UK ISP Sky to make smut an opt-in service from 2016 UK internet service provider (ISP) Sky Broadband will turn on family filters by default for all new subscribers as of 2016. Sky's “Broadband Shield”is currently an opt-in affairs and offers three levels of content filtering – PG, 13 and 18. The first two settings filter out material related to suicide, drug use, file-sharing …
I don't use Sky, so ... Meh.
I also tend not to indulge too much in the "adult" movies, so I wouldn't be that bothered.
But I am grown up; I can make my own decisions. I know that there are people with kids that clearly don't provide the appropriate guidance for their offspring, but that's their problem. What worries me is that this is often just the first step on a slippery slope. When one individual decides that he or she "knows better" than me, I have to question that view and their motives.
With it being Sky, I wouldn't be surprised if their motives included ads on the "we've stopped you visiting this page because your parents said so" page. Which the kids'll see for 3, maybe 4, seconds before they're on their phones to their mate who knows about VPNs/proxies.
I don't use Sky, but I have had problems in the past with Virgin Media nagging me repeatedly via email about their filter despite opting out.
Personally if I was faced with this I would be strongly tempted to call up customer services and make things as awkward for them as possible: 'What did you do to my porn?? Where's my porn??? Why can't I view grannyfanny.com???'
> I would be strongly tempted to call up customer services and make things as awkward for them as possible
Unfortunately, of course, this will just be awkward for some call centre drone who had nothing to do with Uncle Rupert and Nanny David's puritanical decision making... :-(
"But I am grown up; I can make my own decisions"
Which is all Sky is asking you to do - decide to open up a certain class of content, or decide to leave it blocked.
And yes, there are some rubbish parents out there who don't provide appropriate guidance for their offspring. But that's not "their problem", its societies problem. We all have a responsibility to provide guidance otherwise who is going to break the cycle of unguided kids becoming bad parents. Guidance is different from being told what to say and think - we've got religion indoctrinating our kids into that cycle.
"Which is all Sky is asking you to do - decide to open up a certain class of content, or decide to leave it blocked."
No, they're providing a stunted Internet connection and then asking you if you want to unblock it.
They emailed me a while ago saying it was there if I wanted it, I politely ignored it. But now they're forcing it onto new users and giving them the choice to undo it.
"Opt out" effectively assumes you want this switch on. It should be my choice to select something, not my choice to not select something. Email spam sign ups are exactly the same.
"Which is all Sky is asking you to do - decide to open up a certain class of content, or decide to leave it blocked."
Exactly. And it's only for new subscribers. They aren't turning it on (fnar fnar) for everyone.
Even some of the Kodi add-ons which offer some "adult" content default to off unless you enable it.
Well, you can find plenty of images of human genitalia on Wikipedia if you search for the right terms (such as "genitalia"), so I guess this should result in more kids not coping their homework from there?
(I can't believe that anyone thinks they'd get away with something like that, I used to copy chunks of books for my homework, but I'd at least spend five minutes putting it in my own words)
I don't know about Sky specifically, but the adult content filter on several mobile networks blocks more than just porn...
The one on EE seems to block "hacking" related sites, so i had to request that it be unblocked on my work phone (i work in network security and need to read about exploits and security flaws).
The one on three seems to do some kind of SSL interception which downgrades SSL connections to using RC4 encryption (tested by connecting to google both with and without the adult filter on), and this completely breaks any connections to hosts which don't support RC4 at all, so i had to turn this off just to access my email.
Yes - because it's the principle.
You shouldn't have to opt in to various categories of content - partly because there is absolutely no chance that the categorisation will be accurate and complete, making it completely pointless to start with, but also that there *will* be false positives...
I believe the problem is not that you can turn it off but the explicit action by the user to confirm they want to view content.
This leads to the following assumptions,
The user is now in a database that confirms they view pornography.
If the user has children that use their internet connection this could be used as a failing in the duty of care by allowing access to unsuitable material.
>>confirms they view pornography.
Not really. The phone I was given a few years ago at work had a filter on by default. It blocked some pages that it really shouldn't have. Including brocade.com which, as a storage techie, was kind of important to me. So the filter was switched off. And if they thought that meant I watched porn then they could go fuck themselves. Which of course I would watch.
>> confirms they view pornography.
> Not really
I think the problem isn't that you or I or any other reasonable person will assume it confirms they view pornography, but that some politician, puritan lobby group or someone else in a position of power will assume it confirms they view pornography.
"some politician, puritan lobby group or someone else in a position of power will assume it confirms they view pornography."
Even that isn't actually the problem.
The problem is that people, particularly those kinds of people, consider pornography to be 100% bad, morally reprehensible and degrading to women, a terrible evil thing that shouldn't be allowed to exist.
Which clearly means that if you have chosen to have access to it then you are also 100% bad, morally reprehensible person who degrades women and shouldn't be allowed to live.
"The problem is that people, particularly those kinds of people, consider pornography to be 100% bad, morally reprehensible and degrading to women, a terrible evil thing that shouldn't be allowed to exist."
Yes, it's quite satisfying seeing the pained, conflicted expression on those kinds of people's faces when they're asked how gay pornography can be considered misogynistic and degrading to women, and as it obviously isn't it must be OK, surely, as they're usually the sort of people who consider gay porn to be just short of unbridled satanism.
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"he user is now in a database that confirms they view pornography."
In a way that they wouldn't be if the ISP keeps a record of websites you visit as already required by law?
