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.
I work with children. In my extensive experience, they are vile creatures indeed. Ill-mannered, inconsiderate, uneducated and ignorant. They lack the most basic common sense, and what they do have is overridden by their susceptibility to peer pressure and the forces of advertising. They have a compulsion to destroy all that they touch, leaving me to spend my working day endlessly repairing equipment which has been vandalized - past highlights include throwing a switch from a window, placing a power cable in a stapler and impaling a laptop keyboard on a pen. Through an informal concensus they work to perpetuate this youth culture by relentlessly bullying any child who shows signs of being different, until they cease these attempts and rejoin the mob. They are in no way innocent - and, while many are ignorant of more worthwhile fields, peer discussion ensures they mostly have an encyclopedic knowledge of sexual acts and insults, albeit one riddled with misconceptions and errors.
These aren't routers as such. They are transparent HTTP proxies. All the router needs to do is check each packet against a list of suspect IPs, and pass the matching ones down a different interface to the box that does the real work.
But all record of the order is probably 'lost' too.
Any competent criminal giving such a cover-up instruction would visit their underling in person and give the order verbally, rather than risk any form of electronic communication or written record.
Depends how the filter is implemented. There's a general tradeoff between effective porn-blocking and permitting legitimate use. ISPs don't want a storm of complaints, so it's likely they'll throw the slider all the way towards legitimate use - letting most of the porn through, but also making sure no customers get scared by these sudden warning messages.
I suspect the MPs involved are quite aware that if it was opt-in, very few parents would actually bother. This would be as much of an embarassment as the V-chip is: Spend all that effort on fighting for parents, and then have it become readily apparent that they didn't actually want that cause fought on their behalf. That's why the opt-out part - rely on the intrinsic human property of lazyness. When most of the population are either not bothered either way enough to change it, or don't want to have to ask their partner for permission to turn on 'porn mode,' it looks like a great success.
As for bothering? Because it gets media attention and votes, and it's a proposal that few dare openly oppose as they would inevitably be branded a porn-viewing perv. Pornography viewing may be a very commonplace thing, but it still has a social stigma.
Here in the southern UK, it snows sometimes. Not a lot. Maybe for a week, no more, and only every two years - often we go a winter with no snow at all, or just a very light dusting.
When it does snow, everything stops. Roads are impassible, schools close, almost total shutdown of the country. Why? Because we don't keep an army of ploughs and gritters and a big stockpile of salt around for something that happens so rarely and is over so quickly.
Likewise with very hot summers. The crushing heat can reach thirty celcius. In somewhere like the southern US they'd laugh at that - but in those places, everyone is used to it, with buildings made to stay cool and every home fitted with air-con. We melt for about a week a year, so we just endure - the awkwardness is over too soon to justify building houses that stay cool (And thus cost a lot more to heat in winter) or installing expensive aircon systems.
The public outcry is even sillier than it seems. Google already have a policy to block child porn in search results. The dialog goes something like this:
MPs: Google needs to block child porn! Google: We are. MPs: But... you need to block child porn! Google: Really, we''re doing everything we can to block it. MPs: But.. there's still child porn on the internet! You need to block it! Google: If we donate a huge pile of cash to the IWF so you can feel better about cutting funding to CEOP and outsourcing policing of child porn to the private sector, will you stop saying that? MPs: Maybe.
Yes, but only while searching the shady side of the internet where everything is spelled with a Z.
I've also seen a couple of pranks where porn (usually artwork rather than photos) was posted to forums or chat in an MMORPG. But the filter would be useless against these.
I think Clockwork Orange will pass for now, but there are proposals working their way through the political process to ban 'rape porn' - and as CO has a rape scene with some level of nudity (exposed breasts) that may well meet whatever definition is set.
The most frequently-cited example is the new Casino Royale, in which Bond is in one scene subjected to torture involving a hammer. The extreme porn ban law specifically forbids depictions of acts which may result in injury to the genitals - without the BBFC classification exemption, owning a DVD of Casino Royale would be punishable by three years in jail and lifetime classification as a registered sex offender.
Curiously, if you were to just cut out that scene alone without the rest of the movie, it'd turn back into extreme porn and you can go to jail.
I imagine it'd be a lot easier and faster to pull information from the company database than to try to reconstruct it from intercepted web sessions.
Which is easier: SELECT * FROM messages WHERE sender=[suspect], or a having someone spend a week going through a year's worth of intercepted HTTPS trying to piece pages back together, with every minor change in page layout breaking their parser script?
(Sorry if that's bad SQL, I'm not a database raven. I do networks.)
Using DH would certainly solve some problems. The government would still be able to MITM specific targets (either end), but they couldn't retroactively go through their logs and find conversations you had months or years ago.
