ISPs end PM's web smut block dream
The big four ISPs – BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media – have scoffed at suggestions that Brit web surfers could be forced to 'opt in' to view online grumble flicks. The proposed censorship, backed by Prime Minister David Cameron, was understood to be part of a government-supported effort to shelter children from pornography, …
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Filters
I'm sure my mobile broadband connection started off with a whole load of filters.
The problem with these systems is they can't ever work properly. I never tried to find examples of smut sites I could still access (tunnelled proxy access in the norm here) , but I doubt it would have taken very long. I did find examples of sites they blocked which did not have any adult content, jag-lovers for starters. I bet that if their was a website devoted to "mothers In Love with Film" that it would be blocked by default.
There are also unexpected consequences to filters. One of my sons tried to follow a link a little why ago, which was promptly blocked by the filters on their PC. There was nothing wrong with the site, but we then had questions on why the SW had blocked it, based on part of the name of the site. Would you choose to explain the normal interpretation of MILF to child? I can't remember what this one was, but you get the picture.
Reminded me of when one of the "pre home Internet" service providers put some smut filters in place that stopped anyone living in Scunthorpe registering.
It was hard work in Scunthorpe...
...but even worse in Cockermouth.
Education
Well, I must admit i had no idea what MILF was but ... google is your friend and ...
oh
Oh well. you learn something new every day.
Now we just need some sort of standard to protect our children from interfering, over protective Christian mothers.
This is a big improvement on the previous plan, at least ... I hope those using the filters will pay a bit extra, to cover the cost of installing these filters for their use, but as long as I'm not affected by them in any way I'll be a lot happier.
I was furious when my mobile provider imposed filters on everyone - which redirected anyone trying to access the censored content to an opt-out page, which in turn forwarded to a 404 since they'd cocked it up completely. Someone really should have been fired for that, as a reminder that it's the customers not some censor-happy politician or the Moaners' Union who pays their salaries! Three cheers for Three, at least, who apparently stood up to the last round of pressure from the Toddler Taliban unlike O2 and the rest of that shower.
Beer - because it's sold on high streets, so presumably that'll be banned next so negligent parents can let their feral brats roam the streets without worrying about that either.
Yep
Exactly why we're moving all our phones from O2 to Three as their contracts expire.
O2 need to you use a credit card to prove you're 18, debit cards won't do. If you only have debit cards you have to go to an O2 shop with your passport.
Since it meant a trip to the shops anyway, I thought it would be better spent going to the Three shop and dumping useless bastards. The better coverage and better data plan was a bonus too.
Dear Reg Bailey
You want to protect our children? Really, first let's take a quick peek to see how you religious lot do this then shall we...
http://irishcatholic.ie/site/content/wives-and-mothers-ireland-covered-abuse-says-wexford-priest
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article649517.ece
An extract form the 2nd link: "The proportion of all prisoners declaring any faith compared with those with none is about 2:1 but among those convicted of sex crime it rises to 3:1. The trend is marked across many faiths, including Buddhism, Anglicanism, Free Church Christianity and Judaism. "
Mr Bailey, maybe the best way you can help would be to STFU and censor your own zealotry and twaddle first.
Mr Bailey sir, prey tell how it feels to wear that penis atop your neck.
Link is paywalled
Did it say whether being of a religious persuasion causes you to be more likely to be a sex criminal, or whether being put in jail for such a disgusting crime causes you to be more likely to say 'I repent for my past sins, honest guv'?
Yesterday both links were publically accessible (for me). Today the 1st is offline and the 2nd paywalled.
The figures quoted were from Home Office data released after an FOI request. For the most part, and from further reading, it *appears* that the declarations of faith were there before the crimes were committed. In some cases however, it is obviously a case of 'Oh shit, too late. Better find God.'
I did find it interesting to note how crime types were 'distributed across faiths' however, especially considering that Christians were apparently 50% more likely to commit a sex crime than say, athiests. I struggle to understand that personally, but thems the figures I saw.
Christians?
Why aren't all these 'Christians' giving up all their worldly goods and letting "God provide"?
"Think of the children!" -- the parents should be, that is, not the government.
Bill Hicks ... sorely missed
Dunno why, but I can just hear the great man ranting over this.
Anyway ... implement smut filters, and Scunthorpe disappears. ("You say that like it's a bad thing")
opt in...
and you're in. Our. Database-s. Of child molesters, terrorists, leftists-anarchists. Ah, and software pirates. Because they all work hand in hand. I know, the guv and the movie industry tells me so. Shame it didn't work this time, but little by little, we shall separate the while sheep from the... rest. And we will bomb the rest. For their good.
Except...
Except that it was opt in to the filter, not opt in to view porn.
sounds like an echo of Ms Perry, the former Tory backbencher.
Remember her?
She wanted an age restriction on *every* internet site.
Good, it wouldn't have worked.
