
UK Porn Filter Will Censor Other Content Too, ISPs Reveal - llambda
http://torrentfreak.com/uk-porn-filter-will-censor-other-content-too-isps-reveal-130726/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
======
InclinedPlane
This deserves a lot more of a response but for now I'll just leave this:

Liberty is about the ability of the individual to do things that others
disapprove of. You don't need liberty if everyone else approves of your
actions. As a corollary, the exercise of liberty does not require a
justification, because it's a liberty, practicality or "usefulness" or what-
have-you play no part in it. It's onerous to require someone to justify their
right to look at porn. It's even more onerous to ask people to put their name
on a list as someone who desires the ability to look at porn. And indeed this
is how freedoms are eroded. Because once you put things on a different footing
and you require people to justify their freedoms then it becomes ever more
difficult to justify anything. Can you justify eating a cheap, greasy
cheeseburger? Can you justify watching "Jersey Shore"? Are you willing to?

These are precisely the same sorts of tactics that have been used since the
dawn of time for busybodies to rein in individual freedoms of others, and
thereby to obtain greater authority over others.

People often dismiss out of hand the notion that tyranny could possibly take
hold over the first world democracies of the west in the 21st century. And to
that I can only sigh. Perhaps it will not be known as tyranny, perhaps someone
will come up with a different, more apt name once (if) we are in the clutches
of it, but it will be every bit as bad and every bit as difficult to throw
off, if not more so.

~~~
DanBC
> People often dismiss out of hand the notion that tyranny could possibly take
> hold over the first world democracies of the west in the 21st century. And
> to that I can only sigh. Perhaps it will not be known as tyranny, perhaps
> someone will come up with a different, more apt name once, if, we are in the
> clutches of it, but it will be every bit as bad and every bit as difficult
> to throw off, if not more so.

Jesus fucking christ you people should go look at what happens in real
dictatorships sometime.

A voluntary filter is not tyranny and it's fucking disgusting to compare
optional filtering of semi-random webcontent with governments who murder and
torture their citizens.

~~~
e40
_A voluntary filter is not tyranny and it 's fucking disgusting to compare
optional filtering of semi-random webcontent with governments who murder and
torture their citizens._

 __You __are the one that made the equivalence, not the person to which you
replied. Nice straw man.

This UK porn filter is a step on a path. Yes, that current position is not
tyranny, but it's a step on the path to it. Frogs can't be dropped into
boiling water, but you can turn up the heat a little bit at a time until they
boil. That's what's happening in the US and UK right now. The end result will
be tyranny, and it will end with murder and torture of citizens.

Btw, in the US, we've already started murdering our citizens[1].

1\. [http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/obama-
assassin...](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/obama-assassinates-
us-citizen)

EDIT: remove "Boiled" before frogs to clarify my intent. Thanks coldcode.

~~~
coldcode
You mean frogs I assume. Pre-boiled frogs don't mind a new dip.

~~~
dhimes
It's a legend anyhow, but an apt one.

[http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp](http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp)

~~~
Theodores
Don't believe that conspiracy-debunking-nonsense!!

The truth is that the myth is true. However they have already censored all of
the boiling frog videos from the internets.

------
ferdo
Sorry for the 19th century text wall, but this is so pertinent that it hurts.

"Next in importance to personal freedom is immunity from suspicions, and
jealous observation. Men may be without restraints upon their liberty: they
may pass to and fro at pleasure: but if their steps are tracked by spies and
informers, their words noted down for crimination, their associates watched as
conspirators, who shall say that they are free? Nothing is more revolting to
Englishmen than the espionage which forms part of the administrative system of
continental despotisms. It haunts men like an evil genius, chills their
gaiety, restrains their wit, casts a shadow over their friendships, and
blights their domestic hearth.

The freedom of a country may be measured by its immunity from this baleful
agency. Rulers who distrust their own people, must govern in a spirit of
absolutism; and suspected subjects will be ever sensible of their bondage."

The Constitutional History Of England Vol II (1863), pg. 288

by T. E. May

[http://archive.org/stream/constitutionalhi029622mbp#page/n31...](http://archive.org/stream/constitutionalhi029622mbp#page/n313/mode/2up)

~~~
jivatmanx
In free governments, the government is the servant of the people. It's
activities are transparent and public by default, though the people may allow
some defined areas where some secrecy is temporarily allowed. The people's
liberty and privacy are assumed by default - it may be violated only by
specific, well-defined legal processes.

