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.

Comments

You want a family friendly internet?

[Opportunist]

"free from pornography, gambling, extreme violence and other content inappropriate for children"

And I want a user friendly internet, free from governments, corporations, extreme advertising and other content inappropriate for ANYONE.

Cameron, please, for sanity's sake: Stop talking. Or, better, stop breathing.

as someone having a religious objection to porn

[gillbates]

I must say I've never needed a filter to avoid porn on the internet. I'm not sure why the government feels it must block access to something I don't wish to see in the first place, unless it ultimately has ulterior motives, intending to derail the free flow of information necessary for a participative democracy in the name of public morality. It's ironic that a government which recently ruled that health practitioners must refer patients for abortion in spite of their individual moral objections is now suddenly concerned about access to porn. I find it more believable that the ultimate goal is to restrict access to information embarrassing to the ruling party, using the ostensible reason of porn filtering to silence dissent.