News Porn filters criticised as BT goes opt-out

The fun begins! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25430582

 

You left out that the government's best-practice model for filtering is also run by the Chinese firm Huawei, that have seen their telecoms equipment banned from America and Australia over concerns that it could be used to spy on domestic communications or for future cyber-attacks.

And lest not forget the government’s own Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published a report on foreign involvement in the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure, which warns that BT’s deployment of broadband ISP and telecoms equipment supplied by Chinese firm Huawei could have “implications for national security“.

 

You have to wonder about spooks and tech.....

Conspiracy mode 'on'.

[conspiracy]

Best way to watch the general public is to have dinner with the CEO of BT and make a proposal to combat """"""""terrorism""""""".
Best way to watch people who use proxies is to create quite a few random, seemingly unrelated, proxy service businesses.
Best way to control the black market of the internet is to create a 'special' place called ... the dark net .... DUN DUN DEERRRRRRR!

Does anyone actually believe WE are in control of anything these days?!

We are hobbyists. Geeks and nerds, revelling in all things tech.

The spooks are government funded (millions/billions £'s) experts in everything we wish we knew about. Which explains why Snowden is teaching us about stuff we would never have known about otherwise. Yeah, we can speculate, guess, create a 'conspiracy' about the stuff that we are learning about, but only the spooks can actually prove it to us.

If Snowden is showing us all THIS stuff now ... I wonder what the next spook will be showing in 5+ years time .......

[/conspiracy]

All this bollocks about secret agencies trying to infiltrate the TOR network or any other supposed inaccessible place, they probably already own it. All you need is someone telling you that the spooks can't monitor it and suddenly it looks 'private'. Is it ****.

Not that I care.
Goat porn is my only vice. I wouldn't know where to start with dark nets and TOR ...

 

I don't actively engage in the consumption of illicit materials online, so I'm not worried about losing access to it. What I am worried about, however, is that it's all being too rushed. Prime example: sex education sites being blocked as 'porn'.

The argument that children shouldn't be subjected to certain materials is a valid one, but let's not kid ourselves, they're going to see such content at some point.

Blocking for the masses with the intention of protecting the minority is just a crazy policy. It is down to us as responsible adults to educate others on what content is acceptable, and what is not.

 

Then phone the ISP and say "I want my porn goddamit". Be adult about it.

It's up to you.

As for the sex education being blocked - yeah, temporary blip until some adult explains to said ISP "dude wtf, sex education site blocked WTF" ... ISP duly unblocks, end of drama.

 

Exactly, it's up to me.

Let me decide what to censor on my own internet connection instead of letting the government or ISPs deciding for me. This is all legal content remember.

As for the "wrong" sites being blocked, that was predicted a long long time ago, it's not a blip, it's just a **** filtering system that is never going to work.

 

Just like word-censoring on forums, but it's still used, yeah?

Hey, why censor words, let the kids learn how to deal with words, yeah? ****ing Hippocrates

Puuuurlease. OPT IN if you want it, or OPT OUT if you don't. Although I expect you aren't filtered anyway due to already having your existing broadband with your ISP???

OPT in

OPT out

Stop making it a drama. It isn't. You aren't in control. Stop dreaming you are.

Yessssss, some innocent defenceless website might ACCIDENTALLY get blocked ... ISP gets told, website gets unblocked if a genuine mistake - admin issue, logistical issue, no drama, move on.

You ... Adult ... Pick up phone ... Say ... "Me want my ****ing porn you evil government controlled ISP" - you get it - what is the problem?!??

IS BISHUK.COM STILL BLOCKED? I'm guessing, no. So, a blip, yeah? How long was it blocked for? Do tell. I expect days, maybe a week or two? Logistics.

 

Ok, what I find utterly bizarre is you guys focusing on the fact you 'might' need to log in to your ISP's account page and tick a box saying you don't want to be filtered for offensive content etc.

Or worse still, lift your phone handset, dial your ISP and literally have to speak to another human being and say:

"Yes, I'm the bill payer"
"Yes, I'm over the age of 18"
"Yes I want porn, and beheading videos, EV RY TING!"

What scares ME is the fact that at any moment in time, each and every single one of us can be personally destroyed. We are now past that stage where Sandra Bullock lost her identity. That film that was once a bit cool, and a bit unrealistic, is now reality.

And you guys are moaning about having to declare you want unfiltered internet.

Well, I want filtered internet. I don't want MSN's or BT's home pages describing in great detail the second by second events of how Lee Rigby was attacked, to my kids. Etc. Etc. Etc.

If you want it, just tell them. End of story ...........

 

"Mother, may I?"

A mild inconvenience, until Mother starts saying "no".

 

Then install one of the many free software solutions available, or the parental controls build into most OS's, or don't allow your children to use the internet unsupervised until they are of such an age that they can cope with such material in the same way you don't let them out alone at night until they are old enough to look after them selves.

Just saying if you don't like it opt out is all well and fine until you are not given that choice.

 

When will that be?

 

That's all cool. Really. But I have two concerns:

The infrastructure for filtering is in place. This is just the stuff we know gets filtered; the stuff we can choose to opt out of. What is the stuff we won't know gets filtered? I mean, was Hilary Clinton's half-hour diatribe on internet freedom after China instigated (more) internet censorship just political self-promotion, or did she perchance have a point to make?

Many ineffectual parents now think the internet is safe. It's OK honey, we don't have to worry what little Johnny gets up to in his bedroom with his computer, 'cause it's all filtered now. BT's taken care of it. One less reason to actually, like, talk to your kid and take an interest in their activities. Please. Since when do we let politicians and commercial companies decide what is safe for our kids to watch and read?

This is not about the flawed technology or the morality of censorship. This is about ownership of responsibility. Who is the ****ing parent here? Who should be doing the filtering? When parents are incapable, we either teach them to do better, or we take their kids away. We do not give them a live-in nanny to take over for them so they can continue passing out on cheap cider on their settee in front of the Jeremy Kyle Show. If parents are so concerned they can get off their ass and actually engage with their children. Ignorance about technology is no defence, because it isn't about technology. It is about paying your children attention and giving them a healthy mental framework from which to make sense of and cope with the realities of a beautiful, ugly world.

 

This. Stopping access to sensitive material is fine, but it needs to be enforced by parents - they need to monitor internet activity.

Hence why I grew up only being able to use a communal PC, and as a result of that, I learned to not go searching for ladies and cups and the like.

As in life, kids need to come across the bad things, and see what happens. Being nannied through their entire internet life isn't the best solution.

 

BISHUK.COM may now be unblocked, but when a similar thing happened to Wordpress bloggers it took over a week for TalkTalk to unblock it.

The thing im finding annoying is the very people that said an internet filters was a good thing, are now berating the ISP's like BT for blocking vital support sites like Sexual Health Scotland, Doncaster Domestic Abuse Helpline, and Reducing The Risk.

I guess this is what the government wanted, everyone blaming the ISP's for getting it wrong when in fact it was forced on them by the government, although i suppose the people against such a filter are in the minority as the e-petition only has 38,400 signatures.

 

We warned you: Big UK internet provider O2 now censors wikileaks.org and wikileaks-press.org in "parental control" filter. https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/414502987969478656

 

http://www.childline.org.uk is also blocked when parental controls are on.

TOP LOLZ.

 

Any teen determined can just download Tor it's pretty fast when not on onion sites.

This will just stop kids from accidently discovering it which i'm for.

I have some torrent sites blocked by isp it doesn't do anything for every 1 blocked there are 50 that are not...waste of time.

 

But ... if you turn the filter off ... Wikileaks no longer blocked?