In a despotism these roles are reversed, in government, secrecy is assumed.
For the people, there is no privacy. Government is not longer the servant but
the master.

------
EGreg
First they criticize the Great Firewall of China. Then they start building it
themselves. And who better than a Chinese network operator to do it? After
all:

"The Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry is an
agreement between the Chinese internet industry regulator and companies that
operate sites in China. In signing the agreement, web companies are pledging
to identify and prevent the transmission of information that Chinese
authorities deem objectionable, including information that “breaks laws or
spreads superstition or obscenity”, or that “may jeopardize state security and
disrupt social stability”."

-From Wikipedia

------
Nursie
Well DUH!

Some of the politicians like to say it'll be the same sort of system that's on
mobile phones here. These have two characteristics -

    
    
      1. The filter is full of holes
      2. What's blocked is pretty arbitrary
    

For instance, I was at a music festival last year (Beautiful Days), and access
to the online site map and festival schedule was blocked as 'adult' content.
The festival itself was full of kids and teenagers (brought along by their
parents) for whom the info would have been useful. To get around it, I
installed Orbot (Tor for android), because they only care about censoring the
web.

~~~
daxelrod
Wait, is there already a government-imposed web filter on mobile phones in the
UK? And you can't opt out? When did this happen? What were the justifications
given when it was put into place? Does it also apply to GSM tablets and
devices tethered to your mobile?

~~~
DanBC
There is filtering on most mobile phone data contracts in the UK.

YOU CAN OPT OUT. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO OPT OUT OF THE PROPOSED FILTERS TOO.

Justifications: "Children have too easy access to very hard core porn. Provide
filtering, or we'll regulate you".

~~~
Karunamon
_> YOU CAN OPT OUT. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO OPT OUT OF THE PROPOSED FILTERS TOO._

..Thereby putting your name on a list of people who like to look at
$blocked_thing. Why this is problematic is left as an exercise for the reader.

Any such filtering should be OPT IN by default. Not the other way around.

Further, what data children have the ability to access is the concern of their
parents, not the government.

~~~
gknoy
Does opt-in vs opt-out make a difference, though, once they have enough data?
If oppression or data misuse is the goal, it seems like reversing the set
selection criteria would be a trivial way of getting the list of people who
like their ${badstuff}, even if they did not opt out of a filter":

    
    
        # obviously not real sql
        select * from citizens where (citizen.id not in opt_in_list)
    

What am I missing?

~~~
Karunamon
Probably the fact that only a minority will actually opt in. Requiring
positive action almost ensures that miniscule amounts of people will change
from the default.

    
    
        (defaultsetting_users) > (nondefaultsetting_users)
    

..regardless of how desirable the non default setting is.

This, for instance, is why Windows Update got a lot more forceful in its later
incarnations. People will not update, even when it's good for them, unless you
make it hard to not update.

~~~
hfsktr
Another example: IE being installed on Windows by default.

