Culture Sec: You - Google. Where's the off switch for all this filth? The UK government wants the likes of Google, Facebook and Microsoft to do more to stop child-abuse images, hate speech and other offensive material appearing on their websites. Culture Secretary Maria Miller has summoned a number of mobile, web and telecoms companies to a meeting to discuss how the tech titans can halt the …
Obviously, what is needed is for there to be at least one adult assigned to each child, who is responsible for monitoring that child's access to the Internet. Hell, let's expand it: make that person responsible for that child's access to the world. Let's make that person responsible for seeing that child is fed, given medical attention as needed, given love and attention, disciplined as needed, and provided a place to live.
Of course, such a person needs a title for their job. May I suggest "parent".
until we are all qualified IT professionals that are able to expertly configure our IT equipment there needs to be some level of mass filtering process to allow the majority of people a porn free, hate free web experience.
Fuck off you idiotic bellend. There should be a mass filtering process to stop you from buying the Daily Mail.
A qualified IT professional.
"... inadvertantly straying into dodgy areas ..."
I've been online for a lot longer than your kids have been alive[1], and I've never once strayed into anything more dodgy than the occasional link to a Daily Mail story.
Nothing really changes. But we come to ridicule last generation's censors. How long before comedians only have to say "IWF" to get a reaction like "mother-in-law" - the joke that evolved from the dampener on post-war sex lives in an era when you lived under her roof 'cos there was nowhere else to go, and were lucky to get a bedroom?
[1] Assuming your kids are of an age where they're in any legal sense your responsibility.
There is nothing to stop you from purchasing web filter software for your own PC. Many such products are available. It is unreasonable to expect someone else to assume your parental responsibility, and even more unreasonable to expect the entire adult population to be permitted to see only that which is suitable for viewing by your children.
There needs to be some level of network based filtering. Or at least some form of mechanism to allow my kids to surf the web without inadvertantly straying into dodgy areas.
You know what that mechanism is? YOU. They're your fucking kids, so why don't you start acting like a parent? Why should my liberties be infringed to cater for sprogs you decided to have?
Tell you what: I've got a cat. She's small, fragile and generally not particularly well. If she goes outside, she might be at risk from the various cars on the street, so what we're going to do is put bubble wrap bumpers on every single car and make them drive at 2mph, with anything over a certain weight banned altogether. Sound appropriate?
I grew up through the '90s, when the Internet was wilder and my parents didn't know jack shit about it. I went wherever I wanted, but I did not "inadvertently stray" onto Usenet, or Undernet, or MUDs, or any far less reputable places I would hang out online. I went there because I was interested and it sounded like fun. You cannot accidentally wander from Disney.com to a child porn ring. It does not happen. I've been wandering around the net like that for years, doing whatever I want, and I have never once seen child pornography, extremist terrorist material*, etc. To find them, you must go looking for them. Global filtering will not do anything to stop that.
*Well, actually I did deliberately look some up once, but that just proves my point.
You want "some form of mechanism to allow my kids to surf the web without inadvertantly straying into dodgy areas"? There already is one. It's called "watching what the fuck your kids are doing". They are YOUR kids, they are for YOU to monitor. If you can't be bothered doing that you should not have had them in the first place.
There's a problem with website rating system.
Your child sneaks onto the internet to find some porn. They go to 'Respectable Genteman's Erotica' and promptly find the operators, being respectable people wishing to remain in compliance with both the law and voluntary child-protection protocols, have included the appropriate meta tags to mark the site as porn. Thus the filter blocks it.
Child moves on down the list, until they come to 'Pervy Joe's Pronz Emporium.' A site hosted in Elbonia, with no age verification, and enough disreputable advertising partners to leave the computer with five types of STI. Pervy Joe brings these up constantly at new addresses in order to avoid any filtering.
Voluntary ratings are a nice idea on paper, but they have the awkward side-effect of penalising the more legitimate sites and driving potential customers to the seedy underbelly of the internet.
One person's hate speech is another person's free speech, just like someone is a freedom fighter to one side and a terrorist to the other. Depends which side the government is on, and to be honest I don't think this government (or any past present of future British government) is on the side of the public.
... I want to download the song "Sex Dwarf" by Softcell or some early 90s breakbeat "Hardcore" the Prodigy for example? Or I want to google the track listing for the latest in the series of the tragically less exciting than it sounds "Clubland Extreme Hardcore" to laugh at how much it sucks etc...?
Google will simply think I'm into hardcore sex club porn featuring people with restrictive growth when I'm not, and this will make the internet a better place will it!?
How will the ministry of truth know how to filter out actual dwarf porn and not well known synth pop songs with similar sounding names?
