000-800,000** privately owned/run CCTV cameras (not systems, individual cameras) operating in the same area?
The 11,000** cameras operating on the Tube network?
*combined population: 8.3 million (2013 ONS estimate)
**source: BSIA
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Yep, but they're not scattered remotely uniformly.
For instance there's a bunch in the big underpass system by the Monument, far more than one every 225 feet because it's an underpass with a few branches. They also tend to be scattered round the large, important buildings like the Gherkin. The ground plans are complex so to cover the area just around the building, many cameras are needed.
All the little streets like Change Alley and Pope's Head Alley and whatnot have none whatsoever.
Yes there are a lot but the chicken-little OMG BIG BROTHER ENGLAND IS WORSE THAN NORTH KOREA THE SKY IS FALLING types are basically spouting crap.
Disclaimer: I only walk through the city of London every day on the way into work.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The filters have usually been super-secret
In case it might be of interest, in the UK, on mobile networks at least, the existence of filters is not (and, as far as I know, has never been) secret, and the categories of content which are likely to render a site being blocked are published too. I appreciate that this is, of course, not the same as a "what's blocked and what's not list".)
The UK's infrastructure mobile operators published the "Code of practice for the self-regulation of new forms of content on mobiles" in January 2004, with the filters being implemented about a year later in early 2005. The code was updated in 2009, and is accessible here. The code still references the Independent Mobile Classification Body, but this is no longer the right place: the IMCB's role has been replaced by the British Board of Film Classification, which also administers the age ratings for films for the UK.
The BBFC documents its approach to mobile content classification on its website, here, including setting out the type of content which the BBFC considers suitable for "adults only", the details of mobile operator contact points in the event that a site operator considers that their site is incorrectly classified, and an appeals procedure against decisions taken by the BBFC.
Whilst there is no published "what's blocked and what's not" list, the mobile operators buy third party services for website classification; most, but not all, buy from Symantec. Symantec has a web interface for its "ratings tool" here, which (after a captcha) lets anyone see how Symantec has classified a particular URL. This is complemented by the Open Rights Group tool (here): the ORG tool does a real-time check of whether a site is blocked across mobile and fixed networks, and the Symantec tool indicates the classification given to the site by Symantec.