Cameron's Internet filter goes far beyond porn - and that was always the plan
newstatesman.com
newstatesman.com
Soon enough they will be able to sell 'the internet' to people like my mother ('omg, you work "on the internet"? but there are pedophiles "on the internet!"' 'Mum, am thirty' [sic])
We knew the internet while it was the Far West. It was (allegedly) dangerous to some extent, it was fun, and very much free. I hope it will stay such (well, it still isn't that much anymore, but still) to the maximum possible extent but I don't feel very optimistic, bar for some marginalised areas like IRC.
That Disney hides any reference to notion of gay and lesbian lifestyles kind of bugs me.
Oooohhhh, don't you worry about that. The folks over at dslreports.com, who revealed the comcast torrent tampering[1], and HN and slashdot and neogaf.com and even Reddit will be sure to keep an eye on any sites access mismatches. In today's world where we can spin up a linux cloud server in almost every first-world country for less than the cost of a family dinner at a nice restaurant, it'll be noticed. I think even Google made a tool to test your internet-connection for tampering. There will be a site where you can put in a URL and see what it shows from all kinds of ISPs around the world. And proxies sites like http://hidemyass.com/proxy-list/. Then they'll have to ban those too, and then other blogs will also start posting info about what's blocked by who... then those sites will be blocked... and eventually... the internet will look something like this: http://feross.org/images/tiered-internet-service-fail.png ...with an addition for adult-content that cause 2x your regular bill.
(HINT: Focus on checking any sites that wouldn't align with conservative values & beliefs. Those will be blocked first, as proven in this article)
1. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18323368-Comcast-is-using-S...
https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Censorship_Monitoring_...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyps...
First, you introduce some level of mandatory filtering for ISP's in the name of protecting the children. (The fact that shoving one's head in the sand does nothing to protect the children is never acknowledged.) Check.
Then you offload the collection and maintenance of the list to an unaccountable third party, who is not bound by law on what they can introduce on the list. Furthermore, you make sure that the police are not only understaffed to deal with any fallout - they are actively avoiding any and all responsibility. After all, the list is provided by an outside party. There is no judicial overview, no audit trail and absolutely no way to tell who was responsible to introducing erroneous or just opinionated domains on the list. Items are added to the list far more aggressively than they are removed from it. Check.
As a logical next step, you start to build up propaganda to the tune of "inclusion on the filter list implies criminal and/or abusive activities." Ending up on the list or any reason is stigmatizing, regardless of the reason or validity. Check.
After that it's trivial to start snuffing out content you don't like. Just add the domains that deal with inconvenient subjects and if there is too big a backlash for any single item, backpedal on that particular domain with a lame apology, while at the same time emphasizing that such errors are unavoidable but will be eventually corrected - as the very case itself is shown to prove. Note the disregard for the previous point, where ending up on the list is bad enough for any entity not big enough to get non-negligible public support. Check.
Once you have the filtering in place and opposition firmly silenced and/or marginalised, you start adding entirely new categories which are legal but just otherwise inconvenient for any reason. Check.
All of this has already happened in Finland. The one thing the advocates of the filtering system did not anticipate was that the filter system would become so universally loathed that it was the operators who started to push back against maintaining it. Nowadays the list is not really maintained any longer, but it is still in place, and as one can imagine, used to silence at least one source of criticism.
The saddest thing about these filtering systems is that they really do absolutely nothing to aid the victims of the genuinely repulsive and dangerous trades. (Such as trafficking, child prostitution, etc.)
Don't get me wrong. Child pornography is despicable. It is repulsive. And it is most certainly criminal. The recordings of the acts are themselves 100% evidence of a children getting abused in the most horrific way one can imagine. Blocking a site that deals with such filth may help the individual doing the blocking in the short term, but that's it. If they don't report the incidence to international police forces and assist in tracking down the actual dealers, they are in my eyes guilty of criminal negligence of astronomical proportions. By blocking the content but not doing anything else, they are actively helping the perpetrators to continue their abuse and allow them to find more victims.
