Sleepwalking into censorship | Hacker News Reader

Sleepwalking into censorship

openrightsgroup.org

246 pointssdoering89 comments

> "web forums" and "esoteric material"

Well there you go. Very unspecified. You can kiss "the free internet" goodbye.

This site might even be under threat. It does have the word hacker in its title. Then there are hacking forums related to breaking into systems. Even though we use them for learning about securing systems, I see the government disagreeing.

Aren't reddit and HN web forums?

Absolutely. The list of categories sounds like the list of categories popular filtering software provides. I was behind a transparent proxy that applied these rules at a former employer, and yes, HN and Reddit were both blocked.

Of course, they only blocked news.ycombinator.com and not news.ycombinator.net, which just goes to show you how useless these filters are for protecting children and how useful they are for "accidentally" blocking political oponents for a couple days.

Aren't flickr, tumblr, twitter, youtube, and facebook also web forums?

Totally, but nobody believes these will be blocked by default.

That's how censorship works. It's arbitrary and at the whims of those in power.

Qui tacet consentire videtur.

Silence gives consent.

This demands vigilant civil disobedience in the strongest terms possible. Make camp in Victoria and let Cameron know that this is not okay.

I will point out that Wikipedia was filtered by the UK ISP anti-child-porn filter.

Don't just moan about it online - put your money where your mouth is. If you're in the UK, join the OpenRightsGroup https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/

> Don't just moan about it online

I think the problem is that not enough people moan/know about it. With this, putting my money where my mouth is may be a very terrible investment.

When I read things like this, I think "geez, I'm glad I'm not having children" and "geez, I hope I'll be dead before this actually affects me"

(keep in mind, these lines of reasoning are exactly why this will be a problem; so far, nothing has been done to make everyone really angry).

People do know about it, but they have the concentration span of a gnat here in the UK.

Seriously, whoever is winning one of Cowell's shite-shoveling programs or which piece of dirt is most popular on the reality show of the moment is an instant distraction from having to think about anything or act upon it.

The worst bit is these things promote surveillance and make it morally ok.

The rest seem to contract our their thinking to the daily mail. No comments needed there.

So long as there's bread and circus and most Brits are comfortable, they'll happily embrace censorship, surveillance, or whatever else. The only trouble is, The Great Firewall of Ol' Blighty might just trample all over the circus component. At the very least, this is likely to cause younger and traditionally apathetic voters to become more engaged.

I doubt it. The media have already started the conditioning.

You know the conditioning that suggests if you're against it, you must want child porn.

What do you think could be done?

Probably nothing. The human race will quite happily walk off a cliff together, apart from a few of us that is.

Perhaps we need to just step back and watch it happen, then say "I fucking told you so".

I'm not particularly happy with that idea, but I see no other option.

This is a very defeatist attitude! There's always strategies and tactics that work within legal frameworks to defeat censorship. Look at what happened with SOPA in the US. It started with outraged nerds and became embraced by regular people as something sexy to vocally and publicly oppose.

Beginning a media campaign in the UK is a good first step. When people understand that The Great Firewall of Ol' Blighty does nothing to stop kiddie porn but instead stops you looking at any site that the current ruling party frowns upon, it falls apart.

The "think of the children" and "teh terrorists" arguments need to be universally rejected. Trouble is, this requires one hell of a paradigm shift from the voting public. That begins with soundbite education, and arguments that are easily digestible and repeatable. Look at how evangelicals equip their congregations with soundbite ideas and faulty logic, and then use these strategies for good. (For example, the best I came across was "It's hot today, but hell's hotter!")

Perhaps we also need to begin our own political parties, ones unlike the Pirate Party that are not only capable of upholding privacy rights, but are also competent enough to run a democratic government. A less inflammatory or whimsical name would be nice too. Joe Average isn't going to take politicians that call themselves pirates seriously, any more than they'd take a Hacker Party seriously because of its more widespread and incorrect definition! A Snowden Party, perhaps? The logo could be a purple mountain much like the Welsh mountain, Snowdon!