How many people still think IE == internet...

~~~
drdaeman
Way too many.

I work as an engineer in a small ISP compaly, and for some time had very
closely contacted with phone support (sometimes helping them) and heard many
conversations with clients.

I'd say there are quite a few people who can't distinguish between Internet,
browser and VKontakte (Russian analog for Facebook). Didn't counted them or
did any real statistics, though.

------
pasbesoin
As I've been saying for years, the Great Firewall of China is -- or was -- the
prototype.

Look at its early history: Built with "Western" technology and consulting.

Did you think all these firms were creating a one-off?

And, the following observation is perhaps stretching the interpretation a bit
(or not), but I find it somewhat ironic that, after all this, it is a Chinese
company that is pushing this implementation forward. Use domestic market
access to acquire the knowledge (sometimes, by hook or by crook), and then use
your control of your own labor market to undersell the competition.

~~~
adrow
So you could call this one the China Firewall of Great Britain.

~~~
samstave
B.ritish O.nline L.imiting L.ude O.bjectionable C.ontent S.ystem:

B.O.L.L.O.C.S

~~~
cjrp
[...] [O]bjectionable [C]ontent for [K]ids [S]ystem ?

~~~
samstave
heh... Yeah - I couldn't think of a [K] ;)

------
Shish2k
A possible silver lining - if you're against the filters that currently exist
(blocking child porn), someone might infer you're a paedophile, which would be
bad for you. If you opt out of porn filters, you'll go down on a list of
people who want porn. If you opt out of everything-filters, the only thing
that can really be implied is that you want access to _something_ , which is
somewhat less easy to blackmail with.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Exactly. If I disable all all those filters, I can credibly argue that I'm
against filtering on principle, not necessarily because I want to view any of
those things.

I just wonder how long until they start using this infrastructure to compute a
profile that determins things like your social security contributions or
security clearance. They could also threaten to take the children away from
people who disable the filters or force them into some kind of "re-education"
program.

------
x0054
In my previous line of work, as a criminal lawyer, this is how this would be
used:

Q: "Mr Smith, isn't it true that you willingly removed a filter on you
Internet connection, places there for your safety, and the safety of your
children, and now your connection allows you to watch hard core porn?" A:
"But... I did it because.." Q: "Yes or no, Mr. Smith? Did you ask for the
filters to be removed?" A: "Yes, bu..." Q: Thank you, Mr. Smitha

~~~
Dylan16807
>placed there for your safety

"No"

If the lawyer wants to be an ass then he can enjoy some excessively pedantic
replies.

~~~
GhotiFish
not sure how that would go down. It's funny though

"Placed there for my safety? Why would I remove a filter placed there for my
safety? He must be referring to some other filter."

------
rsync
2010-2012 may well have been "peak internet".

Three years ago, or so, I was thinking about[1] the idea that we may have been
witnessing something akin to peak oil, or peak credit.

At that time I was discussing it in terms of network fragmentation and net
neutrality ... but a collection of different censorship regimes around the
world degrades it[2] just as well...

[1] [http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak-
internet.h...](http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/12/peak-
internet.html) [2] "it" being the "homogenous, globally routed Internet as we
have known it."

------
varmais
There was a debate in Finland when the child porn filter was introduced a few
years back. One guy had a website where he kept database of sites which were
blocked but did not contain any child porn. Aftermath was that the site was
added to list and that raised even more questions about the whole censorship
idea.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapsiporno.info](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapsiporno.info))

Unlike in Britain, the consumers did not have an option to opt out from the
filter although it seems that majority of ISPs don't use it. Later on ISPs
were forced to block piratebay.org and there have been discussions about
blocking online poker sites etc, because Veikkaus enjoys monopoly in gambling
and betting business in Finland.

~~~
testbro
Britain already has a mostly mandatory filter designed to save it from child
pornography. Cleanfeed is run by the Internet Watch Foundation who look for
images of abuse and put it on the blocklist. They're responsible for blocking
Wikipedia due to an album cover.

The same filter is now used to action on high court demands to block torrent
websites like The Pirate Bay.

------
whamill
There are two aspects to the current debate: \- The 'child porn keyword' web
search filter mandated on all UK ISPs with no opt-in or opt-out \- The 'opt-
out porn block' which will be applied to all internet connections, from which
people can opt-out in order to receive unfiltered results.

