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."

Comments

Good grief.

[Frosty Piss]

Porn filters... Really? Well, what do you expect from a country that has CCTV on every corner in every town, and an internal security apparatus that shames the NSA? We're not talking about Russia here...

Re:Good grief.

[PopeRatzo]

The more realistic, 509,000 people and 619 cameras sounds much less dramatic.

Not really. If you place those 619 cameras correctly (and I assume they did) in such a small area, I'll bet every single person who lives or works in that place gets their image recorded several times a day.

Remember, the 500,000 people who come to the City of London to work every day have a limited number of routes to take to get there. A relatively small number of bus stops, train stations, parking lots, bridges and streets makes for easy work for the guys who are upskirting their own citizens' lives.

I'm guessing it could be done with even fewer cameras.

Re:Good grief.

[PopeRatzo]

And before you ask for a citation regarding those child molestation/murder cults among the elite:

http://www.theguardian.com/soc...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/u...

CCC, XXX...

[Anonymous Coward]

CCC, XXX, what's the difference? The two keys are close to each other. Easy to confuse. Wait until WWW is added to the list.

Suprised *gasp*

[davydagger]

In china, the official reason for goverment filters is to block porn and malacious content.

Its like someone doesn't learn lessons, not just from history, but from the present

When do we start adding UK to the list of unfree states.

Re:Suprised *gasp*

[serviscope_minor]

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.

Re:So?

[knightghost]

No, that caused the problem. "Save the children!" and other lemming stampede inducing sayings will always be abused by those in power.

When will they block Slashdot?

[Required Snark]

There are plenty of examples of "bad behavior" on Slashdot. I've been accused of this myself, for not being "polite". So it seems obvious that it's only a matter of time until someone in London figures out that collectively Slashdot is a "bad influence" and it gets banned.

Which side won the Cold War again? Oh yeah, "Ignorance is Strength". That side.

Re:When will they block Slashdot?

[buckfeta2014]

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.