Load of old effing stupid bollocks! And I supposed saying that will be blocked too!
Would it not be an idea to simply require the payment processing companies to remove from any "trader" on a website where there is payment for images that are illegal (and I appreciate the distinction from immoral/distasteful) the ability to receive funds?
I appreciate that there will be ways to get around this ("tokens" purchase elsewhere, private message boards where payment is not involved, Bitcoin type currencies) but pornography is mostly a commercial enterprise. The legitimate sectors could continue to be the economic drive for modern media (home video cassette players, the internet and whatever's coming next), but where I work some of the time we receive notices from HMG on blacklisted entities for any financial transactions. I would expect that a couple of court orders to the credit card companies once perpertrators have been identified (and I beleive that in reality there are only a couple, CC co's that is) would eventually cascade down the chain and make these enterprises too troublesome to re-establish on a continual basis. That would at least cut things down quite a bit and could also be used for other illegal enterprises (jurisdictional issues permitting).
I've no idea what is required to be able to receive CC payments but under the "know your client" rules a certain responsiblity rests also with the banks and related companies. A bit of personal liability or reputational issues here (few would deal with a bank known to be facilitating child porn, as an example) could solve this issue much more sensibly.
"Would it not be an idea to simply require the payment processing companies to remove from any "trader" on a website where there is payment for images that are illegal"
If that were done it would reveal how non-existant the market for illegal (in the country of origin) images is and put a bit of a damper on the crusade.
Harm principle & John Stuart Mill;
"the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right... The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign" -
I don't want my lawful communications censored in any way whatsoever.
Am I the only one who found the wording of the minister to be - let's say - telling?
"Effective technological solutions have to be developed – and deployed – to minimise the harm done to businesses and consumers."
Surely what she meant to say was "[...] harm done to citizens" - or did she just accidentally let slip how she views the world?
I mean I can understand how child pornography on the internet can hurt people - namely the children "starring" in the porn. What business and which consumers are being hurt?
Sheesh, she can't even get "Think of the children" right!
Also I first read it as "The solutions need to be effective, but also minimize the harm they do to the functionality of the product" - however the word harm is being used throughout the quoted section - also suddenly switching from "potentially causing harm" to "complexity of dealing with harmful" with no apparent connection. So surely it's the content that is referred to by "harm". Anyway - this became a bigger post that I thought it would - end!
The minister added:
"the complexity of dealing with harmful online content is not an acceptable reason for the current situation to persist."
These people just do not 'get it'. They are fascists in all but name. I can't even form the words to express my repugnance at this way of thinking!
Windows 7
Open the Control Panel by clicking on the Windows button, then click Control Panel
Type "Network and Sharing" in the upper right hand corner and click on Network and Sharing Center
Click Change Adapter Settings
Right click on the network adapter you'd like to check (wired or wireless) and click Properties
Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click Properties
Select radio button "Use the following DNS server addresses:"
Preferred DNS server: 8 . 8 . 8 . 8
Alternate DNS server: 8 . 8 . 4 . 4
As far as I know no one has yet linked the Internet to this horrible crime - so I'd very much appreciate it if politicians stopped using this poor man's death to further their own ambitions. His family are being used as political, ideological and religious punchbags when they just need time to mourn.
Absolutely sick of it.
the Canadian Liberal parties (both Federal and Provincial). I hate the Federal Liberal party sending every nickel they can into the extortionist province of Quebec, and the Ontario Provincial Liberal party dumping our health care, etc. to private companies. Does that qualify as a hate speech and would it be blocked?
Child abusers and kiddy porn freaks should be hung by the neck!
People that hate other ethnicities are typically ignorant and should be ignored, but it should be their right to hate someone and even talk about it (talk only).
"highlighted the widespread public concern" =
We're getting hammered by the daily mail in key marginals.
"what more can be done to prevent offensive online content potentially causing harm?" =
We want to decide for you what you can access.
And now a few questions:
Minister... what is potentially harmful content?
Also, Who is it harmful to?
Would current laws be adaquate to jail those parties guilty of spreading such material?
Who makes the list of websites banned?
Would such filters block access to legit websites?
Would they have a legal recourse to getting unblocked?
And finally
Would the world be a better place if you stopped grandstanding for the aforementioned daily mail 'readers' and shut up about things you dont even want to understand?
PS. The daily mail would fall into my catorgory of a hate speech site
I don't think hate speech should be illegal. Not because I don't like it but because it is an ambiguous concept and the laws will end up used against people who the state just doesn't like and I think that is more important than anything people can say.
About child pornography the whole reason it is considered to be so important is supposed to be to stop children being abused that seems to be totally ignored.