The first part hasn't received as much attention because it's harder to write
a punchy article about the malicious nature of a government-supplied permanent
search filter blacklist, and it isn't as easy to attack as the blocking of
legal content such as pornography but this is where the real danger lies.

Once the government add all their 'illegal search terms' to the blacklist and
have the appartus for such wide-ranging censorship set up, what is to stop
them from adding terms unchecked and unguided to filter any "unwanted"
material from web searches? If this had existed in the US, for example, when
the NSA Verizon/PRISM stories were leaked, how easy would it be for them to
simply add "Edward Snowden" or "The Guardian" or "PRISM" or even "NSA" to the
search term blacklist? They would easily justify it on the grounds that the
material leaked was classified or damaging to national security.

At this stage a majority of people would in hindsight agree that this leak is
hugely important and in the public interest, but if these terms were blocked
by the government then what?

------
markbao
The terrifying reality of censorship, as told through the lens of that of
China:

"I knew of some Chinese migrants to Australia who watched a Tiananmen 10-year
anniversary documentary, and apparently tears just streamed down their faces.

 _They had no clue that it ever happened_."

~~~
tomhschmidt
Uhhh maybe they came from a Tier 3 city or something. Most Chinese I have
talked to know about Tiananmen

~~~
Aloisius
I know at least one person who moved to the US from China for graduate school
and had no idea about Tiananmen. Mind you, it is not something I bring up, she
just happened to bring it up during a conversation

It is pretty easy to find Chinese people talking about how few people
(specially younger people) know about it too:

[http://www.quora.com/China/What-percentage-of-Chinese-
know-a...](http://www.quora.com/China/What-percentage-of-Chinese-know-about-
the-Tiananmen-Square-incident)

[http://observers.france24.com/content/20080605-tiananmen-
squ...](http://observers.france24.com/content/20080605-tiananmen-square-china-
censorship-media)

Even those who have heard about it though, many probably haven't seen the
pictures to truly understand the scale of it.

------
Tyrannosaurs
I'd like to see some direct information on what was actually said by the ISPs
and where it's come from. This article is a lot of speculation based on a
statement that they've said something and then an existing service offered by
one ISP. Clearly they're not going to block games and dating sites which this
service does so it's not clear why we should assume that it's any sort of
useful template for what's proposed.

ISPs have a stated objection to these proposals (if only because they
understand what's really involved) and it feels to me a little like this could
just be spin from their camp. Suggesting that this is the start of wider
censorship would certainly be a way of pushing the public against it which
would suit the ISPs cause.

None of which is to say that what they're saying is wrong or that it's good
bad or indifferent, just that my reading of the article is that it doesn't
really have much to support it's claims.

All that said we know for sure that the proposals will block things other than
porn if only because it's almost impossible to accurately define porn or build
a perfect filter for it based on whatever definition you have. There will be
false positives and negatives both in terms of definition and implementation,
meaning that stuff will absolutely be restricted which shouldn't be (and let
through when it should). Good luck running an on-line site such as Ann Summers
or Agent Provocateur, even when you're allowed shops in the high street.

~~~
DanBC
> Clearly they're not going to block games and dating sites which this service
> does so it's not clear why we should assume that it's any sort of useful
> template for what's proposed.

Why won't they block games or dating sites?

That Talk-Talk product was put in place in response to earlier requests by MPs
to "protect children", which is why mobile content tends to have filters now.

It seems that filter is as good a model as anything else for what the filter
will be.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
To me the Talk Talk product looks like they pulled it off the shelf - they're
pretty standard categories for blocking software.

Obviously that's the likely implementation for the new system but it seems
unlikely that they'd enable all that by default - that would absolutely open
them up to claims of censorship and undermine what they actually want to do.

------
glesica
Which is, of course, an excellent reason such projects should never be
tolerated in the first place. Government-mandated filters simply should not
exist. Full stop. It's an easy question: Does the law in question require that
access to publicly-available information be blocked in any way? If yes, then
it is a bad law.

------
Fuxy
There's no feasible way of blocking circumvention tools without causing
massive collateral damage.

If they block SSH tunnels for instance no sysadmin will be able to do their
job. Same for VPN. A lot of people work remotely.

I will laugh my ass off if they try to do that.

At the same time I won't be able to access my VPS anymore :(

~~~
vidarh
I don't think they care about it enough to want to go even that far, unless
VPNs become totally mainstream.

