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Geeky stuff

blocking internet porn...

34 replies

NetworkGuy · 06/02/2011 12:59

Just a quick "heads up" about a couple of (long) threads which those who regularly look in on geeky_stuff may not have spotted.

First is this thread in Mumsnet Campaigns where there was a request for MN to support Minister Ed Vaizey in his proposal for ISPs to be asked to block porn, and if not on a voluntary basis, being in legislation.

The idea from the Minister being that porn sites (estimated to be about 12% of the approx 250m, ie 30 million sites) would be blocked to limit the possiibility of anyone gaining access. Those households which did want access would have to "opt in". The cost of filtering would have to be borne by the ISP, which of course, dear reader, means the customers will pick up the cost, and with endless upgrades and admin costs, that means there would be an increased fee forever, whether one wanted/ needed this filtering or not.

On 31/01/2011, MNHQ decided it would make this a Campaign issue. From the wording near the end it looks as if MN had suggested it, as there's a 'What Now' heading and then the following:

"Parental controls just aren't working ? it's time to try another approach. We're delighted that Ed Vaizey agrees - and now we'd like him to increase the pressure on the industry to act."

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NetworkGuy · 06/02/2011 12:59

I looked at the comments in the discussion
(the first thread, linked to early on in my original post) and having seen the technical views expressed, and remembering how a previous Minister (of Culture, Media + Sport, under the Labour Government) had suggested every page be 'classified', it struck me that MNHQ had decided with little or no discussion, and seemed to have ignored many of the views expressed in December, or perhaps had not had time to view them as it was the run-up to Christmas and a hectic time for all.

I started a
fresh thread in Site Stuff about the decision by MNHQ to make this a campaign. You can see the whole thread and add your views, but in essence I asked MNHQ to read the first thread, see the technical arguments against such filtering working, and reverse their decision.

Justine from Mumsnet is due to attend a meeting with the Minister and various other bodies (Childnet for one), presumably all of them against pornography being viewed by young people. (NB MNHQ is clear that an outright ban / censorship is not what they want, though that may not be the views of some other organisations!)

Something to bear in mind is that having the ISPs filter out pornography will not block 'other' types of site, depicting violence, racism, sites concerning euthanasia / pro-suicide, etc. The filtering proposed only (at this point) targets pornography, but once in place, it could be a short step from only blocking porn to blocking other sites deemed "inappropriate".

The Chinese are believed to have up to 30,000 staff working on their effort to block the public from seeing outside websites, and some years ago the Australians put in place a blocking system intended to block illegal (child) porn sites, but later was found to have had a number of unrelated sites, including even the now famous "Wikileaks".

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NetworkGuy · 06/02/2011 13:23

One thing I forgot to add - the DEA (Digital Economy Act) has sections in it to allow for the blocking of websites.

Seems that only in the last week, according to this ThinkBroadband article Jeremy Hunt, Culture Secretary, said

"I have no problem with the principle of blocking access to websites... But it is not clear whether the site blocking provisions in the Act could work in practice so I have asked Ofcom to address this question."

(I added the italics.)

There's a list of a half dozen things which Ofcom is being asked to look into. Maybe Jeremy Hunt has had advice that while OK in theory, there could be ways around these blocks, and it would be embarrassing to claim there is a block when it achieves only mild nuisance and does not stop access (eg via a web proxy facility, perhaps free, somewhere outside the UK).

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BelleDameSansMerci · 06/02/2011 13:31

I'm with you on this. I really feel that all of the points that you have made on here and your other threads are spot on.

It worries me that the power of MN may be harnessed inappropriately (for want of a better way of putting it). And, without going all conspiracy theory, I can imagine that most governments would like nothing better than the opportunity to sensor the internet.

The answer is better, properly configured security on the pc surely?

I should state that I do work for an ISP (and not one you like very much, I think) but that does not mean that I am incapable of independent thought. I don't wany anyone accusing me of being partisan, etc.

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NetworkGuy · 06/02/2011 13:54

Yes, parental controls which can be tailored by a parent to adjust for age and sites considered OK or not, does seem the best solution.

BT Broadband seems to be pre-empting any decision by Ed Vaizey by launching an information pack and software in March.

I can think of three ISPs which I am not a big fan of, but would never hold it against someone working for any of them - a jobs a job and any bad decisions that are made are likely to have been made much higher up!

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BelleDameSansMerci · 06/02/2011 14:01

Ah well, you've just mentioned my employer Smile and there's not much chance I'd ever be involved in these kinds of decisions...

It does worry me that what looks like a "sensible" precaution will quickly spiral into much wider censorship (I cannot believe I spelt censor as sensor above).

