UK To Block Access to Internet Porn

[Crossroads Inc.]

You know I wonder if in a round about way, this might be a GOOD thing long term.

Imagine everyone coming out into the open and saying "I WANT kinky fetish porn!" and everyone simply being up front about what weird kinky shit they get off too, it would be great to think that as a whole the "Shame" part of it would go away. If there is nothing to feel shame over, then 'Big Government' will find it all but impossible to do things like this.

[Ahriman238]

Correct me if I'm terribly mistaken, but I seem to remember hearing in college about an attempt to do with with child porn about a decade ago. MOstly, I remember it because the BBC demonstrated how you could poll 90% of the people for or against the measure, simply by asking either "Do you think child pornography should be blocked?" or "Do you support the measure to restrict online child pornography despite XYZ reasons it won't work and easy workarounds."

[Sea Skimmer]

Luckily the filter will be implemented by the Communist Chinese whom have ample experience on this subject.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23452097

Chinese firm Huawei controls net filter praised by PM
By Dave Lee
Technology reporter, BBC News
The pornography filtering system praised by David Cameron is controlled by the controversial Chinese company Huawei, the BBC has learned.
UK-based employees at the firm are able to decide which sites TalkTalk's net filtering service blocks.
Politicians in both the UK and US have raised concerns about alleged close ties between Huawei and the Chinese government.
The company says the worries are without foundation and prejudiced.
On Monday the Prime Minister said TalkTalk had shown "great leadership" in setting up its system, Homesafe, which it has offered to customers since 2011.
TalkTalk told the BBC it was comfortable with its relationship with Huawei, and that the service was very popular.
Homesafe is a voluntary scheme which allows subscribers to select categories - including social media, gambling and pornography - that they want blocked.
Customers who do not want filtering still have their traffic routed through the system, but matches to Huawei's database are dismissed rather than acted upon.
Accountability question
Mr Cameron has demanded similar measures be adopted by all internet service providers (ISPs) in the UK, to "protect our children and their innocence".
He said ISPs would be monitored to ensure filtering was done correctly, but that they should choose their own preferred solution.
However, one expert insisted that private companies should not hold power over blacklists, and that the responsibility should lie with an independent group.
"It needs to be run by an organisation accountable to a minister so it can be challenged in Parliament," Dr Martyn Thomas, chair of the IT policy panel at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, told the BBC.
"There's certainly a concern about the process of how a web address gets added to a blacklist - who knows about it, and who has an opportunity to appeal against it," he added.
"You could easily imagine a commercial organisation finding itself on that blacklist wrongly, and where they actually lost a lot of web traffic completely silently and suffered commercial damage. The issue is who gets to choose who's on that blocking list, and what accountability do they have?"
'Policing themselves'
For almost a decade, Huawei has been a core part of telecoms infrastructure in the UK - its biggest client, BT, has routinely said it has no concerns about using the firm.
Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in China's People's Liberation Army, visited Downing Street last year after his company made a £1.3bn investment into its UK operations.
But Huawei's position was recently the subject of an Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report. It criticised the lack of ministerial oversight over the firm's rapid expansion in the UK.
The committee said "the alleged links between Huawei and the Chinese State are concerning, as they generate suspicion as to whether Huawei's intentions are strictly commercial or are more political" - but added that it had not found any evidence of wrongdoing.
It said it had worries that a UK-based testing centre set up to examine Huawei products was staffed by experts employed by the Chinese firm.
The ISC said Huawei was "effectively policing themselves".
In the US, intelligence committees have gone further, branding Huawei a threat to national security.
For its part, Huawei strongly denies having close ties with the Chinese government, pointing out it is majority owned by its employees. It welcomed the ISC's call for a review of the testing centre.
Huawei executive Chen Li Fang said the company should not be treated unfairly just because it was Chinese.
Policy enforcement
Web filtering, which is not considered critical national infrastructure, was not covered in the ISC's report.
But the logistics of how Mr Cameron's plans will be implemented have been the subject of much debate.
Initially, TalkTalk told the BBC that it was US security firm Symantec that was responsible for maintaining its blacklist, and that Huawei only provided the hardware, as previously reported.
However, Symantec said that while it had been in a joint venture with Huawei to run Homesafe in its early stages, it had not been involved for over a year.
TalkTalk later confirmed it is Huawei that monitors activity, checking requests against its blacklist of over 65 million web addresses, and denying access if there is a match.
The contents of this list are largely determined by an automated process, but both Huawei and TalkTalk employees are able to add or remove sites independently.
Illegal websites - including ones showing images of child abuse - are blocked for all customers with the help of a list maintained by the non-profit Internet Watch Foundation.
Mr Cameron said that the actions of ISPs would be monitored to ensure filtering is done correctly.
Communications regulator Ofcom is expected to play some role in this, possibly by auditing the firms and reporting back to ministers regularly.
Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