But you can tunnel encrypted data over _anything_ that can carry a signal, and
stuff IP datagrams inside it. This will only stop people that are "casually"
looking for stuff and don't really care.

Latency might suck. But if the filters become a problem, you'll start seeing
VPN applications with "UK filter modes" that use whatever the current simplest
circumvention method is. Heck, I'm in the UK and I'd go into business selling
VPN solutions like that myself if the filters get obnoxious enough for that
(through suitable shell companies somewhere more favourable). The trouble with
a business like that, of course, is that the market will be limited as long as
the filters are not mandatory.

But just as an illustration of how ludicrously infeasible turning this into
full censorship is: If they allow HTTP through at all, you could easily create
a VPN were the packets are exchanged by ensuring every Xth character is
lowercase for 0 and uppercase for 1, and serialise your packets by downloading
/ uploading hacker news comments to the VPN server, with the case changed. Or
you could use a thesaurus on both ends, with an algorithm for assigning 0/1 to
words, and rewrite the text by looking up the next word and deciding whether
(and if so what) to rewrite it to.

Of course that'd also be ludicrously slow and waste tremendous amounts of
bandwidth, but it's an example on the far extreme end. More likely _if_ they
ever try to make this mandatory and actively filter, it'd likely start out
with just be a matter of changing port numbers. The next step up in escalation
would likely be wrapping the data in something that looks like you're talking
to a DNS or mail server or similarly slightly massaging the data.

It'd only be somewhat tricky if they get to the point of trying deep packet
inspection and validating that the contents matches expectations from the
protocol _and_ doesn't look "too random" for _every_ protocol people might
use.

(As a last resort we'll just have to implement IP over Avian carriers:
[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149) )

~~~
cdjk
You can do IP over DNS today:

[http://code.kryo.se/iodine/](http://code.kryo.se/iodine/)

------
triangle
If you live in the UK, please consider signing the petition to stop the
filters:
[https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51746](https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51746).

At the moment, it's sadly languishing at a mere 21,000 signatures. If it
reaches 100,000 then that should trigger a parliamentary debate. I'm also
going to send an email to my local MP. Does anyone have any other ideas for
fighting this censorship?

~~~
stusmith1977
The press could mention it, that would be a start. BBC news for instance
barely mentioned the proposed blocking. The only stories to hit the front page
(and then, right at the bottom in the Tech section) were the links to Huawei
and the spat between the minister and the reporter. The actual proposed block
has barely been mentioned. Apparently a baby being born warrants continuous
headline coverage; loss of civil liberties gets a footnote.

~~~
ElliotH
Was a cleverly chosen publication day to be honest. I wouldn't be surprised if
there's other bad news that we haven't even heard about that was completely
blanked off the news by baby discussion.

------
smnrchrds
When widespread Internet censorship started in Iran, they promised it will
only be used for porn. Being a religious country, no one protested. I don't
say everyone agreed, but because of all the stigma attached to porn, no one
said a word or lifted an finger. What started as a porn-only filtering system
expanded exponentially. Little by little, the number of unavailable websites
grew. Nowadays, most of the internet is inaccessible from Iran. To name few
instances:

YouTube, Vimeo and all other video-sharing websites Flickr, imgur and all
other photo-sharing websites WordPress, Blogger and all other blogging
platforms (and every blog on them) Facebook, Google+ and all other social
networks BBC, CNN, NPR and almost all foreign news agencies ... And also HTTPS
rarely works. They have limited the HTTPS bandwidth so much it's impossible to
use Gmail without a headache, in an effort to encourage everyone to disable
it, thus making it easier for surveillance.

Dear British friends, it's a slippery slope. Don't let the same thing happen
to you.

------
mcintyre1994
Absolutely no way they'll ship with social networking blocked by default,
it'll be dead on arrival. Every household will want social networking, and
will enable that if they just skip through and realise they can't get to
Facebook. Once they do that the whole systems pointless unless people actually
see some benefit.

------
dcc1
Us hackers need to make a new "web" a web where censorship is not possible and
everything is encrypted, a "web" with no single points of failure, a "web"
where domains cant snatched or censored, a "web" like the web used to be :(