All this would have done is "normalise" proxies.
Few couples are going to agree they want porn, even if both (but it's normally just the man) secretly want it.
If you want your kids not to see porn, don't give them a laptop. Have a desktop (or two (multiseat?)) in the living room where you can see what they are doing. If you give them a machine they can use in private, they will see porn. To be honest, I use to be involved with copying floppy disks of porn like most nerds when I was a kid. Didn't do me any harm but I'm sure what I saw would have horrified my parents. Of far more a concern to me is social networks without parent supervision, but they will probably all grow up fine too. Let's just fight to make sure they can delete or make private at least, their teen history as an adult. Or maybe they will all just have to be much more open about what they did as kids.
"Few couples are going to agree they want porn, even if both (but it's normally just the man) secretly want it."
I disagree with that statement. My partner has quite a large porn collection on her PC. Yes, this is anecdotal, but I doubt she's unusual in that respect. Of course, she's a secular humanist atheist, not a Christian, but again, I don't think that is unusual either.
It's interesting to see what people think the views of others are about such things, and how they correspond to what they actually are.
Ok then
what's the difference between "active choice" and "opt in/out"
.... waiting ...., tap... tap ......
Won't somebody think of the share value
If ISPs started blocking filth by default, and enough people decided their other half wouldn't approve of opting in, the number of people realising they didnt need to pay extra for unlimited access would be huge - after that its a short jump to teathering the mobile for the odd email / facebook and bye bye broadband!
I for one am shocked
It's not like Call Me Dave to be economical with the truth.
After working in schools ICT for over 5 years i have yet to find a filtering system the kids couldn't work out how to get around to see at least some porn even on the most restrictive filtering settings.
Heck even some more entrepreneuring kids would just upload some from home to a photo or video hosting website.
Blacklists will catch a lot of the big sites along with keyword filtering but there are SO many sites that aren't blacklisted and buy the time they are added to the list thousands more unlisted ones are created that its never going to be a real solution to actual parental supervision of your kids
My experience with school filters is that the children see breaking the filter as a demonstration of their skills.
The big over-looked fail is they keep taking about blocking *sites*, not blocking *pages* (urls). That's the entire BBC blocked, then, as it has sex health and education *pages* on its *site*.
Even if they tried to block *pages*, blocking smutserver//bigboobies.htm would work, but they'll probably forget to block imageserver/xf6fg52376.jpg as well.
Obvious, a job opening for legions of smutcensors to continuously spider the entire internet (not just the web) categorising every single possible URI in existance, as they appear and disappear, continuously.
I see a job for Christian Fundamentalists after all
A sisyphean task which would keep them occupied and otherwise unable to inflict their poisonous beliefs on others? Result.
The Nanny State
So as the PM has never heard of Net Nanny (which can be easily purchased by those who choose to have children), he wants to implement the nanny state.
So 2 years is a very long time, and a 180 degree turn from his speech in OCT 2009, saying we should not have a nanny state, and we should not treat adults like children.
The next PM then gets to decide what gets blocked (mission creep in government is a given), and sudenly you have to opt-in to reading political statements from those the government does not approve of. (e.g. wikileaks, MP expenses reports, etc.)
How many people *choose* to have children? Around where I live, the largest Council Estate in Europe, children "just happen", there's certainly no choosing involved.
Use of PM time
So the logical conclusion is the PM's time would be better spent sorting out sex education and the use of contraceptives in family planning, rather than dreaming up censorship systems for those to lazy to supervise their off spring.
Under the proposed scheme, would you need to opt-in to access the various materials on the internet about family planning?
Bransholme
I used to live in Bransholme as well, before they knocked down the 'misery maisonettes'. You have my sympathies.
I agree with Germain Greer that there should be an opt-in system to having kids ;)
There is no business model for filtered Internet
Remember AOL? They used to filter your Internet for you. Turns out people didn't want that!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aol
If you do want that, there are plenty of services/software available to help you do that. This approach seems fine to me!
We could use this to kill off the Daily Mail
The aim of the scheme is to prevent children seeing sexualised content. It is backed by the Nation's Nanny, the Daily Mail.
If you ever visit the Mail's site (preferably manipulating your mouse using a barge pole), you'll see that they have a standard page layout of scandal on the left, slappers on the right. Most of the sleb stories feature people in bikinis or underwear. Which has to count as a sexualised image.
So we should all complain to our ISPs and demand they block access to the Mail.
(In the process ensuring a generation can grow up without knowing the horror of Melanie Phillips)
More hotties in the Daily Mail please
Right-wing nutjobs need to get their rocks off too, you know.
Bad people
Never trust anyone who immediatly start "thinking of the children" when they see porn!
Used to have to support ISP supplied filtering software...what fucking nightmare that was. Kids broke it (then machine would not boot).
Not to mention morons installing it for no need.
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