I think it's a realistic attitude. The legal system that you place so much faith in has already shown that it no longer respects logic and freedom and is basically backed by government and corporate interest. We have secret courts, we have courts issuing orders in support of the censorship regime and we have people thrown in prison with unfair sentences en masse without fair trial after the London riots.

The moment you start a campaign, you are a state target. The press will dig out dirt on you to start a smear campaign so they can push their corporate backers' agendas and the government will mark you as a trouble maker. at that point your life ends. One parking ticket and they will descend.

I've watched two people "end" this way. One of them is now the "crazy guy" who lives on the A4/A205 roundabout. He was one of the most credible and logical individuals I've ever met. Now people throw rubbish at him because they think it's funny.

The voting public are lost. They are too polarised to supporting the main two parties and the system is broken enough that a majority on either side is inevitable. The result is that the conservatives or labour will always win. Their agenda, despite words either way, is the same. We didn't vote them in - we watched the election theater at work.

You strike me as an idealist and I really wish this was possible but i don't think the system supports fair resolution.

To be honest, it's not a democracy any more. This is not what the majority want but they are unaware of the consequences of voting or don't care. Whoever holds their coloured flag will do and won't make them "outside the club" when it comes to social matters.

I'm not an idealist by far, but I'm not defeated either. I know it's an uphill battle, but it's nowhere near as grim as you're making out. A career in politics is unlikely to be in my future though!

Nobody is going to start a smear campaign over a parking ticket. C'mon! Being political isn't a one-way ticket to indefinite detention in the UK either! We're not in a totalitarian dictatorship or police state, and the UK is still a functioning democracy. There are plenty of upstart politicians whose lives haven't ended; look at the UK Pirate Party! If I were to become an independent politician in the UK, or found a new party, I'd not live in fear of shadows coming to get me in the night because that fear would be wholly unfounded!

Someone also doesn't go from political candidate to homeless on a roundabout without there being something seriously wrong with them, possibly some kind of mental illness! Bear in mind, someone with a mental illness might still be capable of rational thought but might be deficient in other aspects of their functioning. Who is this wrecked political candidate, anyway?

"Mental illness" can be induced by outside pressure. There are circumstances under which anybody would crack.

And as a short term solution (assuming VPNs will also be outlawed or otherwise made unattractive), take your pick:

http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-that-take-your-anonymit...

My personal favorite is https://mullvad.net/en/ because:

a) not US based, therefor not subject to US laws (both known and secret laws/courts)

b) you can send them cash as your payment method (every online payment method such as Paypal, credit card, etc. will establish a link back to you)

c) they don't keep logs

c) you can easily set up multiple "exit" countries (good for circumventing geoblocking)

I'm surprised that hide.io isn't on the list. I've been using it and it's extremely fast, has dozens of servers across the world, and is a Hong Kong based company, thus not subject to US laws (but, I suppose can possibly be queried from Beijing).

> send them cash

Or Bitcoin, for that matter.

Except bitcoin establishes a public, permanent and irrefutable link between yourself (or at least information that, except in specific circumstances, can be linked back to yourself) and the provider.

That's easy to avoid - just send the money through a mixer like this one https://blockchain.info/wallet/send-shared . Or any Bitcoin exchange or gambling site. Or a combination of three or four. Or you can just buy the bitcoins in person.

I've joined with financial support. This is the first time I've heard of these guys, but they look to be doing some great work. Thanks for posting this.

Thanks for the link - it was exactly the prompt I needed. I've just joined up, with a monthly donation.

No, the ORG are not the answer.

To the outside world they look like a bunch of nerds who refuse to pay for movies online.

This may be unfair, sadly perception is 9/10th of fact.

You need to write to your MP and tell him/her that its is insecure, undemocratic and will endanger kids.

You do need to write to your MP.

Is the ORG the answer? In part, of course we are: without us, this discussion wouldn’t be happening. ORG has done the leg work over 2 years on this so has been able to demonstrate that this is more than porn.

It isn't either/or. Do both. Give money and moan.

[X] Extremist and terrorist related content

That to me looks like a big red flag to classify you as a terrorist if you uncheck the box, if they decide later they don't like you for some other reason.

So true.

It actually really does look like an Onion joke.

Every security / defence researcher and consultant in the country will now be labeled a terrorist, making their work harder and the country less secure.