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NetworkGuy · 06/02/2011 14:11

The brain corrects our typos automatically, which is why a proof-reader is needed to spot mistakes, as a reader will not have the prior knowledge of the word / phrase / sentence so judges for grammar and speeling in a different way.

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NetworkGuy · 06/02/2011 14:12

I deliberately wrote speeling for spelling, as a bit of fun!

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BelleDameSansMerci · 06/02/2011 14:15
Grin
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NetworkGuy · 06/02/2011 14:22

"precaution will quickly spiral into much wider censorship"

I suspect you meant could spiral

It seems a religious group (which would not even condone sex education) may have had some influence over Claire Perry MP, though it does seem very odd to me that Ed Vaizey was on record as not being supportive of the proposal she put forward, yet within a few weeks had reversed to be in favour of just such a proposal himself.

Of course anyone commenting against filtering is automatically seen by some as being in favour of porn, while being blind to the other issues, such as the false sense of security central filtering could give, the continued need for filtering at home to actually protect against other sites, making ISP filtering a white elephant, and the chance that some sites get blocked in error, not forgetting the cost issue.

As someone hinted, with the variety of discussions on MN, even that is blockable on grounds of dodgy links, and someone did have to go through the hassle of contacthig her ISP to gain access! Amazon.com could be blocked as they stock sex toys [though I don't think Amazon.co.uk does, unless it has sections only for Amazon Prime customers!]

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BelleDameSansMerci · 06/02/2011 14:51

Yes, that was a rather hastily typed comment reflecting my thoughts rather than accuracy. Not for the first time, I suspect.

Again, agree with your comment re those against filtering being seen as somehow being in favour of porn.

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BadgersPaws · 07/02/2011 14:26

"On 31/01/2011, MNHQ decided it would make this a Campaign issue. From the wording near the end it looks as if MN had suggested it, as there's a 'What Now' heading and then the following"

I can't believe that they've done this, after all the comments from technical people given reason after reason as to why this was impossible they've completely. They've completely ignored all of that and gone ahead with pushing for this.

I can't support Mumsnet over this, they're doing something that will put our children in more harm, won't fix the problem and falling in with a dangerous religious group.

I'm going to propose a strike from all of the technical people on here until Mumsnet backs down from this. So no more help from those that are opposed to this ridiculous plan until Mumsnet listen to sound technical advice and realise that they're asking for the impossible, and the dangerous.

Yes it means that people won't get the help that they need, but to be frank this is about trying to make our children safe and that's got to take top priority.

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NetworkGuy · 07/02/2011 15:22

I would (somewhat reluctantly) support a strike, though with Ofcom looking into the blocking idea wrt piracy related sites to answer the Culture Secretary who questioned the viability of blocking under the Digital Economy Act, in the case of porn, the Minister Ed Vaizey might have to do a fast U-turn and MNHQ may well be forced to do so, too.

I'm willing to give them 10 to 20 days to see how things develop, but after that I'd like some form of words to indicate "would have loved to help, but MNHQ doesn't seem to cope with technical information that goes against their well-meaning but sometimes unsuitable choices, and in the light of their decision, I've suspended my use of MN and unfortunately that includes answering geeky queries"

Hope my wording will be improved upon, but that's the essence of how I may respond if MNHQ continue down their current path.

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BadgersPaws · 07/02/2011 15:31

"with Ofcom looking into the blocking idea wrt piracy related sites to answer the Culture Secretary who questioned the viability of blocking under the Digital Economy Act, in the case of porn, the Minister Ed Vaizey might have to do a fast U-turn and MNHQ may well be forced to do so, too."

That's presuming we'll see joined up thinking, and I'm not sure that we will.

The quicker MN drop this campaign the better, these things are best stalled when there is little momentum behind them.

At the very least I do think that we need to take a stand and try to do something to show that MN does not have any technical support for doing this and is, in fact, ignoring a wealth of arguments against what they are trying to do.

The idea of having a stock response is a good one, and I'll be giving it to a genuine thread that I would otherwise have answered.

So, please, before this campaign gets any bigger, if you are genuinely opposed to this then make that opposition clear, join the strike and try to make other Mumsnet users notice what is being done in their name (yes there is no direct representation, but Mumsnet only has the weight that it does because of it's users, if enough say "no, listen to the technical advice" then MN's campaign has got to collapse).

Maybe I'll look foolish over this and be the only person doing it, but at least I know I'll have done what little I could to stop this dangerous idea goign any futher.

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PlentyOfParsnips · 07/02/2011 15:38

TBH, I think except for the people needing help, nobody would notice such a strike. The geeky topic is not exactly busy.