~~~
mixmax
It's already there, developed by the US military no less. It's called Tor. If
the installing and usability was improved it might catch on for normal people
concerned about their privacy.

~~~
jaredmcateer
Installing Tor on Windows is a breeze, it even comes with a modified Firefox
browser that enables your tor session when you open it.

~~~
haakon
For what it's worth, it's actually as easy on Linux and Mac as well. There is
a prevailing myth that Tor has this enormous learning curve and is only for
neckbearded hacker masterminds, and it could not be any more wrong. This is by
design - The Tor Project wants anonymity to be for everyone who desires it.

------
nodata
It turns out that the slope was very slippery indeed.

~~~
TranceMan
It's worse than that - a 'slippery slope' seems to imply [to me] that you can
go back up the slope.

What we are seeing now is a thin end of a very big wedge which once in place
will be much harder to reverse.

With this and the recent disclosure regarding fibre tapping, take a moment to
remember these words from John Gilmore [1]

>How many of you have broken no laws this month?

>If you're watching everybody, you're watching nobody.

>When the X500 revolution comes, your name will be lined against the wall and
shot.

But we have hope:

>The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

Sadly quote 4 may lead to quote 3.

1\.
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Gilmore](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Gilmore)

------
cle
I can only interpret this as a power grab. This is not a sensible solution,
it's an opportunistic solution.

I think many people in modern society don't understand the power of data. The
NSA scandal has shown how much people underestimate the power companies can
have when they own everyone's data. And similarly, they underestimate the
power that a government can have when it owns everyone's data.

We need to do a better job of showing the lay person how much they're
underestimating the value of their data, and how much power the data
aggregators have.

------
pavanred
This is probably a long shot but I was wondering if eventually this censoring
functionality can be used to draw boundaries over the internet. Once you have
the infrastructure in place to censor then there's very little needed to do
extend the filters to censor other content.

For instance, nationalize the internet, perhaps block services from companies
from other countries or tax such services to promote indigenous companies that
provide similar services. The reasoning can be why not promote local
businesses and provide them incentives by taxing or levying duties on services
from other countries instead of letting a company from some other country
making all the profits.

edit : typo

------
frobozz
Pope is Catholic, Vatican reveals.

------
javajosh
You know what would make a lot of sense? Install these filters on every new
device sold in the UK. Make them configurable, and even uninstallable, but
defaulting to "blocked". That way if and when people choose to unblock
something, it's a private matter between them and their device.

This achieves both the stated goal of protecting people from malicious
content, and the freedom of people to consume malicious content, if they want
to, in private.