If they can't offer proof, no imprisonment - that would only confirm what they claim. But they'll be blacklisted from ever working for the government again, and few private employers would want to take someone with a history of whistle-blowing.
It'd be easy enough to sign a false certificate though. If done on a large scale it'd be noticed eventually, but as a targeted intercept just on a few individuals it'd work.
Huge loophole: What is meant by 'prosecution?' That might stop the government from openly jailing someone for upsetting a senator, but it doesn't stop classic abuses like poking at the victim's life to find another crime they can be prosecuted for (Everyone has broken a law somewhere), or subjecting them to intensive audits and investigations that could leave their reputation ruined. It's quite possible to persecute without prosecuting.
Both taxation and representation - population matters for deciding who the various elected officials are elected by and who they represent. That's why the constitution requires a census every ten years. The writers actually specified their reasoning in the text itsself: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States... according to their respective Numbers... . The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years".
Ah, the famous Rainbow Parties. The things that everyone knows off, but you just try finding someone who actually went to one. It's one of the modern urban legends - a story that spread wildly because it inspired outrage, like the previous fear about secret satanist cults abducting children. That the story had no basis in reality was no impediment to the spread.
America is generally better at insane laws, because they have a multi-level government with different parts often trying to push different agendas - you end up with states trying to subvert federal law, the feds trying to overrule state law, commitees staffed with people opposed to the laws they are supposed to be enforcing and every politician trying to find some loophole to work around court rulings they disagree with.
But brits do have a few. The libel law is a good example.
We also have a law that bans the posesssion or distribution of 'extreme porn' - a term which is supposed to be used only against the worst-of-the-worst. A problem came up in writing though: Any definition that could include all that would also have to include at least a few mainstream hollywood movies. The solution was simple enough: Any content that gets rated by the BBFC, regardless of rating given, is exempt from the law.
I'm sure that's delay any Chinese hackers, state-sponsored or otherwise, for a few minutes. They are as capable as anyone of using a previously-compromised host as a proxy. State-sponsored hackers may even use this as a false-flag approach: Hack a bunch of computers in Russia or Iran, and use those to attack American targets. For that matter, some of the many attacks seemingly coming from China may well be the work of Russia. It's very easy to frame someone else.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
It'll only block cults that are too small to sue in retaliation.
It's not made up. I do work with children.
IT technician at a school. The lowest position in the whole IT industry.
I work with children. In my extensive experience, they are vile creatures indeed. Ill-mannered, inconsiderate, uneducated and ignorant. They lack the most basic common sense, and what they do have is overridden by their susceptibility to peer pressure and the forces of advertising. They have a compulsion to destroy all that they touch, leaving me to spend my working day endlessly repairing equipment which has been vandalized - past highlights include throwing a switch from a window, placing a power cable in a stapler and impaling a laptop keyboard on a pen. Through an informal concensus they work to perpetuate this youth culture by relentlessly bullying any child who shows signs of being different, until they cease these attempts and rejoin the mob. They are in no way innocent - and, while many are ignorant of more worthwhile fields, peer discussion ensures they mostly have an encyclopedic knowledge of sexual acts and insults, albeit one riddled with misconceptions and errors.
These aren't routers as such. They are transparent HTTP proxies. All the router needs to do is check each packet against a list of suspect IPs, and pass the matching ones down a different interface to the box that does the real work.
But all record of the order is probably 'lost' too.
Any competent criminal giving such a cover-up instruction would visit their underling in person and give the order verbally, rather than risk any form of electronic communication or written record.
Depends how the filter is implemented. There's a general tradeoff between effective porn-blocking and permitting legitimate use. ISPs don't want a storm of complaints, so it's likely they'll throw the slider all the way towards legitimate use - letting most of the porn through, but also making sure no customers get scared by these sudden warning messages.
I suspect the MPs involved are quite aware that if it was opt-in, very few parents would actually bother. This would be as much of an embarassment as the V-chip is: Spend all that effort on fighting for parents, and then have it become readily apparent that they didn't actually want that cause fought on their behalf. That's why the opt-out part - rely on the intrinsic human property of lazyness. When most of the population are either not bothered either way enough to change it, or don't want to have to ask their partner for permission to turn on 'porn mode,' it looks like a great success.
As for bothering? Because it gets media attention and votes, and it's a proposal that few dare openly oppose as they would inevitably be branded a porn-viewing perv. Pornography viewing may be a very commonplace thing, but it still has a social stigma.
Consistancy is key.
Here in the southern UK, it snows sometimes. Not a lot. Maybe for a week, no more, and only every two years - often we go a winter with no snow at all, or just a very light dusting.
When it does snow, everything stops. Roads are impassible, schools close, almost total shutdown of the country. Why? Because we don't keep an army of ploughs and gritters and a big stockpile of salt around for something that happens so rarely and is over so quickly.