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BaroqueAroundTheClock · 07/02/2011 15:39

NetworkGuy - Amazon do seel some such stuff...\link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=vibrator&x=8&y=13&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21#/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=sex+tools+women&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Asex+tools+women\for example}

not exactly an Ann Summers collection - but a few bits on there Grin

(and no I didn't know before - I just searched now)

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BadgersPaws · 07/02/2011 15:47

"TBH, I think except for the people needing help, nobody would notice such a strike. The geeky topic is not exactly busy."

Possibly not.

But I simply cannot stand by and do something that I feel might help create the impression that there is technical support for what MNHQ is trying to do with it's campaign.

If enough people band together maybe it'll get noticed.

If not at least we'll know that we tried.

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PlentyOfParsnips · 07/02/2011 16:14

If you want to get noticed, try a thread in AIBU or feminism

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BadgersPaws · 07/02/2011 16:29

"If you want to get noticed, try a thread in AIBU or feminism"

I was trying to get some technical support from the people who opposed this, and gave good technical reasons why, as a first step.

In the end looked at shallowly this seems like a good idea, protecting kids from porn is an admirable aim.

And when people trust MNHQ and put faith in the idea that what they're trying to do has a sound technological basis then it's easy to just be dismissed as porn loving child safety hating loons.

It's like the "Patriot Act", it's hard to argue against "Child Safety" and not come across looking shifty.

So maybe if we can build up some support from hopefully trusted techy users, who people might have seen help them or others in the past, we can begin to chip away at the trust for this proposal and reveal that it's based on technical ignorance.

But the first step is just purely and simply about me not wanting to be a part of something that will make many children substantially less safe.

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NetworkGuy · 07/02/2011 16:47

One person has already sent a p.m. to say she has left MN over this. I tried to persuade her to stay on the grounds that it was too early (Thurs/Friday) to know what MNHQ might say at meeting today.

Great shame that on Site Stuff there was no further input from Justine after Thursday night to know whether she was even reading comments, let alone considering comments seriously.

I'm still trying to stay optimistic, but didn't really like the fact Justine said the Tech staff were "obviously" sceptical (my quotes) as if she (a) expected them to be, ie they were minded to have similar views to those expressed in MN user contributions and (b) that she could dismiss such views very easily.

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BadgersPaws · 07/02/2011 17:02

"One person has already sent a p.m. to say she has left MN over this."

Now is not the time to fade away quietly.

Now is the time to make quite clear that despite it not our children who will put put at more risk and that despite the possibility that as an IT professional I could profit from this this is wrong and I won't be seen to support it.

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NetworkGuy · 07/02/2011 17:08

Hopefully with BT launching their own software there will be no central blocking, or they (and some others) will fight it. Also, it may be that only the 6 "big names" will be pressured to adopt a voluntary code - the cost will be higher for them than for small ISPs but if all 6 put good technical arguments against it, maybe the Minister will not insist.

Some small ISPs probably run on hardly any margin at all (UKFSN is run by a guy whose consultancy is keeping a roof over his head, and the ISP business is effectively a not-for-profit as funds are donated to the Free Software Network - hence the FSN part of UKFSN.org).

I hope small ISPs could get an exclusion, eg on only supplying business connections, so no children would be able to have unsupervised access anyway.

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BadgersPaws · 07/02/2011 17:18

"Some small ISPs probably run on hardly any margin at all"

And these proposals could favour the big companies by basically forcing the smaller competitors of business due to either the cost or the IT infrastructure require to support this scheme.

Call me cynical but a part of BT has got to realise that they've got the muscle to ride out the changes this scheme would introduce where as their smaller competitors would not.

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NetworkGuy · 07/02/2011 17:38

I don't think they (BT) want ISP-based blocking either, BP - they have challenged blocking provisions of the DEA, and as
Motherfunster wrote on 05-Feb-11 at 18:38

"UK ISP BT has announced that it plans to launch new internet safety advice in March 2011 for parents. The provider will also offer its FREE Family Protection (McAfee) parental-control software as part of an automatic install process for new broadband customers. A major new campaign ..."

(there's another paragraph about who will receive it and they will have a printed booklet for customers too).

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BadgersPaws · 07/02/2011 20:27

"UK ISP BT has announced that it plans to launch new internet safety advice in March 2011 for parents."

And that's the sort of thing that will make a genuine difference and help our children to be safer.

If they were willing to put a fraction of the amount that a firewall destined to fail would cost into education imagine how much would change.

Instead it's another pointless IT scheme that won't work and will only put money into the pockets of IT consultants while children continue to be harmed.

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NetworkGuy · 07/02/2011 23:12

There has been an update in Site Stuff from MNHQ.

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