I think we're living through a massive societal change, as big as the end of feudalism or the invention of the printing press. The internet is the first mass peer to peer communication system, and it works like the Christmas Truce in World War 1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce#Fraternisation
Ultimately, when people can talk unmediated by elites, they begin to want similar rights (eg Arab Spring), to share ideas about oppression (eg Womens' Movements), to share information (eg piracy, wikileaks), and trade (eg Amazon). They essentially stop seeing borders as being important. This is revolutionary, and it's not surprising that the establishment is resisting it. The whole theory of nation-states is based around the primacy of local laws being the only way the people in a country can live. No country is going to want people doing an end run around that. Rules about pornography and the control of public morality are just one form of this.
It's essentially the Shirky Principle: institutions will seek to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
Is it true that its Huawei?
If that is true, then who are the people that came up with this plan? Has there been a company that has been lobbying just to sell more equipment? Are people in the government realizing that free flow of information makes their jobs harder? Or do they want to trick people into believing that they care about the children?
What's really frustrating is that, while people report on things like this, you never really seem to understand what the main driving force is behind decisions like these.
The same political party that legislated Section 28 in the 80s is the same political party pushing the filters today.
It's simply about suppressing information about ideas and lifestyles the Conservatives and Daily Mail readers do not approve of. It really is that simple.
Bizarrely, only some UK ISPs are legally required to implement those torrent and 'piracy' blocks: BT Retail, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and O2.
Even BT's subsidiary PlusNet wasn't subject to the order, nor was O2's sibling BE. So I don't really know why the judge bothered.
I wasn't aware of that, good to know. The blocks are useless and easy to bypass with a proxy. I've noticed recently though they've started to block some of the proxies specifically setup to help people flout the blocks.
There may be another case about KAT soon from what I've heard. Eircom has presumably blocked more sites.
AFAIK, NI has a few more sites blocked.
I'd recommend Tor, but the Tor Browser Bundle does not work -at all- out of the box like I'd assume it would (on OS X). I spent over an hour fiddling with it trying to get it to work (10.8) and it would always die on starting up.
This is only good in the long run because it is further proof of how out of control the UK government is, and is bound to keep waking up the apathetic.
Tell me operational steps I can take at the 27-28-29th of Dec that will exercise leveraged optimisation pressure against this.
The problem lies in folk lacking understanding and being scared. That's what needs fixing.
Your problem, on the other hand, is perhaps in lacking understanding and being scared of politics... unfortunately politics is all-pervasive. You cannot make that fact go away by burying your head in the sand and trying to work around the roadblocks that it throws up. While you're busy trying to avoid politics, those who are playing the game are winning.
Just remember that every time you are tempted to put your head back in the sand - while you are trying hard to pretend politics doesn't exist, the fundamentalists, spooks, industrialists, bankers etc. are playing hard & to win at all costs. The easiest targets for them are the ones who don't push back because they aren't playing. Which means you.
Avoiding politics == getting shafted.
The amount of misinformation spread about this mythical "UK porn filter" is astounding, but I guess unsurprising as it fits completely into the orwellian surveillance state conspiracy theory agenda.
Cameron is pandering to worried parents who believe the internet is a bad place, and little Johnny must be protected by a filter. The government believe it will mean they'll win the next election. It's just politics.
It's nothing whatsoever about censorship. Anyone can opt out of the filters, and anyone can get past the filters with a couple of clicks.
edit: anyone downvoting actually live in the UK? Any of you actually have any hard facts? Or are you just regurgitating the crap you read on the internet.
Seriously. This is a non issue.
Several cellphones have come with filtering enabled by default for years and years. It's not a big deal, you just call them up and say "Yeah when I bought this phone, I wanted to use the internet. So disable your crappy little filter, and we'll say no more about it"
Some ISPs are, apparently, asking for explicit confirmation with a phrase such as "So you are requesting access to sites that carry pornographical material", and if you want to access anything that the Government has decided to block, you must reply "Yes."