[Grumman]

So... when do we find out they're blackmailing Cameron over his gay porn habits?

[madd0ct0r]

oh christ - is he trying to make this politcally infeasible?

[Esquire]

Actually, that's a good question. If the goal isn't to pass this stupid-beyond-belief law but to appease the party base, this'd be a good way to do it.

[Zaune]

Nice theory, but I don't think Flash Dave is that subtle or that smart.

[bilateralrope]

We all knew that this would eventually be used to block other things. So they decided to not wait before blocking them.

UK Porn Filter Will Censor Other Content Too, ISPs Reveal

This week prime minister David Cameron announced further details of his crusade to have adult material censored in the UK. It’s a controversial topic for a number of reasons, with even those unconcerned about losing access to porn wondering what will be censored next. Apparently the government have already thought that through. According to ISPs speaking with the Open Rights Group, the filter will target a range of other content too.

On Monday David Cameron told his citizens that by the end of the year broadband subscribers will be required to go through a compulsory system which will decide what they can and cannot see on the Internet.

Starting from a position of ‘porn banned’, subscribers will have to systematically unblock things they require access to. This, Cameron says, will help prevent the nation’s children from gaining access to “corroding influences” online.

While the idea of protecting children is a commendable one, censorship opponents leveled several criticisms at the scheme. Would it work? Would it lead to over-blocking? Would the system be easily circumvented? What about the privacy implications?

In the last few hours new information has been emerging which reveals that the proposals seen so far are actually only the thin end of a worryingly fat wedge.

The Open Rights Group are reporting that they’ve had a nice little chat with some of the ISPs that will be expected to introduce Cameron’s porn filter. Unsurprisingly the list of websites and content to be blocked by default won’t stop at porn.

ORG speculate on categories of content that might be filtered in future, but for a clearer idea of where we stand today we can take a look at the system currently being operated by ISP TalkTalk. The HomeSafe system, which was singled out for praise by David Cameron earlier this week as leading the way in this field, currently covers several categories as detailed in the image below.


As previously noted, leave the third box ticked and not only will all file-sharing sites be wiped out, but TorrentFreak with them too. Leave the rest of them ticked (note: the government is promising “default on” for all filters) and it’s anyone’s guess what else will disappear. Just like when many novice (or even experienced users) install software, the chances of people simply clicking through, next after next, is extremely high.

Furthermore, in news that’s unlikely to win the PM or TalkTalk many fans, it’s now been revealed by the BBC that HomeSafe is being run by Huawei, a Chinese company founded by a former China People’s Liberation Army officer.

The UK government already knows about the connection, as an Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report released last month expressed concern over the “alleged links between Huawei and the Chinese State” as they “generate suspicion as to whether Huawei’s intentions are strictly commercial or are more political.”

Whether Huawei is linked to the government or not (they insist not), it’s hardly encouraging to discover that even when TalkTalk subscribers turn filtering completely off, their traffic is still routed through Huawei’s system.

UK ISPs will be free to use whatever filtering system they like when the time comes, but it’s certainly possible that some will choose to use the existing service offered by Huawei. In order to thwart their traffic being monitored, subscribers will still be able to use a VPN. Unless circumvention tools are blocked too, as Open Rights Group suggest.

See that bolded bit. I wonder what sites will be 'accidentally' blocked even for people who decide to turn the entire filter off. Or how long before someone attacks Huawei's system, and thus takes out all internet traffic in the UK.

Also, does anyone know what you'll see if you try to access a blocked website ?
Will it look like the website isn't there, or will you be told that it's blocked ?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think I'll have a word with my MP about this in the pub tomorrow (ah the advantages of a local lad!). Both he and I are Conservatives but this is too far.