"If the user has children that use their internet connection this could be used as a failing in the duty of care by allowing access to unsuitable material."
Show me the law that is contravened. Point to any case history where this has been relevant. Kids get taken into care because their parents are neglectful or actively intent on harming their kids. You're jumping at shadows.
@AC
"Show me the law that is contravened. Point to any case history where this has been relevant. Kids get taken into care because their parents are neglectful or actively intent on harming their kids. You're jumping at shadows."
The UKIP fostering scandal where political views were considered grounds to accuse adults of not being suitable parents.
I suggest you look at the "success" of such filtering systems like that of Australia where it wasn't just porn that was being blocked, but other sites which were considered to be "objectionable".
If you want your ISP to block stuff, feel free to ASK them to do it, but don't be so arrogant as to assume that everyone else wants the Nanny State to tell them what they can or cannot see, simply because you don't like it.
It's a commendable action, even if it is somewhat misguided. The actual problem is the lack of understanding from parents. I compare this particular scenario to work; you can block websites 'til your heart's content, but there's no real substitute for Hawk Eye observation and monitoring. That said, I think he's busy with the next Avengers movie so Sky's implementation is a reasonable start.
So anyone sensible isn't using the crap sky DNS servers anyway so remind me again what the point is.
Sky have thought of that, which is why they lock down the DNS settings in their crap routers. Of course you can get around that with a little bit of effort on some devices, but not all.
I am amazed that we live in an age where a child can see other children being killed on the 6 o'clock news, can walk in to any newsagent and see sexualised images on the cover of magazines, but the parents who would rather the state taught their children right from wrong cry and moan that it's too easy to search "tits" on Google.
Happy 25th birthday Internet.
"I am amazed that we live in an age where a child can see other children being killed on the 6 o'clock news, can walk in to any newsagent and see sexualised images on the cover of magazines, but the parents who would rather the state taught their children right from wrong cry and moan that it's too easy to search "tits" on Google."
My point precisely. Someone else is trying to dictate what is "right" for me to see. And sure as eggs is eggs, that will change when they decide that I should only be allowed to see things that they approve of (whilst probably themselves indulging in the specific acts that they say none of the proletariat should see).
"Hi is that Sky broadband - I've heard you can now block pron sites?"
"Yes sir indeed we can"
"Excellent may I have a full list of the sites that are blocked using you new routers?"
"Of course - we can send the list to your sky email account."
"Sorry I don't have a Sky account any chance you can email the list to *****@virgin.net?"
"We can - are you thinking of joining Sky to get this service?"
"Dear lord no - just wanted to get my weekend sorted....."
Here you go,
http://help.sky.com/articles/websites-blocked-under-order-of-the-high-court
http://www.ukispcourtorders.co.uk/
https://help.virginmedia.com/system/selfservice.controller?CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=162865&CURRENT_CMD=SEARCH&CONFIGURATION=1001&PARTITION_ID=1&USERTYPE=1&LANGUAGE=en&COUNTY=us&VM_CUSTOMER_TYPE=Cable
https://help2.talktalk.co.uk/access-restricted-certain-file-sharing-websites
It's a good job there are no proxies out there with which to access any of these sites...
A lot of people genuinely have no idea about filters, routers, DNS, browser. I'm not calling them stupid it's merely that they are not interested, their expertise is not in tech, and they just want to "go on the internet". If they run up against a block they will scratch their heads and move on rather than call the helpdesk.
I'm guessing that this particular ISP will just acquire a reputation as "that one where half the sights [sic] don't work".
They'll probably also block things like sex advice (age of consent is 16, and some kids younger than that are having ill-informed unsafe sex too), gambling (you can play the lottery at 16), other sites that have some offensive content but are mostly harmless (YouTube, 9gag). But going deeper than on/off would be too much of an administrative burden for some parents.
I don't care about porn, but being blocked from viewing the lottery results, or the El Reg forums, meant I had to have it turned off (this was a few years ago, mind - it may be better now)
When I phoned up to get it switched off, I was asked "what are the URLs of the sites you're trying to view"!
@ Crazy Operations Guy
"I wonder how many people are put in the awkward position of telling their significant others why they wanted the porn blockers turned off."
Really? Hell mine watches more than I do and that is an achievement. May be worth discussing with her, you may share more in common than you thought (and its good news if you do)
When they did this the first time I lost not only my mail, but also my vpn connection to remote server - I work from home on embedded systems and this silly filter is a total sCuntHorpe up the mAss filtering. When i got it removed the last time they kept repeating on the phone 'so you want to remove the adult content filter' - judgemental aholes.
Oi politicians ! Any 13 year old can get past the security of this muppetry which just slows the connection and hides with false positives what we may need to see - bits and bytes not boobies please!!!!!!!!!!
SKY: "Can I ask what you mainly use the internet for?"
Me: "Porn"
*agent chokes on coffee*
After all, The Internet is for Porn
Suicide? by all means
Pornography? certainly
Drug Use? a reasonabĺe position
But file sharing? What's next? Unsettling politics? Greenpeace? Al Jazeera?
Of course I realise that, to Rupert's little mind, file sharing is an anagram of 'filthy evil pirates wot are destroying the livelihood of elderly parasites in suits', but think on.
A filter, on by default, which prevents access to stuff somebody else, somebody unaccountable to anyone, has decided you should not be allowed to read. Does that really sound like a good idea to anyone?
Anyone remember GTA San Andreas? 'All the news the government wants you to hear.'
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