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BT, Sky, and Virgin Enforce UK Porn Blocks By Hijacking Browsers
An anonymous reader writes with this story at Ars Technica, excerpting: BT, Sky, and Virgin Media are hijacking people's web connections to force customers to make a decision about family-friendly web filters. The move comes as the December deadline imposed by prime minister David Cameron looms, with ISPs struggling to get customers to say yes or no to the controversial adult content blocks. The messages, which vary by ISP, appear during browser sessions when a user tries to access any website. BT, Sky,TalkTalk and Virgin Media are required to ask all their customers if they want web filters turned on or off, with the government saying it wants to create a "family friendly" Internet free from pornography, gambling, extreme violence and other content inappropriate for children. But the measures being taken by ISPs have been described as "completely unnecessary" and "heavy handed" by Internet rights groups. The hijacking works by intercepting requests for unencrypted websites and rerouting a user to a different page. ISPs are using the technique to communicate with all undecided customers. Attempting to visit WIRED.co.uk, for example, could result in a user being redirected to a page asking them about web filtering. ISPs cannot intercept requests for encrypted websites in the same way.
it wants to create a "family friendly" Internet free from pornography, gambling, extreme violence and other content inappropriate for children.
No more streaming video like Netflix? Oh, well, guess the kids will have to get their violence the old-fashioned way - from TV.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Brilliant idea.
Now instead of offering the parents an option to enable a porn filter, little Billy goes to a random kids website and gets asked "Do you want to watch porn?".
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Seriously, what's in it for the ISP to push these things?
I'm guessing that the gov't is leaning on ISPs to get an explicit buy in/out of filtering per customer. So that later on, when someone in the household stumbles upon that midget porn site, no one can claim shock and offense.
The down side (as others have pointed out) is that little Timmy might be the first one onto the family Internet connection one morning. And the "Do you want to watch porn?" might not get the response intended.
Have gnu, will travel.
We tried. No suitable product became available.
Which is pretty clear proof that pretty much no-one wants their Internet pre-censored.
David Cameron pushed the market into providing such a service.
And, last I read, something like 4% of people had chosen to have their Internet censored. They're probably the ones who clicked 'Yes' by mistake, thinking it meant 'Yes, I want the Internet, not Davenet'.
This doesn't sound much different than the T&C redirect page when you use public WiFi.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
..with the government saying it wants to create a "family friendly" Internet free from pornography, gambling, extreme violence and other content inappropriate for children
Point #1: You do not 'own' the entire Internet
Point #2: It's not up to you to 'clean up' the Internet
Point #3: It has been proven over and over and over again that 'net nanny' and other censorship does not work
Point #4: Governments will subvert any censorship technology for their own propaganda and agenda purposes, destroying the original (misguided) intent
Point #5: Regardless of whatever you're telling your citizens, you likely will end up discriminating against people who don't want your filtering
Point #6: Ultimately your efforts will fail, for reasons of Point #3, and because people will always find a way around it regardless.
..and finally, not a 'point', but just my personal opinion on the matter: I think any government that engages in censorship are a bunch of fucking assholes who don't deserve to be in power. Leave the Internet alone and let people decide for themselves what they do and do not want their families and themselves to encounter or do there. Police UK-hosted sites against outright illegal activity or content? Yes. Make moral decisions for everyone else? Hell, no.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
".. other content inappropriate for children"
Curiously they do not block web sites of places like http://www.catholic.org/, https://www.churchofengland.org/, http://www.jewfaq.org/index.shtml, http://www.islamreligion.com/ ... all purveyors of ideas that really screw kids up: make them feel guilty of normal feelings, make them do strange things, ... If they insist on a banned list it would be good to see this sort of site added.
It's pretty standard for providers to redirect to one of their pages when they need to bring something to a user's attention, or get user-input.
Bullshit. I have never had my ISP hijack my connection to either communicate with me, or to get my input. They typically just include a flyer with my monthly bill (which I promptly discard, because I have zero interest in any relationship with my ISP beyond "I give you dollars, you serve up the bits I request").
And it's not hijacking.
I request page X. They serve me page Y that demands that I take some action before they'll let me get to page X. Tell me, AC, how do you define hijacking, if that doesn't do it for you? "Saaay, nice airplane you have here! For your own good, though, we just can't let it go on to Dallas until you give us all your jewelry and electronics".
I do have to wonder, though - What will the UK nannies do if essentially the entire country opts out and says "Yeah, thanks, but we want our porn and violence, thankyouverymuch"?
better filter out all bible sites, then. there is a lot of extreme violence (much of it by our so-called loving god!) in the OT.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."