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News UK Government confirms July porn block plans

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by bit-tech, 18 Apr 2019.

  1. bit-tech

    bit-tech Supreme Overlord Lover of bit-tech Administrator

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    Read more
     
  2. Wakka

    Wakka Yo, eat this, ya?

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    T-Minus 5 seconds until a WHOLE LOAD of identity theft goes on.


    Oh, and don't count out the "we have proof you liek da pr0n, give us all your monies or your wife, work and pastor will know" cases that will no doubt crop up.
     
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  3. DriftCarl

    DriftCarl Minimodder

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    The rules state that the website has to have more than 30% of the content porn to require age verification. So I just see this as an opportunity for existing porn sites to expand into other areas like non porn movie rentals.

    Reddit is exempt because of this rule, and there are loads of easily accessible porn subreddits there.

    This is yet another poorly thought out law that shows the people making this decision know absolutely nothing about technology.
     
  4. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    The issue is that nobody designing these laws has the slightest idea of what's really available on the internet and how. Most of them are happy they understand which end of the phone to speak into.
     
  5. Fingers66

    Fingers66 Kiwi in London

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    Three things will happen...

    1. There will be a significant uptake in the use of VPN's or browsers with built-in VPN functionality (e.g. Opera).
    2. The algorithm that checks the age verification code (e.g. from "porn passes" purchased in brown paper bags from the newsagent) will get cracked in hours, and codes will be freely available, rendering all of this useless in the first week.
    3. In the first few months, the UK will be prime hunting ground for scammers putting fake age verification requests into malicious websites with an increased level of spam emails asking for age verification.
     
    Last edited: 18 Apr 2019
  6. Fingers66

    Fingers66 Kiwi in London

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    Oh, and just for some added irony about the government's ability to "manage" this clusterf**k, the Ministry of Fun emailed nearly every journalist in the land to inform them of the impending deadline, cc'd everyone into the email and revealed their contacts to everyone else.

    Guess which government department is responsible for GDPR?
     
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Ahem:
    :p
     
  8. Fingers66

    Fingers66 Kiwi in London

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    Yep but the biggest irony for me is that the Ministry of Fun is respnsible for GDPR. You couldn't make it up.
     
  9. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    What a waste of money and time, we (the UK) already block smutty stuff by default so what exactly is this new policy meant to achieve?

    I would say this is the thin edge of the wedge but we passed that stage years ago and blocking the internet in the UK has only become more heavy-handed over time.
     
  10. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Trusting porn sites to keep any and all data related to the age verification safe will no doubt end well, as will training millions of people that handing over said data in the first place is fine.:wallbash::wallbash::wallbash:

    Not even to mention that they can't force foreign sites to comply in the first place and that the threat of blocking them is just as empty as it was with piracy related sites.
     
  11. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    They could still filter all in- and outgoing traffic through state-owned servers with the added bonus that each and every person using encryption has to hand over their private keys to the government so they can read the traffic. Wasn't there an idea like that already?
     
  12. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    They didn't word it that way... but yes, they have already proposed running a permanent pre-emptive "man in the middle" attack on everyone with mandatory backdoors in all encryption:
    https://bit-tech.net/news/tech/soft...ays-real-people-dont-care-about-encryption/1/
    https://bit-tech.net/news/tech/software/gchq-ncsc-call-for-end-to-end-encryption-back-door/1/
    https://bit-tech.net/news/tech/software/home-secretary-end-to-encryption/1/

    Of course the UK wasn't alone in this stupid idea:
    https://bit-tech.net/news/tech/soft...-at-mandatory-encryption-back-door-demands/1/

    Luckily the above hasn't been enacted, yet.

    As for having to hand over encryption keys and passwords, that has been in the law for years already under RIPA Part III, not handing them over when demanded by law enforcement (Even without a Court Order) comes with up to a 2 year jail sentence (for some alleged crimes that changes to 5).

    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents
     
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  13. MLyons

    MLyons 70% Dev, 30% Doge. DevDoge. Software Dev @ Corsair Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    If this only applies to UK sites then surely the most popular ones such as the one based in Canada with one of the best data analytics and ops teams I know of will be unaffected
     
  14. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    I think they said non-compliant sites would be blocked, i guess in the same way they block sites that list hashes of copyrighted materiel.
     
  15. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    They want it to apply to every site on the planet, they just have zero power to do anything if a site hosted 0.0000001 inches outside the border laughs at their request, so they'll try to block said sites... of course as piracy demonstrated, the UK government lacks the ability to really block a site so it can't be accessed from the UK.
     
  16. SimoomiZ

    SimoomiZ What's a Dremel?

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    This plan is even worse than that which David Cameron first mooted. That plan involved ISP content filters being set to on, by default, for new customers. So an adult would have to actively opt out of filtering. That was seen as a draconian step at the time and afaik was never implemented. But now it seems majorly better by contrast to this nonsense!

    Quite why an adult ISP bill payer can't simply ask for an uncensored connection and be done with it, is beyond me? Most households in the UK don't even have anyone under 18 years of age. It's ridiculous that the govt don't trust the electorate and insist on ID data being entered for each site visited. And it could be expanded to other social media and even 18 rated gaming streaming content eg . Twitch. If you've read the head of the BBFC's comments over the last few days, he's talked about not being afraid to ask ISPs to block UK access to other social media websites unless they comply with age verification demands. Quote : "David Austin , the new regulator of the regime, said he would be trawling for any evidence of children using social media sites to view porn."

    It begs the question: why has one unelected individual been given the power to act as judge and jury, able to demand the blocking of websites on a whim, like some Lord of teh internetz? And yes, I know there are ways around this , but a good VPN involves extra monthly costs on top of any ISP bill plus Netflix or whatever. And most free proxy servers are well dodgy.

    It probably contravenes parts of the ECHR too. Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence". Article 10 possibly also which relates to freedom of expression.
     
    Last edited: 18 Apr 2019
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  17. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Of course it is worse than what they wanted a couple years ago, hypocritical authoritarian c**kwombles (also known as politicians) don't change their spots.
     
  18. SimoomiZ

    SimoomiZ What's a Dremel?

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    I don't think they have any idea how unpopular this could prove to be. Makes you wish they were still in coalition with the Lib Dems. They(LDs) didn't like the 'filters on by default' proposals, so they'd have vetoed this far more draconian step for sure.

    Especially as this bbfc regulator already wants to widen the scope of age verification to social media and content streaming. At best it'll be an inconvenience for UK internet users, at worst a censorial, Orwellian privacy nightmare.
     
    Last edited: 18 Apr 2019
  19. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Yep, the small parties are our only hope when it comes to the internet as both Tories and Labour are fully in favour of trying to impose their incompetent and ill thought out control schemes.
     
  20. SimoomiZ

    SimoomiZ What's a Dremel?

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    The bizarre thing is, were Labour in power and proposing this, the Tories in opposition would be the first to decry it as a nanny state move. It'd be dropped as a result.

    Part of the problem is the Mail campaigned for this, yet one look at the comments on their site show their readership are totally against. The Telegraph's comment section was also very hostile to these plans. Who exactly wants this? Non-internet using pensioners?
     
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