Maybe they're just trying to get rid of UKIP. :P

£10 says that opposition to the filtering will count as an extremist view.

Don't worry! The UK Government never misuses terrorism laws or brings in heavy handed anti-terrorism laws! Just ask all the people in Northern Ireland!

And Jean Charles de Menezes.

Best not to look a bit foreign when it comes to anti-terrorism stuff in the UK.

Above and beyond the obvious moral debate over whether or not a filtering option should be offered, whether it can be effective, or whether it should be opt-in or opt-out, a number of practical things worry me about having any such architecture in place:

1. Once you classify web activity it becomes more economical, and arguably even justified in order to carry the cost of maintaining the filter, to make the move to offering a tiered internet service (i.e. having to pay more for access to porn)

2. Not everyone in a household may have the same preferences, so you'll inevitably want to to start tracking web activity on a per-person basis

3. Your preferences will be kept by your ISP, probably their partners, and definitely made available to authorities on-demand. "The defendant opted-in to viewing violent pornography Your Honour".

4. To simplify the design the system will most likely require that all 'hits' in any given category be routed to a web proxy system, even while you're opted-out. You can bet that this will be logged meticulously by someone. Hell, some ISPs may even be brazen enough to offer the 'feature' of alerting parents to their kids activities. So it's potentially, "The defendant opted-in to viewing violent pornography Your Honour, and did so on a regular basis."

5. Massive potential impact to the robustness and performance of the web. More middle-boxes. Less flexibility to replace protocols, even HTTP 2.0, in the future.

I'm lucky I live in China. Here I can open any website i want, including adult content, just need 1 second to turn on the SSH, It has been working amazingly for 7 years, since i came to China. It's funny when i go to Hong Kong, and i see the signs warning you about the high fines you will pay if you throw a bit of bread to a bird, or if you smoke while walking on the street. Then when i tell HK people that I live in China and I love it and they say "but is not free there!" I just smile and say "yeah". In Europe you can't even buy a bottle of beer and walk away from the shop at night, If you take off your shirt in a hot day and walk outside people look at you like you are a criminal, while in China it is just normal. There are different kinds of freedom, off course, but the daily-life freedom we enjoy in China is better imho than the European daily-life's "strictly controlled freedom"

"In Europe you can't even buy a bottle of beer and walk away from the shop at night"

You are wrong on this.

In which european country is that a problem? Certainly not in Germany. Please be more specific.

Some countries have "alcohol free zones". The imagery he is trying to invoke is - shirtless with a opened bottle of beer.

Most of the United Kingdom.

Well, I'm in Germany and can't buy beer after 10pm.

http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article6609694/In-Baden-Wuert...

1. This new law only applies to Baden-Wuertemberg (not Europe or Germany) 2. You can still buy beer at that time in restaurants

Yeah but still.

Almost all sentences starting with "In Europe" are false.

> I can open any website i want, including adult content, just need 1 second to turn on the SSH, It has been working amazingly for 7 years

Don't be so foolish. There are parts of your internet that are censored and then there are parts that are monitored. The parts that are monitored may be readily accessible to you (because ooh, you're so smart to circumvent the censors), but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't be a likely suspect when whatever is monitored becomes a political issue (see: Porn in the UK).

> In Europe

First off: Many different Europes, pal, many different ones. Second off: None of the European countries has what you describe. Sorry, it's just not true.

Buying a bottle of beer and walking away at night is definitely not forbidden here in Portugal, and in fact, it's extremely common, and taking your shirt off in a hot day is completely normal (assuming you're a man).

Europe is not a country, you shouldn't make such wide range assumptions.

Westerners have a peculiar belief that voting on candidates for political office who make up about .02% of government employees and who have been chosen carefully by party organs beforehand constitutes the first and most sacred freedom, to be valued over anything - even good governance or personal liberty.

Sorry, but that is four levels of obfuscation with a strawman tacked to the end.

You may criticize how it is carried out in detail, but just blanket attacking representative democracy is idiotic and simplistic.

Oh wait, your first word was "Westerners". Gotcha, you already set out to state your prejudice, not make a balanced argument based in facts.