The Saville thing where they ignored it completely while he was alive and it could have served any purpose. But yet say now they are doing everything they can. If they had stopped it after 10 years then it might have helped hundreds of people to not be abused by him.
It really does make me think what the hell is wrong with people occasionally. (Most of the time I don't really care about what other people do it is simpler for me but when it is totally obvious what utter bollocks people say and have believed it does affect me.)
Hmm. Typical technically illiterate grand-standing politicians thinking that a switch thrown here, a disconnection there and maybe a magic wand waved over the system, will miraculously make the net completely safe. It ain't gonna happen. I can see any attempt at this causing large amounts of collateral damage and who is to be sued if legit websites are taken off line? This has happened already elsewhere. When will these people use consultants who REALLY know what's going on? As far as I can see, it's just plain old censorship - no more, no less and is the beginning of a slippery slope, thin end of the wedge, or any other metaphor you care to use for a government that seems to be obsessed with controlling their citizens' lives.
last post got a stack of downvotes and lots of hate - fair enough.. I can see why.
I put my point very badly. so I'll have another go...
I want a system available to me that HELPS me prevent my kids being exposed to the dark underside belly of the internet.
I have tried a lot of 'safe' browsers and various add-ons that when i have tested them before i let my kids loose on the PC have thrown up a number of areas I dont want the kids to see therefore making them pretty much useless to my required standard of protection.
I don't want my kids to see screamers on YouTube. I don't want my kids to see adult based adverts leading them to viagra sites. I don't want my kids to see or experience chat based scenarios that are potentially exposed to the worst kinds of sex crimes we have to endure in the world.
In all the reading I have done, it seems to me that network based filtering is the most effective. All PC based systems will have too many downfalls and havent proven as effective as I want them to be. I have done my best to learn about firewalls, whitelists, site blocking and all manner of preventative measures and I'm simply not as good as i want to be. Everytime I set a system up to protect my kids, I get beat by some clever website that can circumvent my best efforts and eventually something very undesirable leaks thru.
So perhaps what I am in favour of is an OPT IN system for mass filtering. Not one as a de facto setting from an ISP.
I am not abdicating my responsibility as a parent. Far from it - i want my kids to be worldy and aware of the dangers in the world the exist in. but with my 7 year old daughter still having nightmares after some sick idiot stuck an exorcist style screamer into the middle of a Minecraft video on YouTube what can i do?!?!
I block any video running, I run adblockers, I have the kids user areas setup so that they cant change a damn thing - i run the best antivirus I am able to buy and understand. I have whitelists set up as much as I am able to understand on the router and I employ as much technical knowledge i have to protect my kids.
All this make sure some sick, twisted fucker doesn't get to my kids.
So, if BT or TalkTalk or Virgin or Sky or any other ISP can market a system that addresses these concerns I am interested.
I know its a slippery slope to some and the thin end of the wedge and all that. But i dont care... I am interested in protecting my kids as much as technology can provide and i need HELP to employ it. IF this is being talked about then good. Have the discussion, find a way to stop the shit getting thru - perhaps find a way to stop the illegal content being put up in the first place - I dont know.
so now... i will let the haters hate...
"I am interested in protecting my kids as much as technology can provide"
There is NO technological substitute for you sitting there personally with your kids as they browse. It does not matter how much filtering and technological wizardry is set up on your connection, you should not be allowing a seven year old to access the internet without direct supervision. If you want her to be able to use the computer without you sitting there next to her, disconnect it entirely from the internet.
You seemed to have missed "I don't want to sit with me kids while they surf the Internet, I have more important things to do that teach my kids about the Internet and how to use it. I also can't be bothered with explaining to them the sides of the Internet designed for older people and what to do if they stumble across those areas."
Take responsibility for your children. I assume you receive a child allowance, but your self some good filtering software to help you control your child's access to the Internet while you sit and guide them.
My guess is that you can drive a car. You probably had a series of lessons from a professional. I suggest you do the same concerning the use of your connected devices and go so far as to learn a programming language and developing your desired system. I would expect there to be plenty of open source developers out there that would help you to learn new skills.
The current systems don't work well and "stuff" will get through whatever you do. I was responsible for a system put in place at a dyslexic school; unfortunately, when the teacher asked the children to search for "big clocks", gaping holes appeared [sic].
Young children probably need a walled garden, as children do in the physical world when young, all software, free and purchased offers this facility.
Google and other search engines crawl the web and they know what the content is. All they have to do is to point the enforcement agencies to the location of the filth for action to be taken and then to ensure that anyone searching for these site cannot find them using the search engine.
Job not done but 90% is better than we have at the moment.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