~~~
7952
I am surprised that they haven't tried this as it would be much more
affective. Network level filtering always fails because it can't see encrypted
packets. To prevent circumvention you need something running on the machine,
at which point you may as well just run the filter on the machine. The
government could have promoted officially recommended browser plugins. If
parents don't know how to protect their children why not help them?

~~~
jodrellblank
_Network level filtering always fails because it can 't see encrypted
packets._

Pfft, how far in the past are you living?

[https://www.barracuda.com/products/webfilter/features](https://www.barracuda.com/products/webfilter/features)

 _SSL Inspection - Administrators can specify domains and URL categories for
which SSL-encrypted traffic will be decrypted, scanned for malware and policy
and then re-encrypted to the destination when deemed safe._

All you do is put a trusted SSL certificate on your office computers, and the
proxy device will reencrypt the traffic as coming from your trusted
certificate, and the end user will not notice the difference unless they study
the names in the certificate chain.

~~~
7952
You need root access on the machine to add an SSL cert, meaning that the
network level filter fails without maintaining control of the users machine.
At that point you may as well do filtering at the client level. I think we can
all agree that breaking SSL is bad.

------
w_t_payne
Let's see which way the wind is blowing .... hmmm... I sense an opportunity
for profit!

I think that I will create a business to develop technology that lets us block
undesirable thoughts. We will use an EEG cap as the sensor, some machine
learning to detect undesirable thoughts, then a bone-conduction speaker to
play distracting and disorienting sounds whenever our detector is triggered.

Perfect.

Do you think I could get some government funding for this?

~~~
jodrellblank
_then a bone-conduction speaker to play distracting and disorienting sounds
whenever our detector is triggered._

But I already hear constant radio pop-music everywhere I go without triggering
anything first :(

------
buro9
HN users in the UK should note: The default blocked items includes "web
forums", potentially including HN.

You would have to opt-in to viewing such content as the default has you opted-
out along with porn, violent material, extremist and terrorist related
content.

------
nutmeg
If the concern is actually about enabling people to restrict what their
children see, why not create and distribute a free, open-source software
package that citizens can run on their own?

Obviously the question is rhetorical, but I'd like to see someone ask it.

~~~
DanBC
They have asked it. the politicians said that people are stupid and don't want
to learn how to use complicated software, they just wanted to be protected.

ISPs said they offer opt-in filters (and opt-out on mobile products) that
people could use.

politicians now say those filters must all be opt-out.

------
huherto
At least to me, the big problem with porn is that it can rise your thresholds
of excitement, make you insensitive, and you can even become an addict. But
our kids will (hopefully) live in a world where porn is prevalent. We should
teach them (at the appropriate age) that it is something that they can enjoy
but should be careful not to abuse it.

Anyway, the idea of getting the government involved on blocking porn (or
anything) is really bad. I rather live in a world where we have to teach our
children to be responsable than in a world where the government decides what
they can and what they cannot see.

------
majke
I tried to look it up, but UK's law is still a mystery for me. Can someone
help: what is a definition of ISP in the UK?

Especially: is a VPN provider an ISP?

Additionally, what definition of ISP is used in Mr Cameron's proposal?

~~~
ElliotH
The reason you're struggling is there has been no bill published yet. I'm
fairly sure this is mostly political bluster, it'll be hard to know exactly
what is required until they actually publish something real.

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worksaf
So basically its a business deal between Huawei and the UK and they're using
the angle of "Think of the children" to sell the idea.

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cLeEOGPw
If the block itself is only a technical measure, it only boosts alternative
access methods. But if they make it illegal to do things like watch port or
download torrents without government permission, like they do now with the
requirement to hand over private encryption keys to the officials require
them, then GB will become worse than China in the freedom of information flow
aspect.

~~~
pyrocat
Baby steps.

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reidrac
I don't know how things are going to change but I ordered Talk Talk a couple
of days ago and they only ask you if you want content filter and antivirus
filter on; whatever you choose they say you can customise it later in your
control panel.

So far I like what I have seen. I just don't want any filter, thanks, and I
did't have to say why (ie. porn or anything else).

------
runarberg
The internet filter at the café I'm connected to at the moment (Stofan in
Reykjavík, I'm sure some of you know the place) actually blocked me [following
this link]([http://www.siminn.is/lokad-a-sidu/](http://www.siminn.is/lokad-a-
sidu/)).