"No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"

- Winston Churchill (a famous Westener)

- Speech in the UK House of Commons (1947-11-11)

- The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 11 November 1947, vol. 444, cc. 206–07

"People who quote Churchill seldom have given serious consideration to other forms of government"

"The Devil was the first Whig"

Yea--you have a point. I wish I traveled more before I planted myself in a country I'm embarrassed of.

Not sure whether your comment is sarcastic. Having to use a VPN to read about Tiananmen is not exactly my definition of freedom.

Also, people who walk around at night, shirtless and with an open beer in the hand are usually drunks/douches looking for trouble, that's why people will give you the stink eye. But last I checked, it wasn't illegal.

Yes, just turn on the SSH to a server in a country that isn't China. You are relying on the citizens of other countries defending their Internet from their government. If nobody did that there will soon be no such places to SSH to.

I'm in China too, and my current annoyances are 1. other people exercising their freedom to park their cars on the pavement and leaving me no place to walk; 2. always being last in line no matter my position, even in hospitals; and 3. the middle-aged lady behind me at the checkout constantly trying to jam her shopping cart up my ass to due to 2. Once I can afford to drive a Lamborghini and the law stops applying to me things will be great, but that day's not today.

"There comes a point that it is simply better to place your sales through Amazon and ebay, and circulate your news and promotions exclusively through Facebook and Twitter, as you know none of these will ever be filtered."

Even this is a dangerous opinion. The worst kind of censorship is self-censorship, where just the threat of being filtered causes organisations to self-filter far more than the government has ever asked for, because the boundaries of what is acceptable have never been defined.

You can say "they'd never block facebook", but just the threat of a government mandated social network is enough to get facebook to do what they want.

Do what people did when ACTA was about to be signed - protest on the streets. A few tousand people on the streets of most big cities in a country speak to politicians louder than online petition signed by 1 000 000 people.

Polish politicians have learnt their lesson last year and now they know to not even try: http://rys.io/en/109

That doesn't always work. About 750k → 1 million people protested in the UK against declaring war on Iraq. Didn't stop the Government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_prot...

Why is there always this focus on protesting on streets? It's a serious question. People clearly don't like doing that. Is it old fashioned?

Why does my protest only count when I am on a street, and how can I make non-street based protests count more?

Clicking Like buttons is lazy and meaningless. What's the middle ground?

I think that by going to a street protest you show you care enough to spend significant amount of time, so you probably also care enough to go vote against that politician in next elections.

Clicking online poll is just too convenient to mean anything.

Of course it will, because filtering porn was never really the intention in the first place.

wait what? Im confused, thanks.

My guess is the headline used to be a question. Either that, or the parent accidentally clicked the wrong reply link, or (unlikely) the comment got assigned to the wrong parent by the HN software.

So if you press "no" on the first screen during setup, you will be not affected by filtering? Somehow, I cannot see the great danger to freedom in that.

Actually, as far as free speech in Britain goes[1][2][3][4][5], that almost sounds like a courtesy.

[1] http://www.worldmag.com/2013/07/american_street_preacher_arr...

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330180/Woolwich-att...

[3] http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/free-speech-o...

[4] http://www.christian.org.uk/rel_liberties/cases/harry_hammon...

[5] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23128956

You will be on a list of people who have actively opted out of pornography censorship. Imagine what would happen to your reputation if that list got leaked.

You would be forced into a situation where you would have to explain why you want to receive pornography. While you and I can probably see the fine points of this debate, the general public generally would not.

I've opted out of my mobile phone provider's filter. I'm not especially worried about my reputation.

There is a big difference between opting out of commercial calls and opting out of a porn-filter.

Everybody hates commercial calls, and feels happy to admit it. Everybody will enjoy watching some form of porn from time to time, but nobody in civil society will admit to it.

No, in the UK several mobile phone operators block adult material unless you actively disable it (usually requiring something like a passport or driving license).

That one doesn't bother me as much as one of the other standard tick boxes on TalkTalks filter, "extremist websites".

Who wants to be on a list of people who have actively said "I want to access extremist websites"?