I have no doubt that lists of people who have opted-out will, at some point, be leaked.
Source: Am in the UK & have opted out of filtering. All fixed line ISPs allow toggling the filter bias their online control panel, or by clicking a button when signing up online. Mobile ISPs vary - O2 mobile require you give your card details.
Second, and this is important, the filters aren't controlled at the level of an individual user, but at the level of a subscriber. So as the article says, an abusive partner/parent can prevent their spouse or children from accessing resources that could help them - that's why there is outrage about blocking Childline - a site where you can report child abuse.
Combine on-by-default with "blocking resources for abused minors," and you have what people are complaining about, here.
Any mobile phone bought on O2 for instance in the last 10 or so years, had filtering enabled by default.
You just call them up and ask them to disable it. It's not a big deal.
I don't buy the ridiculous notion that the only means a child has to report child abuse is via the internet...
I do wonder why anyone would want to make it more difficult to report child abuse, though.
Source: I know a few adults who have been abused in the past. Anecdotal.
The next few generations are going to grow up with the idea that nanny filters and censorship is fine, or that porn is something shameful that you have to ask permission from a CSR to see. Then there's the sophisticated central apparatus in place for the government to trivially block any sites that they deem unsuitable, content they might deem exempt from their opt-out procedures.
Just because O2 and other UK mobile operators have been censoring for a while doesn't make it okay. Now you're arguing that censorship-by-default is fine because it's been going on in some capacity for a while already! See how this works?
While not agreeing with the filters, it seems that there's a large and vocal contingent who are being hysterical and getting the facts wrong. They are not helping.
also, the filesharing filters are very much not opt-in, and you can't disable them at all. I'm extremely worried about all these filters being rolled into that
It was always about censorship and suppression of ideas. A revamped Section 28 for the digital age.
You dont just put up cameras on every street corner pointing at citizens. You attach them to traffic signals. You tell them CCDs have become cheaper than other sensors. You tell them you will never actually even record the images- it'll just be processed by a computer to control the lights. Then later you tell them- we have these cameras here, we might as well stop red light runners. Oops the court wants to see the images we'll just turn on the record feature. You know what would be great? Face recognition and software that tracks an individual as they move through the city.
Putting infrastructure in place for "opt-out" filters will lead to mandatory filtering of esoteric materials such as asking the question- why is this country so wealthy yet cannot afford to give their children quality university education the way neighboring nations can?
Living in the UK does not make you an expert. You should ask someone who lives in China. Specifically, find a college aged kid and ask them what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Do they really not know or are they just saying what the gov wants to hear to avoid difficulties? As much as this filter is a bad idea, because it should be opt-in, it is quite beyond the pale to say it will lead to a way to prevent questioning of education funding.
> anyone downvoting actually live in the UK? Any of
> you actually have any hard facts? Or are you just
> regurgitating the crap you read on the internet.
So yes, I can confirm that I live in the UK, and am not just "regurgitating the crap [I] read on the internet."
Here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BcME5NvCAAAeslD.png
I'm also told that Boots, CEOP, Childline, HM Govt, NHS, Police, and Samaritans sites are blocked, although I don't have first-hand confirmation.
Yes.
> Any of you actually have any hard facts? Or are you just regurgitating the crap you read on the internet.
Ok, what counts has hard facts and not just "read on the internet" that you have that the rest of us don't?
> It's nothing whatsoever about censorship.
Drivel. Pure and simply wrong. This is the infrastructure of censorship. The fact that it's only going to be applied to censor "think of the children!" things may be true, but it is handing enormous power to censor whatever they chose to this government, the next government, and the governments after that. The boundaries can change. Actually that's the point of the article, did you take anything on board from that?
There are several posters elsewhere in this discussion who have witnessed it firsthand in other countries. Is that hard fact enough? it's not a forgone conclusion that the UK will slide down the same slippery slope, but that's no reason to be complacent about it. This is a nasty thing that should be resisted.