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nly
Anyone know if Tim Berners-Lee has come out to say anything about this?

I believe he's expressed views in favour of net neutrality and against
censorship in the past. With his participation in the Olympic ceremony
perhaps, if he were to get in the news, the public would pay some attention.

------
cmircea
I don't understand one thing: how will this filter actually work?

Say I use Google or Bing or whatever over SSL. All traffic is encrypted end-
to-end. How will the ISPs know I am searching for a forbidden term? Are they
going to request a CA to issue certificates for google.com to ISPs?

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xedarius
If you have a problem with what your children are exposed to lock them in a
box, not the internet.

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dobbsbob
This filter is for the coming austerity cuts Cameron is about to roll out. He
saw what happened in other countries and took a preemptive measure to be able
to filter Twitter and other online protest organizing during times of
"national security".

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ollysb
The whole thing comes a bit unstuck when you realise that BT has had a system
in place that allows parents to protect their children for years. The new
approach doesn't seem to provide any benefits but succeeds in pissing off a
great number of users.

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fastball
So what are the speculations on circumvention?

Would an unblocked proxy suffice, or do we think UK internet users would need
to purchase a VPN?

Also, is the idea to block porn sites, or any site that contains pornographic
content, like NSFW subreddits?

~~~
DanBC
1) Open web control panel

2) Click checkbox by "Filters on [ ]" so that the box is unchecked.

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ollysb
Slightly tin-foil, but any thoughts on the timing of this story? The
intersection between those talking about the NSA and those that will be
angered by the introduction of internet censorship is pretty perfect.

~~~
Tichy
You mean the birth of a royal baby? Is the filter even still in the news in
the UK now?

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linuxhansl
Of course it will. Porn, terrorism, etc, etc, are always used as fronts for
some other goal. History has shown that once a technology is in place it will
be misused.

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diminoten
The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. $5/month
VPN subscriptions will come with routers, pre-configured.

~~~
InclinedPlane
This is very, very wrongheaded.

The internet as a _transmission protocol_ is robust and redundant. And if it
were used as a sort of replacement for the telephone system then that would be
enough. But the architecture of the way the internet is today used in practice
is far more centralized. If the web worked the way bittorrent does then
perhaps your comment would be accurate, but it doesn't, so we have a "web"
that is not strong due to its massive interconnectivity but rather weak
because each part of it, content-wise, lives in comparative isolation and is
easy to cut off (for now).

~~~
diminoten
Say that to thepiratebay.

This legislation isn't about shutting down porn websites, it's about blocking
their access at the ISP level. This censorship is circumventable by using a
VPN or other such technology. Censorship -> damage, Internet -> routes around
damage.

This has _nothing_ to do with cutting off a website from being accessible by
removing it from the Internet.

~~~
InclinedPlane
That's an illustration of just how difficult it can be to try to operate a
website with the governments of the G8 out to get you. It's something that
requires extraordinary efforts for TPB and only works because it's a meta
site, if they had to seed every tracker they index they would have died long
ago. Moreover, because of the nature of their site and the demographic it's
used by it's trivial for them to slap ads on the site and make a lot of money,
no matter what.

Compare that to, say, a reporter's personal blog and videos, for example.
Especially if they have a family they are going to be much less able to pull
the sorts of hijinx that TPB manages. When they're shut down once they will
stay shut down and they will more than likely just keep their head down from
then on.

~~~
diminoten
There is absolutely nothing in the UK plan to shut down porn websites.

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Sephiroth87
Doesn't really surprise me, since it's basically the same thing we already
have on mobile connections...

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coldcode
If everything goes through a filter then anything can be tapped and recorded
as well.

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grabhive
The rapid growth of circumvention technologies is now assured.

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spdy
The state nanny approach to internet censorship.

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mcantelon
i.e. D-notices.

------
rqfowler
ImageVision.com