Likewise with very hot summers. The crushing heat can reach thirty celcius. In somewhere like the southern US they'd laugh at that - but in those places, everyone is used to it, with buildings made to stay cool and every home fitted with air-con. We melt for about a week a year, so we just endure - the awkwardness is over too soon to justify building houses that stay cool (And thus cost a lot more to heat in winter) or installing expensive aircon systems.
The public outcry is even sillier than it seems. Google already have a policy to block child porn in search results. The dialog goes something like this:
MPs: Google needs to block child porn!
Google: We are.
MPs: But... you need to block child porn!
Google: Really, we''re doing everything we can to block it.
MPs: But.. there's still child porn on the internet! You need to block it!
Google: If we donate a huge pile of cash to the IWF so you can feel better about cutting funding to CEOP and outsourcing policing of child porn to the private sector, will you stop saying that?
MPs: Maybe.
Yes, but only while searching the shady side of the internet where everything is spelled with a Z.
I've also seen a couple of pranks where porn (usually artwork rather than photos) was posted to forums or chat in an MMORPG. But the filter would be useless against these.
Those will be banned next. Got to take it one thing at a time.
I think Clockwork Orange will pass for now, but there are proposals working their way through the political process to ban 'rape porn' - and as CO has a rape scene with some level of nudity (exposed breasts) that may well meet whatever definition is set.
The most frequently-cited example is the new Casino Royale, in which Bond is in one scene subjected to torture involving a hammer. The extreme porn ban law specifically forbids depictions of acts which may result in injury to the genitals - without the BBFC classification exemption, owning a DVD of Casino Royale would be punishable by three years in jail and lifetime classification as a registered sex offender.
Curiously, if you were to just cut out that scene alone without the rest of the movie, it'd turn back into extreme porn and you can go to jail.
I imagine it'd be a lot easier and faster to pull information from the company database than to try to reconstruct it from intercepted web sessions.
Which is easier: SELECT * FROM messages WHERE sender=[suspect], or a having someone spend a week going through a year's worth of intercepted HTTPS trying to piece pages back together, with every minor change in page layout breaking their parser script?
(Sorry if that's bad SQL, I'm not a database raven. I do networks.)
Using DH would certainly solve some problems. The government would still be able to MITM specific targets (either end), but they couldn't retroactively go through their logs and find conversations you had months or years ago.
If they can't offer proof, no imprisonment - that would only confirm what they claim. But they'll be blacklisted from ever working for the government again, and few private employers would want to take someone with a history of whistle-blowing.
Diffie-Hellman lets you securely communicate over a monitored channel, but it can't protect against an attacker actively altering traffic.
It'd be easy enough to sign a false certificate though. If done on a large scale it'd be noticed eventually, but as a targeted intercept just on a few individuals it'd work.
Huge loophole: What is meant by 'prosecution?' That might stop the government from openly jailing someone for upsetting a senator, but it doesn't stop classic abuses like poking at the victim's life to find another crime they can be prosecuted for (Everyone has broken a law somewhere), or subjecting them to intensive audits and investigations that could leave their reputation ruined. It's quite possible to persecute without prosecuting.
Both taxation and representation - population matters for deciding who the various elected officials are elected by and who they represent. That's why the constitution requires a census every ten years. The writers actually specified their reasoning in the text itsself: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States ... according to their respective Numbers ... . The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years".
Ah, the famous Rainbow Parties. The things that everyone knows off, but you just try finding someone who actually went to one. It's one of the modern urban legends - a story that spread wildly because it inspired outrage, like the previous fear about secret satanist cults abducting children. That the story had no basis in reality was no impediment to the spread.
America is generally better at insane laws, because they have a multi-level government with different parts often trying to push different agendas - you end up with states trying to subvert federal law, the feds trying to overrule state law, commitees staffed with people opposed to the laws they are supposed to be enforcing and every politician trying to find some loophole to work around court rulings they disagree with.
But brits do have a few. The libel law is a good example.
We also have a law that bans the posesssion or distribution of 'extreme porn' - a term which is supposed to be used only against the worst-of-the-worst. A problem came up in writing though: Any definition that could include all that would also have to include at least a few mainstream hollywood movies. The solution was simple enough: Any content that gets rated by the BBFC, regardless of rating given, is exempt from the law.
You want Visipics for that.
http://www.visipics.info/index.php?title=Main_Page
I'm sure that's delay any Chinese hackers, state-sponsored or otherwise, for a few minutes. They are as capable as anyone of using a previously-compromised host as a proxy. State-sponsored hackers may even use this as a false-flag approach: Hack a bunch of computers in Russia or Iran, and use those to attack American targets. For that matter, some of the many attacks seemingly coming from China may well be the work of Russia. It's very easy to frame someone else.
A Chinese snowden would be lucky to make it out of the country, and would likely be dead in an 'accident' a week after the first leak.