In fact, why should that even be an option? For the childrens sake, why would we let anybody on those sites? Wouldn't it be better to simply block those sites completely? I mean, we've got the tech place, lists of websites, lets just assume it's ticked for everyone and not display it...

Who decides exactly what is "extremist related"?

If a news agency shows the latest Al-Qaeda video, isn't that spreading terrorist ideologies?

But the entire thing is just wrong: If we (the "western" world) does something; how can we criticize oppresive regimes when they do the same thing?

What can we say when Egypt blocks internet access for "national security". What to say about North Korea and their near total censorship to protect the NK culture (and possibly saving their children's innocence).

Yes he would be know as a person who likes to look at naked girls. That will surely not do a goddamn thing to his reputation, unless he is a nun.

The trouble is the infrastructure itself being in place. Scope creep is a major concern. What happens if a new category becomes unlawful and the infrastructure is already in place, now with no opt out? Also, while the British government might not be tyrannical today, it's hard to predict the future and very unwise to have a tyrannical government's ideal infrastructure already in place.

People educated in British schools are taught very thoroughly about Nazi Germany, and reminded that the past can repeat itself. It's easy to be complacent and accept one small change at a time, the sum total of which leads to a Middle Eastern or Chinese style censorship. It nearly happened in Australia.

If pervasive censorship can happen to these[0] countries, it can happen to Britain too. What's happening right now regarding internet censorship in the UK is not something you'd typically associate with a free society, and it should give cause for concern.

The biggest issue today is having to ask for permission to view sites not deemed objectionable, including web forums and such!

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_Censorship_World_...

while the British government might not be tyrannical today

ahem Read up about Northern Ireland. Internment without trial, lots of miscarriages of justice, 'shoot to kill' policy, lots of racism, etc. etc.

Some people are afraid that the revolution that took place in north Africa could happen in their country too. It's time to get ready for resistance and underground uncensored information transmission. The 1% starts to fear they may lose control of their domination.

Anyway Cameron has it all wrong, terrorists don't look at porn.

haven't you seen all the terrorists on the forum howtomakeabomb.com; clearly we need to censor web forums to stop this!

Censoring will stop what ? This is just an attempt to restore obscurantism. If education doesn't work then consider the possibility that that something might be wrong with your assumptions.

Horrific. About 80% of what I read would be classed as "esoteric" and the rest probably blocked for some other reason I didn't foresee being included in that list.

So is the EU OK with the UK blocking all web forums by default? Any statements, court challenges, etc. yet?

There's no legislation to challenge. This is all being done "voluntarily" by the most used ISPs.

Just like the six strikes system in US.

It depends. UK has a very special relationship with EU authorities.

Let's see if the UK are even members of the EU in two years. :/

One hopes the trade deal with the US can reel them back in.

I don't think the EU necessarily have the best record on Internet freedom, even though I see many great things about the union.

Let's see if the UK are even members of the EU in two years. :/

I can just see the no-to-eu/anti-unionist referendum leaflets now: "The EU is forcing your kids to look at porn! We want to block it, but Brussles says no!"

My main concern is with regards to who has control of the blacklist. I can imagine site like http://torrentfreak.com being blocked from the onset, even though it is nothing more than a news aggregation site. How big a jump is it to then block sites like http://www.pirateparty.org.uk or maybe even http://www.openrightsgroup.org itself.

I used to think I wouldn't want my kids seeing things on the Internet. I'm beginning to think, let them see it all, in all it's ugly glory. They just might rethink living a moral life?

For those wanting to read more about dark patterns in design.. http://darkpatterns.org/

Was this post not linked to Wired just a few minutes ago?

I assume a mod realised the Wired article was just a lazy rehash of this source.

I wonder how much of this is guesswork on the part of Open Rights Group. I'm concerned about censorship but I also want to keep my facts straight.

Five Eyes is run by a self interested profit motivated pool of persons who trade insider info such as exploits to use against others.[1] Their treasonous reach is spreading and thankfully people are becoming aware.

People who dare collate information on the persons behind companies like Endgame and Booz Allen have federal resources put upon them. The site[1] linked, started in part by Barrett Brown is part of this battle.[2]

SOS.

[1] http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Endgame_Systems

[2] http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett...

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